A High-End Finish(30)
“You stupid bitch!” he shouted, his facing turning as red as the stain.
“It’s not my fault,” she yelled back, outraged. “You weren’t looking where you were going.”
“You saw me and deliberately got in my way.”
“That’s ridiculous.” She set her empty glass down on the nearest surface. “You owe me a drink.”
“Oh yeah?” In an instant, Wendell grabbed a ketchup bottle off a nearby table and shook it. Whipping the top off, he flung the contents at Whitney, leaving thick red blotches spattered across her sparkly top. She gaped at her top for a second or two, then screamed and grabbed for his throat.
Wendell shoved her away from him.
I flinched. “Oh, my God. He’s horrible.”
“You’ll pay for that,” Wendell said in an ominous tone as he brushed the excess liquid off his shirt.
“You’re going to die!” Whitney screamed, and leaped at him again.
“Hey, hey,” Tommy said, grabbing Whitney around the waist and pushing Wendell back a foot. “That’s enough.”
Chief Jensen stepped into the fray. “You okay?” he asked Whitney, who nodded silently. He turned to Wendell and pointed to the door. “You. Out.”
“Why should I go?” Wendell demanded. “She’s the one who threw her drink at me.”
“I did not!” Whitney cried. Tommy wrapped his arm supportively around her shoulders. Whitney breathed heavily, her face pale from the shock of Wendell’s attack.
Wendell glanced down at his stained shirt. “This is a two-hundred-dollar handmade shirt and it’s ruined. I demand that she pay for it.”
“Good luck with that,” Jensen said dryly. “Everybody saw you run into her, so it’s your own fault. Now do yourself a favor and get out of here before I decide to let her throttle you after all.”
Wendell’s teeth were clenched and he was trembling with anger. He had to know it would be folly to continue arguing with someone as big as Eric Jensen, even if he didn’t realize the man was the chief of police. So after a long, charged moment, he pivoted and stomped out of the bar.
The room erupted in applause.
Trina handed Whitney a clump of paper napkins and she began to wipe the ketchup off her top. She looked so numb, I actually felt sorry for her.
“Wow,” Emily whispered. “That man is pure trouble.”
“Yeah,” I said, feeling a little shell-shocked. “He’s also my tenant for the next two weeks.”
“If he lives that long,” Jane muttered.
Saturday morning I called the person I most wanted to talk to about Jerry Saxton. She couldn’t meet me until noon, so in the meantime I took a walk over to the Cozy Cove Diner to have breakfast with my dad and Uncle Pete. The two men met there every morning unless they were away on a fishing trip, which was more often than not lately.
“Morning, Shannon,” Cindy the waitress said. “I’ll bring you some coffee.”
“Thanks, Cindy.”
“There’s my girl.” My dad waved me over to the booth he was sharing with Uncle Pete.
“Got time for breakfast with the old man?” Dad asked.
“Of course.” I gave them each a smooch on the cheek and slid into the booth next to Dad. “What are you two rovers up to?”
“Going fishing,” Uncle Pete said, and checked his watch. “Leaving in an hour.”
“I’m shocked.”
They both chuckled as Cindy poured coffee into my waiting mug.
Once I’d moved back to town from San Francisco and Dad’s health had improved, I’d taken over the house and the business and he’d bought the massive Winnebago he’d always wanted. It had long been the plan for him and my mom to raise us kids and then take off to see the country in their RV.
With Mom gone, Dad had still been determined to hit the road. Halfway to the Oregon border, though, he’d realized he wasn’t so keen to leave his hometown and see the world after all. Not by himself, anyway. Besides, the Winnebago was huge and he didn’t feel comfortable driving it much over twenty miles an hour. So he turned it around and headed back to Lighthouse Cove.
Most often he parked it in my driveway and that was fine with me. Dad liked living in what he called his Rolling Man Cave with its big-screen TV and comfortable furnishings. His construction-crew buddies and Uncle Pete met there once a week to play poker, watch football, and share their opinions about what I should be doing with my life. Every month or so, Dad would indulge his wanderlust by driving the Winnebago up to the river or down to the beach to go fishing with Uncle Pete or one of the other guys.
I ordered the hash and eggs and listened to Dad and Uncle Pete talk about the two lovely ladies they’d met at my uncle’s wine bar the night before.
That was something else in which my dad and uncle shared an abiding interest: the ladies. And why not, since they were both good-looking, eligible bachelors? They were sweet men and always treated women nicely, but it was funny to hear them talk about their strategy as though they were planning a reconnaissance mission into enemy territory.
I told Dad about Wendell parking in the driveway and Dad brushed it off. “We’re leaving this afternoon to go fishing so I’m not worried about a parking space.”