Boca Undercover

by Miriam Auerbach

  I sat for a moment amid the commotion as chairs scraped and people rose. I had a strange feeling that I couldn’t pinpoint.

  Gitta and Lars rose.

  “Oh my God, I’m so terrified,” Gitta said. “I can’t face spending the night in here.”

  “You’ll be fine, Mom,” Lars said. “Like the doctor said, the perpetrators have been apprehended.”

  I wasn’t convinced of that. There had been too many fatal incidents to be coincidental. Something deeper had to be going on. However, I didn’t want to upset Gitta further. And I still didn’t think she was in danger. I reminded her that all the victims had been teenagers, and adults didn’t seem to be targeted.

  “All right,” Gitta finally acceded. “Will I see you here at breakfast?”

  “Yeah, I’ll see you then.”

  She and Lars took off, and Mercy escorted me back to the Total Detoxification Purification unit. I still didn’t see any other patients in the unit, nor had any come there from the dining room. I guess it was just me.

  “How are you feeling now?” Mercy said.

  “Edgy.”

  “Are you having cravings?”

  “Yep.”

  “Here’s what I’d like you to do. When you get a craving, take some deep breaths, count to ten, and tell yourself that it will pass. And it will. But if it does become unbearable, or you get any symptoms like sweating or difficulty breathing, just let me know, okay?”

  “Okay,” I said. The thought of being trapped in my room started to produce those very symptoms. “Can I go sit out on the patio?”

  “Of course.”

  I went out and laid down on one of the chaise lounges. The sun had set, and moonlight reflected off the tranquil pond. It was a relaxing setting, but some feeling deep inside kept nagging at me, and I still couldn’t figure out what it was.

  The surface of the water rippled, and a pair of black eyeballs emerged. Slick was back.

  Hey, he said.

  Hey, yourself.

  Whaddup?

  I shrugged. I don’t feel like talking.

  He waved his tail and propelled himself closer to me. Lana says when you’re like this, something’s bothering you big time.

  Oh, jeez. Just leave me alone, you prying predator, I said.

  You’re projecting, he said. You’re really angry at yourself, but you don’t want to face that, so you’re displacing it onto me.

  Is that so, Dr. Freud? And what, may I ask, am I angry at myself for?

  For the attitude you’ve had about the people here. You’ve got a chip on your shoulder about Boca. You think we’re all a bunch of fake flakes in this town. But when you heard people tell their stories tonight, you realized that underneath the fakeness and the flakiness there are actual human beings who are hurting. So you’re a little ashamed about the way you’ve passed judgment.

  Human beings? In Boca? Me, ashamed? Give me a break, I said.

  Okay, he said, and dove underwater with a slight splash.

  Damn him. He was just like his great-aunt. Always right.

  Chapter 9

  I WASN’T ABOUT to sit around ruminating over my harsh judgments of Boca’s dissipated denizens. Just because Slick had taken up residence on the grounds of the asylum didn’t make him the resident psychoanalyst. Anyway, I wasn’t there for my mental health. I was there to find Truth and Justice.

  Darkness had fallen, and it was time to implement my computer break-in plan. I hoped I could access the teens’ patient records and look for commonalities that might tie their deaths together—and thus point to a viable suspect.

  I left the patio and went back into my room, leaving the door open a crack. I could see Mercy at the nurses’ station as I sat on the bed and looked into the mirror above the dresser. If she left, I could walk to the door and see if she was out of the area so that I could escape from the Total Purification Detoxification Unit.

  Unfortunately, she stayed rooted in place, clacking at her keyboard and clicking her mouse, sounding like a woodpecker tapping a tree. What could she be doing? As far as I could tell, I was the only patient in the unit. Surely she didn’t have all that much to write about me. She was probably Facebooking, Tweeting, Pinning, Instagramming, YouTubing, Flickring, Tumblring, Yelping, Linking In, or otherwise doing God knows what other time-sucking activity. It amazed me that some members of society worried about a potential zombie invasion when the Internet had already eaten the brains of most of the American population.

  Finally, she rose and strode away from her station. I skedaddled to the door and saw her walk out onto the patio and light a cigarette. I slipped out of my room and booked for the door of the suite.

  Before I reached it, I heard her call, “Hailey!”

  I froze in my tracks and kept a rigid smile on my face as I turned to her.

  “How are you doing?” she asked.

  “Me? Um, fine. Fine. Just, uh, stretching my legs.”

  “Good,” she said. She took a drag on her cigarette, then flicked it into the pond. I hoped it didn’t hit Slick.

  “Well, back to work,” she said.

  Yeah, right.

  I retreated back into my room. Another half-hour passed before Mercy rose again. This time I watched her enter the restroom.

  I slipped out of my room again, leaving the door ajar exactly as it had been so as not to arouse attention, and ran for the exit. I slid Enrique’s master magnetic key through the slot. A click sounded, and I pushed the door open. Freedom!

  The long hallway was empty, lined with closed office doors.

  I figured that the facility’s computers were networked, since all the staff would need access to the patient records and other shared data. Thus, Paula Green’s login information should work on any of the units—I hoped. I tried the nearest office door, which was Dr. Stillwater’s. The same room Hernandez had interviewed me in earlier.

  The magic key worked again, and with a sigh of relief, I was in. In the darkness, I made out the desk in the far corner. I groped my way over to it, knocking over a wastebasket, hitting my shin on the coffee table, and letting out a few choice expletives along the way.

  At last, I settled my ass into Stillwater’s buttery-soft leather chair. I set my hand on the armrest. The whole thing started vibrating, sending me upright with a jolt.

  What the hell?

  I turned to look at the freaky furniture. In the dim light I could see the back of the chair rolling as if some demon were trying to escape. The damn thing was possessed . . . no, it was one of those automatic massage chairs.

  Why was I surprised? This was Boca. Every self-respecting, upper-level manager must have had one.

  As for me, I preferred the vibe of my Hog any day.

  I stabbed at random buttons on the armrest, and the thing went through a jumble of gyrations before I finally landed on the “Stop” button and the whole throne went still. I deposited my butt again, this time keeping my arms locked at my sides.

  My knees bumped the computer tower underneath the desk. I felt for the power button with my fingers and pressed it. The monitor came to life with a burst of sound and color courtesy of Microsoft’s minions. After all the beeps, whirls, and swirls subsided, I was confronted with a demand for a username and password.

  I conjured up the mental image I’d formulated when observing Paula Green’s login. Two green bobcats, each with a huge rhinestone “98” swinging from a fat gold chain around its neck. I entered “green” as the username and “bobcats98” as the password.

  The computer emitted a rude beep and flashed a bold red message: “Invalid username or password.” Shit. What had I done wrong? Should “green” have been “greene?” I couldn’t remember. I tried it with the same password. I got the same reply, this time with an additional warning: “You have
one more try before system lockout.”

  I felt like kicking the damn thing. I had to get into those records. I took a deep breath and typed “Green” and “Bobcats98.” The monitor transmuted into a set of icons set against a background image of a desert oasis. Yesss! I was in. Apparently, my keen powers of observation had missed Paula’s pinkie hitting the shift key as she typed the initial letters of the two words.

  An image of a medical chart loomed on the screen amid the usual Office Suite icons. My keen investigative acumen led me to deduce that this was the electronic medical record. I clicked it, and sure enough, a window opened asking me to search by patient name or ID. I typed in “Demarcus Pritchard.” A slew of tabs popped up: “Patient Demographics;” “History & Physical;” “Psychosocial Assessment;” “Spiritual Assessment;” “Psychological Tests;” “Treatment Plan;” and “Progress Notes.”

  Damn, I didn’t have all night. Mercy had said she would check my vital signs every four hours; the last had been at 6:00, so the next would be at 10:00. I needed to be back in my room by then. I looked at the digital clock in the lower right corner of the monitor. 9:17. Not enough time to go through all the records. So what would yield the most useful information? Who knew?

  I clicked “History & Physical.” That brought up a report filled with medical gobbledygook—a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing to me. I tried “Psychosocial Assessment.” Another long report popped up with headings: Presenting Problem . . . Personal Status . . . Drug History and Pattern of Use . . .

  I scanned the report. “Patient is a 16-year-old African-American male who appears his stated age . . . Dress and hygiene are appropriate . . . oriented to time, place, and person . . . Speech is rapid in fluency . . . Patient presents with symptoms of social withdrawal, insomnia, and hyperactivity . . . Symptoms are suggestive of drug withdrawal . . . Patient denies past or current drug or alcohol use . . . Diagnosis deferred pending lab results . . .”

  I clicked on “Lab Results.” A column on the left listed alcohol, amphetamines, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, cannabis, cocaine, opiates, and phencyclidine. To the right of each was a single abbreviation: NEG.

  Demarcus had tested negative for alcohol and all other drugs? That was odd. Shouldn’t something have come up positive?

  I went back to the “Home” screen and entered the name of one of the two other dead teens, Angel Romero. His lab results were the same: all negative. His psychosocial assessment was nearly identical to Demarcus’s, with the exception that his presenting symptoms included seizures. His diagnosis was likewise deferred. The psych evaluator apparently used a boilerplate write-up, just plugging in symptoms, which were then incorporated into the computer-generated report.

  I found the same results for the third teen, Kenyatta Underwood. Negative lab results coupled with symptoms of social withdrawal, lack of appetite, and aggressive behavior.

  What the hell was going on here? All these kids had symptoms of drug withdrawal, yet there were no traces of drugs in their systems.

  I needed to find out how long the various drug metabolites would show up in blood and urine samples. I Googled “How long do drugs stay in your system?” A list of sites came up. Along the side of the screen, a banner ad crept into my field of vision: “The National Inquisitor. Subscribe today! Only $1.95 per issue!”

  Ignoring the ad, I clicked on the first search result, PassYourDrugScreen.com. It told me that alcohol would be undetectable within one to twelve hours; most of the other drugs would not leave a trace after one to three days, with a few exceptions like marijuana, which might stay in the system a while longer.

  Hmmm . . . so it appeared that none of the dead teens had used any drugs, with the possible exception of alcohol, within days prior to checking into the Oasis. Why not? Wouldn’t addicts admitted into treatment usually be regular, probably daily, users? I thought of Gitta and Bruce. They’d both snorted every day. And I’d known plenty of alcohol addicts in my Boca Babe days; they, too, had had their daily Happy Hour, or twenty-four.

  As I sat there pondering, the Inquisitor ad popped up again, this time flashing at me in orange and yellow. “Get a free gift for subscribing today!”

  Suddenly I heard the click of a magnetic key in the office door. Oh no. Had Dr. Stillwater returned to her office? At this time of night?

  I was busted. Wait . . . maybe not. I hit the monitor’s power button to shut off its tell-tale glow, then wedged my body underneath the desk, concealing myself between it and the corner of the room. Beneath the back panel of the desk, I could see a slice of light as the office door opened. Then the overhead lights came on.

  My heart pounded. I forced myself to breathe slowly and silently.

  There was a shuffling of feet, then a loud grinding sound that made me start and hit my head on the top of the desk. Shit. A vacuum cleaner. It was the housekeeping staff. I crouched there, cramped, as the sound alternately approached and receded.

  The repetitive reverberation was kind of like the trance-inducing repetition of a Harley engine. It propelled my mind into a familiar altered state. Which spawned a thought: didn’t banner ads typically pop up in response to cookies left from prior searches? Had Dr. Stillwater been reading the Inquisitor online on her office computer?

  The vacuum cleaner was shut off, and I heard paper rustling as the wastebasket was apparently picked up and emptied. Hurry up, I thought. I need to get the hell out of here.

  A pair of white Croc-clad feet came underneath the desk as objects were moved atop it, and a swishing sound indicated dusting. Finally the feet retreated, the overhead lights went off, and the door clicked shut.

  I started to untwist myself from my pretzel position. Damn, that hurt. My approaching fortieth wasn’t looking too appealing at the moment.

  After resuming my seat in the leather vibrator and turning the monitor back on, I checked the time. Less than twenty minutes before Mercy would come to my room.

  I clicked on the machine’s search history. Sure enough, there it was. The Inquisitor had been accessed that very morning, at 9:53 a.m. Another click brought up the page that had been viewed.

  “Hot Mess Jordan Mitchell in Rehab!” a headline blared.

  “Former Nickelodeon darling Jordan Mitchell, the now 17-year-old child star of Friends & Family, has entered rehab at The Oasis, the celeb drying-out spa in Boca Raton, Florida. The troubled teen reportedly checked herself in following an intervention staged by her father, renowned country singer Jay Mitchell, best known for his nineties hit, Jaywalkin’ on a Dead-End Street.”

  A grainy photo of a thin young woman accompanied the gossip piece. Personally, I wouldn’t have known her from Adam’s housecat, but the caption assured me it was the starlet in question. And it said the picture was from the adolescent unit.

  I glanced at the clock on the monitor. 9:50. I had a few more minutes left to snoop.

  I looked at the search history again and saw that the Inquisitor had also been accessed a week previously. That would have been before the deaths of the other two teens.

  The page on that date read, “Cody Keys Locked Up in Lux Detox.” According to the accompanying story, the adolescent singing idol (news to me) was in The Oasis following violation of his probation for possession of marijuana. Another grainy photo, again purportedly from the adolescent unit, showed a kid in baggy pants and backward ball cap.

  I glanced again at the clock. 9:55. I had no time to ponder what all this meant. I had to get back into my room before Mercy came and found me missing.

  I shut off the computer and rose. Then I abruptly sat again. Shit. I’d forgotten one small detail—how would I get back into the detox unit without Mercy seeing me?

  Chapter 10

  TRYING TO COME up with a plan to sneak back into my room, I glanced around Dr. Stillwater’s office. By the phone, I saw a list of facility numbers. Okay, I got
it.

  Using the speakerphone so I wouldn’t have to leave the handset off the hook, I punched in the number for the detox unit nurses’ station. I figured the caller ID on the other end would display Stillwater’s name. I heard a few rings, then Mercy answered. “Hello?”

  I made a choking noise.

  “Is that you, Dr. Stillwater?” Mercy asked, sounding alarmed.

  I rushed out of Stillwater’s office, shut the door behind me, and plastered myself against the wall outside the door of the detox unit. As I’d hoped, Mercy opened the door, which swung outward, concealing me behind it. She ran past me to Stillwater’s office, then I slipped into the detox unit as I heard her knock on Stillwater’s door and say, “Dr. Stillwater? Are you in there?”

  I let the detox door close behind me, took a few quick steps into my room, and closed that door. Safe. Mercy would probably call someone to check out Stillwater’s office, but there’d be no reason for suspicion to fall on me.

  I sat on my bed in the dark, pondering. Someone was obviously leaking confidential information to the Inquisitor, perhaps taking photos with a clandestine cell phone. It was also clear that The Oasis management was obsessed with maintaining the facility’s reputation for discretion among the rich and famous.

  Had Dr. Stillwater suspected—or discovered—that the adolescents were the source of the leaks? Would she go so far as to kill them to silence them? Supposedly, Angel Romero had died of a seizure and Kenyatta Underwood from anorexia. But who better to stage a fatal accident or natural death than a medical doctor?

  A knock on my door interrupted my musings.

  “Yes?” I called.

  Mercy walked in and flipped on the light switch. Her zirconia tennis bracelet glittered in the glow of the overhead lamp. She gave no indication that anything was amiss.

  “Time to check your vitals again,” she said, and proceeded to do so.