Part two of the Mainline Murders picks up right where we left off: with the deeply unsettling inventory found in Susan Reinert's car, including a blue comb engraved with the 79th Reserve Command, the very same unit served by her own principal. Who was Dr. Jay Smith, really?

On paper, Principal Jay Smith was a decorated Army colonel, a man who'd carpooled with John Eisenhower and earned a doctorate. Behind that carefully curated image was a much darker story: a daughter lost to heroin addiction who vanished without a trace, a basement that read like a fever dream, a homemade gun range, and an arrest that earned him the nickname the Prince of Darkness.

But Dr. Smith is only part of the picture. This episode also takes a long, uncomfortable look at Bill Bradfield — English teacher, serial love-bomber, and the man who would become the unl ...