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“He’s Thomas Yoder Burrell.”
And the man before me was Thomas David Burrell. “Ah.”
I could ask about the different middle names. It was unlikely to open the topic of the trouble between father and son.
But I had a thought.
That question to a different person might just open the topic of the trouble between father and son.
For now I left it with that comprehending Ah.
“You do know your mother’s homesick for Cottonwood County?” I asked him.
“She’s not coming back as long as he’s alive.”
Startled, I said, “You don’t think there’s any chance they’ll come to the wedding?”
“Back here permanent, I meant.”
He turned off that conversational road. “So, that could explain what you heard about Wendy spending less time away the past few winters.”
I let him make that turn... for now. We were not done with the topic of his parents for good. “It could. Also an attitude I picked up from Wendy about her brothers.”
“I see that look in your eyes. Go on, Elizabeth, get out of here now. Go get more answers to those questions I see piling up.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
As I continued toward Sherman, I tried to put concern about Tom and his father aside and stick to the murder investigation.
I replayed the conversations with Mrs. P and Gee in my head. It felt like trying to put pieces of confetti back together into a whole when the scraps originally came from dozens, maybe hundreds of different sheets.
Needham Bender emerged from the courthouse and started in the direction of the Sherman Independence as I drove up.
I pulled alongside him, lowered the passenger window, and said, “Want a ride?”
“Hey, Elizabeth. I probably should walk — according to Thelma, I’m about a negative thousand steps a day. But for the pleasure of your company, I’ll risk my wife’s ire.”
“Brave man.”
He chuckled as he got in.
“Something big at the courthouse?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t tell you if there was.”
“Fair enough.”
“I like that youngster you folks have hired — Nala Choi.”
“So do we.”
“More coming?”
“Hiring is going slow. Excruciatingly slow.”
“Young folks don’t want to come out here? Where’s their spirit of adventure?”
“It’s not the younger would-be hires. We have a good crop of submissions there. It’s the established TV news folks that are hard to line up.”
