Chapter 81: Consequences

Saturday, September 3, 1983

I stared at my brother, standing there in my kitchen. Of all the various scenarios that had run through our minds, my family was never included. Yes, they had been questioned, but it had never seriously crossed any of our minds. To the best of our knowledge, the only person who even knew where we lived or even our phone number was Suzie, and she certainly wasn’t involved. However, there he was, standing in my kitchen, a look of sheer hatred on his face, and carrying a gigantic Bowie knife.

“Hamilton?” I repeated. “What are you doing?”

He stopped and sneered at me. “Nothing, now. You surprised me. Where’s the bitch and the brat? The car is outside.”

Hearing him call Marilyn a bitch brought me back to reality. My brother was the one behind everything. He had been the one to vandalize and torch her car, he had been the one who tried to firebomb my home, he was the one trying to kill us. “What are you doing? Why are you doing this?”

“It’s all your fault! You’re the reason we had to move out. You’re not supposed to be here! THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!”

“Hamilton, that’s crazy!” I was staying out of arm’s reach of my brother. He was still holding that ridiculous knife, and the way he was talking, he was almost raving.

Saying the word crazy was not my best choice. Hamilton’s face turned red and he started sputtering and screaming. “I’M NOT CRAZY! DON’T EVER SAY THAT AGAIN! DON’T CALL ME CRAZY!” He advanced on me.

Screw that! I slowly stepped back, staying out of range. My gun hand was down by my side, and he hadn’t twigged to the fact I was armed. I didn’t want to provoke him any further than he already was. I held up my left hand and said, as soothingly as I could, “Hey, okay, sorry about that. Why don’t you sit down? We can talk this over.”

He sneered at me. “No, I’ll just come back someday when the bitch is here. I’ll talk to you later.” He lowered his arm and started to turn away.

I felt something cold and clammy grip my heart. Hamilton wanted to kill Marilyn and Charlie, and only then kill me! I fought down the urge to vomit. “Wait! Hamilton!” I called to him.

He turned to face me and brought the Bowie knife up again. “What?”

I brought the Colt up and fired twice, hitting him in the chest, both times. It’s not like in the movies, where people go flying across the room. Hamilton simply fell backwards, to lie on the kitchen linoleum and begin leaking. I kept the gun trained on him and got closer, but it was obvious he was dead. I had hit him center of mass, just like they tell you to, and one or both of the heavy slugs had blown through his heart. Probably out the back, too, since massive quantities of blood were now seeping out from underneath him.

I felt shaky as the adrenaline washed through me. I took a deep breath and fought the urge to toss my cookies. After another minute, I set the pistol on the kitchen counter, and moved off to the bedroom. I slipped on my shoes, and then grabbed the phone. I dialed 911.

“Emergency! What is the nature of your emergency?” said the voice at the other end.

“There’s been a shooting. You’ll need to send the police and the coroner.” I gave my name and the address.

If the operator felt anything emotionally about these calls, she didn’t let it through on the phone. “Is the shooter still present?” she asked.

“I’m the shooter. I won’t leave.”

“Please stay on the line.”

“I’m sorry; I need to make a few more calls.” I hung up, which was probably a crime, but I really didn’t care. I called John Steiner. As expected, he told me to be cooperative but to keep my mouth shut until he got there. No surprise there. I hung up on my long-time attorney, with the realization I needed him now more than ever.

I went back out to the kitchen. Hamilton was still lying there, surrounded by a pool of blood. Part of me was thinking I should have done this years ago. Part of me was thinking I should have drowned him at birth. Most of all I was just saddened by the waste of it all. Now my family was completely and utterly destroyed. There was no going back from this, even though I had to do it. He was insane. He would have killed my wife and my son, and then tried for me. It would have never ended. Even if I had managed to capture him or had told the cops what had happened and they had brought him in, he would have gotten out sooner or later. Unless you are foaming at the mouth crazy, or can be proved to be a menace, they have to let these nut jobs loose again. They wouldn’t have locked him up for good until after he had killed somebody!

I heard the siren long before it got to the driveway. Leaving my brother where he lay, I went to the front door and stepped outside. As soon as the police arrived, I very slowly raised my hands above my head. The first car there was a Maryland State Trooper. He got out of the car and gave me a hard look. “Are you the person who phoned in the shooting?” he asked, his right hand on his pistol butt.

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you still carrying the gun?”

“No, sir.”

“I want you to move very slowly, and lean against the door, with your legs spread and your hands on the door frame.”

“Yes, sir.” I assumed the position, which everybody knows who has ever seen a police show on television and found myself quickly but thoroughly frisked.

At the end, slightly more relaxed when he didn’t find me carrying a weapon, I was allowed to stand upright again. “You’d better take me inside to the body. Is anybody else here?”

“No, sir.”

He kept his hand on his gun butt and I walked slowly ahead of him. We went into the kitchen, where he took in the gruesome scene, along with the pistol on the counter. “You want to tell me what happened? What’s your name?”

“My name is Carl Buckman. As for what has happened, I have already contacted my attorney, and he has told me not to say anything until he is present.”

At the mention of my lawyer, the cop’s face hardened. “Who is the victim?”

“His name is Hamilton Buckman.”

By now we could hear more sirens approaching. The clusterfuck was beginning. “Was he a relative?”

“My brother.”

“Oh, Christ,” he muttered. Then he nodded, “Well, put your hands behind your back.”

I guess he figured possession was nine points of the law, or something. I turned away and put my hands behind my back. Shortly after that I felt handcuffs going on. It wasn’t the first time I had felt them, but this time it seemed a lot more significant.

I just stood there silently while the circus came to town. Next on the scene was a Baltimore County Police car, followed closely by an ambulance. Maybe the coroner wasn’t coming; maybe they only got the body after the hospital pronounced it dead. The ambulance guys didn’t waste more than ten seconds determining Hamilton didn’t need their professional talents, so they just sat down in the living room while more cops showed up.

Next up was a Baltimore County Police sergeant, who knew something about the case, and who argued I should be turned over to them. No dice. I was probably a valuable bargaining chip for the Troopers, so I got hustled out the door and put into the Trooper car. I sat there, mute, for another ten minutes while the sergeant and the Trooper argued, and then the Trooper solved the problem by driving me over to the barracks in Westminster.

I gave my name to the cops in the barracks, again, and was dumped into a holding cell. John would have to dig me up there. It turned out he didn’t. Before he ever showed, the sergeant and a lieutenant from the Baltimore County Police showed up, and they got custody of me. I was recuffed and loaded into a Police car and driven down to Towson. That was fine with me; Towson was where Carstans was based, and I suspected he was going to be involved in this mess very quickly.

I waited in the holding cell in Towson about three hours before I was yanked out and taken to an interrogation room. Inside I found Carstans, a Baltimore County Police lieutenant, a Maryland State Trooper sergeant, John Steiner, and another man I had never met before. Almost immediately as I showed up, the sergeant and the lieutenant started arguing again over who had possession of me. I was cuffed to the table.

Carstans slipped around them and came over to me. He asked, “Was it your brother who did all this?”

I was on the verge of answering when I felt John’s hand on my shoulder. “We need to talk to our client.” I just looked over my shoulder at him and nodded. The unknown man next to John must have been another lawyer.

Carstans just nodded and muttered an assent. He went to the door and knocked on it, and it opened. The sergeant and the lieutenant kept arguing as they went out the door.

Once we were alone, John sat down. “How are you doing, Carl?”

“Okay, I guess. Better than Hamilton is doing.” I turned to the other fellow and asked, “Who are you?”

John answered for him. “This is Robert DeAngelis. He’s a criminal attorney here in Towson, probably the best in the county.”

“Mister Buckman,” he said by way of greeting.

“Pleased to meet you. I’d shake your hand but, well...” I rattled my handcuffs and smiled at him. I turned back to John. “A criminal attorney? You can’t handle this?”

“It’s one thing for me to dig you out of a school fight when you’re thirteen. It’s quite different when you’ve killed somebody. You need him, Carl.”

I turned back to DeAngelis. I shrugged and said, “Nothing personal. Welcome aboard. Has John told you what’s been going on in my life?”

DeAngelis had a pleasant baritone and a look of confidence and surety. He probably did great with juries, especially if they had a lot of women on them. “Yes, but we’ll get to that in a moment. First, have they processed you into the system yet? Fingerprints, photographs, that sort of thing? Have you been booked yet?”

“No. I’ve just been sitting in a cell since I got here. I think they’re still trying to figure out who owns me,” I answered.

He smiled at that. “That actually makes things a touch simpler. Now, I want you to tell me what has happened, right from the start. Just imagine I’ve never heard of you or your case and have never talked to anybody about you. Start from the beginning.”

For the next hour and a half, I went through everything with the pair of them, starting with the night Becky called the cops the night of the reunion. About halfway through the talk, there was a rap on the door and Detective Carstans came in. “Any idea when we can talk?” he asked.

DeAngelis answered, “We’ll let you know,” dismissing him.

Carstans snorted and smiled. “You just do that. By the way, for the time being, you belong to us. That can always change, though, so be nice to me.” He left and I finished my tale.

One interesting thing that DeAngelis asked about several times was the knife that Hamilton had carried. “And you say that it wasn’t your knife? It wasn’t a kitchen knife or something like that?”

“No, no way. It looked to me like a Bowie knife or something. It was ridiculous, way too big to be useful. Besides, I know the knives around the house, it was nothing like them.”

“How so?” he asked.

“Well, there’s the butter knives in the kitchen, and the steak knives, and the kitchen knives - you know paring knives and chef’s knives and stuff. I got them all as a set, you know what I mean?” He nodded and I continued. “Other than that, I have a pocketknife, a Buck knife with a lockback blade. That’s in my bedroom right now. In the den I have a couple of Gerber combat knives, including a mini-knife I use as a letter opener, but they’re nothing like what he had with him.”

He quizzed me some more about the knife and the timing of his visit today. I also had John tell him some more about the security company who was watching over Marilyn and Charlie.

The one thing I left out was that Hamilton was on the verge of leaving, when I called him back and shot him. I knew enough to know that if I said he was advancing towards me I could call itself self-defense. What really happened, which was just as much a case of self-defense to my mind, would probably be called murder. I would have to take those last few seconds to the grave with me. Hamilton would probably meet me in hell to exact his revenge.

I asked a question. “When can I call Marilyn and let her know what happened?”

“Maybe later today. She won’t be able to come home, though. Right now, your house is a crime scene,” said John.

“Yeah,” I sighed. “Still, she’ll be better knowing this is over. Do we talk to the cop now?”

John looked at DeAngelis, who nodded. John went to the door and knocked on it. The door was opened, and John spoke to whoever was on the other side. The door shut again, and we waited another ten minutes for Carstans to show up. He had a thick folder with him.

First, however, John said, “Let’s get the cuffs off our client first. You know him by now. He’s not a flight risk and he’s not dangerous.”

Carstans shrugged. “Probably not. Try not to run on me, Carl. I’d hate to let the Staties shoot you.” He undid my cuffs.

I immediately stretched and then rubbed my wrists. “Thanks, Lew,” I said to him.

“You want to tell me what happened now?” he asked.

I glanced over at DeAngelis, who nodded, and told Carstans everything. He already knew about the firebomb attack, and how I had sent my family away for safety. He also knew I had owned the Colt. He hadn’t been out to the house, but the reports were already filtering back that the bullets went in the front, so it wasn’t like I had chased Hamilton down and shot him in the back. DeAngelis stressed several times that any knife found needed to be examined and possession needed to be determined, and how it wasn’t my knife. If Hamilton was the owner of the knife and brought it into my house, it was case closed, self-defense.

“When can our client be released?” asked DeAngelis.

Carstans stared at him. “That’s a very good question, counselor. I’m not even sure he’s going to be released.”

“Detective, please, you know and I know this is never even going to trial, let alone jail time. Why don’t you save the state the cost of a trial they will never possibly win and let him loose now?”

“Maybe it will and maybe it won’t, but that isn’t for me to decide.”

I held up my hand for a moment, and then leaned over to whisper to my two lawyers. “Does it help any if we can prove that Hamilton was crazy? I mean real go-see-a-shrink crazy?”

“You have proof of that?” asked DeAngelis.

“I have a copy of a psychiatric report, stating he was a paranoid schizophrenic. I also have a copy of a police report from when he was a teenager and tried to sabotage my car.” I turned towards John. “Remember, that’s the reason I moved out of the house back then.”

He looked at DeAngelis and nodded.

DeAngelis sat upright, so John and I did, too, and he said, “Detective, would it make any difference if we offered proof that the deceased was clinically insane, and had threatened our client before?”

That made Carstans sit upright. “Really? Why didn’t you ever tell us this before?”

“Hey, until today, Hamilton wasn’t even on the radar screen. I had no idea he was involved. I don’t even know how he found us! Besides, with all the people you asked me about, we never knew who was important. Marilyn and I’ve known he was nuts from the time he was a kid!”

He didn’t say anything but left again. Half an hour later, he returned. “Okay, you can go. For now! I need to know where you will be, and how to reach you, and you can’t move back home. That’s still a crime scene and hasn’t been released yet.”

John handled that. “Can we send somebody over to get clothes from the bedroom at least? I can get somebody from the security company over there.”

Carstans agreed to that, and John said he would put me into a suite at the Hyatt downtown, under his name. I would stay there until they needed me, after the investigation was over and the house could be released and cleaned up. I promised to get the various reports on Hamilton to both the cops and the lawyers, and I was led outside. DeAngelis made a comment about how there weren’t any reporters yet, which made me cringe. John loaded me in his car, and we drove down to Baltimore.

It was the early evening, and it had been a long day, and I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. I was tired and hungry. I sat there in the car while John went inside to make arrangements, and only got out when he came out to fetch me. We went directly to the elevators and then rode up to a mid-size suite. He left me after telling me to call Marilyn and order room service. Under no circumstances short of a hotel fire was I to leave the suite, and if anybody called, I was to let him know before answering any questions. I was on lockdown, which suited me just fine. John would handle calling my father, who was far and away the best grounded of my parents.

I’m ashamed to say that the first thing I did was call for a meal. Only after I ordered a burger and a beer did I call the camp at Sacandaga Lake. The telephone was answered by the security guard, who had already been alerted by his boss. John had been busy. He set the phone down and got Marilyn to pick it up.

“Hello? Carling? Is that you?”

“Yes, honey, it’s me. You can come home now. It’s all over.”

“What happened? Who was it?”

“It was Hamilton, Marilyn. He finally cracked up. He was coming for you and Charlie. It’s safe now, you can come home,” I told her.

“What happened? Did you catch him?”

“I killed him. Come home, honey, I’ll tell you all about it. It’s over now.”

“Oh my God!” she cried.

“Come on home, honey. It’s safe now.” I had her put the security guy on the phone and told him to confirm it with his office, but that the situation was over, and Marilyn and Charlie and Dum-Dum could come home now. He was to get them to the Hyatt, however, and not let them near the house. Dum-Dum would need to be kenneled at the vet’s. We hung up. There was too much to tell on the phone.

I spent the weekend at the Hyatt, and half the time I was on the phone with John and the security company. Mid-afternoon Sunday, one of the security guys showed up at the suite with several plastic bags of clothing, including a couple of suits and underwear and khakis and a bunch of other stuff. He also dug through my desk in the den to find my file on Hamilton, with the copy of the psychiatric report and police report from when he tried to vandalize my car in high school. He also told me that the house was a disaster. The cops had basically been through everything, looking for weapons, knives, guns, and anything to tie me to Hamilton (as if being his brother wasn’t enough!) Worse, although the body was gone, enough people had rampaged through to track blood all over the place. He even had to kick out a reporter who had ignored the crime scene tape and was going through photographing my wife’s lingerie. He handed me all the film he had confiscated, and we yanked it from the canisters and rolls and destroyed it. A security guard was now on site to keep the curious away.