First to arrive was a Baltimore County policeman. The fire department showed up with a rescue squad truck and a pumper. The pumper was sent back to the station and the guys in the rescue truck put out the remaining flames with a hand held extinguisher.
“Is that what I think it is?” I asked, though not to anybody specific. The police officer looked from me over to one of the firemen, and I followed his gaze.
The fireman nodded. “If you think it’s a Molotov cocktail, then you’re right.”
“So, why is my lawn burning, and not my house? I mean, don’t get me wrong, but isn’t that the general idea behind these things?” Marilyn was standing in the doorway, still in a long robe and slippers, and looking nervous. I turned to her and said, “I think you should call the security company. This is getting a lot more serious.”
Marilyn’s eyes lit up, and she scurried back inside. I turned back to the fireman, and asked, “So, what happened with it?”
He shrugged. “Don’t believe all the stuff you see in the movies. These things are a lot trickier than you would believe. The fuse can fall out, the bottle might not break, hell, half the time the guy throwing it sets himself on fire! You only use these things when you can’t do it a better way. My bet? Whoever threw this had never done it before. He didn’t throw it hard enough or far enough, and the bottle landed on the lawn. The glass didn’t break, the rag came out, and all the gas spilled and started the lawn fire.”
The second fireman, the guy who had used the fire extinguisher on it, said, “We should save the bottle. Maybe they can get some fingerprints or something off it.”
“I think that’s a very good idea,” agreed the cop. They scrounged up a bag to carry the empty bottle in, and the police officer put it in the trunk of his car. The rescue truck cleaned up and left, just about the time a car showed up with a pair of security guards. We filled them in, and the police officer left.
One of the security guys started patrolling outside, while the other came into the house with me. Charlie had slept through everything, bless his little heart, but Marilyn was very nervous, and looked to be on the verge of tears. “We need to get you and Charlie out of here. I don’t know who is doing this, but it’s getting worse.”, I told her.
The security guard who came in with us was a supervisor. He said, “I agree with that. We don’t have a handle on who is doing this, but whoever is doing this is an amateur. That doesn’t mean he’s not dangerous, but he’s going to get caught sooner rather than later. So far he’s been lucky. Is there a place you can go?”
Marilyn looked confused. “No. Where would we go?” I didn’t know, either. I just shrugged at her.
The security guy started asking about places — vacation spots, summer homes, my family, her family — that sort of thing. When he mentioned Marilyn’s family and summer places, something came to mind. “Sacandaga Lake!”
“What’s that? Where’s that?”
Marilyn answered. “My folks have a summer place in the Adirondacks, on Sacandaga Lake.”
“Would they let you stay there?” he asked.
“Uh… I guess so. I can call them in the morning.”
“No, not from here. Call them from somewhere else. Not your office either,” he told me. “We don’t know what capabilities this person has. Don’t use the phones.”
I started at that. I stared at both him and Marilyn for a bit. Wiretaps? This was getting crazy! “Let’s set it up. I know where we can call from tomorrow. I want a guard with the two of you until this is over. We’ll fly you out tomorrow.”
“No, wait! What about you!?”
“I’m staying behind. This is going to end, one way or the other.”
“NO!” Marilyn cried, loud enough to wake Charlie, who started fussing.
I ignored him. “Yes. We need to finish this. We get the two of you out of here, and we hide my car somehow. I’ll be the bait.” Since Marilyn’s car had been torched, she had been using my Lincoln while I had been driving the Mercedes.
This did not seem a good plan to my wife. She ignored Charlie long enough for him to fall back asleep, and tried to argue me out of it. On the other hand, after a few minutes, the security guy started tossing some ideas into the mix.
Marilyn and I went into the bedroom and I pulled out the suitcases, much to my wife’s distress. We continued to argue, even as I opened them up and pulled open her dresser drawers. It finally came down to, “Marilyn, we have to do this. You won’t be safe until you and Charlie can leave. Charlie won’t be safe without you. I have to finish this. If somebody comes after me, I can handle it, but only if I’m not worried about you. This won’t take long. Whoever is doing this is getting crazier. It’s escalating. If we get rid of the 380, and leave the Town Car, maybe whoever it is will think I’m the one who’s gone, and try to come after you again.”
Marilyn kept arguing, and was crying, but I insisted. Neither of us got any sleep that night, but we got her bags packed. In the morning, we packed Charlie’s stuff, and then I drove over to Tusker’s. He asked what was going on, but I wouldn’t tell him. I just asked to use his phone and he left. My buddy knew about the problems we had been having, so he assumed it was something to do with that. I called Harriet and gave her the Reader’s Digest condensed version of the story. That simply meant I had to repeat it all to Big Bob five minutes later. He didn’t like any of this, but he went along with it. That was all I wanted, or expected. I hung up and left, telling Tusker I would explain it all to him soon, but I had to keep it secret for the moment.
By noon, everything was in place. Lloyd Jarrett had a plane warmed up at the Westminster airfield, and a small convoy of security people had Marilyn, Charlie, and Dum-Dum out of the house and on the road, taking the 380 with them. I would have given anything to be with them, but the plan still made the most sense, and I stayed behind. The security guys would brief the people at the office. (Even they had been investigated; they all had alibis for the various incidents.)
It was very quiet around the house after they left. I finally got a nap mid-afternoon. It would take some serious surveillance assets to track Marilyn’s movements, and whoever was doing this simply seemed determined and crazy, but not all that sophisticated.
I stayed in the house for the next few days, with only the Town Car out front. Carstans came out the next day, after having been briefed by the security company, and we talked inside. He had a preliminary report on the bottle from the lawn. It was a champagne bottle, and the heavy glass had kept it from breaking. There was a partial print that matched one of the prints we already had found on Marilyn’s car. It was the same person, but we still didn’t know who. On the other hand, it seemed to be a man. The size of the handprint from the tire stem incident had been measured and was way outside the range for a woman. This meshed with a couple of reports that said it was a man in the green car.
After about two weeks on my own, without even the ability to call Marilyn, I was starting to go stir crazy. One of the security guys would come out every morning, the same time, and bring in some groceries in a small van with a security marking on it. If anybody was watching, it would look like we had taken some precautions, but not much. I stayed in and out of sight. I would give the security guy a message to forward on to Marilyn, just to let her know I was safe.
It happened on Labor Day weekend, Saturday, September 3rd. The guard had just left, and I was using the bathroom in our bedroom when I heard something. It sounded like the side patio door being opened. I zipped my pants as quietly as I could, even though it sounded like a freight train, and then tiptoed out to the bedroom. I had left the Colt on the dresser. I hadn’t heard anything else, and was starting to wonder if I was just getting spooked. Then I glanced out the bedroom window and saw a green Buick parked in the driveway.