Now some of you might think the lead character is some sort of "good guy". Nothing could be further from the truth as you will see as you read on. Innocent characters require an innocent author.
I mentioned that there was some fiction in this fictional story. The truth is that they've been studying whale (or should I say Dolphin?) language for years. There are early news stories from the early 2000's discussing the different studies. And who doesn't remember the Star Trek Episode where they go back in time to rescue a couple of whales to save the world? For more on time travel, you can look to my physics blogs which, sadly, may or may not allow you to go back in time and tell yourself not to waste your time reading this story...or the entire blog for that matter.
The truth is that whales and dolphins do communicate, but not on a sophisticated level. They are plenty smart, but don't appear to have much in the way of Hard disk storage, although what do I know? Nothing, is the truth. However, no one has really taken the newest technology to the tank (at least not that I've seen from a very cursory look) so who really knows what would happen if you hooked a whale up to Dragon naturally speaking? Well, we can guess that you'd probably get a better story than this one...
Chapter 7.
Laura was waiting at his house. She had poured a drink into martini glass, one of the ones that Hyatt used so rarely he didn’t even realize he had them.
“So how did your meeting with the whale go?”
“It’s on film,” Hyatt said pulling out the camera and setting it on the table. “Maybe I should post it to youtube.”
“Are you kidding?”
“I’m not sure. Thank you for coming by.”
“I figured you might need someone to talk to.”
Hyatt thought about it. He couldn’t not get the picture of Truly out of his head as she peeled the wetsuit off and dressed in her street clothes in the raining light of the interior spotlights. Before he had left, he had written all of her personal information on a legal pad in case he needed to speak to her as a witness. He thought to himself, she is not a client, there is no conflict with trying to sleep with her. He was surprised he could come up with so base a thought. She didn’t have a boyfriend anymore, he remembered. Her boyfriend had been dragged under water and killed by his prospective client.
“Do you really think you can pull this off?”
“It’s only for a short time.”
“It’s only for a short time if the settlement comes through…and if no one ever checks your trust account for the dates.”
“No one will ever have a reason to. It’s not my fault, Laura. I was on the painkillers. I could barely think.”
“You knew what you were doing, though, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I knew,” he said miserably.
“So how much did you…’borrow’…from the estate?”
“Fifty thousand dollars.”
“Fifty thousand dollars! Were you out of your mind.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
“What did you do with all of it?”
Drank, bought pain killers, paid for hookers, who knows, he thought. “It was most of the money I had to pay bills with. I paid for the office to stay open, I bought food. I paid the power bill. I thought other things would come through. There are just so many attorneys now. Everyone fighting over every little bit of work. Young attorneys just graduating from law school, living with their parents, willing to work for nothing, taking all the appointed work. I was starting back my practice with them, barely able to get to work every day.”
“Can you earn $50,000 representing this fish?”
Hyatt had already thought about this. “Yes, yes I can.”
“And the administrator, this girl Beth agreed to it?”
“She signed a fee agreement, but she may only think she’s agreed to cover the costs. But whatever else she thinks, the agreement says that I can advance funds out of the estate to cover cost AND fees.”
“That’s just more fraud on top of the fraud you’ve already committed.”
“No, I didn’t commit fraud. I embezzled from an estate.”
“Oh, excuse me,” Laura said sarcastically emphasizing the word ‘excuse’. Do you want a drink, I’m going to need another.
“Yes, I very much need a drink. I think there are some clean glasses…”
“Don’t bother, I was lucky to find these. I loaded your dishwasher by the way and started it. I had to use shavings from bar soap, you're out of real dish soap. For now you’ll have to be satisfied with a martini glass.”
“Thank you,” Hyatt said not waiting for the drink. He pulled out his legal pad and looked at his notes, noting the number for Truly.
“What are you going to do when Beth question’s your fee?”
“I’ll tell her the truth. That this is a crazy case to take, that it’s going to take a lot of time and money and may hurt my reputation. I told her if she cared so much she’d have to be willing to take a stake in it.”
“What did she say to that?”
“Nothing, the other guy, Brian said that he would put together some sort of defense fund using crowd funding. Who knows, I may make enough money if he’s successful to retire.”
“You’ll probably lose your license for filing the suit even if they don’t take it for any of the other crimes you’ve committed.” Laura handed him his drink and sat next to him. He took a sip and felt her put her hand on his leg.
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