Page 113 of Head Room

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 theIndependencewill have all the details, all the depth.Because I amnotdoing 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?”