Page 44 of Head Room (Caught Dead in Wyoming #15)

“Needham, I need a primer on registered agents. Beyond the basics on the Wyoming Secretary of State’s website.”

He eyed me.

Not in a friend to friend way.

In a rival journalist to rival journalist way.

“For a story?”

He’d already gestured me to a guest chair in his office, while he slid into his own chair with the bonelessness of post-deadline. I took the seat before he changed his mind.

“Yes,” I said. Not an admission. Certainly not a confession. Simply a confirmation. Between friends. Good friends. “There’s no competition between us on this. Well, there is, because there always is. But it won’t hurt you.”

“Sure won’t if I don’t tell you. I’ve been working background on the issue, wanting a bit more time and—”

He stopped.

Too late.

“And a news angle.” I tried — I really tried — to keep triumph out of my voice.

“Like a possible murder? Like a dead body found in a burned cabin? That’s the story I’m after and, yeah, we’ll likely air the story first — if we get one,” I added with belated modesty.

“But the Independence will have all the details, all the depth. Because I am not doing a special on this until after my honeymoon. Am. Not. I’m serious, Needham.

But the story is serious, too, and so is my deadline.

If we don’t get this figured out before the wedding . . .”

I had him.

I knew it, he knew it.

“I respect the seriousness of that deadline, Elizabeth. Not that it would worry Tom. But I’ve met your mother and, of course, know Tamantha. This is background for you, but it’s the meat of a package for me. Already have the main piece and two sidebars roughed out . . .”

“I promise. Only enough on-air to make sense — and that’s only if it connects to the body.”

“Consider this my wedding present to you.”

“You couldn’t give me a better one. Start talking.”

He did.

At one point, I asked a question that sent him into the weeds of penalties against abusers of the regulations.

“. . . there have been efforts to regulate these third-party filers, but—”

“The Secretary of State—?”

“Says it’s all up to the legislature. They did say the Secretary of State can now dissolve a business, but it requires either stumbling across information about fraud or the registered agent reporting the business, which is its client.”

“And it’s not in the registered agent’s financial interest to turn in clients,” I summed up.

“No, it’s not. Though, if a registered agent found fraud or bad behavior by another registered agent’s client, snitching might work. As for other efforts to rein in abuses . . .” He shook his head.

These weeds were even taller than I’d expected.

“Doesn’t sound like they’ve been successful at reining in.”

“You have good hearing. Now, as I was saying before, how it works is . . .”

When he finished, including answering my questions, though not entirely satisfactorily — he swore that was because he couldn’t, not because he wouldn’t — I gathered my stuff, in no hurry. Absorbing what I’d heard and making sure I didn’t have another slow-to-develop question in the wings.

But what I said next was, “Why’d you never tell me you knew Orson?”

“A guy likes to have his little secrets.”

I side-eyed him.

He chuckled. “Almost did a dozen times or more, but the conversation always veered away and the time passed.”

“Needham.” That told him I didn’t buy the explanation.

“Thelma said not to.”

“You’re throwing your wife under the bus?”

“Damn right.”

Despite myself I laughed.

Perversely, he turned solemn. “And I thought she had a real good point.”

“Which was?”

“Not to remind you unnecessarily of the world you’d left behind. Especially back when you hadn’t yet decided to stay.”

“Smart woman, your Thelma.”

“Damn right. Then, when Orson told me he was coming through town, I had the brainstorm, but didn’t want to put pressure on . . . anybody.

“On the other hand, couldn’t leave things to happenstance, because he’d’ve been back on the road right off if I hadn’t committed him to the meeting and lunch.” He leaned back in his chair, his intertwined fingers cradling the back of his head. “And it worked.”

“Needham Bender, the great matchmaker. We’re never going to hear the end of this, are we?”

“Never.”

Laughing, I stood and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Appreciate that you and Thelma wanted me to stay. And thanks for this background. I truly appreciate it.”

* * * *

Before I left my parking spot by the Independence building, I messaged Diana, Mike, and Jennifer.

Flurries of replies settled that our availability for an update didn’t sync until tonight, after Mike finished the late newscast in Chicago.

In between sorting that out, what had niggled at me when I told Hannah there were two parts to a question, solidified.

With her, I’d separated the two parts. But at the beginning of this, with Colonel Crawford, I hadn’t.

I placed a call to the number the colonel left me.

“You have an update?” was how he answered.

And darned if I didn’t almost answer him.

I quelled that in time by saying, “I asked you two questions together — if you could think of anyone who’d want to kill Sergeant Jardos or anyone he’d want to kill. That was a mistake. Because when you said no it could be to either.”

“Or both.”

“I don’t think so. I think you said no to someone wanting to kill him. You had hesitation over whether he had someone he’d want to kill.”

He let the silence grow.

If he thought that would intimidate me into backing off . . .

“You haven’t answered.”

“It’s not that he had someone he’d kill. It was him. Strong views on right and wrong. And I had the impression those views were activated by something recently. Nothing he said directly. If he’d talked about something, I would have said.”

“But you didn’t share your impression.”

“Not much accustomed to trading in impressions, Ms. Danniher. Besides, wanted to check with my wife.”

“And?”

“She had the same impression, maybe stronger, but nothing concrete, either. We have no names, no circumstances, no details of any kind to give you.”

“Are you in online groups or forums with the sergeant?”

“Online—? No. Why? Do you have a lead—?”

“No.”

He barely gave the silence time to settle. “You have a theory—.”

“We don’t have any theories. We have fragments of information, that’s all. We don’t even know if the dead man is Frank Jardos. Not for sure.”

“That’s where you started.”

“Thanks for pointing that out,” I said grimly.