“Ohmigod.” I gasped, knowing where this was going. “He didn’t.”
Wade made a diving motion with his hand. “Right into the Arthur Kill. Took two weeks to find his body.”
“I’m so . . .” To lose someone to suicide over something as stupid as . . . debt! That was the worst. Debt was nothing more than figures on a balance sheet—meaningless and intangible. Life was life. And we only got one shot. Debt could be erased whenever.
No wonder Wade had blown off Wall Street and given up money.
“I quit my job and maybe committed some mayhem at the brokerage in the process.” Under the shadow of his brow, there was a mischievous smile. “I’d do it again, too.”
“Good for you.” Though I was dying with curiosity to know what level of mayhem we were talking about. A few stolen Swing-lines? Or petty arson? Whatever it was, I suspected it was responsible for him finding the Penny Pinchers.
Stabbing an accusing finger at the Drummond building, he said angrily,“But these are the jerks who made it so the fat cats at our brokerage could keep their second homes and pay for their kids to go to private school, not giving a damn if a stupid palooka from Scranton like Eric could or couldn’t pay his mortgage. And now these guys are gonna pay, too.”
I looked over to Wade and his clenched fists and clenched jaw and thought, Shit. Having plumbed farther into E. W. Drummond territory, the NO TRESPASSING signs had turned more menacing with threats of prosecution and imprisonment and pledges of twenty-four-hour surveillance. Cameras dotted the trees.
It was becoming clear that what had begun as an innocent hunt for a chipped vase was about to quickly turn into something very criminal. And as much as I sympathized with Wade and felt horrible about his friend Eric and understood his frustrations with our system’s corrupt usury laws, I could not allow myself to become corrupt myself.
“Wade, what are we doing here?”
“Dumpster diving, of course.” He reached in the backseat to fetch his Unger. “You can park here and I’ll hoof it so security won’t go ballistic. Man, I can’t get over it. Usually, this place is closed down like Fort Knox.”
No, no, no. My mind raced for a way to stop him since I knew simply telling him to stop would have the reverse effect.
“I don’t think you’re going to find any free lamps or bedsteads here,” I cried, leaning out the window, calling after him as he crossed the drive. “What are you looking for?”
“Just old office furniture. I’ll be back in five.” With that, he tucked the Unger into the waistband of his shorts and slinked along the hedges, becoming one with the green bushes in the fog.
I did not think he was looking for office furniture.
Killing my engine, I slid down in my seat, though it was already too late. My license plate had been taped by a camera in the elm behind me, and if Wade returned with anything more than a bent paper clip, we were doomed.
Sure. “We were just looking for boxes” might con the dim-witted manager of the Shop-N-Buy, but not the FBI. Raiding a Dumpster for corporate secrets required a higher grade of lying.
Five minutes turned into ten, and then twenty. Finally, after a full half hour, after watching the automatic sprinklers click on twice in the March fog, I decided to see what was what, crossing the access road and following the hedges like Wade until I found the relatively pristine dark blue Dumpster where there was no sign of my brash accomplice, though there were plenty of signs warning of my immediate arrest should I so much as dip a toe into that trash.
“Wade?” I called in a low voice. “Wade?”
Nothing.
Circling, I nearly tripped over his cardboard box melting in the rain.
“Wade?” I called a bit louder. “Stop screwing around.”
In the distance a rustle turned out to be a squirrel hunting for nuts in the bushes. But then, I heard another—a low, horrible sound. A moan.
“Ughh.”
It came from inside the Dumpster.
Wade! Hauling myself onto the side, I got to the point where I was able to deduce that the Dumpster’s black rubber cover must have closed him in. By pulling with two hands, gripping the sides with my knees, and trying very hard not to think about what that cover had touched during its tenure shielding New Jersey waste from rain, I managed to yank it back.
Sure enough, there was Wade lying facedown in a pile of shredded office paper fast turning red with blood.
“Ohmigod!” I screamed. “Wade! Are you okay?”
His cheeks were as ghostly gray as the HP printer nearby that must have hit him on the head. “Keep it down,” he mumbled.
“I will NOT keep it down. You’ve got a head injury. We’ve got to get you to the hospital.” And, by the way, how did he expect me to rescue his 170-pound carcass?
“No hospital. No health insurance.” He winced. “Give me a minute. I’ll get myself out. Right now, I just need a little shut-eye.”
Eeep! The first sign of a concussion. No time to waste! With more effort than a woman in her forties should have to expend, I climbed to the Dumpster’s edge and threw over a leg. Throwing all caution to the wind, I jumped in and landed with a soft thud on the shredded paper. There were worse dumps, I told myself, than ones filled with paperwork and accountants’ empty bags of Doritos.
“Let me take a look.” Gingerly, I pushed back his hair to reveal a deep red gash. My stomach did a double flop. “Not too bad. A Band-Aid and you’ll be fine.”
He cocked open one eye. “It’s not a Band-Aid and you know it. This totally screws up my plans.”
Elevating his head onto my lap so the blood ran down instead of out, I weighed my options and decided I had none besides somehow forcing him to climb with me out of this hellhole.
Luckily—or, unluckily, depending—voices gradually emerged outside, growing louder and louder. In the gray sky above us, I could just barely discern the reflection of revolving blue lights. We were in trouble, true, but, with much relief, I realized Wade would get help.
“Oh, great,” Wade grumbled. “That’s all I need. The fuzz.”
“Count yourself fortunate.” Gently letting his head down, I pulled myself up to find not only E. W. Drummond security but, also, the Rocky River police, including our former Penny Pincher, Steve, in full uniform. Thank god!
His jaw dropped. “Kat?”
“It’s Wade,” I said. “He’s been hurt.”
“How bad?”
“Bad. Head injury.”
The cop next to him said, “You know her?”
Steve lifted his radio and said, “I’ll call for an ambulance.”
He wasn’t helping us. I couldn’t believe it. How could he be so cruel and unkind?
“You’re on private property, ma’am,” the other cop said, extending a hand to help me out. “You’re in a high-security waste repository that may or may not contain classified information pertaining to certain corporations protected under federal statute.”
As he rattled off my violations, it dawned on me that he wasn’t just being helpfully informative, he was leading up to reading me my rights. I looked to Steve hoping he would set the record straight and tell this man that I was not some sort of thief, that I was Kat Griffiths, mother, upstanding citizen, Penny Pincher, but Steve remained as still as a statue. It was so confusing and . . . heartbreaking. So not like him.
“You got it all wrong, Officer.” Wade had managed to drag his bloodied self out of the Dumpster. “There’s no drama,” he said, staggering toward us. “No raiding of corporate secrets, gentlemen.”
Steve shook his head. “Damn it, Wade. I knew this would happen eventually.”
“Just that age-old story of a man and a woman who gotta get it on.”
What!
And before I could stop him, Wade planted a deep kiss that was so long and so passionate, by the time he finished, I was so woozy it barely registered that I’d just been slapped with handcuffs.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“And that’s
it.” I clapped my hands on the metal table and faced Rocky River Police Officer Ramone and FBI Agent Wasko, who, after listening to my hours of blow-by-blow recitation of how I ended up in the E. W. Drummond Dumpster, were bleary-eyed and somewhat dazed themselves. “Not stealing corporate secrets. Not out for sabotage. Simply looking for an eighteenth-century rocker.”
Wasko rubbed his temples. Ramone took a sip from his Styrofoam coffee cup and, finding it empty, hooked it into a wastepaper basket.
It had all been true, every bit of my story except, perhaps, that teensy-weensy part about Wade searching for office furniture. Though he did say that’s what he was doing. Technically.
“I guess what I’m not clear on,” Wasko said, flicking a pen at me,
“is whether or not you two are an item.”
“Please”—I held up my left hand to show the gold band and Griff ’s diamond—“I’m a married woman.”
“Yeah, right. As if that stopped anyone before.”
There was a knock at the door and Steve entered, so sheepish he couldn’t look me in the eyes. “If you’re done here, I wonder if I could have a moment alone with you two before you bring in Wade.”
I was worried about Wade. He’d refused medical care, so the para medics had released him with a bandaged head and a list of warning signs. Libby would no doubt sit by his bedside throughout the night, holding mirrors to his nose to check if he was breathing, but even her smothering attention was no substitute for an MRI.
“Okay, Mrs. Griffiths,” Wasko said, “you can go. But my advice is that you call a lawyer.”
That lawyer comment was unnerving and so was Steve, who kept his focus squarely on the metal table as I left the room and found Libby practically sitting in Wade’s lap, stroking his forehead and clucking in sympathy. Two seats over in a white trench and Italian silk scarf, the vision of calm, sat Viv, trying very, very hard to keep a straight face.
Honestly, I have never been so glad to see my sister.
“Dumpster diving?” She arched an eyebrow. “That’s taking this penny-pinching thing too far, don’t you think?”
“I am so glad to see you,” I cried, opening my arms to give her a great big hug.
She flinched. “Ewww. You’ll get blood all over my new coat. It’s Juicy Couture.”
It was then that I noticed the ratty sweatshirt and jeans I’d worn for schlepping in a grocery store were spattered with Wade’s blood. With my ponytail and Keds, I could have stepped out of a teenage slasher film.
“I can’t believe you came,” I whispered, taking the seat next to her, being careful to keep my distance. “How’d you find out?”
She nodded to Libby, who was fetching Wade another paper cup of water. “Wade used his one phone call to contact her, and Libby used her unlimited phone calls to contact me. Are you okay?”
“Fine.” A random frightening thought. “Did anyone call Griff?”
“Not me. Isn’t he in D.C.?”
“Yes, thank God.” At least that was one less worry.
“Why? Do you not want him to know?”
“No!”
“Kat, what the hell is going on?” Viv bent her head so close I could make out where she’d messed up on her aqua eyeliner. “I thought this Penny Pincher’s group of yours was just a bunch of coupon clippers, and now Libby tells me that one of them has a record.” She didn’t use his name, but she didn’t have to. “And he lives in a hut.”
“A yurt. And he’s not the only one with a record.” A slow headache was beginning to throb behind my forehead as I began to register my depth of troubles. “It has nothing to do with Wade. It’s all my fault. I never should have gone with him to hunt for antiques.”
“Antiques? You were caught in the trash bin of E. W. Drummond. What kind of antiques could you find there aside from a mimeograph machine?”
There was no way to get around this without telling her the truth. “I’ve made a mess of things, Viv. I haven’t told Griff and I haven’t told you because I don’t want Mom finding out, but . . . I’ve been working for Liam, restoring the house he bought to its original mid-Georgian decor.”
“You mean the big one the university used to own?”
I nodded. The headache was getting so bad I wondered if concus sions could be contagious.
“For free?”
“Of course not. He pays me and he pays me pretty well.” Already a thousand for consultation.
“How long has this been going on?”
“Since February. Don’t tell Chloe, either. She wanted the job and I got it. I had to, for Laura’s sake.”
“Oh, Kat.” Viv adopted her disappointed older-sister voice. “It all comes back to money. If you and Griff weren’t so strapped, you wouldn’t have gotten yourself in a situation where you were being paid by your ex.”
Sometimes Viv had a particular way of phrasing things that was nothing short of jarring, I thought, as she excused herself to make a phone call.
The door to the conference room opened and Steve emerged, somberly followed by Officer Ramone. “Mr. Rothschild?”
Wade carefully unhooked Libby’s arms from where they’d been around his neck as, shuffling in his shackles, he passed Steve without saying a word, like icebergs drifting in the frigid Northern Atlantic.
“I’ll wait for you,” Libby wailed as the door behind him slammed. Her eyes watered and she blew her nose loudly on a damp ball of tissue. “It’s so unfair. Just when we were inches away from getting married.”
“It’ll be fine, Libby,” I said, though I had absolutely no way of being able to promise such a thing. “Wasko and Ramone are actually really nice.”
“Maybe to you. But you’re not Wade. He’s on a different . . . level.” She caught sight of Steve, who was off to the side, hovering, and said coolly, “Some help you were.”
“Hi, Libby, Kat.” He did a slight bow and took off his hat. “I’d like you both to know that I went in there and explained about the Penny Pinchers and how Wade was an odd fish, but he wasn’t a criminal, even if he did overreact now and then and dive in Dumpsters for food.”
“He is so not an odd fish,” Libby said, forgetting to thank Steve for putting his reputation on the line by defending Wade. “He’s wonderful.”
“Thank you, Steve,” I said. “It really helps.” This reconfirmed my belief that most people want to do the right thing; sometimes it just takes them a while to come around.
“It won’t help. Nothing can be done.” Libby began to cry again. “Not with his background.”
What was his background, anyway?
Viv returned from her phone call, hands in her pockets, and gazed at Steve. “I don’t believe we’ve been introduced.”
My word. My sister’s blue eyes were actually sparkling and she had that glow she gets whenever she meets a new man of interest. Ah, yes, the uniform. Sailors, cops, and any man in the military made her weak in the knees.
“This is Steve Adams, who used to be in my Penny Pinchers group. Steve, this is my”—I passed on the “older” part—“sister, Viv. Viv Popalaski.”
He shook her hand and murmured “Popalaski” like it was exotic.
“Adams! Wait! I know you.” Viv wagged her finger. “I bet you’re Kyle and Jason’s dad.”
Steve’s face fell. “Uh-oh. What did they do now?”
Viv threw her head back and laughed, revealing a long length of relatively wrinkle-free throat. “They didn’t do anything. Oh, maybe they forgot to turn in a couple of papers, but ...”
Steve kept staring, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“My sister’s an English teacher at Rocky River High,” I explained.
“Whew.” He drew a hand across his forehead in exaggerated relief. “With those two kids of mine, you never know.”
“No, they’re good boys.” Viv examined her nails, which meant she was lying through her teeth. “I had Kyle last year, and now I have Jason for American Writers. You know, his paper on The Grapes of Wrath was not
bad. In fact, as I recall, he wrote an excellent analysis of the selfishness motif.”
Steve helped himself to the chair between us, pulling it out between his legs. “The Grapes of Wrath. That’s Steinway, right?”
“Steinbeck.” Viv, who loved nothing more than to show off her knowledge of high school English, added, “You know, Of Mice and Men. East of Eden.”
“I saw that movie. James Dean. I love James Dean.”
Viv twirled a strand of hair, entranced. “Me too. Rebel Without a Cause . . . I must have seen that ten times.”
“Fifteen.” Steve crossed himself. “No kidding. Swear to God. You know, there’s a James Dean film festival every spring in Princeton.”
“Is there?”
“We should go.”
“We should.”
I got arrested, and my sister got a man. How did that work?
For the first time since I’d fired her, Libby playfully rolled her eyes like she used to whenViv did or said something outrageous. It was her moment of forgiveness, and I could have kissed her for it.
“Mrs. Griffiths?” Wasko appeared at the door. “Mind stepping in for a minute? We have a couple more questions.”
It was the office furniture fib, I just knew it, I thought, rubbing my sweaty palms up and down my thighs.
Steve said to me, “You don’t have to say boo, you know. By law, you can ask for a lawyer anytime.”
Viv squeezed his arm and said, “Thank you for saying that. That was so sweet.”
“It’s part of my job as an enforcer of the law.” He grinned in a way that would have made his beloved James Dean proud.
Oh, brother. Get a room already, I thought, glad to give them their space. As I passed by her, Libby flashed me a thumbs-up and whispered, “Tell Wade I love him.”
It was quite a different scene from what I’d expected to find in the questioning room. Wade’s hands and feet were unbound and up on the table, and he was laughing with Wasko like they were old friends. I took a seat and tried to appear upstanding.
The Penny Pinchers Club Page 18