We spent a futile stretch in the break room, while Shelton tried to get us to share everything and I tried to get him to share everything.
“Lloyd, see these people out,” he finally snapped.
Interesting.
Shelton mostly had Richard Alvaro deal with us if he did any delegating, because Lloyd was more porous than Richard.
I gave Lloyd a smile as I stood and slid my hand inside his arm, like he’d offered to escort me at a cotillion. He blinked in surprise, then the tops of his ears pinkened.
“That’s so kind of you, Deputy Sampson.” I dropped my voice low — too low for Shelton to hear — and tipped my head toward Lloyd’s as we walked down the hall with Tom and James behind. “I’m nearly exhausted with Hiram talking our ear off. You know how he can be.”
Lloyd mirrored my actions, dropping his voice and leaning his head closer. “Sure can. That’s why it was weird him refusing to talk before. Wouldn’t say a word once we got him to the office. Seems to have loosened up some.”
I remembered that gleam in Shelton’s eye at Lukasik Ranch. Had he agreed to let Tom and me see Hiram in hopes we’d act as lubricant to get him to talk.
“He has. He surely has.” I patted the deputy’s arm as we parted at that door.
“What was that about?” James asked once we were all outside.
I looked back at the door. “I’m not sure. I’ll let you know if I figure it out.”
“And if she thinks you should know,” Tom said.
“If it concerns my client—”
“Tom’s pulling your leg, James, in hopes of making me trip. It’s nothing directly concerning your client’s legal position. I promise.”
He had to be satisfied with that.
Tom made a major detour from the sheriff’s department to my house by going the opposite direction and arriving at the Sherman Supermarket.
“Want to come in or stay in the truck? I’ll be a minute.”
“I’ll stay.”
I thought I’d have more time to run back what Hiram said, but, true to his word, Tom came out almost immediately.
A stock boy carried a six pack in one hand and a grocery bag in another, putting them in the back seat of the pickup. Tom put the two covered trays he carried on the back seat, preventing them from sliding forward by wedging a tool I didn’t recognize from floor to ceiling in front of them.
He returned to behind the wheel.
“So this is your version of rustling up the food for tonight, Burrell?”
“I can take off plastic wrap with the best of them.”
“They had it waiting for you?”
“Penny.”
It was long past her usual shift, so he must have arranged this earlier.
“I’m always surprised this place is open at this hour.” Actually, it stayed open until eleven, which I knew from a few emergency cookie runs after a newscast. “Considering most stores in town close early.”
“Serving the after-work crowd.”
I raised my eyebrows at the widely spaced vehicles — all pickups — in the lot.
“Ranchers quit work when last light goes. You get a good order from a rancher coming in for a stock-up, and that makes it worthwhile staying open.”
I looked at the profile of the man beside me.
Growing up in Illinois, Abraham Lincoln’s portrait resided in every grade school classroom I attended. I never quite shook the feeling Abe was the presidential version of my patron saint.
Thomas David Burrell bore a resemblance to the sixteenth president of the United States. Tom’s bone structure was more refined, his nose less substantial, his hair not as unruly. Somewhere between Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln and the real thing, yet all himself.
I sidestepped the thought that desire and a patron saint didn’t mix, and addressed what made me turn to him in the first place.
“Yet here you are, working after sunset on something entirely different.”
He glanced to his left, then pulled out into the empty road.
“Tamantha,” he said, in full and eloquent explanation.
A good reminder of priorities. His daughter was worried about him. He’d do whatever he could to put her mind at rest. Even give up prime ranch time to chase after threads he hoped would tie up a murderer.
It wasn’t the Gettysburg Address, but then it was a lot shorter.