The Lady Who Sang High: A Reed Ferguson Mystery (A Private Investigator Mystery Series - Crime Suspense Thriller Book 7) (3 page)

Now that I had a moment, I studied the store. It was like nothing I’d seen before. Bongs of all shapes and sizes were for sale on shelves behind the long counter: straight-tubed, beaker-shaped, and bubble-shaped in all sorts of colors. An entire shelf within a glass case was devoted to pipes: glass, wooden, metal, and even foldable ones, again in an assortment of colors, shapes and sizes. A small table and chairs sat in the corner. Large Mason jars filled the shelves above a stainless steel counter against the back wall.

Another part of the display case had weed edibles: brownies, Rice Krispie treats, sodas and energy drinks, candy, chocolate bars. The news had carried stories about the emerging weed edibles business, but I was stunned by the variety of items for sale.

“This is Bill Vardin,” Jodie said.

Bill gave me a halfhearted wave. “Dude.”

He
was what I thought of as the stereotypical stoner: Brown dreadlocks, scraggly beard, glassy brown eyes, Tevas, and a laidback attitude. The only thing missing was the tattered clothes. His jeans were clean, no holes, and so was his white shirt. Fighting the stereotype was an issue for marijuana businesses, like it or not.

“You’re the new guy, huh?” He gave me the onceover, a smile on his face. I wondered what he was thinking of me. Old and uptight?

“I’m glad to be here,” I said lamely.

“Reed will be helping around the store and in the warehouse,” Jodie said. “He’s never worked in a weed store, so he’ll have a lot to learn.”

“There’s lots to do,” Bill said. “We’ve got new regulations to learn, and there’s a strict inventory system we have to adhere to. We can be audited at any time, so you really need to pay attention to things.”

And there went the stereotype. He was obviously bright and knew what he was doing, and the smile remained.

The brunette finished with a customer and slid past Bill. “Don’t let him make you nervous. I’m Ivy Ackerman. I’m sure you’ll learn things quickly.” She flicked her bangs out of her eyes. “It’ll be nice to have help.”

“It will,” Jodie agreed, keeping up the ruse. “I’ve got too much on my plate as it is.”

A man with a shaved head, khakis and a blue shirt came through the front door and strolled purposefully over to us.

“Hey, Jodie,” he said as he took off Ray-Ban sunglasses. “Is Jude here?”

“Not yet.” She introduced us. “This is Wes Scobie, one of our investors.”

“I write the checks,” Wes said with a wide, chilly smile. I instantly got what Jodie meant by arrogant.

“Reed is our newest hire,” she said.

He barely acknowledged me and stepped past us and through the back door. “I’ll be upstairs.”

I wasn’t sure, but I thought Bill and Ivy exchanged a repulsed look. Not thrilled with Wes either?

“I need a word with Wes,” Jodie said to me. “Then I’ll show you around the rest of the place.”

With that, she rushed after Wes.

I stood at the end of the counter, feeling conspicuous. I watched Bill and Ivy putter around. Bill pulled a large square container from a cupboard and stood at the back counter, filling a jar with some of Blue Light’s finest.

“One of the two jerks is here,” Ivy muttered.

“Joy of joys,” Bill said.

Time to put the detecting skills to work.

“Don’t tell me I’m getting into a bad-boss situation,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I just left a job like that.”

Ivy sauntered over, her blue eyes penetrating. She wore a very short skirt, yellow sleeveless blouse and lots of jewelry, from bracelets, multiple earrings, and a piercing through her eyebrow.

“Jodie’s fine,” she said. “She’ll be the one you’ll report to, and if you have any questions, she’s really helpful. But watch out for Jude.”

I moved closer and rested my elbows on the glass display counter. “Why’s that?”

“Because he’s an asshole,” Bill said, then looked over his shoulder, checking to make sure no one was around.

“Really?” This was not how Jodie painted him.

“Oh yeah.” Bill concentrated on what he was doing, reluctant to join the conversation.

“I wouldn’t say he’s an outright asshole,” Ivy said. “But he’s not very nice. One time, I had to go back into the grow rooms and he was working in the lab. I didn’t know he was in there and I stopped for a second, just watching what he was doing. I do that a lot when Carlo and Pete are in there. It’s fascinating to see what they’re doing, experimenting with new strains and how to grow better weed. They never say anything. Sometimes they even let me come in and they explain what they’re doing. But when Jude saw me, he exploded.”

“That seems kind of harsh,” I said.

“You’re telling me.” She frowned. “Whatever he was doing, he sure didn’t like me around. He swore at me and then slammed the door in my face. I mean, geez, if you don’t want people to see you, then close the door, right?”

“Uh-huh,” I agreed.

“Ever since then, I’m careful when I go back to the warehouse, and I watch out for Jude.”

“You’re careful just because of that?” I asked.

She hesitated, then said, “He’s always looked at me kind of funny, and since that incident, he acts like he doesn’t trust me.”

“Did you tell Jodie?”

“Are you kidding? They’re brother and sister, in case you didn’t know. She’d side with him.”

“Ah,” I said, acting as if the familial relationship was news to me.

“And I overheard him once, talking to Jodie about me. They were talking about how they couldn’t trust me.” Her face fell, feeling the hurt of that and then anger replaced it.

“They don’t trust any of us,” Bill interjected.

“You think so?” I said.

“No doubt.” Bill stopped what he was doing and turned around. “I don’t know if it has to do with the new regs around legalized marijuana or what, but Jude has become a real jerk.”

“He’s gotten mad at you, too?” I asked.

“Oh yeah.” Bill glanced around again, cautious even though it was still just us. “We have to do inventories with our stock.” He gestured at the various jars in the case. “The regs are
really
intense, man, and we don’t want to screw anything up because that would get us into trouble with the state. And one thing they’ll pound into you is if we screw up on the state level, it could get the feds involved.”

“No kidding,” Ivy said. “You’ll learn quick that everyone wants to follow the book because the fear is that if we don’t, that will bring in the feds and then they’ll make weed illegal again.”

“Got it,” I said.

“Anyway,” Bill continued. “There are all these new regs and the state has this complicated tracking system that I got trained on. I thought I had it all down, but I messed up the reporting. I thought Jude was going to lose his mind.”

“Another explosion,” Ivy murmured. “It was bad.”

“How long ago was that?” I asked.

“A couple months ago,” he said. “I was –” He stopped as Jodie came back through the door.

“Sorry about that,” she said. “I see you’re getting acquainted.”

Bill turned to back to the counter and started filling a jar. “You like to use?”

The question took me aback. It shouldn’t have, given where I was. Ugh! So un-cool and not like Bogie.

“Yeah,” I said, trying for an ‘of course, dude’ tone.

“Any particular variety?”

“Uh, not really.”

He eyed me suspiciously. “You don’t have a favorite?”

“Give him a break,” Ivy said. “Not everyone is a ‘weed connoisseur’ like you.”

Jodie grabbed my arm, rescuing me from further embarrassment. “I’ll show you the rest of the operation.”

I was out of touch, not having a clue what the best weed varieties might be. I made a mental note to ask Jodie about this. I added to the list to follow up with Bill and Ivy about Wes. He was living up to reputation, and since both employees seemed to hold no reservations about their feelings, it would be good to get their thoughts on him as well.

Bill eyed me again. I’d drawn his suspicion. I’d have to smooth that over. And ask him what he was going to say about Jude before Jodie interrupted us.

“Let’s go back to the warehouse,” Jodie said, holding open the back door.

I nodded at Bill and Ivy. “Talk to you guys later.”

Ivy was busy with another customer, and Bill ignored me. I stepped by Jodie and into a short hallway. To the left were stairs, to the right, the warehouse. I followed Jodie into the warehouse, then halted in surprise. It was like nothing I’d expected.

Row upon row of planters went as far back as I could see, with new plants on up to tall green plants that grew almost to the ceiling. Silver ventilation pipes lined the ceiling, along with powerful lights. Numerous fans hung high up on the walls, filling the warehouse with a monotonous white noise. The pungent smell of weed was strong. I wondered if I could get high on just the smell. It was hot, and I shielded my eyes.

“Wow, it’s bright,” I said.

“Feel free to put on sunglasses.” She grabbed a pair from a small table by the door.

I took another pair from a pile on the table and gratefully slipped them on.

“Did you do any research on marijuana growing?” she asked as she walked down an aisle between planters.

“No,” I said, hurrying after her. “But I will.”

“You need to. You’ve got to be able to fake your way with this, otherwise the other employees will get suspicious and wonder why I hired someone who doesn’t know anything about weed.”

I hoped my interaction with Bill hadn’t already given me away.

“We’ve got an air ventilation system that helps with the odor. And the room is divided into groups, based on variety and germination periods,” she said. We stepped through an entryway and into the back part of the warehouse. She stopped at a planter where the plants were over six feet tall with huge flowery buds. “This variety is close to harvest. You can tell by the color of these hairs on the buds.”

We reached the end of the row and turned the corner.

“Oh!” Jodie said.

A man in jeans, Nike tennis shoes, and a collared tee shirt stood in a doorway that led outside. Even from my vantage point behind Jodie, I could tell he had the same round face and long nose as hers. Jude Lundgren. He was talking to someone just outside the door. I peered around Jodie for a better look.

The man outside was stocky, with a thick neck and big hands. His swarthy features gave him a dangerous edge. Or maybe it was the way he thrust a beefy finger at Jude as he talked. Then he noticed us. He took a step back and threw us a guarded look.

“Jodie, what’re you doing?” Jude whirled around and fixed steely eyes on us. They were the same blue as hers, only without the warmth hers had. He blinked against the light and put on a pair of sunglasses he’d been holding.

“I didn’t think you were here,” she said uncertainly.

Jude said something to the swarthy man and shut the door. “I came in early. Guess you didn’t see me around.” He picked up a black backpack that was leaning against the wall and slung one strap over his shoulder.

She seemed to buy his explanation, but I didn’t. I eyed him warily.

“Who was that?” She pointed at the door.

He waved a hand dismissively. “No one. A friend of mine.” He jerked his head at me. “Who’s this?”

“This is our new employee,” she said and introduced me.

“Oh, welcome aboard,” he said. He shook my hand but the coolness remained.

“Thanks.” I laid the admiration on thick. “It’s quite an operation.”

“That it is.” He steered us down an aisle and away from the door. “I didn’t think you were ready to hire someone just yet,” he said to Jodie.

“Reed’s a good candidate, so I decided to go with him. You should see some of the other applicants.” She rolled her eyes.

“Well, okay. You know what you’re doing.” He stopped to check some plants.

“Wes is upstairs,” she said. “He wants to talk to you.”

“That figures,” he muttered, then headed off without another word to us.

Jodie turned to me, flustered. “Sorry, he’s not usually like that.”

“It’s okay.” I shrugged as if his indifference didn’t matter, but I found it interesting.

“Well.” She took a moment to collect herself. “Let’s continue the tour. We call that the lean-to. It’s a place to get out of the light. There’s sunglasses in a box there as well.” In the corner was a little shelter with a chair and small table.

She showed me around the rest of the warehouse, stopping to show me what things I needed to know.

“You’ll clean those out,” she said, pointing around the planters. “And you’ll sweep up, help keep it clean in here.” My tour ended at a room in the corner. “This is the lab. I’ll show it to you, but you won’t be doing any work in there.” We went inside.

The room was rectangular, with a couple of large metal tables, some stools, a microscope, a Bunsen burner and other growing paraphernalia. Little bottles with marijuana samples lined one section of a table, each neatly labeled. A man wearing a white lab coat over jeans and a blue tee shirt was holding up a leaf with tweezers.

“This is Carlo,” she said.

He looked up and studied me through thin glasses. “Who’s he?” He was a big man with a linebacker’s build, and the lab coat barely fit him.

“Reed. He’s going to help out around here,” Jodie said.

“Cool.” He went back to whatever experiment he was doing.

We quietly left and she closed the door.

“And you and Jude work in there as well?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yeah. In the past, Carlo and Pete didn’t work weekends – that’s when Jude and I would work. But since we’re so busy now with legalization, we work later at night when they’re not around.” She continued past more plants, back toward the store. “What do you think?” she asked.

“It
is
quite an operation,” I said.

“Yeah, anyone who thinks the weed business is just a bunch of stoners doesn’t know what they’re talking about. There’s a lot involved.” She leaned close and spoke in a low voice. “I think everyone bought our cover story.”

I nodded, but wondered about Bill.

“I’m going to have you help Ivy. She’s nice and she’s not such a weed snob like Bill. At the end of the day, I’ll have you help me in back. Sound good?”

“It’s a start,” I said.

“I’ve got to talk to Jude, so I’m going to let Ivy take it from here.”

I followed her into the store. Things had gotten busier. Both Bill and Ivy were helping customers, while two people waited in line. Jodie and I stood out of the way, waiting until Ivy had a moment. Then Jodie waved her over.

“Reed’s going to help you today,” Jodie instructed. “Show him what you’re doing, get him familiarized with the store operations, okay? And let him help with cleanup and stuff, too.”

“Sure,” Ivy said.

Jodie left and I spent the afternoon in the store. I’d never worked retail in my life, having worked with my father’s oil and gas investments firm in college, and I had a new respect for anyone who did. I’m in fairly good shape, but my feet were sore from being on them all day, and I was more than a little stressed trying to remember all the nuances of
this
particular job. Who knew there were so many marijuana varieties, let alone what kind of high each one would give you?

Around six, Ivy motioned to me. “We need to sort some varieties so we can restock.”

“Sounds good,” I said, even though I had no idea what she was talking about. She opened a door behind the counter that led to a small rectangular room, just big enough for a long table pressed against one wall, and a couple of chairs. A large bag of weed was sitting on the floor beneath the table, along with a couple of jars.

“Come on in,” Ivy said.

She sat down in one chair and gestured for me to sit next to her.

“What’re you doing?” I asked.

“Separating the seeds. Some customers don’t care about them, but if we do this, we can sell it for more.”

“Ah.”

She grabbed a handful of weed from the bag and set it on a piece of paper on the table. Then she took tweezers and began picking out seeds.

“Get going.” She pointed at another piece of paper.

I did as instructed. I picked up tweezers and once I’d separated a batch of weed from seeds, I put the weed in a jar under the table.

“How do you like working here?” I asked after a bit of silence.

“It’s all right. I like learning about the business, and you get free product. That’s pretty cool.”

“Free?”

“Well, not
free
. The law says the stores can’t give anything away, but they sell it to us for a penny.”

“That’s cool,” I said.

“Remind me later, I’ll get you some stuff. You should try some of the edibles. They’re pretty good.”

“Okay.”
What would I do with them?
 I thought. I wasn’t interested in getting high. Did that make me a “fuddy-duddy”, one of my mother’s favorite words?

“How’d you get this job?” she asked.

“I have a friend at another store where I buy. I’ve been telling him I wanted a job at a weed store. He didn’t have any positions, but he knew Jodie was hiring, so he told me about it. Gave me a good reference, too.” I thought it sounded plausible.

“Yeah, it’s all about who you know.”

We worked for a few minutes, and then I lowered my voice, not sure if there were any hidden cameras around. “I’m finding that Jude isn’t very popular.”

“It’s true.”

I paused. “Why don’t you like him?”

“You ever meet someone who gives you the shivers? They just seem…off? That’s Jude. And ever since he saw me watching him in the lab…” She left the sentence unfinished.

“He seems all right to me.” Not necessarily true, but I wanted to keep her talking.

“Give it time.” She gave a small laugh. “That wasn’t nice, was it?”

“No worries,” I said.

“Sorry, I just can’t stand him…and when I think about…”

Her voice trailed off.

“What?”

She studied me carefully, then she said, “Something’s been going on lately.”

She had my attention.