Chump Change Read Free Page B

my hands flat on the table, ass sticking out like a mare’s. I closed my eyes and treated myself to a deep breath. Jed was right, of course. This wasn’t a trip I could afford to take. All that stood between me and a stretch in jail was the county’s horror of being sued. If I pushed them beyond their line in the sand, all bets would be off. Cue the chain gang and the striped suits. I slowly released the air from my lungs and plopped back into my seat like a sullen schoolboy.
    The judge waited a full beat before banging the gavel.
    “All rise,” the bailiff bellowed.
    Behind a final withering gaze, Judge Keenan got to her feet, rounded up her paperwork, and exited stage left. Jed kept his hand on my arm until the courtroom was completely empty, which was probably a good thing.

     
    The jailer was a mouth-breather. He opened the clasp on the manila envelope and dumped the contents onto the battered counter. I pocketed my wallet and car keys, slid the change over the edge, and then dropped the coins into my pants pocket.
    He slipped a release form under the wire. “Make sure you’ve got everything you came with and then sign on the bottom,” he said.
    “Where’s the folding money?” I asked.
    He pulled the paperwork back to his side and squinted down at it.
    “Says here all you had at the time of booking was ninety-three cents.”
    “I was carrying forty-seven thousand dollars in cash when I was arrested.”
    The jailer straightened up. Blinked several times, his bored expression suddenly replaced by confusion.
    “Leo,” Jed’s voice came from over on my right. “Don’t.”
    “I was you, Waterman, I’d listen to my mouthpiece there,” a vaguely familiar voice piped in. It was Sergeant Downing, the older cop, coming out from behind the counter.
    “Just take your things and get the hell out of here.”
    I wasn’t going to let it go . . . couldn’t . . . but Downing beat me to the punch.
    “Maybe if you weren’t such a clown and did what you were told once in a while . . . maybe that guy would still be alive and Officer Taylor would still have a career.”
    I wanted to get loud. Defiant. To scream about how my actions had nothing to do with that guy’s death. Problem was . . . I didn’t quite believe it, so I clamped my mouth closed and turned to Jed.
    “I want to see the body,” I said.
    “Let me see what I can do,” he whispered. “Rachel’s waiting in the car.”
    Jed walked me all the way out the door.

     
    The rain began as a thin, insistent drizzle, then, as is its habit in the great Northwest, morphed into a relentless downpour. Rachel and I were sitting cheek to cheek, so to speak, in the back of Jed’s new Lexus 600h L. “First one in the state,” he’d bragged to me.
    Rachel had taken care of everything. Closed up the house, packed our stuff, called the property management people, gone shopping for the suit, and had it all ready to go by the time I walked out the side door of the Lewis County Law and Justice Center a free man.
    Jed arrived a minute or two later. Like many well-heeled Seattleites, Jed had developed truly mad umbrella skills. He managed to keep it open and above himself until he was fully ensconced in the front seat, at which point he shut it, shook it, and stowed it in a single fluid motion, without allowing so much as a drop to slop into his new car.
    He looked back over his shoulder at Rachel and me, and grinned.
    “You guys are both going to love this,” he said.
    I was in no mood for guessing. “They gonna let me see the body or not?”
    “It’s not here,” he said.
    “Where is it?”
    “This is the part you’re going to love,” he cooed. “They don’t do their own forensics out here. Don’t have the funds or the facilities. They farm it out to . . .” He cocked his head and repeated the dumb grin.
    “King County,” Rachel said with a hearty chuckle.
    “Bingo. The lady wins the Kewpie doll,” Jed said as he started the car.
    I kept my