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Back A Penny for Your Thoughts Save as PDF
Chapters (62)
  1. Cover
  2. A PENNY
  3. Dedication
  4. Acknowledgments
  5. One
  6. Two
  7. Three
  8. Four
  9. Five
  10. Six
  11. Seven
  12. Eight
  13. Nine
  14. Ten
  15. Eleven
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Sixteen
  21. Seventeen
  22. Eighteen
  23. Nineteen
  24. Twenty
  25. Twenty-One
  26. Twenty-Two
  27. Twenty-Three
  28. Twenty-Four
  29. Twenty-Five
  30. Twenty-Six
  31. Twenty-Seven
  32. Twenty-Eight
  33. Twenty-Nine
  34. Thirty
  35. Thirty-One
  36. Thirty-Two
  37. Thirty-Three
  38. Thirty-Four
  39. Thirty-Five
  40. Thirty-Six
  41. Thirty-Seven
  42. Thirty-Eight
  43. Thirty-Nine
  44. Forty
  45. Forty-One
  46. Forty-Two
  47. Forty-Three
  48. Forty-Four
  49. Forty-Five
  50. Forty-Six
  51. Forty-Seven
  52. Forty-Eight
  53. Forty-Nine
  54. Fifty
  55. Fifty-One
  56. Fifty-Two
  57. Fifty-Three
  58. Fifty-Four
  59. A Sample Chapter of Don’t Take Any Wooden Nickels
  60. About the Author
  61. Other Books by Mindy Starns Clark
  62. About the Publisher

“Sorry to bother you again,” I said in a low voice, “but can you tell me, what is that woman’s name, the one in personnel?”

“Debra?”

“Debra,” I said. “Yes. Sweet lady.”

“Yeah, she is. Did you need her for something?”

I shook my head, smiling.

“No, I just couldn’t remember her name.”

I walked on back to my cubicle, picked up the phone, and rang the front desk. The receptionist answered on the first ring.

“Hey,” I said quickly. “Would you buzz Debra and ask her to come back to the conference room for a minute?”

“Sure. Who is this?”

I scratched my fingernails on the phone receiver, as if there was something wrong with my phone.

“Thanks,” I said. I hung up and walked back toward personnel, timing it so that I was just coming around the corner as Debra was heading out of her cubicle, walking with her back to me.

I slipped right into the cubicle behind her, opened the drawer, neatly dropped the key in its slot, then closed the drawer with a quiet thud. Mission accomplished, I left the cubicle and looped around toward the conference room, where Debra stood, puzzled, in the doorway. She stood there for a moment, then rolled her eyes and turned back toward her desk.

“Oh, these people,” she said, shaking her head as she walked away. “I don’t have time for all their foolishness.”

Smiling, I headed back to my desk to get a look at the files I had worked so hard to acquire, hoping that something in one of them might lead me to the murderer.

Nineteen

Nineteen

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I flipped through Judith’s file first, not really looking for anything, just trying to get a better idea of who she was. Not surprisingly, her background was direct and impressive—a B.A. (summa cum laude) from Rutgers College, an M.B.A. from Wharton, and a stellar rise through the ranks at Smythe Incorporated.

Derek’s file was equally impressive, though more colorful. He had a degree in Divinity from Eastern Theological Seminary, a Masters of Social Work from the University of Pennsylvania, and apparently he had worked for a while as a missionary. He had spent time in Central America and had, in fact, only been working for Feed the Need for a few years.

That surprised me. Most of the missionaries I knew were fairly adventurous, the hearty type. But Derek seemed so soft, so genteel—certainly not the kind of guy who would live in a Third World country without modern amenities.