Boca Daze

by Steven M. Forman

  I passed Old School Square, a block west of the railway crossing, where a Christmas tree, 100 feet high, was displayed every holiday season. Five hundred thousand people visited the site annually to hear Christmas music and children’s laughter mix with clanging bells and whistle blasts as the boxcars rumbled past the nativity scene. Season’s greetings, happy New Year, and watch your caboose.

  I turned left on Northeast Second Avenue, two blocks east of Northwest Second Avenue, and wondered how many tourists made the wrong turn every year. I followed a sign to Pineapple Grove not expecting to see pineapples, but the sign was inviting anyway.

  When my mind stopped wandering, I was standing outside the Mystery Bookstore in Pineapple Grove. I went inside and browsed. The cozy little store was filled with thrillers and mysteries. I read a few book jackets in the Bestsellers section and thought that sometimes real life can be stranger than fiction.

  The news was filled with Doc Hurwitz stories and pill mill details. There was talk of a march on the cock-and-balls building in Tallahassee to demand new pain-clinic legislation. Representatives Don Diccicio and Jim Fields were spearheading the drive and winning new votes every day.

  Weary Willie was put to rest in a tin urn given to Three Bag Bailey, who insisted she was his wife. No one objected. She kept his ashes under the boardwalk where she slept. Before the cremation, I asked the crime lab to conduct a DNA test to determine exactly who was in that jar. Before I got the results, I canceled the exam. I didn’t want to know.

  The Catholic Church was, once again, vilified for allowing men such as Vincent Pestrito to join the priesthood. I disagreed. The Church’s intentions were honorable; Vinnie’s weren’t. The Bay Ridge boys were going to jail for their sins and St. Mary’s was looking for a new priest and a janitor. The renegade priest’s girlfriend, Maria Lopez, was rumored to be getting a Hustler centerfold and a book deal.

  The Virgin Maria?

  Jimmy “Big Game” Hunter came apart like a wet newspaper and told us everything he knew and claimed he was an innocent victim. Jolly Rogers confessed that Benjamin Grover had ordered him to plant the tracking device under my car. I was getting more press than I needed, but Lou Dewey couldn’t get enough. He loved it. Joy Feely came home with a barely discernible limp and announced she would marry Lou in June.

  Special Agent Tom Mack and Agent Tyler Sloan were awarded commendations. Jerry Small and Mad Mick collaborated on an article for Time on crime in South Florida. It was a big hit.

  Glenn Kessler called to tell me he had lost over $1 million with Grover and was now worried about a government “claw back” of all his profits for the last six years.

  “Thank goodness for bad golf,” he said, referring to his bestseller.

  Steve Coleman said he would survive his financial loss with Grover but admitted he should have listened to my friend Herb when they met at Kugel’s.

  “If I didn’t have bad luck, I’d have no luck,” Steve complained.

  I told him Herb had been shot to death at Kugel’s.

  “I’m sorry,” Steve said, suddenly feeling lucky.

  Perspective is a good thing to have.

  Several charities closed their doors post-Grover, one feeder-fund manager committed suicide, trust funds evaporated, and wealthy widows became destitute. The initial shock of imagined losses was nothing compared to the aftershock of real losses, and it would only get worse as time went by. Lou hacked into the list of creditors being generated by investigators, and I saw some names I recognized. The large corporations didn’t surprise me, but some of the small individuals listed astounded me. How could so many lose so much to so few? The fallout was spreading. Soon, individual losers would stop paying the dry cleaner, the grocer, the butcher, and the mortgage. The price of houses would collapse. Demand for labor, new homes, and new goods would evaporate. It was Armageddon, just as Lou Dewey had predicted. The sky was falling, but Benjamin Grover was still trying to make deals.

  He agreed to plead guilty to all charges, thus saving the government millions of dollars in court costs. As part of the deal, he insisted his wife be exonerated and allowed to keep 20 million in assets he claimed were legitimate. He had no children to protect, so that was his only request. The public outcry was deafening, but the government made a counteroffer. They would accept his guilty plea, seek the maximum penalty against him, and allow his wife to keep $2 million dollars. Grover accepted the offer.

  The public cried foul again. Bullshit! Give her nothing! Put her in jail! Kill them both! I’ll take 2 million, too! This can’t be! Where’s the justice? Who else is involved? Where’s my money?

  Legal proceedings were moving at record speed, and in early May, Grover was taken to the Palm Beach Federal Court House to plead guilty. His police escort was huge, and so was the crowd outside the courthouse when he arrived. I was there on the courthouse stairs thanks to Tyler Sloan and Tom Mack. Grover looked forlorn in his orange jumpsuit. His lion’s mane was not nearly as impressive as before. The crowd pressed forward.

  Fraud! Faker! Murderer! Traitor! Bastard!

  The police pressed back. Clear the way! Step back!

  Grover smiled wanly.

  Bang. It sounded like a firecracker.

  Bang! Bang! Bang!

  Grover’s smile turned to a grimace. He clutched his chest, gasped, collapsed to his knees, and rolled onto his side. He tumbled down the stairs and stopped at the bottom, headfirst. His arms were spread wide, and his eyes were open.

  “Where did the shots come from?” someone yelled.

  People were running and screaming.

  FBI Special Agent Sloan was first to Grover’s side. He knelt and pressed his fingers to Grover’s neck, searching for a pulse. He put his head to Grover’s chest.

  “There’s no pulse or heartbeat,” he said, looking up.

  “There’s no bloodstains either,” I said.

  The boko of Wall Street was dead, and his bloodless death was a mystery until Dr. Barton Brass made a statement to a private group that afternoon.

  “Benjamin Grover’s cause of death was a heart attack,” the medical examiner said.

  “Was he scared to death?” Agent Tyler Sloan asked sarcastically.

  “Certainly there was a moment of panic when Grover thought the firecrackers were gunshots,” Dr. Brass said seriously. “A heart can misfire from fright or his pacemaker could have malfunctioned when his heart rate accelerated beyond normal limits.”

  “I didn’t know he had a pacemaker,” I said.

  “I didn’t know either,” Sloan said.

  “Apparently he didn’t want people to know,” Dr. Brass said.

  “He didn’t want people to know a lot of things,” I responded.

  I got a small laugh from the sparse crowd, but Dr. Brass was stone-faced. “My job is to determine cause of death and I’ve concluded it was a heart attack. End of case.”

  Not for me.

  I called my favorite internist, Dr. Alan Koblentz, and told him I had a question about pacemakers.

  “I’m not a heart specialist,” he said.

  “You’re close enough,” I told him.

  “Tell that to a man with a heart condition.”

  “Just answer one question. Can a functioning pacemaker be deliberately sabotaged to cause death?”

  “I think it’s possible.”

  “That’s a quick answer for a guy who’s not a heart specialist.”

  “I happened to read an article about this subject in a medical journal recently,” Koblentz explained. “The article claimed that pacemakers can be sabotaged using sophisticated computer hacking.”

  “I know one of the greatest computer hackers on the planet.”

  “Call him,” Koblentz advised.

  I called Lou Dewey and gave him the doctor’s information and my theory.

  “Give me an hour,” he said.

  Two hours later he called me.

  “What took so long?” I asked.

  “It’s not eas
y to hack hackers. But I did it. I found an organization of computer nerds called MaxHax-”

  “Organized nerds?”

  “Scary thought,” Lou said. “They even have a national convention. Some of these guys are employed by high-tech companies to find security loopholes in their systems so they can plug them. Last year a professor from UMass, Boston, named Armand Balfour found a huge loophole in the pacemaker industry. He presented a paper at the MaxHax Facts convention that explained how to hack a pacemaker. His work was financed by the pacemaker industry. He didn’t have a working model built at the time. But based on what I read, I think it’s quite possible. It could be working now for all I know. Balfour’s presentation was over a year ago.”

  “Can you explain his theory to me in a million words or less?”

  “I’ll try,” Lou said. “As you already know from your own experience, an electrical impulse makes the heart beat. When that impulse misfires, it causes an irregular heartbeat … like you had.”

  “I remember distinctly. You saved my life that day.”

  “My pleasure. There are a number of ways to deal with an irregular heartbeat. A successful ablation procedure like yours can cure the condition. A pacemaker can control it.”

  “How does a pacemaker work?” I asked.

  “Pacemakers have internal timers that determine when the next pulse should be received. Every patient has a different requirement. A computer is used to program the timing of a pacemaker, and that’s where Balfour found the loophole. He discovered that no encrypted code protects the wireless connection between the control device and the pacemaker. If a hacker worms his way between the doctor’s computer and the patient’s pacemaker, he can assume total control of the device, turn it off, and kill the patient.”

  “It sounds easier said than done.”

  “You’re right,” Lou said. “And proving it would be very difficult, too. The murderer could erase his codes when he’s done without leaving evidence.”

  “Wouldn’t there be an interruption between the doctor’s computer and the patient’s device when the hacker interferes?”

  “Possibly, but that would only reinforce a malfunction theory. The connection between the two devices fails and the pacemaker malfunctions. There would be no trace of a third party.”

  “There can’t be many people who know about this,” I said.

  “There’s a few. When Professor Balfour made his presentation, there were several hundred hackers in attendance at the convention. The information went over the Internet to thousands of individuals and companies. Add that to the fact that plenty of people wanted to kill Grover, and your list of suspects is longer than Grover’s list of victims. Why not just accept the ME report and forget about B. I. Grover?”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “I know,” Lou said. “Where do you want to start looking?”

  “Send me the updated list of Grover’s creditors and get me a list of MaxHax members. Our killer is in there somewhere.”

  “I’ll get right to it.”

  It didn’t take Lou long to provide me with the lists. The victims’ list was much longer than the MaxHax list, so I started with the latter.

  I had reached the MaxHax P’s when a name jumped out at me: Paretsky, Noah, Deerfield Beach, Florida. Noah was a former child prodigy from Chelsea, Massachusetts, who graduated MIT with honors in 1964. Noah was a genius and had attended the MaxHax convention in Washington, DC, where he would have learned about pirating pacemakers. If anyone could understand the complexities of this technology, it was Noah Paretsky. But Noah wouldn’t kill anyone … or would he?

  I set aside the MaxHax list and switched my attention to the B.I.G. creditors. Noah’s name was not on that list, but his parents’ names were there: Bennett and Bertha from Delray Beach.

  I called Lou immediately. “Bennett and Bertha Paretsky lost almost $800,000 to Grover.”

  “I’ll bet they were cleaned out,” Lou said. “They weren’t rich people.”

  “Their neighbors at 550 Delray Vista Drive weren’t wealthy either.”

  I checked for other familiar names from the Paretskys’ building hoping that Lou’s original list was wrong. Sadly, my friend Izzy Fryberg was there … for over a million. The Freedlanders lost. Mo and Maxine Spielman were in the $400,000 vicinity, and Biggie Small lost more than that.

  Wipeout.

  “Lou, do a current search on Bertha and Bennett Paretsky,” I said. “I got a bad feeling.”

  Less than an hour later, Lou called me back. “Sorry, but your bad feeling was right on. Bertha Paretsky committed suicide a few days after Grover’s arrest went public. She swallowed fifteen Ambien pills, got in bed, and went to sleep. Her husband found the body, had a stroke, and hasn’t spoken since. He’s at the Delray Medical Center. Their son, Noah, is listed as the next of kin.”

  I had my murderer, and I couldn’t have felt worse.

  “The number you are calling is no longer in service,” a recording told me when I tried contacting Noah Paretsky the next morning. I felt certain he would not leave the area with his father in critical condition.

  Where would a good son go at a time like this?

  I got in my Mini and drove north to Delray Beach. Twenty minutes later, I parked in front of 550 Delray Vista Drive. I sat in my car looking at the unremarkable building with the remarkable tenants. Benjamin Grover had stolen their golden years from them, and though the outside of the building looked solid, the inside was ruined.

  I got on the elevator and smiled. It was the haunted elevator that had brought me to 550 Delray Vista Drive in the first place, but that’s another story.

  The elevator went to the second floor without incident. I remembered the Paretskys had a corner apartment to the left. I knocked on the door. No answer. I knocked again and got no response. I picked the lock and went inside. Packing boxes, some filled, others empty, were scattered throughout the apartment. In the bedroom, I saw clothing hanging in the closet that obviously belonged to Noah. He had moved into his parents’ apartment to await his father’s passing.

  I locked the front door so Noah wouldn’t suspect anything when he got home. I spent some time looking around the two-bedroom unit. Most of the pictures were off the walls, already in boxes, but I saw some old photos of Noah’s parents, in their happy years. They looked so young and hopeful smiling at the camera, but now all hope was gone, and the smiles had faded. Life can do that.

  I understand why you did it, Noah. I really do.

  I sat on the sofa and waited. Within an hour, I heard a key in the door and Noah entered. His tall frame looked more stooped than last year, and his taste in clothes remained dreadful. His face looked older and sadder than I remembered.

  He saw me and his eyes widened. “You’re an amazing man.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” I said, standing up. We shook hands. “Your mother was a lovely woman.”

  “Thank you. She didn’t have the strength to start over.”

  “How’s your father?”

  “He had a second stroke. There’s no hope.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Noah nodded solemnly. “Are you here to arrest me?”

  “I’m not a cop. I don’t have the authority.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Professional curiosity and probable cause,” I said.

  “Anyone who knew Benjamin Grover had probable cause. But according to the medical examiner, the son of a bitch died of a heart attack.”

  “I don’t believe that, and neither do you.”

  He smiled and asked if anyone else shared my opinion.

  “Probably not,” I said. “But I don’t care.”

  “No one cares. The man was a monster.”

  “That doesn’t give you the right to be judge and jury.”

  “Or executioner,” Noah said. “No one has that right, but it happens a lot.”

  He walked to the front door and opened it. The sun brightened the room but not
the mood. “You’ll have to excuse me. I have a mother to mourn and a father to bury.”

  “And memories to pack.”

  “I’ve got plenty of those.” He opened the door fully. “I guess I should change the lock.”

  “Don’t bother. I won’t be back.”

  “What about the police or the FBI?”

  “I can’t speak for them,” I said, holding out my hand to him. “I truly am sorry about your parents.”

  “I know you are, Eddie,” he said, shaking my hand. “I’m sorry for everyone in this building and all the other Grover victims. I hope he’s burning in hell right now.”

  “I hope so, too. But I don’t know if I can just walk away from my suspicions.”

  “You’re a good man. You’ll do the right thing.”

  I hope so.

  I called Agent Sloan and arranged a meeting with him that afternoon in the Miami FBI office. Agent Mack was there when I arrived, and I invited him to join us. We sat in a small conference room.

  “You’ve had an impressive few weeks,” Mack said. “You solved your hobo case, got the Florida legislature off its ass, and helped put an end to B. I. Grover.”

  “What if I told you I didn’t think Grover died from natural causes?” I said.

  “The medical examiner confirmed a heart attack and signed off on the case,” Sloan said.

  “Grover did die of a heart attack,” I agreed. “But what if the heart attack was induced using new technology?”

  “Have you got evidence or a hunch?”

  “Circumstantial evidence and a strong intuition,” I said.