Post by Thaddeus Duke on Feb 14, 2024 17:43:42 GMT -5
The sirens came fast. In fact, the whole ordeal from the moment Berta called to seeing Maurice laying on my son's bedroom floor in a pool of his own blood happened in under ten minutes. Sat upon my knees on the floor, I continued to hold my grieving wife. Whatever else Maurice Weber was, he was still her brother. Maybe it sounds strange, but these are familiar shoes. I know exactly how she feels. It’s been almost two years since I put my father in the ground. Like with Maurice for Lauren, my fathers death was by my own hand. Regardless of the circumstances surrounding it and no matter how justified it may have been, it’s not something you just… "get over." She’ll think about it constantly at first. Then not at all as if it were a faded fever dream. Then as time goes on, she’ll remember what happened here at the oddest of times with no rhyme or reason and she’ll grow quiet… distant… withdrawn.
I know, because I travel that road everyday.
“We gotta go check on the kids,” I said to her quietly. “You don’t need to be in here anymore anyway.”
She nodded and sniffled through her quiet sobs as I helped her to a vertical base. Out in the hall, we’re confronted by Great Neck’s Finest with their guns drawn and shouted orders to get on the ground.
“Guys, we need to check on my kids…”
Lauren stayed as I raised my hands and stepped forward.
“On the ground NOW!” ordered the cop.
“No! Wait! This is my…”
He did not wait. Instead he shot two of those electric prods into me that sent me into rigid convulsions as I flopped to the floor near the top of the steps. This is also not the first time in my life I had been tased. I did not miss that feeling.
Here’s lookin’ at you, Easton Alexander. You’re still a whole bitch.
Lauren tried to intervene but she was tackled quickly by another cop. It took Berta to sort out the initial confusion. Officer Ryan Malloy apologized for tasing me and gave me some ointment to put on the entry wounds. After allowing us to check on the kids, I sent Berta with the children to the guest house. As is standard operating procedure, even though we’re innocent of any crime tonight, the police separated us. I followed upstairs to speak with the Detective on the case. Lauren stayed downstairs and chatted up the police.
“Dispatch we need the coroner at…” the Detective looked at me.
“22 Paradise Ridge,” I answered.
“22 Paradise Ridge, Great Neck,” he paused. “We have a deceased white male, early to mid 40’s.”
I stood in the doorway as dispatch radioed back.
“Single gunshot to the chest,” Detective Joe Shirley looked at me. “Mr. Duke is that the only weapon in the house?”
“No,” I said with a laugh.
“Are they secure?” he asked.
“No one can enter that room without my face,” I replied. “I got kids man. I leave nothing to chance.”
“So this Maurice Weber,” he began. “You say that you and Mrs. Duke were on your way… where again?”
“Kennedy,” I answered quietly. He knew the story, he was just checking for inaccuracies. “My wife has an event in Cambodia. We were headed to the airport when Berta called…”
“Berta is the… housekeeper?” he questioned.
“Nanny, housekeeper, chef, she’s a Jill of all trades,” I replied. “She called in a panic because Maurice had forced his way into the house and had my kids at knife point.”
“Maurice is the decedent?”
I nodded.
“What was his relation to your family?” he asked.
“My wife’s older brother.”
“And he’d been estranged?”
“Lauren told him to leave a few days ago,” I answered. “She loved her brother but he was troubled. He was a career criminal and we could no longer have him near our kids.”
“So he breaks in,” Detective Shirley continued. “He comes upstairs, has a knife and is threatening your kids… then what happened?”
Detective Shirley advances into the room some more and takes photographs of the body, the gun, the knife, the blood, the book, the room.
“We hurried back and I grabbed the Glock and…”
“Your wife said she pulled the trigger,” he interrupted.
“Do you have kids, Detective?” I asked him as I leaned against the door jam, still shaking the pain of the taser from earlier.
“Two,” he answered.
“Put yourself in my shoes then,” I told him. “What do you think you’re gonna do?”
“I get it,” he said as he stood up. “I’m not trying to accuse anyone of doing anything wrong, Mr. Duke. I’m just trying to ascertain the facts of the case.”
“After I grabbed the gun I ran upstairs and Lauren was already in here trying to calm him down, trying to negotiate the safety of the kids,” I paused. “It deteriorated quickly. She took the gun from me and told the kids to leave and the hope was that he’d see his error. But he had that blade. He took a step and she fired.
“Dropped him where he stood.”
“We’re gonna need access to your other weapons, Mr. Duke,” he changed directions a bit. “I’ll tell you up front that we don’t think there’s any charges to be filed or anything like that. This is a pretty clear case of self defense, but for investigative purposes, we’ll need to catalog everything.
"Of course, that's all up to the District Attorney."
Just then my phone started to ring from my pocket. “Frankie,” I said as I looked at it. “Detective, that's my son. I need to take this.”
“Of course,” he replied as he went about surveying the scene.
“Hey Bub,” I answered.
“Dad!?” He cried out in a panic. “What's going on? Is mom okay?”
“Yeah, yeah. Don't worry. Everything is…”
“I heard the gunshot and…” his voice cracked, waivered, then betrayed his emotional strength.
I've raised my son not to fear emotion. To rather embrace it. The last thing this world needs is a sheltered boy overcompensating for emotional trauma with toxicity and a weak, fragile masculinity.
“Me and mom are fine, Frankie. I promise.”
“Maurice?” he questioned.
“Nah,” I said quietly.
The line fell silent for a few long moments.
“Good,” he finally let out.
“Nah, it's not good,” I corrected him.
“He was a piece of crap, dad,” he protested.
“Mmmhmm,” I agreed. “But he was also your mom's brother so do me a favor and keep your opinions of him between you and me, ok?”
“But why?” he asked. “You didn't like him either. Dad, you punched him in the face.”
“I did,” I agreed. “And it felt good to do it. But your mom pulled the trigger. Not me. No matter what he was, your mom is gonna be goin’ through it, you understand what I'm saying?”
“I think so,” he replied quietly.
“Just be a shoulder and keep your feelings about him to yourself, okay?”
“Yes sir,” he replied.
“That's my good man,” I said with a slight smile. “How are Caty and Talon?”
“2 and oblivious,” he replied humorously. “I envy them.”
“Okay, I gotta go kiddo. We'll be up as soon as we can.”
“Love you dad,” he said sweetly.
“I love you more than anything, Francis Robert,” I replied before we hung up.
A few minutes later, the detective and I headed downstairs. I stopped by the family room for just a moment to hug Lauren before leading the police to the secure armory in the basement of the mansion. After scanning my face, the vault-like door popped open.
Inside, they're taken aback just a bit by the sheer amount of weapons I have stockpiled. I'm not an ammosexual or anything like that. A lot of the weapons I possess are heirlooms and collectibles. The vast majority are left over from my military days. Only a few are for my own personal use. The armory isn't just guns either. It also houses genuine museum quality medieval suits of armor, swords and shields.
You can take the boy out of the military, but you can't take the military out of the boy.
“So let me get this straight,” Detective Shirley began as he grabbed my largest, most powerful pistol from its resting place. “You have a Desert Eagle .50 cal and you grabbed the Glock?”
The way he asked was more in jest than anything, but I'm not really in the mood to joke around.
“Have you ever seen the chest of a man shot point blank with a Desert Eagle, Detective?” I asked.
To which he merely shook his head to imply he hadn't.
“Neither has anyone else,” I replied. Naturally, that's an exaggeration, but I felt it necessary to remind him of the awesome stopping power of a Desert Eagle.
The detective and I spent a few more minutes chatting. He'd stop and ask questions about this weapon or that, whether or not they were all registered and so on.
An hour or so later, I was back upstairs as the investigation wrapped up. Just in time, no doubt, to hold Lauren tight against me as the coroner wheeled Maurice’s body bag from our home. Once the last of the lawmen departed Paradise Ridge, Lauren and I made the slow walk from the back of the house toward the guest house where Berta and the kids were holed up a little more than two acres away.
We strolled hand in hand in silence at first. At about the midway point, near the stables, I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. Still silent as we approached the guest house, Berta and the twins were long asleep. As we approached, the motion light clicked on revealing Frankie sitting on the front porch. When he noticed us, he hurriedly put down his iPad and jumped to his feet.
“Mom,” he said quietly with tears welling in his eyes.
“Yeah baby?” she said as we reached the top of the porch steps. “It's late, what are you still doing up?”
He didn't answer her inquiry.
“I'm sorry about your brother,” he said as he threw his arms around her.
Despite the drama and trauma of the last few hours, I smiled. Frankie didn't like Maurice. No one did, really. Yet he showed remorse, empathy and compassion to his mother who is no doubt about to feel a full range of emotions from hurt, to regret, anger… all of it.
That's my little man.