I said. “Sorry about that. Thanks for your time.”
I picked the next name from my list. Spoofing a Massachusetts exchange, I called again. This time, I was Elliot Uretsky. I was traveling on business and needed to look up my prescription coverage. Dang it, but go figure—I left my cards at home. So naturally, I provided my home address upon request. I verified Elliot’s mother’s maiden name, Askovitch, which was one of the security questions I stored in my database—oops, not encrypted—for password retrieval purposes. It was also one of the security questions UniSol asked before they’d give me any of Uretsky’s account information. I found out that my policy (I mean Elliot’s) covered my wife (I mean his). The rep gave me the account numbers, which I jotted down in a spiral-bound notebook.
And I picked up an interesting tidbit. It seemed that Elliot last filed a claim four months ago. He was also behind on making his payments. In my mind, that was a plus. To pull off this scam—lifesaving scam, that is—I intended to change his mailing address with UniSol so that he wouldn’t be receiving any of Ruby’s bills in the mail. Given that Uretsky didn’t seem very interested in keeping his health insurance coverage in good standing, I suspected he was also a guy who wouldn’t be looking for his bills.
Still, I decided to keep fishing, made ten more calls, got lucky twice, two names that would fulfill my purposes: Chuck Trent and Racine Romaguera. Both were in the UniSol network; both were married; both spouses were covered by hubby’s insurance policy. Trent was the healthiest of the lot—he hadn’t had any claims filed in the last nine months. Romaguera beat Uretsky by some, as he’d last seen a doctor six months ago.
I decided to learn a bit more about these men before I made my selection. I checked them out first on Facebook. I couldn’t tell what Uretsky looked like from his profile pic, unless Uretsky and Mario from Super Mario Bros. were related by blood. That was because the picture Uretsky used for his Facebook profile was a screen grab from the video game.
Romaguera was a bald, good-looking, outdoorsy type.
Trent’s picture showed him sunbathing on a towel. Clearly, this was a guy who thought chest hair and aviator glasses made him sexy. Their profiles were otherwise set to private, so I couldn’t glean much useful data.
LinkedIn provided me with some more basic information. All three kept profiles on the world’s largest professional network. Trent was in sales, which sort of explained his Facebook profile picture. Nothing says, “Trust me,” quite like a half-naked, oiled-up body. Romaguera was employed by Fidelity. Uretsky was a contract computer programmer with a passion for start-up companies. Maybe he was too busy developing software to realize that he’d fallen behind on his health insurance premiums. On the downside, Uretsky lived in Malden, and I wasn’t too keen on him residing so close to my home.
But the way I saw it, Uretsky was the least likely to become suspicious. When the bills stopped coming, he wasn’t going to notice. That was my thinking.
I had found my helper.
CHAPTER 7
Ruby had no idea where I was taking her. It was a sunny May afternoon, the kind of day where the warm breeze carries a sense of newness, a signal of spring. It seemed an appropriate day to kick off our new life. New beginnings—that’s what this was all about. Starting today, we were no longer going to live as John Bodine and Ruby Dawes. Ruby didn’t know it yet, but we were about to become Elliot and Tanya Uretsky.
Phase two of my plan went off without a hitch. Forged health insurance cards were much easier to make than credit cards, which require an image that goes on the card itself. Not to mention credit cards usually have embossed numbers and those funky holograms. I suppose I could have made a fake credit card, but I doubted it would have come with a $270,000 credit limit. For my purposes, the UniSol health insurance card I made was just as good as plastic. Even better.
Ruby walked, hands stuffed into the pockets of her well-worn gray hooded sweatshirt, moving at a brisk pace, though not so quick as to pass by her surroundings unaware. If anything, she seemed intent on taking everything in. Ruby paused as we strolled past the Coolidge Corner Theatre, a former church building converted into a classic Art Deco movie house.
“I