The Case of the Unhealthy Health Club

by David Staats

  “We talked some more while we’re waiting for Blake to come back. I remember Rich said that he wanted to take a sauna to clean out his system so that he could really enjoy a first-class dinner that evening in New York City. He was going there for business – going up on the train – and then he and Vanessa were going to fly from Newark to Paris on Monday.

  “So then,” MacCreedy paused, seeming to try to collect her memory, “Blake comes back, ten or fifteen minutes later, and he is wheeling a small cart with a champagne bucket on it and two bottles of champagne in the bucket, and a bunch of plastic wine glasses. He said they wouldn’t let him take any of the real glass champagne flutes.”

  “What time was this about?” said Dure.

  “It must have been close to five-thirty.”

  “And then what?”

  “So then we all had some champagne, and there was a toast, and then Rich said he had to get going and went into the men’s locker room. As I said, I was not real keen on the whole deal.”

  “Did you notice how much Rich drank? It could be important.”

  “On account of the insurance? There was a man who came to see me – a Mr. Wright. I wouldn’t talk to him because you told me not to talk with anybody about the case.”

  “You did well.”

  “Stephie told me that he wants to claim that Rich committed suicide so that the insurance company won’t have to pay.”

  “The insurance company may try to make that argument.”

  “So what does Rich’s drinking have to do with it?”

  “We’ll find out … can you remember what Rich drank?”

  MacCreedy looked up at the ceiling while tapping the table with her palm, which made a hard noise on account of the ring on her finger. Then she looked down and furrowed her brow. “I think,” she said as her hand ceased its tapping, “he had two glasses while we were standing there. And those glasses were bigger than your normal champagne glass, but they were only about a third full. And then, when he said he was going to go sit in the sauna, before he went, I saw Vanessa with him over by the utility room, and she gave him two full glasses. They were full!”

  Mr. Dure was making notes. “That’s helpful because even though I would like to talk to Vanessa, I can’t since she is represented by counsel in this lawsuit. So whatever you can tell me about what she said or did will help. Can you remember anything she said?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve told you what I can remember.”

  “I take it Vanessa does not work at the health club any more?”

  “No. She quit the day Rich’s body was found.”

  “What time was it when you left the health club?”

  “About ten minutes of six.”

  “So you didn’t see any of the others leave?”

  “Vanessa left the same time I did.”

  Mr. Dure was silent while he wrote on his legal pad. He looked up, met Ms. MacCreedy’s gaze, then looked past her. He tossed his pen down on the pad. A long moment later, as if returning from a distant place, he abruptly said, “That’s enough for today. Thank you for coming in.”

  As she was leaving the office, she also shook my hand, with a kind of fingers-only grip and said, “Thank you, my dear.” But I had heard what she said and knew what she really thought. Mr. Dure accompanied her to the reception and I went to my office. I blinked back a few tears, but knew it was silly and I said to myself, stop that! Look how that police lieutenant treated Mr. Dure. You’ve got to toughen up.

  * * *

  That very afternoon, Mr. Dure rang my extension and told me to go to the conference room. Mr. Dure was going to meet with an investigator for the Fidelicity Insurance Company and he wanted me to be present. I was the first one to arrive in the conference room and sat at the conference table with my legal pad in front of me.

  “Right in here.” I heard Kara’s voice, and she showed into the room an athletic-looking man who looked at me intently and gave me a sweet smile. “Benton Wright,” he said, leaning across the table and offering his hand. I was awkwardly pushing back my chair to stand up, but he said, “Don’t get up.” And he smiled so persuasively that I didn’t, but took his hand – it was warm – and told him my name.

  For some reason, I didn’t know why, I felt like I was in danger of blushing. To make sure that I didn’t, or if I did, that this man would not notice, I bent my head and focused on writing the date on my legal pad. Then I made a few doodles on the right side of the page. Without raising my head, I observed him take a pad of paper – it was turquoise! – from a slender leather briefcase.

  “You have pretty hair,” he said.

  “Oh!” I said. I knew perfectly well that this was an inappropriate thing for him or any stranger to say, but in the circumstances, I didn’t want to offend or embarrass him. I could feel color and a hot flush coming to my cheeks, so I did not raise my head; and I got really annoyed with myself on that account, which made my cheeks burn even more. You’d think I was thirteen instead of twenty-three! I flipped the top sheet of my pad over and began to write energetically on the next page. I wrote, ‘Help I’m trapped I’m trapped I’m trapped have to get out out out out’ and I wrote a whole line of ‘out’s’ and some round scribbles and pretended that I was concentrating on making some serious notes and thankfully, Mr. Dure came to the door.

  Mr. Wright twisted about in his chair to face the door. I looked up at Mr. Dure, who stood in the doorway with his typically serious expression on his narrow face, and seemingly assessing the situation. Mr. Wright stood up and offered his hand. I flipped the first page back and covered up what I had been writing. Thank God, I could feel the heat and color draining out of my face.

  Mr. Dure sat and made some chit-chat, how long had Mr. Wright been in town? where was he staying? any kids? etc. Then, “As I told you on the telephone, I am defending a negligence action in which it is alleged that my client caused Mr. Hargrave’s death. So it may be to some extent that your company’s and my client’s interests may coincide, in that if he committed suicide, both our clients will be relieved of potential liability.”

  “Right,” said Mr. Wright, leaning forward with his arms on the table. “I checked you out. I’m happy to share what I’ve got and I assume, since both of us are in the same boat, that you’ll share with me any helpful information.”

  “Within the limits of what I can do without violating client confidences or attorney-client privilege, I will give you the information I have.”

  “Good deal,” said Wright. “I’ll tell you straight up I think the guy committed suicide. First, he’s fifty-eight years old and he buys a policy for three million dollars. That right there is suspicious. Then, only three days after the policy issued he goes to sit in a sauna. And he’s fifty-eight. And he doesn’t just go and sit in the sauna, but right before he does that, he drinks a lot of alcohol. And it’s a well-known fact that alcohol consumption and saunas are a bad combination. And the guy is on the heavy side. And he was no dummy, either. He knew what he was doing: overweight, plus age, plus alcohol, plus the extreme heat of a sauna – that equals heart attack. He intentionally set himself up to have a heart attack so that he could get three million to his wife and kids, and make it look like a natural death.”

  “But,” said Mr. Dure, “I understand he was soon to leave on a trip to Europe?”

  “Right.”

  “That could be viewed as inconsistent with an intent to commit suicide.”

  Mr. Wright looked at Mr. Dure. I thought I saw in his eyes a flicker, maybe the flash of a hostile glance, but it vanished quickly. “I’m not a psychiatrist,” he said.

  “On the other hand,” said Mr. Dure, “perhaps he said good-bye in a way that would appear on the surface to relate to his trip to Europe, but that in reality was meant to be about his trip to eternity.”

  Wright smiled and bent forward to write a notation on the pad in front of him, intent on his writing. He laid his pen down and straightened up. “I’ll keep my eye out for s
omething like that.”

  “You said he drank a lot of alcohol before going in the sauna,” said Mr. Dure. “Wouldn’t it have to have been an awful lot to support your theory?”

  “It was an awful lot,” said Mr. Wright.

  “And how do you know that?”

  Wright smiled. “I talk to people. That Friday afternoon was a going-away party for Hargrave. That party was his excuse to drink himself silly. Two bottles of champagne were brought into the health club, and from what I understand, Hargrave drank most of them.”

  “What’s your evidence?” said Mr. Dure.

  “I’ve talked to a Blake Culler and to one Mortimer Golden.”

  “Do you have notes? I’d like to see those notes,” said Mr. Dure.

  “I suppose, since we’re going to be on the same team, so to speak,” said Mr. Wright, “I could give you a copy.”

  “I would appreciate it,” said Mr. Dure. “A verdict of suicide would win the case for my client. The negligence case, I mean. But I don’t want to load all of my eggs in one basket unless I know that it’s a very solid basket.”

  “No problem,” said Mr. Wright. “And whatever I’ve checked about their statements checks out, especially Mr. Golden, who told me about Mr. Hargrave’s travel plans. Hargrave was going to go to New York Friday evening for a business meeting on Saturday, and then he would meet his wife on Monday in the City. They would spend the day there and go to Newark in the late afternoon to fly to Paris. That’s what I am told was the plan, and all the reservations: train to New York, hotel reservation, plane reservations, everything matches and I’ve got the documentation. Then having made all these plans and reservations – to throw people off the track – he goes and sits in the sauna, and stays there until --” Mr. Wright made a pbbft noise with his mouth and made a sharp gesture with his hand.

  Mr. Dure looked solemn. “He had a business meeting in New York on Saturday … the Fourth of July?”

  “That’s what he was telling everyone.”

  “Do you know with whom he planned to meet?”

  Mr. Wright winced. “No … not yet anyway.”

  Mr. Dure nodded. “He was telling everybody that? Whom did he tell?”

  “His secretary, a woman named Hettie Grimm.”

  “Anyone else?”

  “That’s it, so far.”

  Mr. Dure said, “I think your hypothesis of suicide has some merit, but it’s not ready to go into court yet. It depends on the fact-finder drawing inferences, and from what you’ve got so far, the inference of suicide, although somewhat plausible, is hardly compelling.

  “I’m glad we’ve talked,” said Mr. Wright. “You’ve given me ideas on further evidence I can develop. Have you got anything for me? That might help my case?” He held his pen poised to write.

  “Before talking with you, I had not seriously considered the idea of suicide. So up until now, the line of defense has been related to possible negligence by my client, was the sauna in good working order? was there an adequate warning sign? and so on. So we haven’t done any investigation from the point of view of proving a suicide. So, I don’t have anything concrete to offer you at this time.”

  Wright twisted his pen to retract its point. He brought his briefcase up from the floor next to his chair and slid his note pad into it. He prepared to rise.

  “I suspect we’ll be in touch,” said Mr. Dure, unsmiling, standing and shaking hands.

  After Mr. Wright left, Mr. Dure discussed the case with me. “We’re faced with a difficult and delicate problem,” he said. “This insurance investigator’s theory is that Hargrave committed suicide, but I don’t think so. Either Hargrave died of a natural heart attack, as the medical examiner opined, or he was murdered by someone who knew that he was going to take a sauna bath and had given him something that would cause heart failure in the extreme heat. With Ms. MacCreedy’s testimony that Vanessa insisted that Hargrave drink two more large glasses of champagne just before going into the sauna, plus the monetary gain she stood to reap by reason of Hargrave’s death, she looks like a prime suspect. But – proving such a subtle scheme is going to be difficult. Essentially we’ll have to prove that Vanessa gave Hargrave the alcohol with the intent that he go into the sauna and die by virtue of the alcohol. Intent can never be proven directly; it has to be shown by inference from provable facts. So what facts can we show that would compel that inference?”

  “As you said before, we could show that Vanessa knew she would inherit a lot of money upon Hargrave’s death,” I suggested.

  “That’s part of the answer, but it’s not enough,” said Mr. Dure.

  I’m sure I looked puzzled.

  “We would also have to show,” said Mr. Dure, “that she knew that alcohol consumption immediately before going into a sauna could be fatal. How can we show that?”

  “From her own testimony at the deposition?” I hazarded.

  “Yes, that’s it. The best way, and in fact probably the only way, will be from her own testimony. Therefore, we’ll have to plan for her deposition carefully, plan the sequence of questions artfully, and hope that she’ll be caught in her own words. It’s going to be a challenge, though, because if she’s willing to murder her spouse, she’ll certainly be willing to lie in a deposition, especially about matters where there was no way to independently get at the truth. But one thing in our favor is that we only have to defeat Vanessa’s negligence suit by a preponderance of the evidence. If it ever comes to a criminal prosecution, proof beyond a reasonable doubt will be Prosecutor Preston’s problem.”

  Mr. Dure had been wanting to know the amount of Mr. Hargrave’s residuary estate. The larger the residuary estate, the more motive Vanessa would have, or the stronger her motive. Mr. Dure had called Mr. Golden several times about this, but each time Mr. Golden had been unwilling to give him an estimate, saying that he had to wait until the claims period for the estate expired before he could say for certain what the amount of the estate would be after providing for all claims. What Mr. Golden said was in fact true, and if Mr. Dure were in his shoes, he also would not commit himself to a number; but the claims period was six months, and usually all of the claims come in by the time the estate has been open for two months. There was always the possibility of a claim coming in near the end of the claims period, but with each passing day it became less likely. Mr. Golden could say that “if no new claims come in” the residuary estate would be $X. But so far he was not willing to commit himself at all.

  However, Mr. Dure had been able to get the size of the gross estate from Mr. Golden. That was $9.6 million. Take away the specific bequests and the mortgages of record, and that left a residuary of about $6 million. That plus $1 million in insurance proceeds, plus freedom to pursue a relationship with somebody younger, as for example Blake Culler, makes a pretty strong set of motives. But, as Mr. Dure reviewed these matters, he reminded me that it was not the existence of objective facts that counted, but what Vanessa’s perceptions of them were before and at the time of Mr. Hargrave’s death.

  The question was then, what did Vanessa understand about her potential to inherit at that time? Did she know that she stood to inherit approximately $6 million, plus insurance? If Mr. Dure were careful, and perhaps lucky, she would tell him in the upcoming deposition.

  Mr. Dure looked towards the door. Kara was there holding up a manila envelope, waving it to get his attention. “Come in,” he said. She marched into the office, and as she handed the thin envelope to him she said, “Kurt Kniffe’s office just ran this over.”

  He took the envelope and thanked her. As she turned to leave, she smiled and winked at me. He opened it and drew out four sheets of paper. He finished the first sheet and floated it across his desk to me. It was a one-page backgrounder, you might call it, on Richard Hargrave. At the top were vital statistics, name, age, sex, marital status, address, occupation, work address, etc. Then there was a narrative description. Most of the stuff in the first paragraph I already knew. Then there were
these paragraphs:

  Hargrave inherited a substantial sum at age 38. Also earned good money as executive. Generally pursued upscale life-style. Residence valued at $1.6 million, very substantial by Canterbury standards.

  Hargrave’s former employer was acquired by a larger concern. Hargrave was slated to continue on, but had difficulty adjusting to being in subordinate position and was forced out after six months. By reputation, a hard-driving manager, apparently a “Type A” personality. His work culture stressful for subordinates and his relations with university administrators tense. At the time of his demise, problems in his office of enforcing licensing agreements due to alleged breaches of confidentiality and knock-off production in China. According to sources, university president unhappy with subject’s performance.

  Rumored weakness for young women, but no extramarital affairs confirmed at this time.

  By the time I finished reading that sheet, two others had come floating towards me. I picked up one which concerned Vanessa Hargrave, where I learned that her maiden name had been Dukes, and:

  Little information about subject could be developed. Originally from Washington State, moved to Canterbury to attend Martel University. Dropped out after first year. Various jobs: waitress, manicurist, retail cashier. Then took position as trainer at the UHC. Before marriage to Hargrave, shared apartment with another woman, who was unwilling to talk to our investigator. Apartment manager reports no problems with these tenants.

  By this time, Mr. Dure had finished reading all of the sheets, and I had two still to read. He was waiting as I read, so I wanted to read quickly. About Mortimer Golden the page said: