Turcos turned bright red again, but he shut up. I turned to the left and said, “Please, your name and who you represent first.”
“Jim Murray, the Baltimore Sun. You say you had no idea it was your brother who was making the attacks on you and your family, but your mother is reported to have said that you have a vendetta against your family. Care to comment?”
“I had no idea who was coming after my family. I had only seen my brother once in the last nine years, and that was in May. As we have shown you, he has a documented history of mental illness and of attacks against me. As for my mother, all I can say is that she is deeply distraught, and is currently under observation and treatment at Sheppard Pratt, and that this is not the first time she has been there. I won’t be saying any more about her, she is still my mother, no matter what she says about me. Next.”
I turned to the next person on the right. He introduced himself as Jonathan Markham, from WBAL. He wanted to know more details on the various attacks and the harassment, which I gave him. Next in line was the loudmouth from WJZ, Bob Turcos. He was the youngest of the bunch, and was trying to move from Baltimore to a larger station, hopefully on my back.
Or Marilyn’s back. He directed his question to her. “Mrs. Buckman, what is it like being married to a man who some are claiming is a cold blooded murderer?”
Well, I wanted to murder the bastard myself, but Marilyn gave him an angry look, and then calmly replied, “My husband is the bravest man I have ever known. After sending our son and me away to safety, he had his car hidden, so that he could impersonate me. He set himself up as a target for a madman! We owe him our lives! I met Hamilton several times, and he was insane. He wanted to kill me and our son, and Carl stopped him. That was a very stupid question!”
I cringed at that, and Turcos smiled. Never give an asshole a break! Before I could move to the fourth reporter, the guy from WMAR, he spouted another question, “Then why are there so many reports stating otherwise, from official sources, that your multimillionaire husband is buying his freedom from the Baltimore County Police?!”
Marilyn gasped in disbelief, and I stepped back in front of the podium. I kept my face calm. I hadn’t expected that attack. “Have your official sources stated anything for the record, and if not, have you considered their motives in making such outrageous and unsupported statements? You have here copies of official documentation, in some cases going back a decade or more. I would suggest you check your facts a lot more carefully.”
Jim Hallstead, the reporter from WMAR, asked, “So there is no truth to these stories that the County police have shown you preferential treatment?”
“I think it is a slander on the outstanding police that we are fortunate to have in Baltimore County. I have met a lot of police officers and detectives during this trying time, and I never found them anything less than professional and caring. Their work was first rate.”
He pressed on. “So, why, then, didn’t they have you and your home under surveillance? They could have caught your brother before he got into your house!”
I simply shook my head. “Do you have any idea how many police officers it would take to maintain that kind of long term surveillance and protection detail? I think you guys are watching too many of the police shows on your networks. No police force in the world has that many officers available for a long term surveillance and protection.”
Turcos interrupted again. “Isn’t it true that your money was used to gain you police access and action that ordinary citizens don’t get?”
I stared at the guy for a moment. “First you say I am using my money to get away from the cops, and then you say I was using my money to get them to hang around me. You want to try making up your mind? No more questions from you, you keep butting in on the grownups!”
At one point, Hallstead asked how Hamilton was able to find us. I nodded at him and commented, “That’s actually a very good question. The detectives and I have tried to figure that out, and we don’t really have an answer. Our best speculation is that it was because he worked in the billing department at the phone company. Our number is unlisted, and we don’t publicize the address, but we think he was able to find my address through our phone bill.”
Turcos popped up and shouted out, “Are you planning to sue the telephone company over this negligence?”
Oh, good Christ, spare me from this idiot!
And so it went for the next half an hour. Turcos kept interrupting with idiotic stuff that he had been fed by ‘official sources.’ It was obvious the others had gotten the same information, but only the guy from WJZ was buying into it. A couple of them asked about the Buckman Group, and I simply said I was the president, and we were an investment company. Turcos demanded we open our books to him so he could verify how much money we were paying to keep me out of trouble. I just laughed at him and answered we were a private company, and the IRS seemed happy with us, and that was all I was going to tell him about it.
Finally I just called it to a close. Nobody was asking anything new, and Turcos was getting even goofier. We excused ourselves, and John went into the hallway with us. “I am getting in touch with that idiot’s boss. If he starts spouting that crap without any kind of verification, I am going to sue their pants off!”
I shrugged. “Don’t forget, never get in an argument with people who buy ink by the barrel. Same goes with television. Let’s see how bad it is tonight on the news.” There wasn’t a whole lot that could be done about it in any case.
“I have VCRs taping all three channels, and am cutting out the stories in the newspaper!”
“Listen, I’ll be in on Monday, but until then, I am just staying here with Marilyn and Charlie. If it starts to die down, we’re going to try to take a walk around the Inner Harbor this weekend.”
“I’ve had Grace taking messages and sorting them out. She’ll give them to you on Monday. You’re going to be returning calls all morning long!”
“Thanks!” I said wryly. “I need to get back to the business. I feel like I’ve just been wasting my time on all this! It feels like it’s never going to end.”
“For what it’s worth, by this time next week, somebody else will be on the news. These guys have the attention span of a puppy, and about the same IQ. Next week somebody else will be caught doing something or getting hosed over and nobody will remember you. Go upstairs and play with your son. That’s the important thing to concentrate on now.”
We shook hands and Marilyn and I went upstairs, to play with Charlie. Thankfully, the only thing Charlie was noticing about all of this was that he missed his ‘Daw-eee!’ — his ‘doggie’ who was currently in the kennel. Truth be told, it had been almost a month since I had seen Dum-Dum, and I missed her, too. Just like I missed my home, my brand new home, now with blood stains tracked throughout it and our possessions dumped everywhere. It would be at least another week before we could come home, although the cleaning service was promising miracles.
When would this ever end!
Chapter 82: Back To Normal
It did end, of course, and not with a bang, but with a whimper. Sort of, anyway. That sounds a lot more poetic than what it felt like at the time.
That evening, the lead story on all three local stations was the press conference and the reports we had provided. WMAR and WBAL pretty much gave the truth, although they couldn’t help sensationalizing it. WJZ reported that I was the owner of a shadowy investment company with unreported ties to local politicians, and that it was doubtful that the truth would ever come out. The Baltimore Sun gave a very thorough breakdown of the reports, along with a second report on some of the wilder stories being reported by unnamed official sources.