Flower Girl: A Burton Family Mystery Read Free Page B

cranny in the house and yard. Then he asked me, "Have there been any TV cable or plumbing repair people in the neighborhood recently, say within the past three weeks?"
    "P.G.& E. checked the gas meter about a week ago, and there’s a new dish on the roof of the home across the street."
    He casually walked across the street, went two houses down, and reinstalled in the neighbor's doghouse the infrared devices he had found earlier. They got an infrared heat signature coming and going from that location for months before they figured out his little joke.
    "Bingo! That'll keep them busy for a few weeks. You have the natural attributes of a sleuth. You’re most observant, and you have eyesight every bit as good as mine," he told me when he returned.
    "Uncorrected eyesight, maybe, but I thought you could see better than a sparrow hawk, better than Fred Williams." I said.
    "True, true, I do have incredible distance vision. I did a stint as a minor league player after getting out of high school, but my dreams of being the next Ted Williams, not Fred Williams, came to an abrupt end when I slid into third base trying to stretch a double into a triple and blew out my left knee. I was almost nineteen, so I joined the Marines, my dream of being a big leaguer over. I healed quickly but lost my desire to play ball after my first hitch in Iraq and my first . . . " he broke off as if listening for something, then he returned to his story about Ted Williams.
    "I listened to a Redsox-Yankees game on the radio where the announcer reported that ‘the splendid splinter’ could see the spin of the laces on a hundred mile an hour fast ball thrown towards the plate by the pitcher as he stood in the batter's box and focused on blasting the ball into the Fenway Park upper deck seats in right field. An ace fighter pilot as well as a baseball Hall of Famer, Williams was said to have 20-15 vision, and I didn't give a damn about the junk reporters said about his wanting to be cryogenically preserved at death. Hell, the man was a war hero and the greatest hitter of all time. If he could see that well with 20-15 vision, a Marine sniper could also benefit from enhanced distance vision."
    Reddy still wasn't satisfied with our security, emphasis on my safety and his basement lab, probably in reverse priority. "It isn't our eyesight I'm concerned with right now. It's our sense of smell, and a seventh sense for danger that animals possess but humans have neglected as we became more civilized."
    "We need a watchdog like Professor Craft's big Akita. You remember KC from up at Skeleton Lake," I blurted out. "I'll call Craft."
    "Great idea!" Reddy replied.
    I was thinking there was some hope for a father/daughter relationship, if he'd just stick around long enough for us to bond.
    I turned to Reddy. "I'll grant that with you around we need better home security, especially with your workshop in my basement. However, no one is supposed to know you're here." Before Reddy could answer, my smart phone was buzzing in the shoulder holster I use when running and hadn't yet taken off after my morning run. "Hi, Matte, what's up in River View land?"
    "Josiah got your message about needing an Akita. How about two? You would make a great family and home for these pups," Matte said.
    Reddy asked, "What's up?"
    "It's Matte. Here, I'll punch the speaker. You talk to her."
    "Hi, Matte, what's new?"
    "You and Shannon are about to be the parents of two seven week old Akita/wolf pups, Shy and Comet," Matte said.
    "Our security problems are soon to be a thing of the past. Serendipitous, don't you think?" I said.
    "Coincidence or not, it's great. Akitas are fabulous watchdogs and hunting dogs, originally bred to protect the Japanese royal family. They damn near hunted the moon bears of Japan to extinction," Reddy added.
    "Moon bears? We do not have a problem with moon bears," I quipped.  
    Reddy almost smiled. "The wolf part remains to be seen."
    Meanwhile, I told you