The Prince of Paradise (39 page)

Under the Killer Statute, someone who murders or causes the murder of the decedent cannot benefit from that crime in any way.
The estate is then administered as if the killer had died first.

“Accordingly,” the petition read, “the surviving spouse, NARCY NOVACK, may not ultimately inherit under the decedent’s last will and testament even if she is never adjudicated guilty of murder in any degree in any court of law.”

The petition also observed that if Ben Jr.’s widow were disqualified under the Killer Statute, the estate would then pass to her grandsons, Patrick and Marchelo Gaffney.

“May Abad is the natural guardian of these children,” the petition read, “and, on behalf of the minor children, she has waived any preference and consented to the appointment of Maxine L.
Fiel as personal representative.
It is in the best interest that the minor children of May Abad be represented by a family member who will appropriately protect their interest in this estate and properly administer this estate.”

F
ORTY-
F
IVE

“HE GOT BURIED WITH HIS FATHER”

At 1:00
P.M
.
on Wednesday, September 2, 2009, Ben Novack Jr.
was finally laid to rest in Mount Lebanon Cemetery in Queens, New York—fifty-two days after his murder and on Narcy Novack’s fifty-fourth birthday.

Despite asserting earlier that she would not attend, Narcy came to the private service wearing a black suit with a small matching fedora and silver cat’s-eye sunglasses, but deliberately avoided many of the mourners.
Maxine Fiel was there with her husband, David.
May Abad and her sons, Patrick and Marchelo Gaffney, also came.
Also in attendance were several fully armed law enforcement officers.

The previous weekend, estate curator Douglas Hoffman had purchased two plots in the Novack-Spier family mausoleum, after tracking down Ben’s distant cousins in Iowa and England.

“I believe he’s buried where he wanted to be buried,” said Hoffman.

At the private ceremony conducted by Rabbi Samuel Waidenbaum of the Rego Park Jewish Center, Maxine Fiel movingly recited a poem from Walt Whitman’s
Leaves of Grass
.

“I feel at peace today,” Maxine later told a reporter.
“He got buried with his father.
It should have been done immediately.
She let him lay there for fifty-two days, and he would have gone to Potters’ Field.
I understand Kelsey Grammer paid for the funeral.”

During the service, Narcy Novack played the role of grieving widow, pointedly ignoring the rest of the family and standing by herself at the service.

“She turned her back on me,” David Fiel said.
“I saw she tried to shed some tears, but I think she’s a big actress.”

After the funeral, Rye Brook Police chief Gregory Austin said his officers were still rigorously investigating Ben Novack Jr.’s murder.

“The case is still active,” he said, “and continues to move forward.”

*   *   *

The next day, attorney Gary Rudolf wrote to Narcy Novack’s attorney Henry Zippay demanding that his client return all the Batman memorabilia she had taken.

“Your client emptied four large storage units,” the letter read.
“These warehouses contained a substantial number of Batman memorabilia … and your client must have transferred them to new or other storage locations.
Please provide the Curator with a list of all items removed by your client … within one week from the date of this letter.”

The following day, Rudolf fired off another letter, this time seeking information about what Narcy Novack had done with the missing $105,000 from the Rye Brook Amway convention.

“You have yet to respond to any of our letters requesting information regarding the assets which your client has taken,” wrote Rudolf.
“Specifically we asked for the information and return of approximately $105,000 of cash assets from the New York convention which she has deposited in her own name (or taken as cash) and you have yet to give us any information regarding the whereabouts of the four warehouses of memorabilia taken by her.”

A few hours later, Broward County Circuit Court judge Dale Ross ordered Narcy Novack not to remove any further items from her late husband’s estate.
“[You] are hereby enjoined from transferring, selling, assigning or otherwise disposing of such assets,” the order stated.
He also ordered Curator Hoffman to begin assessing the Ben Novack Jr.
estate and to hire independent appraisers to go into 2501 Del Mar Place and the various warehouses and draw up a complete list of assets.

“The sheer volume of it is overwhelming,” Hoffman said.
“It’s more than just the Batman stuff; it’s furniture, cars, collectibles … we have a lot of appraisers working on it.”

*   *   *

On September 10, May Abad publicly accused her mother of murdering Ben Novack Jr.
In a probate court petition, Abad’s attorney William Crawford argued that Narcy Novack should not be appointed the personal representative for her late husband’s estate, because she had murdered him.

“Narcy Novack unlawfully and intentionally killed or participated in the procuring of the death of the Decedent, Ben H.
Novack, Jr.,” Abad’s petition read.
“Accordingly, Petitioner Narcy Novack is not entitled to any of the benefits of the last will and testament of Decedent under the Florida Probate Code.”

When contacted by ABC News for comment, May Abad, who now stood to inherit millions with her two sons if Narcy were disqualified, said she was no longer giving interviews.
“I spoke to one and that was it,” she explained.

In the ABC story, Westchester County communications director Donna Greene said both mother and daughter had laid claim to Ben Novack Jr.’s body before internment.

“[Novack was kept] on ice, literally and figuratively,” she said.

*   *   *

Around mid-September, Cristobal Veliz decided to lie low awhile until things had quieted down.
As he disappeared from view, his brother, Carlos, started becoming more visible.

Carlos Veliz contacted Alejandro Garcia to arrange another meeting, saying he wanted to get to know him better.
They met at the Donde Martica Colombian restaurant on Sandleford Boulevard, Boca Raton.
Over a meal, Carlos Veliz said he was looking for Cristobal, whom he had not heard from for some time.
Garcia said he had not spoken to Cristobal either, and he wasn’t answering phone calls or returning messages.

Carlos then asked Garcia what his favorite color was, and Garcia replied it was blue.

“I’m going to call you ‘Azul,’” Carlos replied, referring to the word
blue
in Spanish.
He wrote down Garcia’s cell phone number on the back of the restaurant’s business card.

Then he asked Garcia to do another job, and showed him a photograph of May Abad, whom Garcia didn’t recognize.

“He gave me the picture,” said Garcia, “and said, ‘I want you to beat up the woman and leave her a cripple.’”

According to Garcia, Carlos explained it was because she was interfering in his sister Narcy’s inheritance, and had kidnapped Cristobal.

Garcia agreed to do the job, taking an initial payment of $3,000 with a promise of getting the rest of the money owed him for the Ben Novack job.

*   *   *

Over this period, Meredith Fiel remained in close touch with Narcy Novack, still trying to get incriminating evidence against her.
But with her mother, Maxine’s, alliance with May Abad, Meredith walked a tightrope.
During their weekly conversations, Narcy often attacked May Abad, claiming she was not her real daughter.

“Narcy hated May,” said Fiel.
“She wanted to do DNA testing, because she thought that May wasn’t her daughter, and there had been a mix-up at the hospital.”

One time, an excited Narcy called Meredith saying that she had now found Orthodox Judaism.
“Narcy was seeing a rabbi,” said Meredith.
“She talked about making potato latkes and how everyone in the family had loved her [Jewish food].
The whole thing was just sick.
I mean she did voodoo stuff, too.”

Later it would be discovered that Narcy had now embarked on a passionate affair with a Fort Lauderdale rabbi.

Charlie Seraydar, who had also heard that Narcy was romantically involved with a rabbi, was still a frequent visitor to the house, where Carlos Veliz had been living for months.
On one occasion, Seraydar brought along his young son to see the Batmobile, which was still parked in the garage.

“I went over to the house and I spent time with [Narcy],” said Seraydar.
“I saw Carlos [there] a lot,” said Seraydar.
“[Narcy] said that he came from New York and had been away from his family for several months, and he needed to get back.”

*   *   *

On Friday, September 25, Broward County probate judge Dale Ross held a twenty-five-minute emergency hearing, after Douglas Hoffman filed a motion to depose Narcy Novack under oath.
The curator had now discovered that after emptying the four warehouses, Narcy had moved the Batman collection into her house, where it was piled up to the ceiling in boxes.
He now wanted to question her on the stand about her husband’s collection and all his other assets.

“This is a very complicated estate,” Narcy’s attorney Henry Trachman told the judge.
“Mr.
Novack, putting it diplomatically, was very eccentric.
He saved everything.
This home is just a maze of physical things, documents, items, memorabilia, collectibles.”

Trachman said that after the murder, homicide detectives had searched the house from top to bottom.

“Narcy Novack’s residence has been tossed by the police,” he said.
“It was absolutely reprehensible what the police did to that place.
They left that place a mess.”

He said he understood the court’s concern that his client might be selling off assets, but there was no evidence to support this.

“Dissipating assets is one of those things after the fact,” the judge countered.
“You don’t know it’s being done until after it’s been done, and after it’s been done, it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Trachman told the judge that the Novacks’ had had “a lengthy marriage,” with Ben doing the payroll while Narcy ran the business.
“There’s a tone of the way this is being handled,” he told Judge Ross, “obviously because of the undercurrent of the fact that she’s a person of interest.
All the things in her home were her’s and her husband’s.
To say, ‘Well, this was Ben Novack’s, but Mrs.
Novack, you had no entitlement to it.’
It’s disingenuous.
This was a household.
Money that came in from the business is what ran this household.”

The judge said that until Narcy Novack was officially charged with a criminal offense, the court would presume everything belonged to her.
“There’s a potential here,” he explained, “that somebody’s going to go to prison for many, many years.
Now, if she’s charged, and even I know in the criminal division you’re innocent until proven guilty.”

Representing the Ben Novack estate, Curator Gary Rudolf accused Narcy Novack of “ducking answering questions” about it.

“We know she’s taken assets,” he told the judge.
“We know she’s hidden assets.
There’s not even a question about that.
The question is where are they and why are we being denied access to them?
That’s why we need to take her deposition.”

Rudolf then complained that Narcy and her brother Carlos Veliz were obstructing the curator’s court-ordered task to protect and appraise the estate.

“Mrs.
Novack impedes,” he said.
“She has her brother Carlos Veliz there impeding us.
She doesn’t let us take documents.
She says, ‘I want to keep these.’
This is not a free exchange of information and access.
I’m sorry.”

Visibly frustrated, Judge Ross asked the attorney what more he could possibly do to protect the estate.
“We already entered an order that nobody has access to the home or warehouse,” he said.
“Is there anything else I can do to kind of use the criminal analogy—can I put an ankle bracelet on somebody?”

*   *   *

On September 25, Narcy Novack officially laid claim to her late husband’s $1 million life insurance policy.
On the claimant’s form, she asked for the money to be paid in one lump sum, writing that nothing would be due for his funeral.

*   *   *

At 9:45
A.M.
on Monday, October 5, property appraisers Diane Marvin and Robert Hittel arrived at 2501 Del Mar Place for three days of work.
They had been hired by the estate curator to prepare a room-by-room inventory of both the house and the adjoining office building.

The two appraisers were met at the door by Narcy and her brother Carlos, who were hostile from the outset.

“I was instructed by Narcy to address them as Mrs.
Novack and Mr.
Veliz,” Marvin later reported, “because she did not want to be on a first-name basis.”

Diane Marvin explained the appraisal process to Narcy and her brother.
“[I] proceeded to share our game plan with her,” said Marvin.
“Narcy became uncooperative and insisted we begin with the Coca-Cola collectibles and comic books.”

The appraisers explained that they had arranged for a comic book expert to visit on Wednesday, to prepare an inventory.
They also said they must be very “methodical,” due to the large number of unorganized items and boxes piled up throughout the residence.

“At this point it became apparent that Narcy was not going to cooperate,” said Marvin, “as she wanted to be in control of the appraisal process.
She became very argumentative and made unnecessary, inappropriate comments and challenged me to appraise her ‘panties.’”