Forest

 “We’ll have the lemon pie,” Parm said.

 “Sorry, sold out.”

 “But it’s not even noon.”

 “The bike run. Garth buys all the pies I can make,” Jan said. “Hate the noise but love the cash. I got cinnamon buns, but I didn’t bake them.”

 They both ordered coffee.

 “I guess Jan’s not the first business that has benefitted indirectly from crime,” Matt said. He sipped the coffee. It hadn’t improved from the last time he was here.

 “The Thrifty Mart supplied the condiments and buns, the Elk’s Club rented them the tables, the Boy Scouts get a hefty donation for setting everything up and tearing it down,” Parm said. “Besides the Sasquatch Inn, the marina, and Pitt River Lodge across the lake, Garth owns several commercial buildings and a large chunk of lake front property.”

 Matt removed the bag of ice from his foot. The swelling had stopped but the long toe, the one next to his big one, was the color and size of a grape popsicle. Mud and grit mixed with angry red scrapes and gouges on all the toes and upper part of his foot. Maybe he should pay Jas a visit at the clinic and get this disinfected.

 “And all this comes from boat rentals and guided fishing tours?” Matt said.

 “Not by a long shot,” Parm said. “We suspect Garth is running a major marijuana operation. We just shut down a huge grow-op in a barn on an abandoned homestead on the west side of the lake, though we can’t prove it was one of his. There’s likely dozen’s of sites like this along the twenty-three kilometer shoreline; old logging sheds, barns, boathouses.  They just install a portable generator for power and drop by in the floatplane every week or so to check the crop. Takes about ten weeks to mature, then they harvest it, and use the same floatplanes to fly it into the States.”