Reel looked at the men. “Any of you see Walton on this trip?”
They all shook their heads. One of Patti’s friends said, “He was here to fish. He knew where to fish, and he knew what he was doing. Didn’t need us to show him.”
“But he came into town from time to time,” pointed out Reel.
“Yeah, but we didn’t see him.”
Patti said, “I hope you find him.”
“We will,” said Reel.
CHAPTER
11
On the drive to Bender’s house, Robie read through the copy of the file that Malloy had provided them.
“Not much in here,” he said.
“Not much out here,” replied Reel as she turned down the road that Patti Bender had indicated.
“People like their privacy around here, I guess,” noted Robie.
“Well, I think you’re going to get privacy out here whether you want it or not.”
They rounded a bend. The house that appeared in front of them was large and modern looking, and surrounded by landscaping that mostly involved rock and pebble gravel.
“You don’t have to water rock,” observed Reel.
There were two stone pillars with a gate blocking the entrance into the property.
“I didn’t expect this,” said Reel. “I was thinking a shack on cinderblock.”
She pulled the truck up to the gate and punched a button on the black box mounted on a pole set in the ground.
“Hello?” said the female voice. “Are you Roger’s people?”
Reel glanced at Robie. “Well, there goes our cover for sure.” She said to the box, “Yes, we are.”
The gates opened and she pulled the Yukon toward the front of the house.
As they climbed out of the truck one of the wooden double doors to the house opened and revealed a woman standing there. She was in her sixties, tall and lean, with long, silvery blonde hair that fell loosely to her shoulders. She had on jeans, black boots, a white shirt, and turquoise jewelry on her wrists and around her neck.
“Come on in,” she said pleasantly.
They trooped up onto the porch. Robie held out his hand. “I’m Will Robie, this is Jessica Reel.”
“And I’m Claire Bender. You thirsty?”
“Some water, maybe?” said Robie.
“Coming up.”
They followed her into a large foyer with timbers soaring overhead and forming a cathedral-like dome. The floors were slate; the walls were a combination of wood, stone, and brick. The furnishings were large, looked custom-made, were colorful, and appeared to be relatively new. Original artwork hung on the walls along with some framed family photos.
They trooped to a spacious kitchen with granite counters, stainless steel Viking appliances, and walls of windows giving a view of the rear of her property, which was fenced.
“Beautiful place,” said Reel.
“Thank you. I had it all redone about eighteen months ago. Before that, it didn’t look like this, trust me. It was basically a knockdown.”
She poured them out glasses of water from a freestanding dispenser, then they settled in chairs next to a gas fireplace off the kitchen area.
“We met your daughter and your son,” began Robie.
“Patti already called me. Said you’d be coming by.”
Up close her features were finely wrought, the nose slender and straight, the cheekbones high and hard, the jaw square, and the chin shapely. The eyes were a delicate blue. Based on her being a contemporary of Blue Man, Robie pegged her age at closer to seventy than sixty, yet she could pass for being in her early fifties. She looked like she would be equally at home in a boardroom or astride a horse.
“I guess news of any strangers in town gets around fast,” noted Reel.
She smiled. “Well, it doesn’t have far to go.”
Robie smiled. “Your daughter said pretty much the same thing.”
Claire replied, “I guess I taught her well.”
“And what is it that you do?” asked Reel, looking around the interior.
“I used to do some farming: chickens, turkeys, and crops like soybean, wheat, and oats. But that just kept me out of the poor house, really. No, it was only later on that I hit the mother lode.”
“The lottery?” asked Robie.
“No, medical marijuana. I have six dispensaries across the state and two more opening next year.”
“I take it that’s pretty lucrative?” said Robie.
“It paid for this place. Now, the business is competitive, but it’s not insane like on the recreational side. Prices per pound on the rec side are plunging because of a glut of supply. You can grow as much as you want. And we can’t export from Colorado, of course, and there aren’t enough marijuana users here to make up the difference. Now, on the medical side the law requires that you have to own a dispensary and you have to grow seventy percent of what the dispensary sells. It keeps the production supply side from getting out of whack. And the growth in farmers is on the rec side, not the medical side. So because of that, prices per pound on the medical side are holding up well. And our output is really premium, so we can command about $2,400 per pound, pretty top of the market.”
“You sound like you really know the business,” remarked Robie.
“When I take on something I throw myself into it. So, yes, I’ve educated myself a lot.”
“Do you grow it here?” asked Reel.
“I started out here on this patch of land with a little greenhouse and some cheap lights and not really knowing what I was doing. But I learned quickly, saw where the markets were going, got out of personal-use farming and into the medical side, and expanded from there. We have first-rate equipment, and professional staff, we’re always looking for ways to expand our yield more efficiently, and we have built up a great customer base. And we’ve also expanded into marijuana edibles and cannabis-infused products, too.”
“How’d you get into growing pot?” asked Robie.
“Wasn’t for the money, I can tell you that. At least not initially. I got thrown off a horse, broke a bunch of bones, including my skull, and was in terrible pain for a long time. Only thing that worked was pot. Back then it was illegal, but you could find what you needed. And I started growing some myself. Now, legalization of marijuana in Colorado is a pretty convoluted tale with lots of fits and starts. Used to be if you were a caregiver to someone with chronic pain or illness you could get marijuana with a doctor’s prescription, but you were limited to five patients. Then the courts kicked out that limitation and also left it fuzzy about what the term dispensing actually meant, so medical marijuana dispensers started popping up here, like what was happening in California. Then the Feds announced that enforcement of a state’s medical marijuana programs would be a very low priority, that is, ‘We’re not going to prosecute you.’ Then it was off to the races, at least on the medical side. Later, growing and selling pot recreationally was legalized and the boom was on. But I started doing it because I know how it helped me.” She looked around at her beautiful home. “And it has, in more ways than one.”
Robie and Reel took sips of their water as Claire watched them.
“But you didn’t come to see me to learn about pot in Colorado. This is about Roger.”
“We understand you know him,” said Robie.
“Yes. We go way back.”
“And you’re worried?”
“I wasn’t initially. I just thought he’d gotten called back to DC or something.”
“Why would you think that?” asked Reel.
“Look, I don’t know exactly what Roger does, but I suspect he isn’t selling bananas from a street cart. Even way back we all knew he was going places. And I’ve seen him a lot over the years when he’d come back here. He never talked about work with me. When I asked what he did, he just said he pushed paper across his desk. Once he mentioned having a midlevel job at the State Department or some such.”