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 changed direction, strolling toward the desk of Tina, one of my lunchroom companions. I had seen her earlier closer to the front, and I went there now, nonchalantly pausing at the entrance to her cubicle. Scattered along the fringes of her desk was a collection of lady bugs—figurines, stickers, little toys. Though a few might’ve been cute, the collection as a whole was a little distracting.
“Hey, Tina, you got a minute?” I asked.
“More like a second,” she answered, opening a drawer and pulling out a blank pad and a pen. “Staff meeting at two o’clock.”
I glanced around, noticing the abundance of empty desks and the clusters of people heading toward the conference room.
“I’ll make it quick,” I said. “I just need some help.”
“What’s up?”
“When your company buys a building or a piece of land or something,” I asked, “who handles that for you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is there a lawyer on staff here, or are legal matters like that handled outside? I need a quick opinion about some of the foundation’s real estate. I thought maybe if you had a lawyer working here…?”
She shook her head.
“No, we use a firm downtown. On Walnut. Coach, Croatz, something like that—a small group. I don’t know. Let me look.”
She flipped through her Rolodex and pulled out a card.
“Here you go,” she said, scribbling on a Post-it note. “Coates, Dillon, and McGruff. Good firm—even if I can’t ever remember their names.” I took the paper from her casually and gave her a big thanks.
“No prob,” she said. “You’re just lucky you caught me before I headed off to the meeting. We’ll probably be in there for hours.”
She lowered her voice and leaned toward me conspiratorially.
“I think they want to talk about Mr. Smythe’s dying and how we’ll have to carry on without him and all of that stuff. They’re saying now that he was murdered. Did you hear?”
I nodded, startled by the tinge of excitement in her voice. The human desire for the titillation of tragedy never ceased to amaze me.
“Yes, I heard,” I replied evenly.
She nodded before turning toward the conference room and bringing up the rear of the last small group. The door closed behind her, and I was alone in the outer office.
I took the long way around back to my cubicle, making certain that I was, indeed, the only person here who wasn’t in the staff meeting. Then I returned to my desk, ready to make some calls.
It wasn’t until I sat down and went to pull out my papers that my heart gave a little start: Someone had been rustling through my briefcase while I was talking with Gwen.