They stopped in front of the group. Two of the men were tall and lanky, and two were shorter and barrel-chested, with guts that drooped over their too-small waistbands. The men all wore dirty cammie pants, dusty work boots, and ball caps. The woman was in her late thirties and of average height. She was wearing faded jeans and a tank top that showed her arms and shoulders to be sinewy and well developed. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail. Her expression was suspicious, and in that it neatly matched her colleagues’.
Robie slipped a picture of Blue Man out of his pocket and held it up. “We’re looking for this man. He rented a cabin up on Kiowa Butte. He’s gone missing. Have you seen him? Did you ever talk to him?”
The men shuffled their feet and eyed one another. The woman stepped forward.
“That’s Roger Walton.”
“That’s right, it is.”
“He was engaged to my mother way back till she broke it off.”
“And you are…?” asked Reel, her eyes widening at this piece of information.
“Patti Bender.”
“Are you related—”
“Derrick’s my brother,” she interjected.
“We just met with him and Sheriff Malloy,” said Robie.
“Why do you want to find Walton?” asked Patti.
“Because he’s missing and he shouldn’t be,” replied Reel.
“I hear you’re from Washington, DC.”
“And who did you hear that from?” asked Robie.
“Everybody, basically.”
The men all nodded.
“News travels fast here, I take it,” noted Reel.
Patti said, “It doesn’t have far to go.”
Reel nodded. “Still, it’s nice to know you folks are observant. With your help we should be able to find Mr. Walton in no time.”
“He works for the government, doesn’t he?” asked Patti. “Something high up?”
“Do you have any idea where he might be?” asked Robie, ignoring her query.
She shook her head. “I didn’t see him this trip.”
“I understand from Derrick that he had dinner with your mother when he came to visit.”
“He did sometimes. They were still good friends, even after all these years.” She paused. “And even after what happened.”
“Her breaking up with him,” said Robie.
“That’s right.”
“Can you give us her address?”
“Drive out of town to the west. Second road take a right. Go about three miles and she’s the only one down there.”
Reel ran her gaze over their weapons. “You look loaded for bear.”
One of the men laughed. “Actually, we’re going light today.”
“And what is it that you do?”
He said, “People come here to hunt and fish, and we act as guides. Or they want to do some rafting, or bird watching or rock climbing or hiking. Pays pretty well, though it’s not regular work. Lots of stuff to do out here. But you can’t be no couch potato.”
Reel eyed the two men with guts. “Yeah, I can see that.” She settled her gaze on Patti. “And is that what you do as well?”
“I do what I need to do to get by.”
“You live with your mom?” asked Robie.
“Not for a long time.”
“So why do you think she broke off the engagement with Walton?” asked Robie.
Patti considered this for a moment. “I think he didn’t want to stay here but she did. It was her home. But he apparently didn’t think of it as his home anymore.”
Robie looked around the area. “I can see why that might be a problem.”
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 acr
oss 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.”
“And you didn’t believe him?” asked Reel.
“Roger Walton was the golden boy from Grand, Colorado, small as it is. Football and baseball star. Accepted at half a dozen Ivy League schools. Smartest person I’ve ever been around. And one of the kindest. He could’ve been an insufferable jock type, but he was the exact opposite. Ask anyone who knew him. He helped everybody when he lived here. Even those that didn’t deserve it.”
“Did you know his parents?” asked Reel.
“Of course. What happened was so tragic.”
“What happened to them?” asked Reel.
“Oh, I thought you knew.”
“Knew what?” said Reel.
“They apparently had a suicide pact. They were found in their car in their garage. They’d turned on the engine and stuffed the tailpipe.”
“When was this? Recently?”
“Oh, no. It was while Roger still lived here. He was the one to find them. He’d been away at some regional debate championship in Nebraska his senior year of high school. When he got back, well…it was awful.”
“Damn,” said Robie. “Pretty tough situation for a teenager.”
“Pretty tough for any age,” said Reel.
Claire said, “Well, the town rallied around Roger, of course. In fact, he came to live with my family for the rest of the school year.”
“Does anyone know why they killed themselves?” asked Robie.
“Dorothy, Roger’s mom, had ovarian cancer. Late stage. Back then there was nothing to combat it. She was going to die. I don’t think Roger’s dad could live without her.”
Reel frowned. “So he kills himself and leaves his kid alone. If you ask me, that’s kind of selfish.”
“That’s what I thought, too. But Roger didn’t see it that way. He loved his parents. And he survived. He always survived.” She paused. “I’m counting on that right now. For him to survive.” She paused again. “He kept the house. He’s never been back there, as far as I know, but he never sold it, either. I drive by it every once in a while and think about Roger. All he went through at such a young age.”
“That’s very sad,” said Reel wistfully.
“You said you were initially not worried when he disappeared,” prompted Robie with a quick glance at Reel. “What changed?”
Claire said, “When I heard that he’d left everything at the cabin, including his rental. That wasn’t like Roger. He was organized and efficient. If he got called back to DC suddenly he would’ve taken care of all that, or had someone do it for him.”
“Did you see him while he was here this time?”
“Yes. We usually have dinner. And we did. Here. We both cooked.”
“So you have a good relationship?” said Robie.
Claire smiled. “Look, I’m sure one of my kids told you that Roger and I were engaged to be married. Only I didn’t want to leave here and he wanted to get the hell out. Am I right?”
“We did hear that from Patti,” conceded Robie.
“So it wasn’t a question of love. I loved him and he loved me. We just had a difference of opinion on where that love should be located.” She paused and frowned. “Looking back, I can see now why I didn’t want to leave. Back then I was a simple girl with simple ambitions. Roger wanted to see the world, do everything, which scared the crap out of me. Now, look, I’m no dummy. I’ve held my own with some pretty smart people who come through here from time to time, and I have managed to build a pretty successful business. But Roger was on another plane. He was flat-out brilliant. I…I guess I was afraid if I moved with him, I would end up not measuring up and we’d get divorced. And then where would I be? Stuck in a place that would seem like another planet to me.”
Reel studied her. “And do you still think that?”
“Doesn’t matter, does it?”
“But now?” persisted Reel, drawing a curious look from Robie.
Claire said quietly, “I can’t say I don’t have regrets, because I do. But I think we’re past the do-over stage in life.”
Reel said, “But he came back here. And spent time with you. That probably tells you something.”
“What, that maybe he had regrets?”
“He never married, at least to my knowledge,” said Robie.
“I know. Well, water under the bridge.” She looked squarely at them.