Death of the Weed Merchant

Hank Thomas, a hard-core law and order man, helped his son, Stan, open a law practice after he graduated from Ole Miss. When Stan no longer needs his father’s financial assistance, Hank assumes it’s because his son’s practice had taken off. What he didn’t know was that Stan’s sudden new fortune was coming from the sale of drugs. While representing a client, Margo Dawkins, he learns that the town’s previous marijuana supplier had been killed, and that many people like Margo were looking for a new source. Stan had worked for the agricultural department during law school, and developed skills and contacts he could use in the business. He even still had a few seeds of “the good stuff” that he’d swiped back then for his own personal use. He decided to supplement his legal practice’s income and get out from under the thumb of his father. Using a patch of land on his father’s farm and a couple of illegal immigrants to help him grow and cure the weed, he sells it to Margo who uses Elmer Bryant to distribute the weed. When contacted by a member of the previous drug ring, Stan ups the anti and expands into coke. The Chief of Police has his hands full dealing with the resurgence of drugs in town. He leads a task force to infiltrate the drug ring, but can’t find the source or the ring leader. Freddie Meyers, a notorious womanizer, had incurred Stan’s wrath when Meyers went after his girlfriend Shelly. When Stan is murdered, the Chief of Police assumes it was related to Freddie and Stan’s dispute over Shelly, and asks Bishop Bone to take over the case so he can stay focused on cracking the drug ring. Bone soon learns there was no shortage of suspects with motive to murder Stan. As he gets closer to discovering the drug connection to Stan’s death, he is assaulted and almost killed himself. When Bone finally discovers who killed Stan, it ends up being the last person he would have suspected.