The Hound of the Sanibel Sunset Detective Read Online Free PDF Page A

stopped sipping her wine. “I hate it when you say that.”
    “Say what?”
    “When you say ‘no problem.’”
    “Why do you hate it?”
    “Because,” Freddie said, “whenever you say there is ‘no problem,’ there is inevitably a problem.”
    _________
    As Tree and Freddie undressed for bed later that night, Clinton poked his head through the door, inquisitively inspecting his new hosts. Tree sighed and went into the kitchen and retrieved Clinton’s bed and brought it into the bedroom. Freddie was already in bed, her back to him, announcing, “I’m dead.”
    “I know you are,” he said.
    He placed the dog bed on the floor. Clinton raised a paw and poked at it a couple of times before springing onto Tree and Freddie’s bed with unexpected agility. He sat back on his haunches, lowered his head so that his ears fell forward. Then he began to bite at them.
    “What’s he doing?” Freddie murmured, her eyes closed.
    “He’s playing with his ears,” Tree said.
    That brought Freddie up on her elbow, watching Clinton gnaw at his ears.
    “I don’t believe it,” she said. “The dog is playing with his ears.”
    “It’s too bad they cancelled the Ed Sullivan Show ,” Tree said.
    “Tree, he shouldn’t be on the bed,” Freddie said.
    Clinton tired of playing with his ears, lowered himself onto the mattress, dropping his head between his paws, those big, doleful eyes on Tree.
    “It’s his first night here,” Tree said. “He’s probably feeling stressed, a new environment and everything. We should do all we can to put him at ease.”
    “You’re too much of a softy.” Freddie had lain down again. She already sounded as though she was drifting off.
    “Not me,” Tree said. “I’m hard as nails.”
    He turned off the light and then crawled into bed. Clinton snuggled against him. Tree reached out and put his arm around Freddie. “I love you.”
    “I love you, too, my darling,” Freddie confirmed. A moment later she was sound asleep.
    Tree lay in the darkness, his arm still around his wife, feeling the weight of Clinton against him, thinking about the day’s events, worrying he had not heard from Edith. Maybe he was imagining things, as Freddie suggested. Maybe the three men at the hotel were not after Vic Trinchera. But then why would Vic threaten to shoot his own dog, then disappear, and what—get himself killed on the side of a Miami highway?
    The television news hadn’t been much help. Late that night, according to the reporter covering the story, Miami Police still had not identified the man who had been shot in the Cadillac Escalade on Coral Way. As Tree turned on his side, he clung to the hope that the dead man wasn’t Vic Trinchera. Clinton shifted so that he nestled into the crook of his new pal’s legs. What were they going to do about a dog? Tree thought. Not to worry. He would get in touch with Edith, and she would find out what had happened to Vic Trinchera. Except even if Vic were alive, he appeared capable of shooting Clinton, and Tree could not imagine that. No one was going to shoot this dog if he had anything to do with it.
    As he drifted off, Tree was filled with a sensation he had not experienced in a long time, an intense feeling of well-being. He could hardly believe it. It must be something else. It could not be the dog.
    Except it was.
    So Charles Schulz was right.
    Happiness is a warm puppy.

5
    W hen the alarm went off at its usual six o’clock time the next morning, Tree came slowly awake to discover Freddie already sitting up—staring down at Clinton stretched out against Tree, dead to the world.
    “You’ve got to be kidding,” Freddie said.
    “What?” Tree struggled up, trying not to disturb the sleeping Clinton.
    “The dog slept with us last night.”
    “You knew that.”
    “I thought I was dreaming.”
    Clinton stirred, lifted his head, and then squirmed around until he was lying on his back between the two of them, his legs in the air.
    “He wants you