Bonnie of Evidence - By Maddy Hunter Page 0,43
’mid a heavy jingling of bracelets, stormed toward the wheelhouse.
“… increasing speed … bzzzzt … change in … bzzt … bzzt … bzz …”
“Something tells me that Stella and I aren’t going to be best friends,” Dolly confided as the boat altered course, “but I just couldn’t sit here and let her talk to you that way, Bill. Where I grew up, a woman learned to show proper respect toward menfolk. And if she didn’t, she ended up an old maid.”
“Would that have been so bad?” I asked, having been exposed to some pretty extraordinary “old maids” when I was growing up. “Is that the absolute worst thing that could have happened to a woman back then?”
“Well, dying was worse, but—” Dolly heaved a sigh. “Actually, I think being an old maid was even worse than dying.”
As we motored down the middle of the lake on a course that paralleled the shoreline, the skipper opened up the throttle, causing the bulwarks to shake with a fierce vibrato, and a strong crosswind to send my hair whipping helter-skelter around my face. Erik and Alex bent over their laps to prevent their kilts from flying up. Cameron raised the collar of his jacket. Bill hunkered lower on the bench. And Dolly let out an ear-piercing shriek as her perfectly coifed hair exploded in the air like a can of number six spaghetti.
“Oh, my God!” Her hands were suddenly all over her head, slapping down the product-laden strands.
“You want to borrow my hat?” asked Cameron, as he pulled a slouch-cap out of his jacket pocket.
“bzzz … bz … bzzzzt …”
“No! I want—” The ends of her intricately tied scarf flew up in an opposing gust, smacking her face like a whip. She turned her head away and caught the tails in her fist, but when she turned back, I noticed her lips were an entirely different color than the cherry-red they’d been two seconds before.
Dolly noticed, too.
“Dammit!” she cried when she spied the smear of cherry-red lip gloss on her petal-pink scarf. “Look at this!” She ripped it off her neck and pouted at the stain. “First time I’ve worn it, and it’s ruined!”
“I have a stain remover pen,” Alex spoke up, adding in a small voice, “back at the hotel.”
“All I have on hand is sanitizer,” I lamented.
“I’ve got water,” said Bill as he dug a lime-green plastic mini bottle out of his fanny pack.
“Water won’t do any good,” she fussed. “It’s silk! Do you know what water does to silk?”
“Why are you yelling at me?” huffed Bill. “I’m only trying to help.”
“Well, you can’t help. No one can help! My hair … my scarf …” Imploding in a fit of pique, she flung her scarf over the side, and shielding her head from the wind, ran across the deck to the wheelhouse.
“Damn females,” groused Bill. “Just when you think you’ve found a sane one, she goes postal on you. I’m lowering my opinion of the MacDonald women. Ill-tempered shrew.”
Cameron blew a long stream of air out of his mouth as he regarded the wheelhouse. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for Dolly and Stella to be anywhere within sight of each other right now, Bill. How about you track down your wife and make nice with her so we can avoid a repeat performance.”
“Me? Apologize?” Bill guffawed. “Ain’t gonna happen.”
Cameron’s voice deepened with frustration. “Hey, I’ve got skin in this game, too, and I’m already down one team member. I don’t want to lose another one to unintended injury.”
“Survival of the fittest,” boomed Bill.
“How chivalrous of you,” quipped Erik. He splayed his hand over his heart. “It’s what makes you sensitive types so endearing.”
Bill Gordon threw a squinty look across the deck at him. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Wouldn’t think of it, buttercup.”
Bill’s face morphed into an angry red knot. “You are making fun of me.”
“Settle down, Bill,” soothed Cameron. “He’s just needling you a little.”
“The hell he is!”
“Would you please lighten up?” chafed Alex as he directed a
tart look at Bill. “Have you tried yoga? Maybe some relaxation techniques? How about anger management courses? I hear you can even find them online these days. Or here’s a thought. Maybe you could just put a cork in it so the rest of us could be spared your ugly American routine.”
Yup. I’m sure that helped.
Bill leaned forward, face florid, teeth bared, voice rabid. “Looking at the two of you makes my eyes hurt.”
Erik grinned. “So look at something else, buttercup.”
“So