Chapter XXXVIII
CHAPTER XXXVIII
Angel and Louis weren’t noticeably keener on early mornings than I was, so I gave them some time to come to terms with the reality of another day before I got in touch. Instead, I headed home, eased myself of the burden of a bladder’s worth of Dunkin’ coffee, and caught up on some paperwork. Shortly after eleven, and to protect Jason Rybek, I drove out to BrightBlown’s farm and asked after him, only to be told by the woman at the front office that Rybek had been in touch to say he was ill and would be taking a few days off. I’d been practicing my expressions on the way and had perfected “annoyed but not necessarily shocked.” I gave it to her now, and received an apologetic shrug in return. I was about to leave, all bases covered, when Donna Lawrence arrived.
“I was going to call you,” she said. “Jason is taking time off, but I have his permission to share his cell phone number with you, should you wish to reach out.”
I took down the number for form’s sake. Lawrence removed two bottles of water from a refrigerator and handed one to me. The bottles were made from recycled plastic and the water probably flowed from Eden itself, pure as the driven snow, pure as Donna Lawrence’s soul.
“I feel that we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot,” she said, “though I’m not sure how. Why don’t I show you around? Who knows, we might even convince you to loosen up and try some of our products.”
Now that she believed Jason Rybek was safely out of the way and any efforts to trace him were destined to end in frustration, she was happy to play the gracious host. But I was also sure that Lawrence had been in contact with Devin Vaughn or one of his intermediaries since last we’d met. In Vaughn’s position, I’d have encouraged her to find out what the investigator might already know about Wyatt Riggins and his activities. I didn’t see any downside to playing along.
The most straightforward means of approaching Vaughn would have been to knock on his door down in Virginia, specify that I liked my coffee with milk, no sugar, and invite him to fill in the blanks. That would also have been a fast way to incur broken ribs and a concussion, or potentially something more terminal, depending on what Vaughn might be trying to hide. If every conversation was also a transaction, there was no point in arriving empty-handed. Should I decide to approach Vaughn directly, I’d need leverage. Taking a look at his operation in Maine, and hearing what someone who was effectively an underboss might have to say about it, was a step in the right direction.
The farm was alive with noise as we walked. A construction crew was clearing an area to the north, destined to be the site of a new production facility twice the size of the existing buildings combined. Lawrence showed me inside one of them, a long windowless barn divided into separate rooms in which cannabis plants were growing in elevated trays under LED lighting. I could no longer hear the sounds of the backhoes and excavators, only the quiet hum of the units that controlled the temperature. Lawrence explained that these plants were either at or near the end of their growth cycle. Next to the growing area was a curing room, where the plants would be dried before the flowers were trimmed, separated from the leaves, and the two products bagged for distribution to the main store in Portland, a smaller store in Bangor, or to independent outlets supplied by BrightBlown.
“That seems like a lot of weed,” I said, as Lawrence closed the door behind us.
“It is, but not as much profit. We were running at a loss for the first eighteen months, though we’re now in the black. Capital costs are high, and finance is hard to come by because lenders don’t want to be associated with cannabis or are prevented by statute from lending to our industry. Then there are taxes to be paid, but we’re excluded from claiming certain credits and deductions; we’re unable to trade across state lines; and, as you intimated when we first met, we have a glut of competition, both legal and illegal. We’re expanding because we’re optimistic that we’ve weathered the worst of the bad times, but we’ve been wrong before. We thought that when the Democrats returned to power, it would mean a loosening of federal restrictions, and that didn’t happen.”
I nodded along politely, but everything she told me had to be viewed in the context of a cash business—one, what’s more, that was allegedly being used by Devin Vaughn to launder money. It wasn’t that Lawrence was lying, just that she wasn’t presenting the complete picture. We stopped on a rise to take in a view of the whole farm. To the east stood a shuttered coffee truck surrounded by picnic tables.
“We’re going to add a pizza van for the summer months,” said Lawrence. “We want BrightBlown Farm to become a destination for tourists and locals alike.”
“It’s all very idyllic,” I said. “I hope Devin Vaughn will come up here to cut the ribbon personally.”
“I asked around,” said Lawrence. “That name wasn’t familiar to anyone I spoke with.”
“What about to the people they spoke with?”
She drank some of her water but didn’t look at me.
“You don’t give up, do you?”
“I’ve been told it’s one of my better qualities,” I said, “or one of my qualities, anyway.”
Her tone changed, and the pretense of ignorance was dropped.
“Nothing has happened to Wyatt Riggins, or if it has, it’s nothing to do with BrightBlown. Devin has never even set foot here. That’s deliberate. We don’t want anything to tarnish the company’s reputation or draw heat. We have twenty employees, both full- and part-time, and we’re hoping to double that number when the new facility is up and running. Like me, they love what they do and want to keep doing it. They’re working with their hands, digging in the soil, growing plants.
“We have customers who come to us with epilepsy, cancer, MS, chronic pain. Before legalization, they might have been hooking up with some street dealer or trying to cultivate cannabis in their yard or greenhouse, always looking over their shoulder for a cop. Do I think there are too many outlets in the city? Of course, but I would say that, right? Whatever you may feel personally about what we do, it’s not all bad, and we’re here to stay. If Wyatt Riggins is in trouble, I hope he stays away from here, and if he tries to come back, he won’t find a welcome or his old job. Have I made myself plain?”
“Very,” I said.
“The man I spoke to asked me to pass on a message. He said that efforts were being made to trace Wyatt and make him calm his girlfriend down, which means persuading her to dispense with your services. He was hopeful of getting a message passed along to Wyatt. Once Wyatt’s spoken to Zetta Nadeau and confirmed he’s safe and well, we can all go our separate ways.”
I finished my water.
“I’m never going to speak to Jason Rybek, am I?” I asked.
“I told him to leave town. Even if you find him, it won’t change anything. BrightBlown is a dead end as far as Wyatt Riggins is concerned.”
And I believed her. Thanks to Rybek, I knew more than she did about what Riggins might have been doing for Devin Vaughn. Unfortunately, it made me less inclined to drop the investigation.
“Thanks for the tour,” I said. “I doubt I’ll be bothering you again, but I can’t say the same for Vaughn. When you next speak to your contact, you might share that with him.”
“There must be easier ways to earn a living than getting in Devin’s face.” She shook her head. “And you’ll receive no help from anyone here, because if he goes down, so do we.”
“An enterprise like this?” I said. “No, someone will keep it running just as it is. They might change the name, but they’ll have no reason to mess with the structure. I mean, you’re getting a pizza van. You’ll be okay.”
I tossed my empty bottle in one of the many recycling barrels scattered around the property. BrightBlown was very eco-friendly, which proved that even miscreants like Devin Vaughn weren’t all bad.
“Does that mean I can come to you for a reference should it all go south?” asked Lawrence.
“No need,” I replied. “If someone’s looking to employ an apologist for a criminal, I’ll send them straight to you.”
To her credit, she didn’t take it badly.
“Maybe I can get a job working for Congress, or Big Oil.”
“Reach for the stars,” I said.