“Ninety days? Are you kidding me? We could be dead in ninety days!” This was insane!
He shrugged. “They just don’t care about that. Better that you be dead then they issue a carry permit, and I am not kidding you about that. There are even rules against deputies and corrections officers carrying weapons while off duty. They just don’t like it. In your case, since the threats are against Marilyn, she might — repeat, might — be able to get a permit. You, as her husband, don’t have a chance.”
“So, what am I supposed to do until we’re dead?” I asked sarcastically.
He lowered his voice. “You never heard me say this. If you were to carry a gun, and a cop stopped you and arrested you, you’ve got enough money and lawyers to get out of it.”
“This is nuts!” I drove home.
I had to think about this. If Marilyn didn’t like having a bodyguard, she was really not going to like me carrying a pistol around the house! Best to brazen it out. Once I got home, I sat her down in the kitchen, while the security guy was still there, and I told her what Lew Carstans and I had discussed. The security guard weighed in on this, describing the steps he and his security company had gone through. Surprisingly, Marilyn’s only comment was to make sure I kept it away from Charlie. I swore six ways from Sunday to keep it locked up if I didn’t have it on me. Otherwise she was fine. She was really spooked by all this! The security guard asked me a few questions, and I had a few for him as well. He carried a 9 mm Beretta, and we talked shop for a few minutes. I don’t think Marilyn even knew he was armed until that point. Then he took off, after checking schedules with us. I needed to get to the office for a few days, so he promised somebody would be by in the morning before I left.
The guard was carrying an M9 Beretta 92 9 mm with a magazine carrying 15 rounds. My Colt.45 could only carry a 7 round magazine, with an additional round in the action, since it had a single stacked magazine. More modern guns, the Berettas and Glocks and Sig Sauers, all had double stacked magazines, where the rounds were side by side. If something happened and I couldn’t handle it with 8 rounds, I was probably well and truly fucked, regardless. On the other hand, if I got it out and on target, I was also confident the target was going down, and going down hard. Nines reportedly didn’t have the same stopping power. I had never fired one, but that was what I had heard, at least.
Nothing much happened for a few more days. Marilyn didn’t like the fact I left the gun on the nightstand, but Charlie was still sleeping in a crib. I couldn’t see the sense of having the gun at home and locked away in the den. Dum-Dum was an excellent guard dog; she would immediately jump on any intruder and try to lick them to death. I wanted something a little more lethal at hand.
A couple of days later, while Marilyn and Charlie were in a store in Towson with the bodyguard trailing along behind them, her Toyota was firebombed, along with the two cars nearest it. That made the local news. The cops investigated some more, but short of assigning a surveillance team 24/7, we had to wait until whoever was doing this made a mistake.
Marilyn chafed a bit being with a bodyguard, but I couldn’t blame her. This eased some once she got used to it, and learned to accommodate the requirements. She needed to plan her days out ahead of time, and let the guard know her plans, so somebody could always be around. If I was home, and Marilyn and Charlie were home, I could handle the detail. After about a week we had a routine down. Nothing really happened during the two weeks since her little Toyota was trashed. During that time, we usually had one or two guards around during the day. When we both left the house, a guard was left with Dum-Dum, in case whoever it was came after the house.
We still had no idea who it was. Lew Carstans had already ruled out all the potential names we had come up with, like my ex-girlfriends. He had checked alibis for them and determined that no single person could have been at every instance of harassment and vandalism. The same was true of any names Marilyn could come up with. As for my family, we got nothing. Dad drove a grey Toyota and didn’t know where I lived. Hamilton drove a red Nissan, and lived with Mom in an apartment in White Marsh. Suzie was living in an apartment down on Charles Street. Besides, the evidence was pointing to a man, not a woman.
It was very frustrating. It even affected our love life; who would dare to start fooling around at night when we were worried somebody might be outside the house. Everything was locked down, but still, who knew?
Two weeks after that, on the night of August 18, a Thursday, was the next incident. It was late at night, probably about midnight. The security guys were long gone, and it was just the three of us plus Dum-Dum. We had taken to joking about the mutt, but she was actually a decent watchdog. She had incredible hearing, and as soon as somebody would come to the house, she would perk up and jump around and make some noise. Of course, she would try to lick them to death, but as long as we knew somebody was around, I could handle the rest of it.
Anyway, it was about midnight, both Marilyn and I had gone to bed, although nothing had happened. Marilyn was too nervous to get romantic, and I wasn’t going to push it. Just as I was about to drop off, Dum-Dum started going nuts. She came running into our bedroom and jumped up on the bed, barking towards the window. Then she would jump off the bed, race over to the window that faced the road, bark some more, and then run back and jump back up on the bed. She kept doing that and driving both Marilyn and me crazy.
Marilyn said it first, “Something or somebody is out there.”
Before I would have made a comment about rabbits or deer, both of which we had wandering the property. Now, I wasn’t so sure. “Yeah,” I responded, and I rolled upright. I immediately grabbed the Colt and stood upright, dressed only in my briefs. I grabbed Dum-Dum by the collar and said, “Knock it off!” She jumped back up onto the bed and Marilyn grabbed her and calmed her down. I went to the window and looked out.
There was nobody in sight. There were no cars on the road. There was, however, a flickering glow out on the lawn. I couldn’t make it out, so I moved to the dresser and put on my glasses, and then went back to the window. The lawn was on fire!
“Call 911! The lawn’s on fire!” I told Marilyn. I grabbed my pants and slipped them on, and then headed out of the bedroom. Marilyn was already grabbing for the telephone. On the way out the door, I cocked the hammer on the.45. Barefoot and shirtless, I slipped out the front door to try and figure out what was going on.
It was a Molotov cocktail, but something had gone wrong. It looked like some sort of liquor bottle, but it was laying on the ground, in the middle of some burning fuel of some sort. Whoever had thrown it, they had missed the house. Or weren’t they aiming at the house? This was getting really serious!
I went back inside. Marilyn had a robe on and was looking at me nervously. “Did you call 911?” I asked.
She nodded. “They said they would send out a police car and the fire department. What is it?”
“I’m not one hundred percent sure. Let’s wait until they get here.” I went back to the bedroom, and slipped into a pair of loafers and then pulled on a shirt. I tried to tuck the pistol into the back of my pants, but couldn’t figure the trick of it. It seemed a lot easier on TV shows. I couldn’t get it to stay, so I just held it in my hand. When people with flashing lights began to show up, I put it on the end table in the living room.