Time to Time: Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective (Ashton Ford Series) by Pendleton Don

Author:Pendleton, Don [Pendleton, Don]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pendleton Artists
Published: 2010-04-10T07:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen: Friends and Lovers

They looked like regular dolphins to me. But I knew there was no way that the pool could have been enlarged by any conventional method since the last time I'd seen it, not unless Penny had help from a Navy Seabee battalion or some such. Even so, it would have taken that much time to add the water alone, never mind all the construction work. Actually it was an entirely new pool. The one I'd seen the day before was a standard cement pool, no more than twenty by fifty feet, with an ordinary cement patio surrounding it. This one was well over a hundred feet long, made of Plexiglas or some other synthetic material with built-in artificial boulders, surrounded by luxurious lawn, and it looked very deep throughout. Underwater lighting provided a uniform glow from end to end.

Just for the hell of it, I tried submersing the cigarette in it, then sheepishly looked for somewhere to dispose of the soggy butt.

The dolphins came over to check me out. I checked them out, too; neither looked like Ambudala but I figured I'd give it a try just for the hell of it. I smiled at both and said, "Ambudala?"

Both whished in reply and took a turn around the pool in opposite directions then came back for another look.

"What are you called?" I asked them. "Jambalaya? Crawfish Pie?”

They grinned at me and went away.

I was thinking that I would have grinned too, in their place. Must have thought I was some kind of nut.

Dolphins are highly intelligent, you know. Perhaps, it is said, more intelligent than man in many ways. I always get the feeling, around dolphins, that they are merely indulging our superiority complex. They know that we want them to be intelligent toys so that's the role they play, though all the while wondering how we could be so stupid as to believe that we are the smarter species.

I went over and sat in the darkness of the lanai, lit another cigarette, tried to pull my head together about the events of the past little while. According to my watch, I had just about had time to walk from my car to the lanai via the carport with a brief stopover beside the pool. About three minutes had elapsed.

But that could not be possible.

I could not have dreamed that much in three minutes.

So could it be possible to hallucinate such a vivid and elaborate experience in a single flash? I doubted it. And what about the pool? Could it have been built and filled and stocked with dolphins in less than a day?

I had a terribly sinking feeling at that point of my inquiry. I looked again at my watch. It's just a plain old-fashioned sweep-hand Timex without a calendar. So how could I automatically assume that only three minutes had elapsed since I left my vehicle? Maybe it had been twelve hours and three minutes, or twenty-four hours and three minutes; hell, it could have been days since.

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