The Lawyer Put My Oysters On The Court's Emergency Calendar

I read Mercer's notice twice. Then I put the phone away.

"We aren't climbing a fence," I said.

Farah had already opened her van.

"Good. I wore the wrong shoes for prison."

She said it flat. I laughed once, which hurt more than I expected.

We drove back toward Annapolis. From the bridge, the river looked wide enough to hold every problem in Maryland. My problem was sixty-four wire boxes in a ditch.

At the county environmental office, we met a duty biologist named Lena Bell. She wore muddy field pants and carried a sample case with a broken handle.

"Your call reached me," she said. "I asked for the transfer record."

"Did they give you a depth?"

"They gave me a basin number."

I showed her my notebook. She turned the pages back through two months of water temperatures and visibility marks.

"You keep this every dive?"

"Even when nothing happens."

"Especially useful then."

Bell agreed to inspect my original nursery under her own field authority. At the holding yard, though, Colin had refused her access by phone. He said Mercer had sole charge of the stock.

"I've sent that refusal to my manager," she said. "I won't call water safe because another office says it is."

She gave me the number of a lawyer who handled small marine businesses.

Ruth Vale met us at four. Her office faced a brick wall. A wet umbrella stood in a flowerpot, though it had not rained all day.

"Court can cost more than oysters," she said.

"Not these oysters."

I laid out the receipts.

She studied the $36,480 total, then the suspension notice.

Her emergency retainer was $1,200. I transferred it from the account meant to buy winter mesh bags.

"We need a narrow order," Ruth said. "Locate the property. Preserve it. Keep it alive. The reef allegation gets its own hearing."

"Can they use my old case?"

"They can ask relevant questions. A trespass plea twelve years ago doesn't put your boat on a reef Tuesday."

She asked me to tell the story without telling her what kind of man Mercer was.

That took longer than it should have.

Then she asked what I had actually seen.

I said Colin in the camera file. Cages passing overhead. A locked gate. A low channel.

"And you didn't see all sixty-four inside that basin?"

"No."

She drew a line through one sentence in her draft.

"Then we won't swear that you did."

Farah gave Ruth the untouched copy and her handling notes. Ruth put the drive in a numbered envelope.

At five fifteen, Bell called. My original nursery water had normal oxygen for that afternoon. She had seen no spill, dead fish, or other sign that required moving the stock.

"I can't tell you what it was at dawn," she added.

Ruth wrote that down too.

She filed a sworn emergency request in circuit court, with the county and Grey Heron named so both would receive notice. She asked for supervised access, photos, a cage count, and transfer to safe water if Bell found danger.

She also asked that nobody remove labels, dump stock, or alter the holding site before inspection.

"Bring your notebook tomorrow," Ruth said. "The actual book."

"It's got mud in it."

"Was the mud there Tuesday?"

"Most of it."

"Then leave it alone."

I had planned to make a clean version that night. Instead, I put the battered book in a dry bag. The clean copies would travel beside it, not replace it.

"Can a judge do it tonight?" I asked.

"I'm requesting the earliest slot. We give notice now."

Her assistant sent the papers to county counsel and Colin's lawyer, then arranged service. The clerk gave us Wednesday at eight thirty.

Ruth handed me the filed copy.

"That stamp means somebody has to answer," she said. "It doesn't mean we've won."

Outside, Farah bought two cheese sandwiches and put one in my hand.

"Eat. Anger isn't lunch."

We went back to the public bridge before dark. Bell joined us there with binoculars. Inside the yard, a small loader moved near a blue tarp.

Then Colin dragged a gray tub toward his truck.

Something bright swung over the rim.

Yellow plastic. Two holes. A black number.

My cage tags.

I knew their shape because I had cut every corner round so a dive glove wouldn't catch.

"Take a picture from here," Bell said. "Stay on this side."

Farah took the wide view first, showing the bridge rail and the whole yard. Then she took a closer frame.

I called Ruth.

She asked for the pictures, told us to leave, and sent a preservation demand to both lawyers.

At ten that night, while I copied my notebook pages at the kitchen table, my phone rang again.

It was Ruth.

"Colin's lawyer just answered. He says the cages arrived with no owner tags at all."