The Case of the Unhealthy Health Club

by David Staats

  No, he was not going to be his father. He was going to be rich. And since he knew that he did not have what it would take to survive and prosper in the subterranean, quick-money economy, he would have to do what he could, as best he could, in whatever channel he could manage. He acknowledged that he was not going to be a saint, but he was pragmatic about it. Don’t get caught, don’t be reckless or greedy, and don’t do anything that might later give rise to serious guilt. And when he had made his fortune, he could set up as a beneficent “pillar of the community” and do more good than whatever bad he had done to get there.

  So far, his career as insurance investigator for the Fidelicity Life Insurance Company had suited him well. He earned a modest but adequate salary, and there was a bonus system which paid a percentage of the money he saved the company. It was designed to be, as the company comptroller had said, “enough to motivate, but not enough to corrupt.” Benton had produced results well enough that the company was starting to assign him to larger cases. In this Hargrave case, three million dollars were at issue, and if he could establish that the company did not have to pay, eight percent would be his. Two hundred forty thousand dollars would be a fantastic addition to what he had already accumulated.

  The company had flagged this Hargrave case for investigation because on the surface it looked suspicious. The guy was 58 years old, he buys a three million dollar policy, and less than a week later he dies under circumstances which, if you are an insurance company which constantly has to battle against policy holders who try to defraud, looked suspicious. Since the policy had the standard suicide clause, under which benefits were not payable if the insured commits suicide within one year of purchasing the policy, the implications for investigation were obvious. Benton Wright put his suitcase in the room he had rented and got busy that very afternoon.

  He planned out his campaign carefully. Establishing that an insured committed suicide is no walk in the park. In the first place, the most naturally situated witnesses, the family, generally have no interest in helping, and are usually hostile. Not only do they not want to lose the insurance pay-out, but they also do not want to face the fact that their family member had committed suicide. Further, although there was the occasional instance of some poor soul jumping off a bridge with no thought of insurance or what suicide would mean in relation to insurance, those who wanted to defraud an insurance company by committing suicide were often clever. Because they were acting specifically in reference to the insurance policy, they would try to disguise their suicide; they would not leave a note or do the usual things a suicide does, such as giving away their belongings or saying good-bye to friends and family. But often, the psychological pressure to let people know what they were doing was so strong that they left disguised messages and clues. Also, truth be told, sometimes insurance companies got ripped off, when a suicide successfully concealed the fact.

  But his insurance company was not going to get ripped off, and he was going to earn his bonus. He was going to plan out a campaign, and show plainly that Mr. Hargrave had done himself in, and he was going to earn a nice chunk of change, and it was going to be the neatest, clearest proof of suicide ever. And given the unfairness of the way the odds were stacked, and the biased witnesses, if he had to put his thumb on the scale to make the truth come out, it was no sin.

  He was sitting in his motel room, at the small work table, sitting upright in the black, ergonomic wheeled chair with the firm seat and back formed of a metal mesh under tension. He was making notes on a legal pad, except that unlike a real legal pad, the lined pages were not yellow, but rather an aquamarine color. It was something distinctive, a little more expensive, but fitting to his unconventionality and creativity. He was listing out his tasks and objectives. The company had provided him with preliminary information, including copies of the pre-issuance physical exam and the death certificate. He was going to blast this case sky-high:

  1. The insured was in excellent health. This says death not by natural causes. Evidence: Dr. Amalfitano. Ally. Gets lots of business from Fidelicity.

  2. Find evidence of enigmatic farewell messages. Written would be best. Oral also helpful.

  3. Develop evidence of depression or trouble in the policyholder’s life.

  4. Investigate if money problems.

  5. Investigate if marital problems. Other women? Wife playing around?

  6. Investigate if problems at work.

  7. Show that insured intentionally took in excessive alcohol.

  8. Show insured’s knowledge of, familiarity with, saunas and the effect of alcohol on overheated metabolism.

  9. Hire psychiatrist for expert testimony.

  10. ? Hire an attorney? Intervene in existing lawsuit? Wait to be sued?

  It was going to be a challenging project. And, as usual, there was time pressure. He couldn’t take forever because, in another instance of the way the deck was stacked against insurance companies, there was something called “unreasonable delay,” which would make his company the subject to a claim for “bad faith” damages for delaying the pay-out. Right now, his tentative plan was to pick a strategic moment and issue a letter of final determination of refusal to pay based on the policy’s suicide clause. At that point, the putative beneficiaries probably would sue. But if they didn’t sue, that would be a problem, too – because he didn’t want to have to wait out the statute of limitations to collect his bonus. He might have to talk to a lawyer to get the strategy right.

  His first priority was to get a psychiatrist on board. The psychiatrist could help him determine was kind of evidence to gather, as well as testify to the insured’s suicidal tendencies. He flipped the top page of his pad of paper over, to get a clean, new page, which he smoothed with the palm of his hand. He felt the slight ridges formed by the printed lines stacked up in the remaining pages in the pad and admired the clean, clear aesthetic of the blank blue lines on the aquamarine pages. Moving the pad slightly to his left, he pulled his laptop computer towards him. An internet search of psychiatrists in Canterbury was what he was about.

  There was not an overabundance of psychiatrists in Canterbury, but in half an hour’s research he found a likely candidate. He made an appointment by telephone for Wednesday afternoon at 2:00 with Lawrence Sadsbury, M.D., Psy.D. The address was 403 Hemlock Street.

  Chapter 8. Mr. Dure Says the “M” word

  The weather during the last week in July was broiling. By the time I walked the block and a half from the bus stop to Mr. Dure’s office in the mornings, my hair was a mess. A reading of 103 was recorded, and cars parked in black macadam parking lots were ovens. Thursday, a freak cold front blew in to town, causing a violent summer storm. About three thirty in the afternoon, the sky in the west began to grow dark. By four o’clock, huge purple-black clouds blocked the sunlight. Furious wind and rain assaulted the town, and on the north edge of town a tornado tore a path through a suburban development, ripping up trees and tearing the rooves off some houses. By six o’clock, the clouds had vanished, but the sky had a purple tinge to it that lasted two days. The weather remained cooler for a few days.

  No one was injured in the storm, but two days later a homeowner, cleaning up a fallen tree with a chainsaw, made a cut in a wrong place. A large limb of the tree snapped up, striking him in the forehead so hard that he was killed instantly. It was a bad week.

  * * *

  Mr. Dure called me into his office. “Ms. Bonneville – ” he began.

  I interrupted him. “It’s okay to call me Christine,” I said.

  “Is it okay to call you Ms. Bonneville?” he asked.

  Chagrined, I nodded.

  “I want to remind you,” he said, “about the obligation of confidentiality. Everything you learn about a client matter is confidential. I strongly suspect Mr. Hargrave was murdered.”

  I’m sure I goggled when he said this.

  “Because of our obligation of confidentiality, we can’t disclose anything about the engagement unless our clie
nt authorizes us to, either explicitly or implicitly. On this issue, I don’t think we have an implicit authorization to disclose information to the police, nor, since I am only 95% sure, not 100%, do I think I have any duty to inform the police. So I am going to have an interview with our client for that purpose. I don’t like it because in the remote possibility that our client is the one who did it – and there are objective facts which could reasonably give rise to that suspicion – letting her know what we suspect may cause evidence to disappear and testimony to change. However, I think it far more likely that someone else did it and since in any event, we need her okay to go to the police, I’m just going to bite the bullet and tell her. Since you have been involved with this case from the beginning, I am letting you in on this as well, but remember, everything is to be kept confidential.”

  I was without words. Things like this don’t happen in Canterbury. And now I might be personally involved in a murder case?

  “You understand?” he asked.

  “Yes. Yes,” I said. “Yes, I do.”

  “Ms. MacCreedy should be here any minute,” he said. He picked up the telephone and punched in a number. “This is Walter Dure …” There was a longish pause. Then, “Kurt, this is Walter. I need background info on a few people, one-pagers … Ready? … Mr. and Mrs. Richard Hargrave; Mortimer Golden; Blake Culler.” He had to spell the names. “Yes, they’re all local,” he said. He hung up the phone.

  “Observe and take good notes,” he said to me. “If she refuses to give us permission to advise the police, I will take it as a bad sign.”

  I got up and went to my office to get a legal pad, which I should have taken with me in the first place. Always take a legal pad with you when a senior lawyer calls you into his office. I hurried back into Mr. Dure’s office.

  We seemed to be just waiting. Mr. Dure didn’t say anything. I looked about, and the contrast between Mr. Dure’s office and the office of Dr. Amalfitano struck me. Mr. Dure’s office was so neat and orderly. I felt proud to be working for him. In Dr. Amalfitano’s office there had been papers and books and files stacked everywhere. I had even had to move a pile from the chair in order to sit in it. Mr. Dure, however, had everything in order. I felt like things were under control. All he had on his desk was a legal pad and a thin file folder. His computer was on a wing to the desk to his left. The top of the credenza behind him was clear. On the wall opposite me were his framed law diploma and bar admission certificate. The wall to my left, the one opposite to him, was bare.

  But murder? I don’t think I was taking the idea seriously, because I was all tingly with excitement to find out what had happened. That’s not the way anybody would react to a real murder. It made me wonder if I was a bad person, but I really think that I just couldn’t accept the idea. I had never been involved with a murder before, and it was all so strange.

  Mr. Dure sat quietly. His elbows were on the desktop and his hands were joined by intertwined fingers which supported his chin. His head was slightly bowed so that he seemed to be staring at a point in the middle of his desktop. I noticed that his face was narrow.

  But suddenly I heard voices down the hall. They quickly came closer and all at once Kara was showing Ms. MacCreedy into the office. Mr. Dure stood up and she came in and sat down in the client chair closest to me and the atmosphere in the office changed suddenly. I didn’t even notice what exactly was said right at first.

  “Your secretary said it was something important that you needed to talk to me about,” was one thing that Ms. MacCreedy said. She sat forward, almost on the edge of her chair, with her hands draped over the purse in her lap. From where I was, she was in profile. She had a light touch of rouge on her cheek and I noticed that her nose was small and had a Roman hump in it.

  “How well do you know Vanessa Hargrave?” was Mr. Dure’s response.

  “Huh,” she huffed, as if that were an unexpected and improper question. “She came to work at the health club a little over five years ago.” Ms. MacCreedy started out calmly, but then blurted out in what sounded like anger to me, “And three years ago she stole Richard from me, and she worked in the health club up until his death and then she quit, and brought this stupid, mean lawsuit.”

  “How did you first learn of Mr. Hargrave’s death?” asked Mr. Dure.

  “It was … Blake Culler called me that Monday morning. I’ll never forget it.”

  “How did he sound on the telephone?”

  “Like he needed help, like he didn’t know what to do.”

  “What did you do after the phone call?” said Mr. Dure.

  “I got up and got dressed and drove down to the health club.”

  “Who was there when you got there?”

  “Blake was there. The police. A member, Michael Wentworth. I think that’s it.”

  “Had that client been in the club on the preceding Friday?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “And Vanessa was informed by telephone?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did she react?”

  “I didn’t call her. I let the police do it. I wasn’t going to call her.”

  “And she came down to the club?”

  “Yes.”

  “But she had been informed before she got there?”

  “Of course.”

  “Did the atmosphere in the club seem unusual or out of the ordinary on that preceding Friday?”

  “Well, we were closing early. It was the day before the holiday. So it was … festive? or somehow maybe more cheerful, more relaxed.”

  “Ms. MacCreedy, I strongly suspect that your ex-husband was murdered.”

  “What?” she said, as if she hadn’t heard correctly.

  “I believe your husband was murdered and the reason I am telling you this is that I recommend that we inform the police, and I cannot do that without your consent to divulge confidential information.”

  “What?” she said, and she gave her head a shake.

  “If it turns out that Mr. Hargrave was murdered, then he did not die due to the health club’s negligence, and you will win the law suit, and save attorney’s fees to boot.”

  “Rich was murdered, you’re saying?”

  “It looks that way to me. But I do not have definite poof, and I do not have the investigative authority that the police do. Therefore, we need to bring this to the police’s attention. I want to make sure that I have your consent to do so.”

  “What if I say ‘no’?” said Ms. MacCreedy.

  “In that case,” said Mr. Dure, “I would resign this engagement, and I would have to think hard about whether I had a duty to go to the police anyway.”

  Her shoulders slumped, and her head drooped forward, and she just sat there for a long time. For a minute, I thought she was going to blurt out a confession. “Well, yes,” she said, sitting up. “Of course. Tell the police. But … does this mean that the distribution from the estate would be delayed?”

  Mr. Dure tilted his head forward and rubbed his chin with his fingers. “That might depend,” he said. “If let’s say, one of the heirs did it, that heir would likely be disqualified from inheriting, and that heir’s share of the estate would be reallocated depending on the terms of the will. So, the executor probably wouldn’t make any distribution until the matter had been clarified.”

  “And how long would that take?” she said.

  “It could take a long while, or maybe not, depending on the police’s investigation, and when they make an arrest and whether there is a plea or a trial. It is almost impossible to predict.”

  “That’s no good,” she said. “One of the heirs? … there’s only me and the kids and Vanessa. And I didn’t do it, and neither did the kids, so it had to have been Vanessa, and I could believe it, too.”

  “Or,” said Mr. Dure, “it might have been someone who is not an heir.”

  She suddenly sat up straighter. “How do you know this?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know, I only strongly suspect. I
am not willing to disclose my reasoning and deductions at this time. It might contaminate the police’s investigation. As for the civil law suit, once the police open an investigation, it will likely be stayed until the criminal trial is over.”

  “ ‘Stayed’ meaning … ?” said Ms. MacCreedy.

  “All proceedings would be stopped. Nothing would happen until the criminal case was done.”

  After Ms. MacCreedy left, Mr. Dure said to me, “Let’s go talk to the police.”

  * * *

  Benton Wright arrived at 403 Hemlock Street at five minutes before 2:00. This was a residential neighborhood, somewhat upscale, but not luxurious. He parked in the blacktop driveway which had an extra apron that could accommodate two cars. A small sign directed him to the side of the house, and in the window of a door another sign had been placed which said, “Walk In.”

  He opened the door and entered a small waiting room, sparely furnished, in which he found himself to be the only person. He closed the door behind him and stood just inside the threshold. A deathly quiet prevailed. At the end of the room towards the street was a small window, the only window in the room; and at the other end of the room was a plain wooden door. There were just three chairs and a small, wooden coffee table for furniture. The top of the coffee table was bare. On the wall was a single print in a frame that looked like it came from a do-it-yourself framing shop. The print was a jumble of rectangles in a severe blue and blackish red.

  It still being a couple of minutes before two, he went to the window, looked outside, then sat. When the clock on his smart phone showed exactly two o’clock, he waited another fifteen seconds, then got up and rapped sharply on the door at the other end of the room.