The Case of the Unhealthy Health Club

by David Staats

  “Mr. Dure, do you wish to cross-examination the witness?” asked the judge.

  Mr. Dure was sitting on the edge of his chair, leaning forward. He stood up. “Yes, thank you, Your Honor.”

  Mr. Dure hadn’t yet forced anyone to confess, I was wondering if Mr. Golden might be the one. But the cross-examination seemed rather tame, even boring at times. He made Mr. Golden go through his history with Mr. Hargrave, from their first acquaintance at the debt collection agency up through the time of his death. Mr. Dure held a couple of papers in his hand. He glanced at them now and then. As he put his questions, he walked back and forth in the well of the court, only going four or five feet one way, then turning and going the other way. His very shiny shoes glinted and seemed to keep one’s attention on the tall, slender, dark-suited figure who was calmly questioning the witness. He was going over the same background material which Mr. Easey had brought out on his direct examination. Suddenly, as he was pacing away from the witness, he stopped, spun around, spinning on the balls of his feet, almost like a dance move, and asked in a sharp tone, “Did you ever take any liquid nitrogen from the science center?”

  The sudden change of tone and change of subject seemed to startle Mr. Golden. A look of panic came on his face, which gradually dissolved like a deflating souffle, and in what seem a resigned tone of voice, he said, “I think I had better … I think, um … I refuse to answer on the grounds that it might tend to incriminate me.”

  If the courtroom had been packed with spectators, there probably would have been gasps and murmurs, and the judge would have banged his gavel and called for order, but since the only spectators were John and Stephanie, and everybody else was probably like me, somewhat self-consciously playing a role in the courtroom drama, there was only a shocked silence. “I have no further questions,” said Mr. Dure.

  After all of this, Mr. Dure’s case for the defense seemed anti-climactic. He had already questioned all his witnesses on cross-examination, except for our client, Ms. MacCreedy. She was the only witness he called. Her testimony was that Mr. Hargrave had formerly owned the Health Club, had been a member for over ten years, was fully familiar with the sauna; she gave corroborating testimony about the warning sign on the sauna. I know she had wanted to testify that Mr. Hargrave had not been depressed, but Mr. Dure disagreed and did not ask her about that issue. I was surprised at how well she stood up to the cross-examination by Mr. Wakefield; and Mr. Easey had no questions.

  Mr. Wakefield put on one witness in rebuttal. He called Mr. Culler.

  “Mr. Culler, did you ever, ever in your life, kiss my client, Mrs. Hargrave?”

  “I wish!” he said. The jury laughed at the way he said it, and I noticed that she blushed.

  “Mr. Culler, I think the jury knows what you mean, but just to be clear for the record, could you answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’: did you ever kiss Mrs. Hargrave?”

  “No.”

  “Thank you.”

  Then the judge read out instructions to the jury and sent the jury to deliberate. He adjourned the court.

  * * *

  It was a tense moment when the jury came back. We hurried back to the courtroom to watch the jury file in and take their seats and the judge ask the foreman, “Has the jury reached a verdict?” The foreman, who was standing up, the only one who was standing, said ‘yes,’ and the judge said, “What is the jury’s verdict?” And the foreman, a small man with short, dark hair, and wearing glasses with thick, black rims, looked down at a folded sheet of paper which he was holding with both hands.

  I was hoping we would win, of course I was. I mean it wasn’t my case, I didn’t do the trial, but I had a lot invested in it. I thought about Mr. Golden.

  “Please read the verdict form,” said the judge.

  The foreman unfolded the paper and moved it closer to his face, then further away. He read in a monotone: “ ‘Did plaintiff Vanessa Hargrave prove by a preponderance of the evidence that defendants University Health Club, Inc, and Elizabeth MacCreedy caused the death of Richard Hargrave by negligence?’ No. ‘Did Fidelicity Insurance Company prove by a preponderance of the evidence that Richard Hargrave committed suicide?’ No.”

  We won! Vanessa lost her case.

  Ms. MacCreedy actually had tears in her eyes. I hadn’t realized how emotional a trial could be. There was a significant buzz in the courtroom, even though it wasn’t crowded with people. John and Stephanie came inside the bar and hugged their mother. I was very happy. Poor Mr. Wakefield. He kept a straight face, but there obviously was no joy in it. Vanessa Hargrave looked mad. Mr. Dure wore a poker face.

  In the closing formalities of the trial, the judge made a nice speech to the jurors and formally discharged them. We packed up our stuff.

  Chapter 18. Who did it?

  The five of us, Mr. Dure, Ms. MacCreedy, John, Stephanie, and myself, convened in Mr. Dure’s conference room. The extra energy and the constantly smiling face that Mr. Dure had had during the trial seemed to be winding down. Ms. MacCreedy also seemed to be slumping, as it seemed to me, from the release of a long period of tension. Both John and Stephanie wore serious faces.

  “Your theory,” said John, looking at Mr. Dure, “as I gather, is that somebody filled that champagne bucket with liquid nitrogen and put it in the sauna, right? And the liquid nitrogen quickly evaporated and suffocated Dad. That’s it, right?”

  Mr. Dure nodded.

  “Well, I want to know who it was!” he almost shouted. I could tell that Stephanie agreed with her brother. Ms. MacCreedy nodded also.

  “I think you’re going to have to leave that to the police,” said Mr. Dure. “I’m pretty sure Lt. Wisdom will open an investigation.”

  “Can we call and find out?” said John, leaning so far forward in his chair that his chest was over the table.

  Without saying anything, Mr. Dure leaned back and picked up the telephone receiver from the set that was on the credenza behind him. He got Lt. Harold Wisdom on the line.

  “I have the Hargrave family here, Lieutenant. They asked me to call about a possible investigation into the death of Mr. Hargrave. Is it alright if I put you on the speaker phone, so they can talk to you and you to them?”

  “Fine. Except that I can’t say much. We do have an investigation ongoing. Of course I’ll talk to the alleged victim’s family, but I can’t compromise the investigation.”

  “Have you arrested Mr. Golden?” asked John. “He just about confessed in court.”

  “We can’t arrest someone just for pleading the Fifth,” said Lt. Wisdom. “We have to have probable cause. Mr. Golden won’t speak to us. And, we don’t necessarily assume that he’s guilty. We just opened the investigation and we don’t want to shut off avenues that may lead us to the killer – assuming that a crime was committed.”

  “What do you mean by that?” demanded John.

  “The medical examiner is sticking with his conclusion that the cause of death was a heart attack due to natural causes. Since the corpse has been cremated, there’s no way to get a second opinion on that.”

  John looked around at everyone in the room with a face that was horror-stricken. “They can’t do that,” he said to the room.

  The voice from the speaker phone said, “We are going to keep investigating until we feel that we can make a final determination. Not every death is a homicide, and not every homicide is solved, unfortunately.”

  Mr. Dure broke in. “Thank you for your time, Lieutenant.” He hung up the phone.

  “I’ll give you the million dollars I get from the insurance!” said John, “If you find out who did it.”

  “Of course you want to know,” said Mr. Dure. “Everyone in this room would like to know. But as I see it, at this time it is the job of the police. The civil case which required my involvement has been successfully ended – unless Vanessa should appeal – but even in that case, my involvement would only be defending the trial, not doing new investigation.”

  “But he sounded like he’s al
ready decided that they’re not going to find anything and he’s just going through the motions for the sake of appearances,” said John. A small bit of white spittle showed at the corner of his mouth. “I don’t have confidence in the police.”

  Stephanie sat quietly with her mouth turned down at the corners. Her face was pale. She turned to look at her brother, and put her hand on his forearm. His forearm slowly sank until it rested on the table.

  I was wondering what Mr. Dure was going to do. Sitting at the end of the table, with John to his left and Ms. MacCreedy to his right, he was smiling in a way that seemed inappropriate to me. Would he really accept John’s offer of a million dollars? I wondered what I would do in the circumstances.

  “What do you think?” he said, turning to Ms. MacCreedy. We all turned to look at her.

  “Does it matter anymore?” she asked. “Thank God the lawsuit is over and I don’t have to worry about that anymore. And you kids will get the insurance money. I’m tired. I’m willing to just let it go.”

  “But, Mom!” exclaimed John. “You can’t do that. Somebody murdered Dad and we have got to find out who it was and they have to be punished. You can’t let it go!”

  Stephanie said in a quiet voice, “John’s right, Mom. We’ve go to see this through … find out.”

  “I thought it was Vanessa,” said Ms. MacCreedy. “And then I’m told, ‘no, it wasn’t her.’ So, maybe it was nobody. Maybe the doctor is right. It was just his time to go.”

  “But, Mom! If somebody murdered Dad, then that somebody is still out there, walking around free, and could do it again.” John was excited.

  “You kids do what you want,” said Ms. MacCreedy. She turned to Mr. Dure. “Mr. Dure,” she said, “you’ve done a good job. I thank you. At this point in my life, I just want to move on.” She drew her purse, which she had laid on the table, to her, and stood up. “You kids do what you want,” she said again, and turned and left the room.

  “Mr. Dure,” said John, “I want to officially hire you to find out who murdered my father.”

  “Me too,” said Stephanie.

  “If Vanessa appeals,” said Mr. Dure, possibly your mother will want me to handle the appeal. That might raise a conflict, although, to be frank, I don’t at present see how that could happen.”

  “Does that mean you won’t accept us as clients?” said John.

  “No,” said Mr. Dure. He called Kara in and had her prepare a bunch of documents. I noted them down: a termination of engagement letter to Ms. MacCreedy; a retainer agreement for John; a waiver of conflicts form for John. He went over all of these; John signed them. It took the better part of an hour. “I’m just going to charge you my hourly rate,” said Mr. Dure. “I think it will cost a lot less that a million dollars. Will you be willing to actively cooperate in the engagement if necessary?”

  “Anything,” said John.

  “Yes,” said Stephanie.

  “Alright, then,” said Mr. Dure. “I’ll be in touch shortly.”

  * * *

  After the clients left, Mr. Dure took up the phone and called Kurt Kniffe. “We won the health club case, but the case is not over … . There may be an appeal – we don’t know, yet – but that’s not what I’m talking about. I have agreed to find out who murdered Mr. Hargrave … . I know I’m not the police. I wouldn’t have agreed to take on the engagement, except that, one, I’m convinced the man was murdered, and two, the police are just making a halfhearted effort. I have a very good idea of how, but I’m still at sea about who did it and why. So … I want you to do some more digging… . I want you to find out more about Mortimer Golden, especially what the state of his relationship with Richard Hargrave was … and I want you to investigate if any quantity of liquid nitrogen went missing, around the beginning of July, from the Great Catch Sports Bar or from any of the University laboratories. Okay, thanks.”

  * * *

  I had to get back to law school. The day after the trial, I went to say good-bye to Mr. Dure, again. From the hallway I could see him in his office, his legs stretched out straight and his feet resting in the corner formed by the top of his desk and the pull-out writing board. He was facing away from the door with a legal pad on his lap with a few notes jotted on it. I rapped on the open door. He turned his head. The sad-looking face, which had disappeared during the trial, had returned.

  “Miss Bonneville, come in,” he said.

  It was quiet in the office and for some reason I heard every sound with special clarity: the extra emphasis of my left foot with each step that it took; the rustling sound of my dress; the tiny creak of his chair as he shifted his weight in it.

  “Well, I’m saying good-bye, again,” I said, not sitting down.

  He looked at me for a moment, then heaved his feet up and shoved his chair back as he took his feet from the desk. Clack-clack! The soles of his shoes landed on the chair mat.

  “Miss Bonneville, you have been a great help. I thank you.”

  “It seems like the health club case is never going to end,” I said. “I was hoping to see one case from beginning to end.”

  “That will seldom happen in – what have you been here? three, four months?”

  “Can I stop by when I come back for the Christmas break?”

  “You are welcome to,” he said.

  “I learned so much working for you,” I said. “Thank you.”

  “I’ll mail your last check,” he said. “Home or school?”

  I gave him my mailing address at school. He tore out a sheet of paper from his legal pad and floated it across his desk. I stepped to his desk, shifted my purse strap to my left shoulder, bent forward and wrote it out.

  “Are you going to be able to find out who did it?” I said. I knew this was a silly question, but I was so curious about the case.

  “Who can predict the future?” he said. “I do, however, have a couple of ideas on how I can find out. We’ll have to see.” Then, inasmuch as Mr. Dure is never chatty, I was surprised that he went on. “It was fortunate that Ms. MacCreedy ended our representation. It frees me up, so to speak. The latent possibility that our own client might have been the guilty party, I think would have inhibited me from a free-wheeling investigation.”

  “Whoa,” I said.

  “I don’t think she did it,” he said. “But I like the freedom to go in that direction if the evidence points that way.”

  “Bye,” I said.

  He just nodded and gave his attention to his legal pad again.

  * * *

  A few minutes after Christine Bonneville in her cheerful, rustling dress had disappeared through the doorway of Dure’s office, his telephone rang. It was Kurt Kniffe. “There will be some difficulty in interviewing Mr. Golden.”

  “Oh?”

  “He’s in jail.”

  “I see. How did that come about?” asked Dure.

  “The FBI arrested him in fact when he came out of the courthouse after testifying in your trial. According to the FBI, the Chinese have been operating an industrial espionage operation at Martel University. They arrested one Professor Wu as the leader of the operation. Apparently, Mr. Golden was feeding him confidential information from the Technology Licensing Office. So he is being charged as a co-conspirator. From what my police contacts tell me, this is the reason he claimed the Fifth at the trial.”

  “Has there been any suggestion that Mr. Hargrave was mixed up in this?”

  “I have not developed any such information to date. But I have not gone far with the investigation. I thought you should know about Golden soonest.”

  “Has bail has been set?”

  “According to public information, bail was set at $500,000 for Golden. No bail was allowed for Professor Wu on account of risk of flight.”

  “Thank you, Kurt. This may be very pregnant information. If you can give me some more time on this case in the next day, I’ll want you to check on some more things. Give me a couple of hours to think over the implications and I’ll call you.”


  “I have something else for you,” said Kniffe.

  “Tell me.”

  “As you requested, we checked on whether liquid nitrogen could have been obtained, legitimately or illegitimately, from the University’s Science Center. Pertinent responsive information has been developed. First, we learned that small quantities of liquid nitrogen are stored in and dispensed from special containers called dewars. If you just put it in a bottle or a bucket it boils away in no time. Dewars are like oversized thermos bottles, except that they have lots more insulation and they have a small opening so that pressure doesn't build up inside them. We took a statement from a graduate student who works in the in the Biology Laboratory. She says that at the beginning of July someone borrowed a small dewar of liquid nitrogen. She is pretty sure it was a Thursday, so that would have been July 2. She is annoyed that the dewar has not been returned, because, according to her, they are quite expensive.”

  Kniffe paused. He was not above delivering his results with dramatic flair; he felt it made his bills more palatable. “Would you care to take the proverbial stab in the dark as to who it was that borrowed the dewar?”

  “It will be someone of whom I am already aware?” said Dure.

  “Naturally.”

  “No. I won’t guess. Tell me.”

  “Richard Hargrave.”

  (!) “Find that dewar,” said Dure.

  “We will undertake further investigation to that end,” said Kniffe.

  Dure ended the call. He muttered half aloud, “What am I supposed to do with that little gem of information? Suppose Hargrave committed suicide, not with alcohol, but with nitrogen?” He leaned back in his chair. His lips were pursed and his forehead wrinkled. Even if Wright were right about suicide, he forfeited the right to pursue his case by committing fraud and suborning perjury. No tears for Fidelicity. But Wright was not right. No way did Hargrave commit suicide.