Echoes in the Darkness Read Free Page A

tent.
    Unfortunately, the younger sons crush on Sue didn't wane, and one day he found some birth control pills in her luggage. A year's supply. He felt betrayed. Finally, he caught them in bed together in Granada, Spain.
    "The boy never forgave me," Sue recounted. "I've heard Bill Bradfield reminisce about every slight he'd suffered in his lifetime. He remembered every toy he didn't get as a child. The Bradfields don't forgive."
    And then she made a discovery: Bill Bradfield had letters awaiting him at various destinations. Letters from several women. After finding and reading them she knew that he'd been encouraging them all along the way.
    She was heartbroken. There had been other affairs during their years together, but she thought that somehow when they returned from Europe it would be different.
    "I hated springtime," she always said. "He'd get so active."
    Sue Myers was certain she'd have a mental breakdown if she didn't get home to the States. But now she knew that he'd be as active as before with all the cryptic notes, and a secret post office box, and ringing phones that went dead when she answered.
    She vowed to get out. She wanted to be married and have children. Her kiddie clock was ticking in her ears.
    As always, he begged forgiveness and made new promises. This time he pointed out that since he was a poet like Ezra Pound, his affairs were simply "grist" for his poetry. Upon their return from Europe, he proved his sincerity by moving into an apartment with her.
    It seemed like a step closer to marriage. But Sue Myers later came to realize that she was pretty bad at basic math. In their years together he'd written just three poems, but he'd had thirteen relatively serious affairs, one poem for every 4.33 rounds of gristing.

    Chapter 2

Echoes in the Darkness (1987)

    Prince of Darkness
    She'd heard that the new principal had arrived at Upper Merion Senior High School, but where the devil was he? And who was the tall army officer roaming around the corridors in full uniform?
    Ida Micucci had a whole lot of questions that went unanswered during the first days of Jay C. Smiths tenure at Upper Merion, though one of them got answered pretty last. The tall army officer was the new principal. Jay Smith was a staff officer in the U.S. Army Reserve, but why he felt he needed to wear his uniform to school on his first day was a mystery. It was probably the most innocuous of all the mysteries that would trouble the principals secretary from that day until her retirement.
    It took a full week for the new principal to walk into her office and introduce himself.
    "You've never seen such a pair of eyes in all your life," she said often. "There was no feeling in them. You might think you've known a few people with cold fish eyes, but not like his."
    They were not fish eyes. They were eyes that newspaper editors in later years loved to isolate for effect. They were referred to as "reptilian," but that was not correct either.
    Jay Smith was tall, middle-aged, with receding dark hair, a weak knobby chin and a rubbery sensual mouth. He was not an attractive man. Some thought that Jay Smith looked like an obscene phone call.
    Ida Micucci hated to admit that his eyes scared her, but then she was too busy disliking Jay Smith to be all that scared. For starters, no one could ever find the guy. He'd come to school and enter his office and vanish. When he'd eventually reappear after people went looking all over campus for him, he'd never apologize. He'd simply enter the office and tend to his paperwork. By late afternoon he'd lock his office door and refuse to come out.
    Ida Micucci was annoyed from the start. She knew that sometimes a school principal had private business that needed closed doors, but Jay Smith would lock his door nearly every day as a matter of policy. He did not want to be disturbed unless it was urgent.
    Being several years older than her new boss, Ida felt it was up to her to put this principal in his place. She gave