Teddy’s father grimaced before he turned back to his son. “Take the ATV, Teddy. And take it slow. Especially on the side road there.”
#
Two of the Voiks’ fields and some of their woods edged onto the side road. When Teddy got there it looked like one of the fields had been dug a foot or so deeper from the storm, and the lowest part had a layer of water on it.
Teddy spotted the SUV immediately. It was at the bottom of the hill, upended and half in the ditch. A chunk of the road was flooded ahead of it. He wondered briefly if the SUV had been driven or washed into that angle. He slowly drove the ATV toward it. He couldn’t be sure how deep the water was or if there was some big hole he might fall into. He stopped at the water’s edge, got off and waded through it. He walked up to the SUV and looked in the window. Fancy, that was for sure. Then he tried the door and it opened. He wondered what it was doing here. Some city idiots using their GPS? Then again, city idiots locked their doors religiously.
Teddy shut the door and started wading back to the ATV. He’d noticed what he’d thought was a big rock when he was coming the other way was actually a knapsack covered in mud. As he bent to get a closer look he saw something out of the corner of his eye. It was down in the ditch. He walked around the ATV and looked over the edge of the road.
He could see the whole thing now. The back of a head with matted hair, grass floating around it. A jacket ballooned out in the murky water behind. Teddy looked where one might expect the rest of the body to be and saw a leg with the calf showing beneath bunched trousers. The sock and shoe were still on the foot and it appeared to be floating, though when Teddy looked closer he could see it was elevated by a rock. He just stared for several seconds. He thought maybe he should try to pull the person out and then he stopped. Instead Teddy pulled his mom’s phone out. His hand was shaking. No reception. He’d have to get past the outcroppings. He hopped on the ATV and went back up to the top of the hill and into the field. He pressed his dad’s number and his dad picked up on the first ring.
PART TWELVE
Distribution
Oh Shattered Ones! Bring us your splinters, your shards, your lost pieces. We mend with the spectra light years cannot decimate. We cascade through the ages. We suffer the limp and groan. We seek our smiling with the suns. We collect our wits. Our tiny pleasures. Our waking bliss. Come. Assemble. Defy the trend of waning and decay. Come be whole with us. Even for a moment. Even for the illusion. Join us.
from Cannto II, Cannabidadas
Chapter 59
News of Caldwell’s death reverberated through the company. Perhaps from stress generally and a renewed sense of their own mortality, many people were terribly and visibly upset. A cleaner in the production area, whose only interactions with Caldwell had been his opening the door for her one day then yelling at her the next for not noticing the coconut coir that had accumulated under one of the work tables, was inconsolable. She was sent home for the day to recover.
A lot of people had trouble concentrating on their jobs. Stoyan chain-smoked the whole day and didn’t even bother trying to work. Damian was initially speechless when he heard the news. He’d been at Guido’s when Caldwell hadn’t shown up. They’d made jokes in passing that Caldwell lost track of time again wooing the Colorado outfit. He’d missed his plane. Forgotten to charge his phone or left it somewhere. Typical Caldwell, always racing. It didn’t seem funny at all now when he pictured Caldwell floating facedown in a ditch while they sat cozily around Guido’s fireplace with their after dinner brandy and port. Damian was seen for the next few hours wandering around the cultivation section looking mostly at his shoes and muttering, “Wow, man. Wow.”
Percy was completely flustered by the news and tried to call his husband, but there was no answer, so he went into Hullbrooke for a coffee and picked up some Irish whiskey to put in it. He also bought pastries. And chocolates. It dawned on him that he’d lost the chaos that gave his work purpose.
Lazlo began skulking around more than usual, frequently dropping into Greg’s office, wanting to talk about Caldwell. He seemed to have more affection for his cousin than anyone knew. “What a crazy guy but he lived for this place, you know! Was his whole life! What are we going to do without him?”
Ernie wandered into Greg’s office too. He wasn’t sure why. Perhaps Greg’s police persona might shed light on the strange ways people die. “Terrible isn’t it? Drowning in a ditch. What’s going to happen?”
Greg had been tasked with getting the word out, so he was mostly trying to determine who needed notifying. “Not a pretty way to go.” He looked at Ernie and shook his head wearily.
Cassie was hoping she might not lose the crop in the Flower Room III now. No matter what, the bugs never let up. The new crop was in there three weeks and she’d found fungus gnats on Monday. It was Friday. Diatomaceous earth wasn’t cutting it. Now she could apply one of the organic sprays they’d used for the same problem the year before.
Petra’s response was cool, inquisitive and apropos of her nature. “So was he drunk or what? Why would he be on that road?”
Lydia was deeply saddened. She had nothing but fondness left for Caldwell and she’d genuinely wanted him to succeed. His success was her success after all. “He put every bit of energy he had into the business,” she said. It also occurred to her she was now essentially three times a widow. Of course she and Caldwell hadn’t been together for a while but the statistics associated with having a relationship with her for any length of time were not looking favorable for the men. The thought made her worry about Luther.
Luther, being spread so thin, simply slotted Caldwell’s death into his day planner. “Caldwell had passion. He was a man dedicated to his vision. He had Herculean energy. And he was determined to make CannRose a great company. He will be sorely missed.” Being the CEO, Luther felt he had to issue some kind of statement.
Alice had told her son long ago that Caldwell was building the company to fail and she didn’t understand why anyone with half a brain couldn’t see it. “I wish somebody would get rid of him,” she’d said. When the news reached the law firm, her son couldn’t help himself. He called her right away.
“Mom, you’ve got connections. Big guy in the sky on your payroll now? Wow. I need his number myself.”
“Stop that! I didn’t mean—”
“Careful what you wish for. Isn’t that what they say?”
“I never wished him dead. At least I don’t think I did, anyway.”
Guido and Jason expressed shock and of course dismay at the news and then quickly retired to Guido’s corner nook. They looked at each other and shrugged. “Freak accident,” Jason said. “What are the chances?” They stared at each other a few more seconds, considering the consequences. This made their plans infinitely easier. Without Caldwell constantly stirring things up and losing his cool about minor details, they could get on with things.
A day before the funeral, Caldwell’s son and a daughter even Lydia hadn’t known existed suddenly appeared. The godson, the same one who’d briefly been the CannRose production manager, showed up too, recently recovered from an overdose. All three were deeply saddened to find out Caldwell’s shares in the company were not part of his estate. In fact Caldwell didn’t have much of an estate. Just his clothes and watch, a few sets of fancy cufflinks, a fountain pen and of course the SUV that now required a couple of thousand dollars in repairs. Malcolm and Cyrus, those old crafty advisers and caretakers of Lydia’s estate had arranged that all CannRose shares and any assets acquired from Lydia would be transferred back to her in the event of Caldwell’s death, with administration fees deducted of course. The children were free to challenge the arrangement, but given the bottomless resources of the law firm they’d be up against, they decided to limit their squabbling to his clothes and jewelry.
#
To Caldwell’s credit, a good crowd showed up at his funeral. All the CannRose employees and associates were there, including Alice. People brou
ght their families. Even Gus was there in a suit. At the service Guido played the sarabande from the first Bach Partita. Lydia, who’d spared no expense for the funeral, wept openly, and Percy joined her. Gus and Lazlo needed tissues too.
Once the formalities were over, after the sherry, tea and sandwiches had been passed around at Rosefields, many heaved a sigh of relief. And everybody went back to their day-to-day business. Though without Caldwell, adjustments would need to be made. Things were bound to change.
Chapter 60
The three young devotees sat slouched on stools in the potting room, unsure what to do next. They’d received no instructions for the afternoon. Two of them periodically pulled out their phones to check messages. The third aimlessly surfed the internet on one of the cultivation touchscreens.
“This week sucked.”
“Funerals suck.”
“Drowning. That sucks.”
“Death.”
“Bro, I think the ladies are sad too.”
“They’re just water-stressed. Cassie said there was a problem with the main valve.”
“Bro, they’re sad.”
“Not. He never spent time with them.”
“They could still be sad.”
“You think we should stay in Hullbrooke?
“Why not?”
“We could get another job.”
“Doing what?”
“We can work at the dispensary.”
“We can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“That’s for pharm techs.”
“Why work at the dispensary?”
“Then we could move back to Lyston.”
“What about the ladies?”
“Don’t you care about the ladies? This is the perfect job!”
“I wanna go to cooking school.”
“What?”
“Brobes, I’m so done with pizza.”
“Just get a cookbook.”
“Yeah. We could make tofu burgers!”
“Tofu burgers?”
“I wanna be a chef.”
“Maybe he’s going through the stages of grief.”
“No. I wanna make edibles.”
“That’s fire! You could still work with the ladies.”
“They shoulda had edibles at his funeral.”
“I liked the lemon coconut squares.”
“Edibles woulda been better.”
“They’re not legal.”
“So. They’d still be better for paying respects.”
“They’re never gonna let anybody make them here.”
“We should start our own company.”
“We should start our own state.”
Chapter 61
It took Guido almost no time at all to start rearranging the company. Lydia, on the advice of Cyrus and Malcolm, offered to sell him some of the shares that had come back to her when Caldwell died. He was more than happy to purchase. She also came to him with her idea of adding veterinary medicines. She’d already talked to Petra about it, and Petra was all for it — she even had a good contact in animal science at her old alma mater. Guido nodded thoughtfully at this proposal and then smiled. “Of course, Lydia, is beautiful idea. Exceptional! But even trickier here than for people across the country as you know. We will see.”
Lydia’s veterinarian had told her prescribing a little weed oil for a dog’s fits or a pony’s arthritis could get her locked up! The state may be allowing medical use for humans, but pets and beasts? Not that Rover or Fluffy would ever turn her in. But Lydia, possibly having absorbed some of Caldwell’s characteristics over the years, found this kind of hurdle made her more determined. And she proposed an all-out lobbying effort, along with partnerships to expand research with a willing university.
Guido repeatedly told her it was a great idea, but after a few weeks she soon realized she was no more a business partner with Guido than she had been with Caldwell. Guido was always warm and convivial and he engaged her in all manner of chitchat, but he excluded her from anything to do with business. People she’d never heard of showed up at CannRose and spent an hour or two talking to Guido, and she’d often only find out after the fact. Unlike Caldwell, Guido was quiet, verging on surreptitious, about his moves, and he made many of them.
Guido started arriving at 7:00 a.m. Lydia learned he was going over the scheduling and meeting with Cassie or Stoyan as soon as they got in the door. They’d discuss the plants, the strains to grow, the various stages they were at and the priorities for the derivatives. Guido called a board meeting too and sold them on some guy she’d never even met, Herbert Cuttle, a smart money man with a background in the medical-devices industry. They appointed him CEO so Luther could get back to his law practice. Lydia imagined Cyrus was behind this move and she felt her influence at CannRose shrink even more. At the same meeting, Guido easily convinced the board that CannRose should merge with his other company, the one he’d founded for the purchase of the seventy-acre plot beside the grow facility. It would diversify operations. And Guido himself was very diversified already. She’d thought he just sold shoes! He had controlling shares in a supplements company, major investments in two other marijuana outfits in California and Oregon and who knew what else! He’d also reopened discussions with a Canadian conglomerate he was convinced would be perfect for CannRose to partner with. Lydia realized Guido had taken over completely.
Under the guise of directions from the new CEO, Guido soon got busy letting people go. “We really need to trim the fat here,” Guido would tell Lydia, wringing his hands as if the whole matter pained him. “I’ve been watching so-and-so over the last several months,” he would whisper, “and you know they are mostly fond of the coffee break.” Or, “This is not the kind of person who can benefit CannRose. They will be much happier elsewhere, I’m sure.” Lydia wasn’t so sure, especially when Stoyan was told to start looking for another placement. Guido had Jason take care of the terminations and put him to work with Greg in HR. Lydia noticed Greg was looking nervous these days.
Some things she didn’t mind at all; she had a clear sense Guido was maneuvering Lazlo out the door and that would be a relief. But Lydia thought that for a man in his late seventies, Guido had a remarkably steely focus on business. People were simply assets with dollar values. In fact he began to remind Lydia a little of Jordan.
As for Herbert Cuttle, Lydia found him unremarkable and rather phony, using his business jargon to fill up conversational space, spouting stock phrases one might expect of an executive. Like Guido though, he was less than forthcoming about what he actually did, and like Luther, he was rarely seen at CannRose. But unlike Luther, who was swamped with another career, Guido explained to Lydia that Herbert was “making alliances for the future, really taking the company into the next decade and making the kind of deals Caldwell would have aspired to.”
Herbert in turn brought in several consultants and more money men. These were not neophytes hoping to get rich on the Green Rush, the types that Caldwell had so diligently cultivated, these were a different bunch altogether. They quietly talked about business algorithms, acquisitions, mergers, stock options, buybacks and international exchanges. Who knew where CannRose was going? In fact it might not be CannRose at all soon.
Lydia, feeling a little lost again, suited up and took herself into the cultivation area. What did the plants want? That was a happy question. Wasn’t it? Or maybe a sad one. Because they wanted. They desired. She was sure of it. She could feel it walking through the hallways.
She let herself into one of the flowering rooms and sat down on a bare table at the far side. The air handlers hummed and the young plants all fluttered in the breeze. So uniform. A little green army with marching orders to grow, grow, grow and then blossom on cue. Such a push all the time. She thought of Caldwell. He hadn’t ever perceived the business this way: dictated, willed or influenced by the plants themselves; though she suspected Damian might. Luther didn’t have a clue, of course. He was just clever and Guido w
as even more clever. Did these men ever consider the consequences of the notions they held? Specifically, their notions of these green creatures. That bore a little thought too. After a while, Ray, the quiet security guy, showed up. She waved to him and he came and sat down on the table a little ways from her. They both just sat there looking at the plants. Maybe grief does this, she thought. Provides a compelling view.
Chapter 62
Alice’s son called her a month or so after Caldwell’s funeral. “Mom, I just heard some bad stuff about CannRose.”
Alice was in the office at her drugstore sorting out some orders. “Honey, there’s nothing much good to hear about CannRose these days. And why are you whispering?”
“There’s major shit going down. You should keep away from the dispensaries. Both of them.”
“Zack, sweetie, have you been smoking weed?”
“No? What’s that got to do with it?”
“I know your job is stressful but weed’s not good for everybody.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Honey, it can make some people very anxious and paranoid. Are you okay? You can tell your mother, you know.”
“I’m not paranoid. And I’m not high! I’m watching Luther and he’s freaking out.”
“Honey, Luther could be freaking out about anything.” She put her phone on speaker and went back to checking boxes on the online order form.
“No, Mom, it’s about CannRose.”
“Well what’s new? CannRose is prone to crisis. Caldwell probably left the place reeling in debt, though I always thought they kept a tight rein on him.”
“It’s worse than that. They don’t think Caldwell accidentally drowned.”
“What?”
“They think it was murder.”
Alice took her eyes away from her order forms and looked at the phone with raised eyebrows. “What? Seriously?” She glanced back to her screen. “I can’t believe that.”
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