21 October 2006
- Wednesday, November 15: Sleeping with the enemy
- Waking to a dream
Dag wakes up Wednesday morning consciously feeling a warm body pressed against his in the bed. He takes inventory of his surroundings and discovers that Margaret is pressed up against him. He is in her apartment. - Getting the story
Dag discovers that he has been in her bed basically since the dowsing in the river on Monday. He tries to get going, but she convinces him to stay. She confesses her part in the scheme to get his computer, but that the thugs who rule the waterfront promised her he wouldn’t be hurt. He finds out she pulled him out of the river and got him to her apartment and has nursed him through the fever of the past day. - Getting the girl
Dag asks if they had done anything, alluding to sex, and she tells him that he’s been in no condition for that, but that she hasn’t given up hope. He tells her that she doesn’t owe him for betraying him to the thugs, and she’s repaid her treachery by nursing him back to health. She tells him that she doesn’t pay debts with sex, but that she does know when a treasure drops in her lap, so to speak. They take all day making love and Dag falls asleep in her arms.
- Waking to a dream
- Thursday, November 16: Snowjob
- Alone again
Dag awakes this time to find that he is alone. His clothes have been laundered and there is a note from Margaret. She tells him that the door will lock automatically when he leaves and says simply, Thank you. - Catching up with reality
Realizing that he has gone three days without communication, Dag heads for a cellular store and immediately calls Riley. She is beside herself and tells him to call Silas immediately. Dag finds out that she sent Silas after him when his GPS went in the river. She is furious that Dag hasn’t called. He explains and asks her to get him a ticket home. - In the airport
Dag picks up a new computer and GPS transmitter on his way to the airport and catches the flight to Seattle with a connection in Minneapolis. When he is waiting for his connection he sees Angel get off a plane and head for the train. He follows her to the Mall of America and watches her shop all afternoon. - Catching up to Simon
Dag follow Angel to the charter terminal and there encounters Simon. Simon says he knew Dag would find him, but Dag is finding it harder and harder to concentrate. He realizes he is falling and asks Simon for help.
- Alone again
- Friday, November 17: Charter
- In-flight movies
Dag is aware that they have become airborne and wonders where they are en-route to. Eventually Angel comes to tell him that they’ve been re-routed and will land in Atlanta instead of Jamaica. She has booked rooms for them at a hotel and as soon as the weather breaks they’ll continue the trip. She says that Simon (flying the plane) has told her that he has depended on Dag finding him since he started this adventure. - The philanthropist thief
At the hotel, Simon tells Dag all about his crimes (embezzling funds from the partnership with Bradley) but that it was after he discovered that Bradley was using the operation to launder money from drug deals with Smiesen. So, finally Simon had skimmed off an entire month’s profits from the drug dealer and fled and was determined to give it all to charity and to go to a remote location to live the rest of his life with Angel. Dag asks why he didn’t go to authorities and Simon says that it would be tantamount to a jail sentence for him since he wasn’t innocent of all financial mis-handling. Then he wants to know if Dag has his computer. - Collaboration proposition
Simon proposes that Dag help him give away the funds (all except a small amount for him to live on) and disappear. Dag agrees to give Simon a decision the next day. He talks about where he would give money away if it were his and what he would do with it.
- In-flight movies
- Saturday, November 17: To Die or Not to Die
- Not in a hotel room
Dag wakes up in pain so intense he can’t call for help. He swears he will not die in a hotel room in Atlanta. He talks about it not being clean and how bad it would be for business for the hotel.
- Not in a hotel room
- Sunday, November 19: I made my first mortgage payment when I was 26, and my last one two months later
- The child bride
Dag tells the story of how he married Brenda and then she ran off with his best friend Simon. We discover the long history between them of wanting to change the world. They had even talked about stealing drug money to do good. Dag knows and understands that he is going to join Simon’s scheme.
- The child bride
- Sunday, November 12: All That Jazz
- Babysitting Maizie
Dag considers taking her with him, but discards the notion all together and drops her off with Mrs. Prior. Mrs. Prior talks about how worried Maizie gets if Dag doesn’t call her and talk each day. She wants to be with him. - Jet travel
Dag boards the plane to Chicago and thinks he sees a familiar face, but it takes a while to realize it was the person with the laptop earlier that week. He settles into his seat and sleeps all the way to Chicago. - Calling home
After checking in at the Blackstone, Dag makes calls to Riley (waking her up and telling her where he is) and to Silas. Riley is furious that Dag left without telling her, but he tells her just to monitor him on his GPS. He’ll keep it active for her. Silas is concerned that Dag is going in without backup and tells him he could be there in 24 hours. Dag pooh-poohs the idea and insists that he’ll be fine. Then he calls Maizie and puts her mind at ease. - Out on the Town
Dag goes to the Palmer House for a steak (even though he knows it is bad for him). Then he finds the jazz club Bradley recommended and settles in. It happens to be the type of club that starts out slow, but as things pick up, people just start dancing. Then a young woman sits down at his table. She apologizes and talks about needing to sit for a while and there being no other tables. She comes alone because at this club you don’t need to be with someone to have a good time. They make arrangements to meet for dinner Monday night. - Musing about Margaret
After their conversation, Dag returns to the Blackstone and muses about sitting with the young woman and what it meant to him. He talks about enjoying the company of women and how it makes him feel. Etc.
- Babysitting Maizie
- Monday, November 13: Wet Welcome in the Windy City
- Dag elects the direct approach
After looking up the information on the import/export company that he is going to visit, Dag cases the scene. He is a little disconcerted by the roughness of the Chicago waterfront along the river. Thinks again about calling Silas for backup, then goes in. - Talking to Smiesen
Dag thinks he’s seen the same person on the plane again, but dismisses the idea. His conversation with Smiesen is under the guise of being a representative for Simon and he pushes for information on the books. He is stonewalled, but when he gets out his computer, it seems to be of major interest. - Putting clues together and tearing them apart again
Nothing seems to be going right for Dag. He overhears Smiesen talk about a shipment coming in tonight. Dag figures that he’ll hang around and wait. He keeps coming around to the clues that he had and how they don’t add up as Simon’s kind of business deal. Dag spends the rest of the afternoon gathering data on Smiesen’s business. - Dag goes for dinner
Dag picks up Margaret in a taxi for dinner and they head out to another quiet jazz café that she recommends. They have a good time talking and listening to the music. Then Dag drives her home in a taxi and they go for a walk along the waterfront. Dag is surprised she lives so close to the river. - In the drink
As they are walking along, they are mugged. Two men grab Dag’s laptop case and then in the struggle, they push him into the river. He hears Margaret scream and another splash. He muses that the cold of the river should have given him a heart attack, but he’d probably drown first. The last thing he remembers is a hand catching his arm and pulling him upward.
- Dag elects the direct approach
- Tuesday, November 14: My midlife crisis hit the day I realized 33 was half-way through my life expectancy.
- The Mustang and the Girl
Dag talks about his party days. We discover that he was terribly afraid of his own mortality. He realizes that in his current condition, he may well have overestimated his life expectancy. He explains, also, his realization of how age plays a part in relationships and how there always seemed to be an ulterior motive when a young woman and an older man get together. - The Girl in the Bed
Dag has waking dreams of being snuggled next to a woman and believes that he is once again next to the girl in the Mustang. He allows himself to wallow in those dreams, eating what was fed to him and understanding that he is not fully conscious.
- The Mustang and the Girl
19 October 2006
What a great service you all are providing for those of us stumbling around in detective mysteries resulting in legal battles. Thank you. I believe I have questions for various of your specialties.
1. Disabilities. If a person with an extremely well-trained dog discovered they had a medical condition (heart failure) that required possible calls for aid, regular medication, etc., how difficult would it be to get said dog certified as a helper dog?
2. Estate disposition. If said person dies intestate and has no immediate family, how far is a search made for relatives before the estate is liquidated, and once liquidated, what happens to it?
3. Estate disposition. If said person dies with a will leaving a blanket statement of "all worldly possessions to go to X", will that person have any difficulty in simply taking over the deceased's estate? Should there be an executor named? If they were in business and he is leaving the business to her could she keep it active while the will is being settled? Would any other person (like an ex-wife) be able to make any claims against the estate?
4. Search warrants. If there is reason to suspect a cyber-crime has been committed, let's say embezzlement, can the authorities (police? FB I? FINCen?) get a search warrant for the contents of a computer? If in the act of searching for evidence of said crime, they find evidence of a different crime (say child porn) can they bring additional charges based on that discovery even though they had no reason to suspect that crime when the original warrant was issued?
Thanks to all of you and any who respond to these questions. I hope I haven't gotten myself into plot-hell with setting up these situations!
friendof:
(Disabilities) This is the only one I know a little something about (took a class on it in law school... hopefully I am remembering correctly).
Fortunatly for your story, it's really whatever you want. Not only is each state different, each city can be different if the state is silent on the issue (and I believe most are). A condo association that tries to keep the person from moving in or a store that seeks to block the dog from coming in can't stop a service animal (doesn't even have to be a dog) under the ADA . So what makes an animal a "service" animal? At least one court has said that the city ordinances can require "training" but can't require what form of training and can't require certification. Either way, it's a fairly new area of law... so I say go with whatever you want for your story. (If you want huge conflict over the issue, make the dog a pit bull in a city that's banned pit bulls!) :)
BLAH BLAH LEGAL DISCLAIMER THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVISE THIS IS JUST SOME GENERAL KNOWLEDGE BLAH BLAH.
wayzgoose:
Thank you. I'll check to see if there are any local ordinances in Seattle. Funny you should mention pit bulls. Maizie, in my story, is a cross between a pit bull and a dachsund. (Don't ask.)
friendof:
Honestly, I would be shocked to hear that Seattle doesn't have an ordinance involving pits and, sadly, pit mixes. If you want the dog to be able to get into places, you may need to change breeds (or have the vet write that it's a "dachsund mix" with no one any the wiser...). The second you mention pit bull, the city's interest in protecting citizens is likely going to outweigh any ADA requirements for reasonable accomodation. Some cities (like Miami) have banned pits completly and that's in people's private homes... allowing a pit bull service animal (even a mix) is even more of a risk to the public. Just something to keep in mind........
saraswati:
I am going to have to respectfully disagree with the previous poster (friendof) who gave info on service animals. This is my area of legal practice, so I might have a little bit more specifc info that may be helpful for you.
Yes, there are specific laws that vary from state to state (I can give you CA law specifically if you need it, but I don't have info on any other state), but the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and case law does explicitly define what a service animal is, and what it must do to qualify as a service animal. So there is actually a very clear answer to your question.
(what friendof may be referring to is that there are no set limits right now on what kind of animals can be considered service animals. People have claimed monkeys and snakes and things like that are service animals, and sometimes it sticks. Also, there is still some vaugeness in what "tasks" a service animal performs for someone who is claiming a mental illness as a disability. But for physical disabilities, the law is pretty clear. )
To be considered a "service animal", the animal must be trained to perform a specific task that relates to the disability. However, here is some more info. Not all medical conditions are "disabilities". In order to be a disability under the ADA, the medical condition must severely limit a daily activity, such as seeing, hearing, moving, walking, showering, etc. So first of all, your character's heart condition must be severe enough that it affects their daily life and keeps them from performing basic life tasks. If the heart condition is so severe that they can't get around without a walker or wheelchair, or that they are prone to severe dizzy spells, fainting, or can't drive. Then it might be a disability. Usually disabilities under the ADA are mobility based (paralysis, wheelchair, cane), sensory-based (blind, deaf), general auto-immune based (HIV, Lupus), nervous system failures, or mental illnesses.
Bottom line, if the heart condition leaves them frail enough to qualify under the ADA, they are going to have some severe limitations in their daily life.
Now under CA law, you don't need to be quite so ill, but that's CA law.
Second, any animals that you want to qualify as service animals must be trained to do specific tasks that alleviate the disability in question. So, for example, seeing eye dogs do tasks assisting with blindness. And hearing dogs alert their owners to sounds (like a doorbell or phone or siren). So I'm having trouble imagining what your character's dog is trained to do? I don'[t think dogs can be trained to call 911 in a heart emergency, or to give medication. If you can give me an example of what the dog is specifically trained to do, and what the person's limiations are, I can tell you if it would legally be considered a service animal or not.
If you want to create a situation with a service animal, is it possible to give your main character a different disability? If it doesn't impact the story. Or, if a heart condition is needed, can the character also have a sight condition? or something else that would require a service animal? I am assuming that for some reason in your story you want an animal with the right to accompany it's owner everywhere it goes. Here is another possibility, your character could be training a seeing eye dog, then it would have the same rights as a regular service animal. All your character would need is some experience as a dog trainer and a license from the state to be an official seeing eye dog trainer.
Also, it is true that under the ADA only seeing eye dogs need to be trained and certified by specific licensed trainers. All other kinds of service animals can be trained by anybody to perform the specific tasks, including the owner themselves. (many deaf people train their own hearing dogs).
Let me know if I can help you solve your quandry.
good luck and I hope that helps
friendof:
I stand corrected... I actually only meant to say what you said above about not having to be certified or specifically trained but you've explained it and said it much better than I! :)
saraswati:
No worries, friendof, we are all on the same team :) Hopefully my response didn't come across as too "territorial". I'm really glad you are here to answer stuff too. thanks!
Aggie80:
2. Estate disposition. If said person dies intestate and has no immediate family, how far is a search made for relatives before the estate is liquidated, and once liquidated, what happens to it?
Many places have a limit of how far they will search, usually within 3 degrees of relation (no laughing inheritors). They are typically not going to look at anyone aoutside the country if it is US. Without an heir, the estate will go to the state.
3. Estate disposition. If said person dies with a will leaving a blanket statement of "all worldly possessions to go to X", will that person have any difficulty in simply taking over the deceased's estate? Should there be an executor named? If they were in business and he is leaving the business to her could she keep it active while the will is being settled? Would any other person (like an ex-wife) be able to make any claims against the estate?
First step is to open the estate with the court. The court will almost always appoint an executor, (there are a few exceptions, but they are for very small estates). If there is a will as you mentioned, they may very well appoint them as executor. The executor will be responsible for maintaining and preserving the value of the estate, including continuing to run businesses. Yes, an ex-wife may be able to make claims against the estate and can surely file against it, success will depend on many factors.
wayzgoose:
I appreciate the estate information. Can the business owner make his employee a joint tenant with right of survivorship without her knowing? Would that circumvent the inheritance problem?
Aggie80:
Can the business owner make his employee a joint tenant with right of survivorship without her knowing?
Creation of a Joint Tenancy can be tricky. Certainly not without her knowing about it. For it to be done, both parties must acquire their interest at the same time, in equal shares. If the owner didn't set up the business as a Joint Tenancy, he can't 'give' half of it away. There are ways around it, but they do require costs for multiple title transfers and filing and taxes, etc. And both parties at that point would be fully responsible for their share of expenses, taxes and liabilities. And it is important to realize that Joint Tenants own real property, i.e., land or cash. Businesses are not held by Joint Tenants, thought the real property associated with a business could be. They could be partners with survivorship rights, but certainly not without knowledge. And the value of the business could get included in the estate.
Would that circumvent the inheritance problem?
Yes. The survivor simply files a copy of the death certificate to obtain a new deed or title.
Analise:
4. Search Warrant--From what I remember in my computer forensics class and my time working for a state attorney general's cyber crime office (and, of course, this is based off of couple-year-old memory and I don't claim to be an expert but thought I might help):
Many judges err on the side of being careful when it comes to computers. Therefore, when writing out a warrant, not only do you need a lawyer and a police officer, you also need someone who understands computers. Not only that, but you have to be careful of what you say you're searching. If you're looking for things that only should be found in say, the My Documents folder, but you search the entire computer, and your warrent says you were only looking in My Documents and you find evidence stashed away in some obscure folder somewhere, that might not be permissible, since you didn't specifically say you were searching the entire computer in the warrent.
Same goes for, if you go to seize the computer and there are disks right next to the computer (or one in the drive), if you only said you were searching the computer, that would mean the hard drive. You would need to have enumerated floppy/flash/cds/etc to be able to search those as well.
And as for the first question: I'm under the impression it would be just like any other search, if there's reason to believe it's a computer crime (ie. a crime committed either against/to a computer or a crime committed with the use of a computer, which embezzlement often is) then, yes. However, it might be difficult to prove that the evidence resides on their home computer (where that evidence of another crime might be) since that would involve work computers. Unless they somehow did it online, or kept a record of the embezzling on their computer (old emails with a confederate, spreadsheets detailing the money info), or perhaps a second set of "books" showing their "real" cash inflow.
Also, when searching computers, you need to keep in mind investigators have to be very careful about how they go about looking for evidence. They don't just crack the computer open and go to town, because even turning the computer on, or looking at a directory listing of files can change information about files that might useful and then the defense attorney could argue there's no way to prove that they weren't tampered with at that point. Instead, you have to use hardware that allows you to make a bit-for-bit copy of all the contents of the harddrive (or better, yet, make two or three, one to work with, one to give the defense, and one to save as backup) that you can search around to your heart's content.
Hope this helps? A little?
1. Disabilities. If a person with an extremely well-trained dog discovered they had a medical condition (heart failure) that required possible calls for aid, regular medication, etc., how difficult would it be to get said dog certified as a helper dog?
2. Estate disposition. If said person dies intestate and has no immediate family, how far is a search made for relatives before the estate is liquidated, and once liquidated, what happens to it?
3. Estate disposition. If said person dies with a will leaving a blanket statement of "all worldly possessions to go to X", will that person have any difficulty in simply taking over the deceased's estate? Should there be an executor named? If they were in business and he is leaving the business to her could she keep it active while the will is being settled? Would any other person (like an ex-wife) be able to make any claims against the estate?
4. Search warrants. If there is reason to suspect a cyber-crime has been committed, let's say embezzlement, can the authorities (police? FB I? FINCen?) get a search warrant for the contents of a computer? If in the act of searching for evidence of said crime, they find evidence of a different crime (say child porn) can they bring additional charges based on that discovery even though they had no reason to suspect that crime when the original warrant was issued?
Thanks to all of you and any who respond to these questions. I hope I haven't gotten myself into plot-hell with setting up these situations!
friendof:
(Disabilities) This is the only one I know a little something about (took a class on it in law school... hopefully I am remembering correctly).
Fortunatly for your story, it's really whatever you want. Not only is each state different, each city can be different if the state is silent on the issue (and I believe most are). A condo association that tries to keep the person from moving in or a store that seeks to block the dog from coming in can't stop a service animal (doesn't even have to be a dog) under the ADA . So what makes an animal a "service" animal? At least one court has said that the city ordinances can require "training" but can't require what form of training and can't require certification. Either way, it's a fairly new area of law... so I say go with whatever you want for your story. (If you want huge conflict over the issue, make the dog a pit bull in a city that's banned pit bulls!) :)
BLAH BLAH LEGAL DISCLAIMER THIS IS NOT LEGAL ADVISE THIS IS JUST SOME GENERAL KNOWLEDGE BLAH BLAH.
wayzgoose:
Thank you. I'll check to see if there are any local ordinances in Seattle. Funny you should mention pit bulls. Maizie, in my story, is a cross between a pit bull and a dachsund. (Don't ask.)
friendof:
Honestly, I would be shocked to hear that Seattle doesn't have an ordinance involving pits and, sadly, pit mixes. If you want the dog to be able to get into places, you may need to change breeds (or have the vet write that it's a "dachsund mix" with no one any the wiser...). The second you mention pit bull, the city's interest in protecting citizens is likely going to outweigh any ADA requirements for reasonable accomodation. Some cities (like Miami) have banned pits completly and that's in people's private homes... allowing a pit bull service animal (even a mix) is even more of a risk to the public. Just something to keep in mind........
saraswati:
I am going to have to respectfully disagree with the previous poster (friendof) who gave info on service animals. This is my area of legal practice, so I might have a little bit more specifc info that may be helpful for you.
Yes, there are specific laws that vary from state to state (I can give you CA law specifically if you need it, but I don't have info on any other state), but the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and case law does explicitly define what a service animal is, and what it must do to qualify as a service animal. So there is actually a very clear answer to your question.
(what friendof may be referring to is that there are no set limits right now on what kind of animals can be considered service animals. People have claimed monkeys and snakes and things like that are service animals, and sometimes it sticks. Also, there is still some vaugeness in what "tasks" a service animal performs for someone who is claiming a mental illness as a disability. But for physical disabilities, the law is pretty clear. )
To be considered a "service animal", the animal must be trained to perform a specific task that relates to the disability. However, here is some more info. Not all medical conditions are "disabilities". In order to be a disability under the ADA, the medical condition must severely limit a daily activity, such as seeing, hearing, moving, walking, showering, etc. So first of all, your character's heart condition must be severe enough that it affects their daily life and keeps them from performing basic life tasks. If the heart condition is so severe that they can't get around without a walker or wheelchair, or that they are prone to severe dizzy spells, fainting, or can't drive. Then it might be a disability. Usually disabilities under the ADA are mobility based (paralysis, wheelchair, cane), sensory-based (blind, deaf), general auto-immune based (HIV, Lupus), nervous system failures, or mental illnesses.
Bottom line, if the heart condition leaves them frail enough to qualify under the ADA, they are going to have some severe limitations in their daily life.
Now under CA law, you don't need to be quite so ill, but that's CA law.
Second, any animals that you want to qualify as service animals must be trained to do specific tasks that alleviate the disability in question. So, for example, seeing eye dogs do tasks assisting with blindness. And hearing dogs alert their owners to sounds (like a doorbell or phone or siren). So I'm having trouble imagining what your character's dog is trained to do? I don'[t think dogs can be trained to call 911 in a heart emergency, or to give medication. If you can give me an example of what the dog is specifically trained to do, and what the person's limiations are, I can tell you if it would legally be considered a service animal or not.
If you want to create a situation with a service animal, is it possible to give your main character a different disability? If it doesn't impact the story. Or, if a heart condition is needed, can the character also have a sight condition? or something else that would require a service animal? I am assuming that for some reason in your story you want an animal with the right to accompany it's owner everywhere it goes. Here is another possibility, your character could be training a seeing eye dog, then it would have the same rights as a regular service animal. All your character would need is some experience as a dog trainer and a license from the state to be an official seeing eye dog trainer.
Also, it is true that under the ADA only seeing eye dogs need to be trained and certified by specific licensed trainers. All other kinds of service animals can be trained by anybody to perform the specific tasks, including the owner themselves. (many deaf people train their own hearing dogs).
Let me know if I can help you solve your quandry.
good luck and I hope that helps
friendof:
I stand corrected... I actually only meant to say what you said above about not having to be certified or specifically trained but you've explained it and said it much better than I! :)
saraswati:
No worries, friendof, we are all on the same team :) Hopefully my response didn't come across as too "territorial". I'm really glad you are here to answer stuff too. thanks!
Aggie80:
2. Estate disposition. If said person dies intestate and has no immediate family, how far is a search made for relatives before the estate is liquidated, and once liquidated, what happens to it?
Many places have a limit of how far they will search, usually within 3 degrees of relation (no laughing inheritors). They are typically not going to look at anyone aoutside the country if it is US. Without an heir, the estate will go to the state.
3. Estate disposition. If said person dies with a will leaving a blanket statement of "all worldly possessions to go to X", will that person have any difficulty in simply taking over the deceased's estate? Should there be an executor named? If they were in business and he is leaving the business to her could she keep it active while the will is being settled? Would any other person (like an ex-wife) be able to make any claims against the estate?
First step is to open the estate with the court. The court will almost always appoint an executor, (there are a few exceptions, but they are for very small estates). If there is a will as you mentioned, they may very well appoint them as executor. The executor will be responsible for maintaining and preserving the value of the estate, including continuing to run businesses. Yes, an ex-wife may be able to make claims against the estate and can surely file against it, success will depend on many factors.
wayzgoose:
I appreciate the estate information. Can the business owner make his employee a joint tenant with right of survivorship without her knowing? Would that circumvent the inheritance problem?
Aggie80:
Can the business owner make his employee a joint tenant with right of survivorship without her knowing?
Creation of a Joint Tenancy can be tricky. Certainly not without her knowing about it. For it to be done, both parties must acquire their interest at the same time, in equal shares. If the owner didn't set up the business as a Joint Tenancy, he can't 'give' half of it away. There are ways around it, but they do require costs for multiple title transfers and filing and taxes, etc. And both parties at that point would be fully responsible for their share of expenses, taxes and liabilities. And it is important to realize that Joint Tenants own real property, i.e., land or cash. Businesses are not held by Joint Tenants, thought the real property associated with a business could be. They could be partners with survivorship rights, but certainly not without knowledge. And the value of the business could get included in the estate.
Would that circumvent the inheritance problem?
Yes. The survivor simply files a copy of the death certificate to obtain a new deed or title.
Analise:
4. Search Warrant--From what I remember in my computer forensics class and my time working for a state attorney general's cyber crime office (and, of course, this is based off of couple-year-old memory and I don't claim to be an expert but thought I might help):
Many judges err on the side of being careful when it comes to computers. Therefore, when writing out a warrant, not only do you need a lawyer and a police officer, you also need someone who understands computers. Not only that, but you have to be careful of what you say you're searching. If you're looking for things that only should be found in say, the My Documents folder, but you search the entire computer, and your warrent says you were only looking in My Documents and you find evidence stashed away in some obscure folder somewhere, that might not be permissible, since you didn't specifically say you were searching the entire computer in the warrent.
Same goes for, if you go to seize the computer and there are disks right next to the computer (or one in the drive), if you only said you were searching the computer, that would mean the hard drive. You would need to have enumerated floppy/flash/cds/etc to be able to search those as well.
And as for the first question: I'm under the impression it would be just like any other search, if there's reason to believe it's a computer crime (ie. a crime committed either against/to a computer or a crime committed with the use of a computer, which embezzlement often is) then, yes. However, it might be difficult to prove that the evidence resides on their home computer (where that evidence of another crime might be) since that would involve work computers. Unless they somehow did it online, or kept a record of the embezzling on their computer (old emails with a confederate, spreadsheets detailing the money info), or perhaps a second set of "books" showing their "real" cash inflow.
Also, when searching computers, you need to keep in mind investigators have to be very careful about how they go about looking for evidence. They don't just crack the computer open and go to town, because even turning the computer on, or looking at a directory listing of files can change information about files that might useful and then the defense attorney could argue there's no way to prove that they weren't tampered with at that point. Instead, you have to use hardware that allows you to make a bit-for-bit copy of all the contents of the harddrive (or better, yet, make two or three, one to work with, one to give the defense, and one to save as backup) that you can search around to your heart's content.
Hope this helps? A little?
My MC works in Computer Forensics. In essence, he has a warrant to search a laptop computer. The laptop has been connected to a corporate system and the user had high-level administrative privileges on the network. He is in physical possession of the laptop and can start it, slave it, remove the HD and examine it remotely. The one thing I really don't want him to do is physically work on the laptop in any way other than his initial set-up, in other words, put it in an environment where he can get to it via a VPN from his own device and keep it firewalled from infecting his systems if it is contagious.
1. What kind of protection of files will my detective encounter when he cracks the laptop?
2. What tools would he typically use to gain access to passwords or other secure information?
3. How would he identify various security protocols (like encryption or file fuzzing) and how would he break through them?
4. How long would it take to gain access to the corporate network if he had the laptop in range to access the corporate wifi net?
The answers to these will undoubtedly bring up a number of others, but I've found your previous answers to questions to be most informative and enjoyable. Thank you for sharing your expertise!
KarenRei:
If he's removing the hard drive, he has no reason to ever boot up the laptop. Use it as a secondary drive in another system, and everything is his, assuming it's your typical windows or mac box (and even most unix boxes). Only the rare system indeed has an actually encrypted hard drive.
What sort of passwords are we talking about here? Passwords to online sites? You could look through the browser cache or use the default methods (trojans, social engineering, dictionary attacks, etc). Passwords to encrypted files? The only good way to get those are the default methods. If you want to scan the entire hard drive for information that might be out there (deleted or not), I personally would use 'dd' and grep the output for a string that I expected to be near the given type of password that I'm looking for.
Note that with many things, a password is far from the only way to get into a system. Unexpired session information, for example, can do the trick.
Most encrypted files are quite obvious that they're encrypted. That's the difference between encryption and steganography -- encryption is out in the open but algorithmically scrambled. Steganography is covert encoding of information into data so that one doesn't know that the data is there. Cracking good, modern encryption (none of this 40 bit nonsense) is essentially impossible. However, there are always "tricks" for a given situation.
Example: During the early 1980s, American encryption was essentially impossible for the Soviets to crack. That didn't stop them. I had a friend who worked in SIGINT at the time, and they started realizing that the Soviets knew what was going on in US encrypted channels during American war games. How did they do it? They ignored what data they were seing. Instead, they payed attention to the patterns in transmissions -- when they started, how long they lasted for, what the back and forth was, etc. From that, they could deduce what was being sent. ;)
How long to gain access to a corporate network with a laptop that used to be on the network? Instantly, if they can log in. ;) Even easier, with WiFi, you often can just sniff passwords and/or spoof MAC addresses; it's often very poorly secured. Even if they use WEP, there's programs like AirSnort. You really need WPA or WPA-2 to have any sort of decent security. Security conferences have been known to post the passwords of people who connect to WiFi during them. ;)
Lets pretend that it's a secure wireless network. If the laptop is a "home edition", or isn't configured well, the administrator password (safe mode) will be blank by default, so they could easily use that to log in. Lets assume it's not. You can do things like replace logon.scr with cmd.exe or explorer.exe. Or you can use one of the half-million tools to get/change user account passwords .
Did I mention that Windows is really insecure? ;)
The only way to get an actually "secure" laptop out there is to use a Unix distro that has an honest-to-god encrypted hard disk. Most unix systems, by far, don't do this. Only the most paranoid actually have encrypted partitions. I once kept my mp3s and videos on an encrypted partition. It was a pain; I decided it wasn't worth it.
If the hard disk itself is encrypted, you're in trouble. You need to go back to the aforementioned possibilities -- trojans, social engineering, dictionary attacks, getting passwords from other sources and seing if they work on the hard drive, etc.
crossmagus:
@Wayzgoose - This is not very different from a forensic project that I am working on right now. The main thing is that if any of his findings are to be used as evidence in court, then he will need to assure the courts that nothing he did has changed the content of that drive. So in all likelyhood, he would remove the drive and attach it to a write-block device - usually they act as IDE-to-Firewire devices but they proevent anything from writng to the laptop drive. He would make at least two copies of the drive, evidence bag the laptop drive and also one copy. Then he would make multiple copies of his second copy and use those for his analysis.
If he needed to run the executable code on the drive, he would probably do it from within a VM sandbox. Using a virtual machine that has limited connectivity it can't infect anything else. There are tools that would change the hardware drivers to allow the image to work well with the virtualized hardware.
This is if his data is going to court. Now this sort of analysis does not require a warrant - that is used to grab the system and bring it to him. The case i have now we are investigating an executive, but obtained the image of his drive without his knowledge. This did not require a warrant, but rather the permission of the owner of the laptop - the employing corporation.
For quick work like that, I like to use a bootable Live Linux CD based on Knoppix or Slax. Helix is an example of a forensic toolkit of open source tools that is free and very useful - I can attach a USB drive and copy the image to the USB drive wthout ever booting the laptop's os (it booted from CD). If he's a professional and/or law enforcement he is most likely to use EnCase or The Forensiscs Toolkit (TFK) as his primary analysis tool and Helix supports both their native formats. If not, Helix has a batch of tools itself.
Helix used to have a set of tools for lifting tha SAM and other password-realted files, but recent versions have removed those tools. I use another live CD called Backtrack to do that sort of work and copy them to the USB drive for later password analysis. I can crack the passwords with a dictionary attack in a short while (about 85% of the paswords) but more and more for really complex passwords, i can subscribe to a Rainbow cracking service or have the database locally - these are essentally databases of the hashed passwords to compare with what s on the disk so I just find the matching hash and I know the password. depending upon complexity, these databases can run up to a terabyte (1024 Gb) or more. These are widely available to download off the web or there are even web services that rent you the computer and database. My local law enforcement forensics lab just keeps a set on a system just for that purpose.
As to encryption, that is an interesting question. I had a chance to talk about a major FBI sting operation with some of their forensics specialists and i was curious as to how much encryption they were running into from the collected computers they were analyzing. Their answer shocked me - none at all. In this case, the criminals didn't want anything to get between them and their content. In a different case the man in Seattle accused of murdering the parents and raping and killing the brother of the girl that was rescued was a self-styled computer expert and the clipping I read had him boasting that they will need decades to decrypt the data for his possible involvement with other victims.
While not computer related, recently a mob boss was found to have used a "ceasar cypher" thousands of years old to encrypt his paper notes - not realizing how easily it could be ed today. Bruce Schneir wrote about it a while ago.
Just some extra data for you....
KarenRei:
Interesting to know that people working in computer forensics use Knoppix! Quick question: if you're making a complete disk image, why do you need to have tools to lift the password with you? With an image, it seems you could do that back in your office when there aren't as strict time constraints.
Heh, I got a good kick out of the Bernardo Provenzano case when I first read about it, too. ;) That's what you get when you try to use a principle that you don't understand. Really, though, most people wouldn't know how to even encrypt a file if their life depended on it, let alone to use an encrypted loopback filesystem.
1. What kind of protection of files will my detective encounter when he cracks the laptop?
2. What tools would he typically use to gain access to passwords or other secure information?
3. How would he identify various security protocols (like encryption or file fuzzing) and how would he break through them?
4. How long would it take to gain access to the corporate network if he had the laptop in range to access the corporate wifi net?
The answers to these will undoubtedly bring up a number of others, but I've found your previous answers to questions to be most informative and enjoyable. Thank you for sharing your expertise!
KarenRei:
If he's removing the hard drive, he has no reason to ever boot up the laptop. Use it as a secondary drive in another system, and everything is his, assuming it's your typical windows or mac box (and even most unix boxes). Only the rare system indeed has an actually encrypted hard drive.
What sort of passwords are we talking about here? Passwords to online sites? You could look through the browser cache or use the default methods (trojans, social engineering, dictionary attacks, etc). Passwords to encrypted files? The only good way to get those are the default methods. If you want to scan the entire hard drive for information that might be out there (deleted or not), I personally would use 'dd' and grep the output for a string that I expected to be near the given type of password that I'm looking for.
Note that with many things, a password is far from the only way to get into a system. Unexpired session information, for example, can do the trick.
Most encrypted files are quite obvious that they're encrypted. That's the difference between encryption and steganography -- encryption is out in the open but algorithmically scrambled. Steganography is covert encoding of information into data so that one doesn't know that the data is there. Cracking good, modern encryption (none of this 40 bit nonsense) is essentially impossible. However, there are always "tricks" for a given situation.
Example: During the early 1980s, American encryption was essentially impossible for the Soviets to crack. That didn't stop them. I had a friend who worked in SIGINT at the time, and they started realizing that the Soviets knew what was going on in US encrypted channels during American war games. How did they do it? They ignored what data they were seing. Instead, they payed attention to the patterns in transmissions -- when they started, how long they lasted for, what the back and forth was, etc. From that, they could deduce what was being sent. ;)
How long to gain access to a corporate network with a laptop that used to be on the network? Instantly, if they can log in. ;) Even easier, with WiFi, you often can just sniff passwords and/or spoof MAC addresses; it's often very poorly secured. Even if they use WEP, there's programs like AirSnort. You really need WPA or WPA-2 to have any sort of decent security. Security conferences have been known to post the passwords of people who connect to WiFi during them. ;)
Lets pretend that it's a secure wireless network. If the laptop is a "home edition", or isn't configured well, the administrator password (safe mode) will be blank by default, so they could easily use that to log in. Lets assume it's not. You can do things like replace logon.scr with cmd.exe or explorer.exe. Or you can use one of the half-million tools to get/change user account passwords .
Did I mention that Windows is really insecure? ;)
The only way to get an actually "secure" laptop out there is to use a Unix distro that has an honest-to-god encrypted hard disk. Most unix systems, by far, don't do this. Only the most paranoid actually have encrypted partitions. I once kept my mp3s and videos on an encrypted partition. It was a pain; I decided it wasn't worth it.
If the hard disk itself is encrypted, you're in trouble. You need to go back to the aforementioned possibilities -- trojans, social engineering, dictionary attacks, getting passwords from other sources and seing if they work on the hard drive, etc.
crossmagus:
@Wayzgoose - This is not very different from a forensic project that I am working on right now. The main thing is that if any of his findings are to be used as evidence in court, then he will need to assure the courts that nothing he did has changed the content of that drive. So in all likelyhood, he would remove the drive and attach it to a write-block device - usually they act as IDE-to-Firewire devices but they proevent anything from writng to the laptop drive. He would make at least two copies of the drive, evidence bag the laptop drive and also one copy. Then he would make multiple copies of his second copy and use those for his analysis.
If he needed to run the executable code on the drive, he would probably do it from within a VM sandbox. Using a virtual machine that has limited connectivity it can't infect anything else. There are tools that would change the hardware drivers to allow the image to work well with the virtualized hardware.
This is if his data is going to court. Now this sort of analysis does not require a warrant - that is used to grab the system and bring it to him. The case i have now we are investigating an executive, but obtained the image of his drive without his knowledge. This did not require a warrant, but rather the permission of the owner of the laptop - the employing corporation.
For quick work like that, I like to use a bootable Live Linux CD based on Knoppix or Slax. Helix is an example of a forensic toolkit of open source tools that is free and very useful - I can attach a USB drive and copy the image to the USB drive wthout ever booting the laptop's os (it booted from CD). If he's a professional and/or law enforcement he is most likely to use EnCase or The Forensiscs Toolkit (TFK) as his primary analysis tool and Helix supports both their native formats. If not, Helix has a batch of tools itself.
Helix used to have a set of tools for lifting tha SAM and other password-realted files, but recent versions have removed those tools. I use another live CD called Backtrack to do that sort of work and copy them to the USB drive for later password analysis. I can crack the passwords with a dictionary attack in a short while (about 85% of the paswords) but more and more for really complex passwords, i can subscribe to a Rainbow cracking service or have the database locally - these are essentally databases of the hashed passwords to compare with what s on the disk so I just find the matching hash and I know the password. depending upon complexity, these databases can run up to a terabyte (1024 Gb) or more. These are widely available to download off the web or there are even web services that rent you the computer and database. My local law enforcement forensics lab just keeps a set on a system just for that purpose.
As to encryption, that is an interesting question. I had a chance to talk about a major FBI sting operation with some of their forensics specialists and i was curious as to how much encryption they were running into from the collected computers they were analyzing. Their answer shocked me - none at all. In this case, the criminals didn't want anything to get between them and their content. In a different case the man in Seattle accused of murdering the parents and raping and killing the brother of the girl that was rescued was a self-styled computer expert and the clipping I read had him boasting that they will need decades to decrypt the data for his possible involvement with other victims.
While not computer related, recently a mob boss was found to have used a "ceasar cypher" thousands of years old to encrypt his paper notes - not realizing how easily it could be ed today. Bruce Schneir wrote about it a while ago.
Just some extra data for you....
KarenRei:
Interesting to know that people working in computer forensics use Knoppix! Quick question: if you're making a complete disk image, why do you need to have tools to lift the password with you? With an image, it seems you could do that back in your office when there aren't as strict time constraints.
Heh, I got a good kick out of the Bernardo Provenzano case when I first read about it, too. ;) That's what you get when you try to use a principle that you don't understand. Really, though, most people wouldn't know how to even encrypt a file if their life depended on it, let alone to use an encrypted loopback filesystem.
15 October 2006
- Monday, November 6: Billie the Kid
- Conversation with the Doctor
Dag goes to see his doctor on Monday morning for what we find is a routine visit, but also find that he has not reported the incident. He has a lump on his head, however, and scrapes on various parts of his body. The Doctor warns him that he has to avoid “falls” like that. Right now he’s in good shape for a heart transplant, but frankly the heart is failing fast and it is a race to get a donor in time. - Meeting the kid
As Dag leaves the doctor’s office (at the hospital) he meets Billie coming in. She is eight years old and a little tiger with a sharp sense of humor. She asks Dag if he has a bad heart. Anyone seeing this particular doctor has a bad heart. She blatantly says “Mine’s going to kill me if I don’t get a new one soon.” Billie’s mother tries to hush her, but Dag is fully engaged and when the nurse takes Billie back to be weighed, he talks to the mother to find out about Billie. Here’s where we have to answer some of the basic questions about waiting for a heart transplant, statistics, likelihood, etc. - Stoney silence
Riley picks Dag up at the hospital and takes him home in silence. Dag realizes she is still angry with him. We discover that Riley picked Dag up and took him home after he was hit Saturday night. When they get to Dag’s house, they pick up Maizie from Mrs. Prior and find that she is wearing a yellow jacket as a helper dog. Mrs. Prior explains that she can carry Dag’s medicine and that this way they can catch a bus whenever they want to. - Footwork for Riley
In order to appease Riley, who will not let Dag return to the office for the rest of the day, Dag tells her about his meeting with Angel and suggests that she drove off just before he fell. He asks Riley to try to find her and make sure she “got home okay.” Riley heads out and Dag collapses into his easy chair to rest.
- Conversation with the Doctor
- Tuesday, November 7: Just the Facts
- Visit from FinCen
Dag is in the office looking up additional records when Silas comes in. Silas wants to know what Dag has found and we discover in the process that Silas is on the trail of a major money laundering scheme that points to Simon’s company. He stops short of saying Simon was involved, but suggests that any information that Dag uncovers would be of interest, including Simon’s location. - Another client
After Silas leaves, a “walk-in” comes in with a laptop that has been dumped in water. The client says he’d really like to recover his files from the hard drive. Dag agrees to do his best and asks what kind of files he is looking for. After suggesting several types, the client says his e-mail and “those favorite thingies.” Dag tells him to come back at 5:00. - Just a travel agent
Acting on Angel’s tip, Dag starts to track down travel records for Simon. He can find no ticket purchases in any of his financial records or credit cards. Puzzled, he calls Brenda about Simon’s travel plans and where he was going. She says he took the jet, of course. It is news to Dag that Simon had a private jet and he begins tracking down its records and flight plans. He discovers that it did, indeed go to Singapore and return, but that US Customs has no record of Simon having been on the plane. - Angel has a boyfriend
When Riley returns, she brings Maizie in with her and comes with the news that Angel lives with a man who is reputed to be violent and possessive. Not only is he her boyfriend, but he works at Stocks & Blondes. She says he has been known to assault clients who were too friendly with Angel. Dag begins to suspect that it was the boyfriend who attacked him, and might be the cause of Simon’s sudden disappearance.
- Visit from FinCen
- Wednesday, November 8: A Partner Calls
- Put up or shut up
Riley comes into Dag’s office to talk and becomes provocative. She makes another proposition to him and Dag tells her to put up or shut up. They get their coats and Dag walks her down to Pier 56 where they engage in a number of video games and pinball, ride the merry-go-round, get fish and chips, and head back to the office. - Maizie on guard
Bradley Keane, has come in while they were gone, intent on stealing the computer. When Dag & Riley return, Maizie is sitting on Brad in Dag's office growling. Brad tells Dag that Brenda had no right to give him the computer and that if he doesn’t get the data from the computer, their client will be furious. Brad is revealed to be sneaky and blustery, but unable to take a punch when Riley kicks him in the stomach. Bradley is the type of person who would leave all the dirty work to someone else. (Possible clue: Dag may spot a thumbdrive on a chain around the partner’s neck when he is putting himself back together after Maizie took him down.) - Information please
A subdued Bradley turns to charm and cooperation as he spins a story of a partner who has wronged him. He believes his partner has embezzled funds from one of their clients and wants to get the information from the computer. Dag leads him on, telling him that if he finds anything he’ll be sure to let Bradley know. He even offers to put the computer back together if Bradley can show that the company owns it and not Simon personally. Bradley backs off and it is suddenly okay to just be kept informed. He spends some time trying to get into Dag’s method for recovering the data and Dag may throw him some bones. - Riley on a mission
After they talk for a while, during which Dag comments on Riley’s martial arts skills, Riley is sent back to the library for more information on Simon and Bradley’s business. Dag lies down to nap. He awakens to the phone and Riley tells him that she has some info. The info proves to suggest that Simon and Bradley are highly diversified, including investment funds from hidden corporations and a tangle of holding companies. Dag is ready to get back to work, but finds that after he takes Maizie out he is too tired to walk home and stretches out in the office to sleep. Out the window he can see an office building with a light in a window that is in his eyes no matter how he shifts his position.
- Put up or shut up
- Thursday, November 9: Day in court
- Maizie goes to camp
Dag drops Maizie off in the morning with Mrs. Prior to go to day camp. Mrs. Prior has something to say about how Maizie worries about Dag. Riley picks up Dag to take him to court and Dag suggests that she find out the name of Simon and Bradley’s WiFi Network - Dag goes to court
Dag talks about being an expert witness in a trial in which an employee is accused of theft. Dag has deconstructed the employee’s computer and testifies that there are files that incriminate the employee. While waiting for his case to be called, Dag conducts text message conversations with Riley and proceeds to use his VPN to tap into the network. He does this with his laptop, VPN to his network, to Riley’s laptop (in the women’s room), to Bradley’s network. In this way, Dag downloads all the company’s critical financial data to his network and starts sifting through it. Riley also sees Bradley coming and going from the office and sees Brenda come for a visit. - Partner in court
While in court, Dag meets Silas. None of what Dag has learned is admissible, so Silas suggests that Dag investigate the source more fully, possibly leading to a suggestion to go to Chicago. There is a question as to whether Silas is telling Dag everything, but Dag puts the idea into his hopper. - Maizie comes home
When Riley drops Dag off at home, he picks Maizie from Mrs. Prior. Maizie has had a big day and won a costume contest. Some other silliness.
- Maizie goes to camp
- Friday, November 10: Partners in Crime
- Maizie the pirate
Maizie and Dag walk to the office together with everyone exclaiming about her costume, which she has refused to take off since the dog day the day before. Dag is long-suffering about his sissy guard dog. It doesn’t help when Riley gets all gushy in the office. - Uncovering the nasty business
Dag works on unravelling the accounting records and discovers a spiderweb of shell companies and holdings and at least three sets of books. It is impossible to know who owns what and how it is managed. In addition, Riley is doing research on the businesses as Dag uncovers them and discovers that Stocks & Blondes is one of their businesses. - Brenda takes a vacation
Much to Dag’s surprise, Brenda calls to tell him she is going to be gone for a week on vacation. She wants to know what progress Dag has made and Dag chooses not to tell her the truth of what is going on in the investigation. Brenda reiterates that it was Simon who said she should go to Dag if anything ever happened, much against her better judgment. She is as emasculating as possible. - Planting suggestions
Dag calls Bradley and tells him that Simon’s computer has some accounting anomalies on it that suggest that Simon may not have been playing above board. He’s thinking he should turn it over to the Feds. Bradley goes into an immediate sales job on why Dag should keep it and pursue the leads. In fact, Bradley is willing to increase Dag’s fee that he’s getting from Brenda to keep trying to locate Simon because that is the only way that Bradley will get his name cleared. Bradley suggests investigating a business that Simon had in Chicago.
- Maizie the pirate
- Saturday, November 11: I learned the secret of life the day after my 42nd birthday
- The workload at the office.
Dag talks about having been a loyal employee of a major accounting and consultancy firm for 17 years. How on that day he had handled problem after problem errorlessly and that when the day was done he realized that he knew everything except why he was in this job. The dream had always been to have his own business. So he quit. - Going back to school
Dag tells about how Lars greeted his suggestion and took him on as an agent for the three years that it took for him to establish himself as an independent investigator. He talks about this time as the time that he met Silas as well. There was always something special about the relationship of the three of them, but Dag could never bring himself to trust the relationship fully. He’d had friends before. - Advice from a mentor
Dag remembers a conversation with Lars that says “If you open the floodgates, you have to wade in the water.” It was his way of saying that if you really got into a case, you would get dirty from it. Dag uses the advice to make the decision to go to Chicago and books his tickets.
- The workload at the office.
13 October 2006
Things I learned about Deb Riley
So I gave Deb Riley a 70-question interview and she's posted half of it in her journal, then had to run off to watch Battlestar Galactica. I learned some things about her that are very telling. She is a real loner, but with at least one good friend. The friend, Teri, will have to be developed in a future work if I take Deb further. There are interesting things that have come out regarding her childhood. Her mother was a real nut-case and she related to her father mostly. But it doesn't sound like either one of them are around anymore. And the photo thing about all her photos of places she's been were taken in photo booths... I imagine that if you walked into her apartment and saw a picture of her with her parents it would be a very carefully photoshopped image of two people who look like they should have been her parents with one of those photo booth photos airbrushed into the picture. And suddenly there were the keys on her keyring. Two keys for her apartment (building door and apartment door), two for her beater car (trunk and ignition), the office key, and a key her father gave her telling her it was to a treasure chest and she should keep it in case she finds the chest! My god, there's a whole story right there! She also made an off-the-cuff comment that made me think she might be bi- or at least open to any possibility.
Things I learned about Dag Hamar
Now about Dag. I really haven't posted too much about Dag lately because a lot of the notes I've made could be giving away parts of the actualy story. I don't know why that makes a difference, but I've been shy about telling the actual things that would happen and spoiling the story for anyone who reads it. I don't know why I expect anyone here to actually read it, but... So one thing has been bugging me this evening: I have one scene planned (an entire, very short chapter) that is mostly profanity. I mean vulgar, disgusting, don't say it on TV and don't put it in public, I didn't know the human body could do that kind of thing invective. Dag thinks he is dying in a hotel room in Georgia and goes through anger, humiliation, despair, and mourning, all while swearing at himself and forcing himself to keep breathing no matter how much it hurts. I don't know in my mind how better to express this. He isn't a religious man so he's not going to go through prayer or a religious conversion. And he's not going to sit for a chapter in silence moaning.
The only reason this becomes an issue is because I might have an opportunity to post the blog in a very public forum that has asked for G-rated content. It is really the only scene that the language would be hard in. Even when he's in the private strip-club the content isn't all that racy. A little suggestive, but probably way over the head of anyone young enough to be offended by it. There are a couple scenes where someone undresses or is partially undressed in front of someone else, but there's no overt sex, no matter how suggestive Riley is. Dag will ask Riley why she calls Brenda a muffin-top and Riley will make some gestures and say she packs a size 12 body into a size 8 dress and needs someone to do a bra fitting for her. I think that's still G. My daughter would read it, but of course, she's 13 now.
Another thing I discovered is that at the end of the story, Dag checks himself out of the hospital (or just leaves) and goes home to be with his dog and die. There won't be any mad rush of doctors as the heart monitor flatlines. Dag will be truly dead. That may be more than can be said for the victim in the story, but that will be for Riley to discover in December.
I can't believe that I'm planning the sequel that Riley narrates in December before I've even started writing the story, but here is the thing: NaNoWriMo story is "Security & Exchange" and I've opened the blog for it. The name of the story for December, which I expect will simply be posted on debriley is "Municipal Bondage". So it's real enough in my mind now to actually have a title. Can I maintain the pace of writing a chapter a day through the month of December? I'm not going to tell my wife!
04 October 2006
I'm pretty sure it was her, though she looked a little younger than I imagined. Also a little blonder. But she had lots of curly hair and a big smile. She was with a friend eating at the Taj Palace in Bellevue. Don't know what brought her all the way to the east side, but maybe she was slumming. She ate the Indian food with gusto.
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