In 1983 it all came to a head. Now out of the army and living back in Maryland, he had begun the Buckman Group. Suddenly his wife was being stalked, and her car was vandalized and then burned. Following an attempted firebombing at their rural home, Buckman brought in bodyguards for his family and flew them to a secret location. He stayed at home and kept his service pistol handy. The police investigated and questioned close to a hundred people, friends, family and business associates, even going back as far as high school and quizzing his old girlfriends. Nothing turned up.
It turned out to be his brother. Hamilton broke into Carl's home armed with a 14" long Bowie knife, essentially a short sword, with the announced intention of killing Marilyn and their son. Instead he found Carl and attacked him. Carl was forced to shoot and kill his own brother in his kitchen. Forensics tied Hamilton to the earlier attacks. It was ruled self defense, but that wasn't the end of it. His mother was hospitalized briefly herself. His parents divorced and tried to play their daughter Suzanna off against each other and against Carl. Suzanna, a nurse at nearby Johns Hopkins Hospital, was forced to leave and run away from both of them, and is now working in California at an undisclosed hospital.
I had told Colvin Suzie was working in San Francisco. No need to let him chase her down. I kept tabs on her through the security company, but she was living her own life now. She was reportedly telling people she was an orphan.
I read the story twice, groaning each time. My afternoon was totally shot! I packed my briefcase and headed out the door. If I got lucky, Marilyn wouldn't have been down to the post office box to pick up the mail, and she wouldn't see the magazine. I had been subscribing to Fortune since I was a teen. She never read it, but I figured she might read this one.
I was delayed getting out of the office when half a dozen people asked me to sign their copies of the magazine. Most of them I signed, "Get back to work! Carl Buckman", which elicited considerable laughter. John really made my day when he announced he was going to buy a picture frame and frame the cover. Just what I needed!
When I got home, everything looked normal, but the post office box had already been emptied. Charlie was running around the back yard, jumping in and out of the swimming pool, and Dum-Dum was barking and chasing him and jumping in herself. I didn't see Marilyn, which was unusual, but I found her inside the house, sitting at the kitchen table, watching our son through the patio door and drinking a cup of coffee. The twins were napping in jail.
My copy of Fortune magazine was on the kitchen table, and open to the cover article. The article had opened with a group picture of the five of us grouped around the front of my desk and laughing. Marilyn looked up at me and smiled. "You're famous!"
"I'd rather be anonymous.", I replied.
"Good luck with that!" She went back to reading, and then looked up and said, "You're in charge of your son. I want to find out more about you."
I snorted at that and dropped my briefcase. I went out through the patio door to the pool area. Dum-Dum immediately started barking happily and scrambled up the steps at the shallow end. "Oh, shit! NO!" The dog bounded towards me and tried to jump up on me, and when I pushed her away, she paid me back by shaking herself vigorously. She only weighed 35 pounds, but she must have had at least that much in water in her fur. My suit was going to the cleaners. I rubbed her head and she ran back to the pool and jumped in again. Charlie never got out, but simply waved and said hello.
I waved back and then went inside. "One of these days we need to invent a doggy water vacuum. Shove a wet Dum-Dum in one end, straight from the pool, and five minutes later a dry and fluffy Dum-Dum comes out the other."
Marilyn smiled at me. "I never knew you were so wonderful.", she teased, tapping a finger on the article.
I muttered something and went to the bedroom to change. Our daughters were still snoozing. I tossed my now wet suit jacket and trousers into the pile for the dry cleaners, and pulled on some swim trunks and a sport shirt, then wandered back to the kitchen barefoot. Maybe I could jump in the pool, too.
"Since when do you get to decide who I can and who I can't speak to?", asked my wife.
"Huh? What are you talking about?"
She waved the magazine at me. "Since when do you get to decide if I talk to a reporter?"
"What? That wasn't about you, that was about the kids!"
"You should have asked me!"
Charlie came in at that moment, dripping on the kitchen linoleum. I looked outside and saw Dum-Dum sleeping on the deck. "Are you guys fighting? Cool!", he said.
I looked over at Marilyn and just rolled my eyes. She snorted out a laugh and said, "No, we weren't fighting. Mind your own business."
"You want fighting? I'll show you fighting.", I said, balling up a fist and waving it around in the air.
"I want fighting!" Charlie came over and balled up a fist of his own, and made a wild roundhouse wing at me, all the while laughing. I blocked the fist with my own, and then gently reached out and poked him in the nose. He jumped back a few feet and then ran from the room, to turn and run back to the archway. "Let's fight!" I balled up both my fists and advanced on him, at which point he yelled 'Can't catch me!", and ran squealing and laughing down the hallway.
Kids! I turned back to Marilyn and wrapped my arms around her. "Want to fight?"
"No!"
"You sure? I hear make-up sex after fighting is pretty good!"
"You're more trouble than you're worth! I think I'm going to turn all the kids on you, see how you fight your way out of that!"
Charlie came screeching back through, yelling, "You can't get me! You can't get me!"
Marilyn pushed away from me and tried to snag our son. "If you wake your sisters up, I'll catch you alright!"
I headed outside. "I'm going for a swim. You should put on that little string bikini and join me."
The girls began fussing. Marilyn answered, "In your dreams!" I laughed and left, while she went to the twins. Charlie was banished outside a minute later, and he jumped back into the pool. Dum-Dum continued sleeping on the deck in the warm sun. Charlie must have worn her out. I pulled off my shirt and did a cannonball into the pool near my son, and then did a few laps, while he laughed and tried to hold me back. We horsed around, and the next time I looked at the dog, she was laying on her back, all four paws up in the air, squirming around with an itch, and snoring. Charlie really had worn her out!
Dinner was hamburgers on the grill, with the girls working over cut up burgers without rolls, and their brother, mother and me eating cheeseburgers with all the fixings. The twins were covered with ketchup and grease when they finished, and I offered to just dunk them in the swimming pool, but Marilyn called me a barbarian and took them inside for baths.
"Daddy, what's a barbarian?", asked Charlie.
I laughed. "I guess it's me. You'd better go ask your mother about that." I laughed some more, when he ran off after Marilyn.
A moment later I heard his little voice going, "Mommy..." I laughed some more.
I swam a bit more, and then went inside and opened a bottle of Pinot Grigio and brought it and a couple of glasses outside with me. Marilyn was in the laundry room at the time, searching for some clean pajamas for the kids, and I held the wine and glasses up and tilted my head towards the back deck. "Let me get these guys to bed first.", she said.