Murder in Palm Beach: The Homicide That Never Died
Robert Brink
Author Bio
I am a journalist who worked with the Palm Beach Post, The Associated Press in Chicago, Milwaukee Journal, Tampa Tribune, Joliet Herald-News, and Palm Beach Media Group (magazines). My byline has been on thousands of news stories, features, and entertainment reviews.
I have been a freelance writer for several years, and now am embarked on writing novels. To promote MURDER IN PALM BEACH, I have a website, with a blog on which I am addressing three passions to engender search engine optimization. The website address is: www.bobbrinkwriter.com.
I’ve won numerous writing accolades and several awards, including three for Palm Beach Illustrated, which won the Best Written Magazine award from the Florida Magazine Association after I became copy chief and writer.
From my journalism exploits in the Palm Beaches, I came to learn that Palm Beach loves a murder story, especially if it’s rooted in fact. I was a reporter for the Palm Beach Post when the crime this novel is based on occurred. It was an enormously sensational event that was featured six years later on a national TV show, and made newspaper headlines for 15 years
Besides dabbling in short-story writing over the years, I immersed myself in learning to play the clarinet and tenor saxophone. I performed many years with an estimable, 65-piece community symphonic band, and played a few professional big band gigs. I relegated music to the back seat after embarking on writing novels.
A product of Michigan and Iowa, I have a bachelor’s degree in English from Drake University in Des Moines and completed graduate journalism studies at the University of Iowa.
Description
MURDER IN PALM BEACH: The Homicide That Never Died is a roman a clef about a murder in 1976. Questions about the guilt of the man convicted led to an investigation by Geraldo Rivera six years later. I learned that a former newspaper colleague had discovered the the real murderer was, and far more important, who was behind it: a very important national politician. Years later, I inadvertently ran across the reporter’s chief source, and we began collaborating on a factual book. But he was afraid to provide certain names, and I instead wrote a novel, which contains the explosive information in the guise of fiction.
In January 1976, the doorbell rings at the Palm Beach home of a man and his wife who have just returned from a dinner party. He answers and is greeted by three shotgun blasts through a side window and the front door. Eleven days later, he dies from his wounds.
The victim, Rodger Kriger, was balancing life as a family man with six children, prominence in civic and social activities – and an affair with a stripper. A top detective suspects a love triangle as the basis for the murder, but police settle on a charismatic karate instructor named Mitt Hecher, well-known to officers for beating people up for money and sport. They soon drop him as a suspect.
Scenarios involving a Cuban sugar baron and a bolita operation arouse suspicion. But politically ambitious Assistant State Attorney John Scraponia sees an opportunity. He promises leniency to several fellow inmates of Hecher, who is in jail for small crimes, for testifying that he confessed to the murder. The jury convicts Hecher and the judge sentences him to a mandatory 25 years.
Before landing in jail, Hecher and his buddy Davey Ross team up to recruit clients in bars for Hecher’s karate studio. Ross guards with pistols while Hecher beats up guys, then offers them good deals at his studio. But at one bar, he is smitten by a woman chatting with her girlfriend and cancels his and Ross’s recruitment plans. Hecher ends up dating the woman he desires.
The 31-year-old tough guy gradually falls in love for the first time in his life, and her revulsion of violence transforms him before the law sends him to the local jail for his small-time crimes. After his murder conviction, he lands in Florida’s notorious Raiford Prison, where anarchy reminiscent of the Wild West reigns, with a stabbing a day and a murder a week the “mean” average.
A couple of days after his arrival, the short Hecher almost kills a hulking yokel who sodomizes new prisoners. Inmates watch, and Hecher soon begins holding karate classes. After five years at Raiford, where he saves a guard during a riot and serves as bodyguard for a peg-legged inmate unfairly marked for assassination, he is transferred to the more civilized Avon Park, where he builds on his sterling reputation. While there, his wife dies of a fatal disease. He is grief-stricken.
Lawyers working pro bono to free Hecher fail in 25 appeals for his release, even though his accusers admit on national television that they lied. Finally, a female attorney persuades a new governor to grant Hecher clemency after 15 years in prison.
A reporter has discovered that a Mafia hit man committed the murder, and the U.S. president at the time instigated it. The reporter joins Hecher, Ross and the ex-prison buddy in a car chase, which ends with Hecher capturing the killer atop a high bridge after a knife fight. The hit man receives a life prison sentence.
Scraponia is convicted of perjury and sent to Raiford, where he becomes paranoid that prisoners he has prosecuted are out to kill him. He ends up in the psychiatric ward, undergoing shock treatments.
Book excerpt
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“Johnny Traynor?”
“Who’s this?”
Palladin did not remember him sounding timorous. “An acquaintance from way back. Tom Palladin.”
“Oh, yes. I remember. Haven’t seen you around for a long time.”
“I had a little difficulty finding your new number. Finally got it from a friend of yours, Davey Ross.”
“Oh, yeah, I moved inland a few years ago.”
“You used to live near the Shore Club. I thought you liked hanging out there. Why would you want to leave the neighborhood?
“Well … to tell the truth, things got a little dicey.”
“You talking about the Kriger murder?”
“Well … uh … yeah, sort of.”
“I’d like to get together with you and chat about that. I have some new information.”
“Yeah, I guess so. I don’t know if I have anything that will help you.”
“Where do you live?”
Traynor gave directions to a duplex apartment on the west side of West Palm Beach.
“How about two p.m. tomorrow?” Palladin asked.
“Yeah, that’s okay. I’m working on a guy’s car, and I’ve got plenty of time to finish it.”
“See you then.”
The neighborhood was seedy. Most of the houses were small, run-down, wood-frame structures. Early-model cars and trucks, the paint usually fading, occupied driveways, littered lawns, or sat on the street in front. Patches of dried grass sprinkled with pale green contrasted with splotches of bare, sandy earth, like the shabby clothes of a tramp with tatters that revealed his skin. Traynor’s duplex was the only property on the block that didn’t look slummy to Palladin: a white, concrete-block structure with sidewalks leading to two screen doors opening to wooden front doors. Prosaic, but the grass was mostly green, and the car in the driveway, only a few years old, looked well-cared-for.
He parked on the street and walked to the unit on the right. Opening the screen door, he knocked.
It struck Palladin immediately. Something was different about the man who opened the door.
“Come in,” said Traynor. He gestured toward an armless, cushiony chair. “Sit down. Want a beer? Or Coke? I mean, you want a Coca Cola?” He seemed shaky.
“Thanks. Are you renting here?”
“No. I bought the duplex and rent out the other half. Gives me a little income.”
“Your place doesn’t look bad. Best one on the block.”
“I’ve gotta keep it up in order to rent it out. I rent it month-to-month and charge a big rate. A lot of my renters are people with criminal backgrounds like me who can’t find anyplace else. That’s why I bought this place. Nobody would rent to me.”
Palladin could see what had changed in the man. No longer exuding cocky self-confidence, he appeared timid, almost frightened. Sitting on the couch, smoking a cigarette, his hand trembled. Then it hit Palladin. Coke. The quick clarification of the offer of Coca Cola. Traynor was a cocaine addict.
“Let me tell you why I called. I found out something from a couple of sources. I know who shot Rodger Kriger.”
Palladin saw Traynor blanch. He looked blankly at Palladin, then raised the cigarette to his lips with a shaky hand and slowly inhaled. He turned his head to blow the smoke away from his guest.
“I think you know who it is, too.”