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
“Any suspicions of your own, Gwen? You were, after all, right on the other side of that door when it happened.” Or in here, doing it yourself, I thought, but did not say.
“No,” she whispered after a long pause. “Everyone loved Wendell. I can’t imagine who would want him dead.”
She looked as though she was about to burst into tears, so I quickly changed the subject.
“Tell me about the money I came here to deliver, Gwen. Apparently, there was a building Wendell wanted to buy? What’s happening with that?”
Gwen seemed to hesitate, her face clouding over with something I didn’t recognize.
“I’m not sure,” she said evasively, looking away. “Wendell had a lot of projects going on at once. I don’t know much about that one.”
I wondered why the sudden change in Gwen’s demeanor. I decided to press it a little further.
“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?” I said. “And you don’t know anything about it?”
Gwen shrugged.
“Sorry,” she said.
“I thought your office was sort of the pulse of the company. I thought you’d know everything that was going on around here.”
“I do!” she said. “It’s, ah, I—”
Her voice sputtered to a stop.
“I’m sorry, Callie,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ve got a terrible headache. You’ll have to excuse me.”
With that she walked to the door and held it open, waiting expectantly. I counted to five, slowly, then finally unfolded myself from the couch, stood, and headed for the door.
“You should take something for that headache,” I said dryly as I walked past her. “It seems to be affecting your memory.”
She closed the door behind me without replying, leaving me with one burning question: What does Gwen know about that money that she isn’t telling me?
Eighteen
Eighteen
I headed toward my little cubicle, thinking about Gwen’s words and her suddenly befuddled manner when the subject came up about the money I had been sent there to deliver. Obviously, there was something fishy about that $250,000 loan. Was there really a building they wanted to buy? And, if not, had Wendell lied to Tom—or had Tom misled me?
I knew the place to start answering those questions was with a phone call to Tom, but I hesitated. Our relationship depended on an enormous amount of trust on both sides: him, trusting me to analyze our grant recipients carefully; and me, trusting him enough to take all that he presented to me at face value. Perhaps my questioning of him would cause bigger problems later than the ones it would solve now.
No, I needed to approach this from some other direction first, analyzing the less disturbing possibility that Wendell Smythe had lied to Tom. Perhaps there was no building. Certainly, Gwen knew more than she was telling.