Chapters (62)
- Cover
- A PENNY
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- Forty-Seven
- Forty-Eight
- Forty-Nine
- Fifty
- Fifty-One
- Fifty-Two
- Fifty-Three
- Fifty-Four
- A Sample Chapter of Don’t Take Any Wooden Nickels
- About the Author
- Other Books by Mindy Starns Clark
- About the Publisher
“I didn’t wait,” Nick interjected softly from the couch. “He was so depressed; I was worried.”
“I was worried, too,” Marion added. “That it was a suicide note didn’t really come as a surprise.”
“But Marion—”
“Of course, Nick didn’t know what I would do about it,” Marion continued softly, sitting next to me dry-eyed on the couch. According to her, she spent that night pacing the floor at home, confused and tormented. In the end, she felt she had no choice but to kill Wendell herself.
“I loved him, Callie,” she said simply. “I had to spare him that final act of anguish.”
The next morning, after Wendell checked himself out of the local hospital and headed to the office, Marion got Nick to drive her into Philadelphia as well, ostensibly to shop for a robe and some new pajamas for Wendell’s return to the hospital. She picked a large department store that was about two miles from Wendell’s office, and she left Nick with the car while she went inside. But rather than shop, she simply walked through the store and out the other side, catching a cab to Wendell’s building.
She had gone up the back stairs, giving Wendell a pleasant surprise when she came in through the bathroom door. They had chatted briefly, lovingly, and then she had offered to give him his morning insulin shot. Once the massive dosage had been given, she quickly kissed him and left him there to die.
When she reached Nick’s waiting car, he had known immediately that something was terribly wrong. Sitting in the car, sobbing, she finally confessed what she had done. Without much thought, Nick drove to the Smythe building and raced up the back stairs, reentering the room where Wendell now lay, dead, on the floor. Very quickly, Nick made sure there was no evidence there to incriminate Marion. He wiped away her fingerprints from all possible surfaces; then, as a red herring, he slid a short blond hair he saw on the floor under Wendell’s shirt. Apparently, it was just pure luck that the hair was Alan’s and that a needle bearing Alan’s fingerprint was in the trash from an insulin dose he had administered to Wendell earlier.