Platinum Agenda

Is $20,000 enough to change the direction of someone's life? As a kid it would seem like a vast fortune, but then--as one gets older and compares it to rent, car payments, and tuition--it really starts to seem like not that much. Yet $20,000 did change the lives of two people.

I really like my job. I am an intern for Biophysiology and Marine Life Rehabilitation Center in the east coast city of Manteo, North Carolina. It is a big fancy name, but, basically, we studied the diet of sea life and hospitalized fish and aquatic plants that nobody else knew what to do with. By we I really meant Edmond Monroe and Todd Johansen. Todd was like me, just an understudy, but he had already acquired his doctorate degree five years before. Edmond Monroe was the genius, a true pioneer in the field of veterinary medicine for ocean life. He had advanced the careers of so many marine biologists that just mentioning his name could gain a person interest and respect.

I really liked working for Dr. Monroe and I learned a lot in the area of analyzing, recording, and administering trial medication to marine life. Besides that, he was a really great guy. He never degraded anybody, helped everyone, and every Thursday we went down as a trio to the bay front and took advantage of the half-off fish taco special and the shrimp and pecan-smoked bacon pizzas at Sea Captain's Bar and Grille.

Here at the Bio Center our pride and joy is the platinum arowana. Yes, yes, I know it is a tropical freshwater fish, but platinum is also an incredibly rare mutation of arowana worth $100,000 or more. We acquired ours as a result of a raid done by the U.S. Coast Guard on some endangered species traffickers, and this particular male specimen wasn't eating. It was up to our department to find out why. To see it is like watching a three foot diamond scintillating in the water as it cuts through the stillness with the incredible speed and agility of a successful predator. It is also because of this extremely rare fish that I was now headed to Dr. Monroe's office.

Upon entering the room I found Dr. Monroe comparing ultrasound photographs of a lancetfish stomach while composing an email on his findings.

Without waiting for him to finish, I cut in, "Dr. Monroe, the platinum arowana is gone."

Edmond set the photographs down in a neat display across his keyboard. "Did you check the care sheet, Mike?"

"Yes, of course. But nothing was written down so I was hoping you had authorized it for a diagnostic and had forgotten to record the order."

"I wouldn't--" he began and then his eyes widened and a puzzled expression crossed his face.

Dr. Monroe was brilliant, yes, but also terribly unorganized. Part of my job was keeping him on task and a missing patient was enough to make him drop everything, get up, and investigate.

While he was gone I went to his desk to claim the clerical jobs I was in charge of. In doing so I noticed a little black book on the carpet. It was Dr. Monroe's daily planner. Picking it up I skipped to today's page to apprise myself of what he had planned for this afternoon and I came across a phone number listed for 6:30 tonight. Nothing else. Whomever he was meeting after working hours was going to mess up our Thursday team outing and my mouth had been watering for fish tacos since breakfast. I didn't think it would be weird to call the number and reschedule. The line picked up on the second ring.

"You are not backing out of our deal are you? The fry haven't even started hatching yet."

Absolutely stunned by such a direct accusation, I forgot to say anything. His voice was so rough and threatening I hung up. No sooner had I backed away then the phone rang. Checking the caller id I saw it was the number I had just dialed and I decided it was best not to answer. Dr. Monroe can handle this one on his own. Scooping up the mail, I sat down at my desk across from his and began to sort through it.

The unidentified man called three more times before Dr. Monroe returned to his office. When Edmond appeared he looked very concerned and puzzled.

"What did you find out?" I asked him.

"I just don't know what happened to the platinum arowana, Mike. You're the first one to notice his tank is empty. After I discovered the reason he won't eat is because he is incubating a brood in his mouth nobody should have done anything with him."

I narrowed my eyes slightly but didn't say anything. I didn't have time to--the phone rang.

Dr. Monroe picked up immediately, but as soon as he put the receiver to his ear his expression became one of shock that gradually moved to anger, and then he replied, "Sir, I have no idea what you are talking about," and hung up. Obviously annoyed and trying to calm down, his hands formed a steeple over his mouth and he appeared to be thinking.

Then the phone rang again, and we both looked at it. It was that same number that kept calling here as if the matter was urgent.

"Don't answer that, Mike," Edmond warned me. "Go ahead and call it a day. I'll meet you later at the Sea Captain. In the meantime, I will see if I can figure out what this crazy fool is carrying on about."

He did not have to tell me twice! Crunchy, savory, lime-twisted fish tacos here I come!

Leaving work, changing clothes, and heading down to the Sea Captain's Bar and Grille at the docks didn't take long, maybe an hour. When I arrived, Todd Johansen was already at a table waiting for me, but Dr. Monroe wasn't here yet. Todd called out to me, "How are things going, Mike! Did you hear that the arowana is missing?" Todd was the excitable one in our group and, if there was one thing that he enjoyed more than pizza, it was talking.

Since Todd usually did all the talking when Dr. Monroe wasn't here, I spent a lot of time looking out the window while listening to him. As such, I noticed the moment Dr. Monroe's green Volkswagen came into view, but, instead of pulling into the restaurant, he drove on by.

"Hey, where is Dr. Monroe going?" I interrupted Todd.

"Huh?" he stopped talking and whirled to look out the window with me. "That's odd." He said what I was thinking.

We both watched as Dr. Monroe followed the street and parked outside a fishing warehouse on the docks. Noting that the time was 6:37 I suddenly got a bad feeling and I took out my phone to zoom in on his car so I could see what was happening. Edmond stepped from his vehicle and almost immediately another man came out of the warehouse yelling and gesturing angrily.

"Whoa! I think they're gonna fight!" I yelled to Todd.

"No way!"

He fumbled his slice of pizza and letting it drop, he wiped his hand clean on his shirt, and got out his phone to record with me.

Edmond pulled out his phone and aimed it at the other man. The stranger rushed forward as if he were going to hit Dr. Monroe, but Edmond got into his car and got out of there with the other man chasing him out into the street on foot.

I sighed and let my phone drop, but Todd tapped my shoulder while shifting in his seat and told me, "Hang on. Hang on. Check this out."

Bringing my phone back up, I saw a car exiting the warehouse. Were we about to witness a car chase? I zoomed in close and snapped a photo of the license plate, and then zooming out I saw the car heading in the opposite direction Dr. Monroe had taken. What was going on?

With the excitement over, we went back to our dinners. Edmond can fill us in on what happened when he joined us.

It took awhile, but when Dr. Monroe did enter the restaurant he was with two U.S. Fish and Wildlife agents. I swallowed a mouthful of taco and stared at them, and then he pointed a finger right at me and accused, "There's the thief!"

What?!

Fifteen hours of interrogation followed my arrest. Fifteen hours I was questioned and re-questioned about how I had stolen a platinum arowana. However, I had nothing to tell the agents. I could tell them Todd Johansen and I had witnessed Dr. Monroe almost get in a fight with another man and I had video and pictures on my phone, but I really didn't have anything else suspicious to relay to them. After fifteen hours, though, they let me go. A new suspect had been arrested for the theft--Dr. Edmond Monroe!

Dr. Monroe, however, pled innocent and to find out what happened--why he became the new suspect--I made certain to attend his trial. As the evidence was presented I very quickly realized how lucky I had been. The man he had gotten into a fight with was Pierce Nebbin, who supplied fish to local pet stores. After taking the guilty plea to receive a year of probation, Pierce was a witness at Edmond's trial. He confessed that Dr. Monroe had approached him with the idea to rent the arowana from him for $20,000. Nobody else knew about the fry brooding in its mouth and, when they hatched, he could keep them and sell them. When Edmond tried to back out of the deal he refused to return the $20,000 and threatened to call Fish and Wildlife. When asked how he came into possession of the arowana, Pierce pointed a finger at Edmond and said he met with him the night before. It had been really dark, but he'd recognize that green Volkswagen anywhere. The prosecution used pictures from my phone and Todd's as evidence that Edmond and Pierce really did know each other. But the real incriminating evidence was the $20,000 in cash the police found. $12,000 of it had been hidden with the spare tire in Edmond's vehicle and $8,000 had been found stashed in a locked drawer in his desk.

Dr. Monroe was found guilty and sentenced to three years in custody with a $5,000 fine. Throughout his entire trial Edmond glared at me and, as the bailiff was putting him back in handcuffs, I could hear him protesting that I was the real thief.

He was right.

I really had liked working for Dr. Edmond Monroe and this was nothing personal. I had been the one to set up the deal by texting Pierce Nebbin with Dr. Monroe's personal cell phone, I had written the phone number in the little black book, I had reported the arowana missing the day before Edmond did, I had made a spare key and used Dr. Monroe's car to transport the arowana by stealing his vehicle after he had gone to sleep, and I had orchestrated the fight between Edmond and Pierce because I knew them both so well and knew how they would react to each other. But the pinnacle to proving his guilt had been planting that $20,000 in cash. I had been so tempted to keep it. I have a decade of student loans to pay back. But in criminalizing Dr. Monroe, he would be forced to resign from his current position as head researcher for the Bio Center, Todd would receive a promotion, and in three months, when I graduated, guess who already has an in with the company and is going to get hired to replace Todd--this guy.