Chow Down (7 page)

“That won't be the same.” Chris was already shaking his head. “What we're looking for is excitement, spontaneity. Something fresh and fun, and entirely out of the ordinary.”

Larry's nod was curt. Yorkie still cradled in his arms, he rose to his feet. “Then what you are looking for is not Yoda.”

For a moment, Lisa merely stared at him, wide-eyed. Then she scrambled to her feet as well. “It was a pleasure to have met you,” she said softly, addressing the group. “But our coming here was obviously a mistake. Now we must go.”

“Wait!” Doug jumped up.

The sudden movement startled Brando. The Boxer had been standing with his back to the table, sniffing the trash can next to the sideboard. Now his body stiffened as he spun around to face us. He landed with his feet braced in a pugnacious stance and jutted his jaw forward as he weighed the situation.

Instantly Ben was on his feet as well. He crossed the room quickly to stand beside his dog. “Easy boy,” he said, his hand reaching down to cup Brando's muzzle.

At first glance the gesture looked like a caress. But watching a moment longer I realized he was holding the Boxer's mouth shut. And maybe muffling a low growl.

Interesting. It looked like there might be aggression issues there that Ben was trying to downplay.

Bill must have seen the same thing I did. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched as he unobtrusively slipped a hand down and refastened Ginger's leash.

“Maybe you're right,” Doug said to Larry. “We certainly wouldn't want to force any of you to place your dogs in a situation that makes you uncomfortable. This is only our first get-together, after all. We're still feeling our way here, finding out what works and what doesn't.”

Larry slowly sat back down. Lisa followed suit.

“Fine,” said Cindy. “Then let's try this a different way. Everybody up and out into the middle of the room. Dogs on leashes.” She glanced at Ben, who quickly complied. “Now that everyone's under control, just let your dogs be dogs. Let them do what they want to do. And we'll just observe and see what happens.”

All of us liked that idea much better. Each of the five contestants was well socialized, each had been to dog shows. They all knew how to behave in polite company.

Faith and Ginger and touched noses and wagged their tails. MacDuff ignored the others and sniffed around for crumbs under the table. Yoda circled the room looking elegant and composed, her blue-grey coat rippling as she moved. Brando sidled over and discreetly stole a biscuit off the sideboard, which he swallowed in one quick gulp.

Meanwhile, the committee stood together off to one side, watching the various antics and taking notes. Twenty minutes later, they decided they had what they'd wanted. Good thing because the dogs were beginning to tire. I wished I'd thought to bring a thermos of water for Faith.

“That's a wrap,” Doug announced. “Thank you all for coming. Everyone was great. Chris, Cindy, Simone, and I will get together this afternoon and compare first impressions. Sometime in the next couple days, you'll receive an email letting you know what the next test is going to be. Please feel free to stop at the reception desk on the way out and pick up a gift basket of Champions products.”

I heaved a sigh of relief and headed straight for the door. Some of the other contestants hung back—probably wanting to curry more favor with the judges—but Faith and I had had enough. We were more than ready to go home.

I'd promised the Poodle we'd take the stairs on the way out. Exiting the conference room, I saw that a red-lettered EXIT sign marked their location at the end of the hallway. But it was hot outside, our car would be stifling from sitting in the sun, and we were twenty minutes from home. Before heading down, I detoured into the ladies' room to get Faith something to drink.

Lacking a bowl or a cup, I filled the nearest sink with cold water. Then I hopped the Poodle's front feet up onto the porcelain rim and let her lap. I was glad I'd taken the time to stop; Faith drank thirstily.

When we emerged from the ladies' room, the hallway was empty. I pushed open the heavy fire door that led to the stairwell and Faith ran on ahead. Quickly she trotted down two flights of stairs with me hurrying to keep up. We had only one flight to go when I heard a door open above us.

The sound of hushed voices echoed through the vertical chamber. More of my fellow contestants, I guessed. I probably wasn't the only one whose dog didn't like elevators.

Quick footsteps tapped a staccato beat on the metal steps above us. Then I heard a sudden scream. It was followed quickly by a series of thumps. Faith and I both froze where we stood.

“Hello?” I called out. No one answered. Only my own word echoed back.

A door slammed. I thought I heard someone moan.

Then I heard the patter of little feet and Yoda came flying down the steps, trailing her gossamer ribbon leash. Without even stopping to think, I leaned down and opened my arms. The little Yorkie flew right into them.

“It's all right,” I said, as she pushed her tiny body into me and burrowed close to my chest. “You're going to be all right.”

Damn, I thought. I really hated lying to a dog.

I
t was lucky I'd stopped to get Faith that drink of water. As things turned out, she and I didn't get back home to Stamford until midafternoon.

On the other hand, if we hadn't paused for those few minutes on the third floor of the Champions building, we wouldn't have been in the stairwell when Larry Kim went tumbling down the flight of steps and broke his neck on the landing. Timing is everything, or so they say.

In my case, I think it might be more like bad luck just tends to follow me around.

Aunt Peg would probably be the first to agree with that assessment. She was the one I'd ended up pouring out the whole story to, when Faith and I finally got home. Davey had had a play date scheduled that afternoon with his best friend, Joey Brickman. Sam had gone to drop him off and then run some errands.

We'd settled all that by cell phone. What Sam hadn't mentioned was that I would find Aunt Peg waiting for me when I got home. She was sitting on the deck, sipping a tall glass of ice tea, and reading through a book of breed standards. Not surprisingly, she was surrounded by my bevy of besotted Poodles.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

Aunt Peg loves to drop in without warning but usually she manages to make her visits coincide with times when someone's home.

“Holding down the fort, apparently.” Peg slapped her book shut and set it aside.

Imagine that. I hadn't even been aware that we'd needed holding down. Just in case I was missing something, I ran quickly through a mental checklist. The house was standing, the Poodles looked healthy, no Indians were attacking . . .

Nope, we were good.

“You're white as a sheet,” said Aunt Peg. “Let me pour you a glass of tea. Maybe you're pregnant.”

She threw in that last bit like it was a casual afterthought. Nobody in the vicinity was fooled.

“I don't think so.” I poured my own glass of tea and added a mint leaf to it. “If I look pale, it's probably because we just got back from the opening reception at the Champions Dog Food—”

“I thought you were due back several hours ago.”

“We were. The reception ended before noon. But unfortunately, as we were leaving the building one of the other contestants fell down the fire stairs and broke his neck. He was dead before the ambulance got there.”

“Oh, dear.” Aunt Peg didn't sound nearly as upset as most people would have under the circumstances. There's nothing she likes more than a good set of complications. “Accident?”

“I don't think so.”

“Let's go back outside and sit down. You'd better tell me
all
about it.”

As if from the moment that I'd first seen her minivan parked in the driveway, there'd ever been any doubt of that.

Davey's and my previous house had been a small Cape Cod in a tightly packed family neighborhood. Lots were cramped; privacy almost nonexistent. Sitting outside in our other yard, with houses so close on either side that we could almost reach out and touch them, Davey and I never knew whether we might be subjected to the blare of a nearby radio, the aroma of dinner cooking on someone's barbecue, or uninvited visits from the neighbor's cats.

Things were very different at the new house. Our deck was beautiful, and the backyard was spacious and tranquil. If the residents of this neighborhood made any noise, they did so within the privacy of their own homes. Occasionally there were moments when I missed the constant bustle of our old block, but this wasn't one of them.

Now I wanted to sit down and have a serious discussion about murder, and having serenity for a backdrop suited me just fine.

“First things first,” Aunt Peg said when we'd gotten settled. “Who died?”

“Larry Kim. He and his wife, Lisa, are the owners of Yoda the Yorkie.”

“Aside from that, what do we know about them?”

I remembered our conversation about the other finalists at the dog show. Bertie had been the one who knew the Kims, not Aunt Peg.

“Not much, I'm afraid. I'd only met them both an hour earlier. We were together in a conference room with our dogs for a group interview with the contest committee. Larry seemed like a nice enough man, I guess. Very protective of his dog.”

“Nice enough people don't usually get murdered,” Aunt Peg commented acerbically.

“Well . . .” I admitted, “the police aren't exactly calling it a murder.”

“What are they calling it?”

“They're not sure. It was obvious that Larry died as a result of his fall. But they don't know why he fell.”

“You mean maybe he just tripped?”

I nodded slowly. “That seemed to be what they were thinking before I told the officer that I'd heard someone in the stairwell with him shortly before he died.”

“Well then,” Aunt Peg said happily, “the plot thickens.”

“Oh please.” I'd injected enough exasperation into the comment to wilt a lesser woman. Peg wasn't even daunted. “The only thing my information got me was the opportunity to hang around Norwalk a couple of extra hours and be interviewed two more times by the police.”

“So you've done your civic duty, now do the same by your family. I want you to tell me everything. But before we get started, did you miss lunch? Are you hungry? Shall I make you a sandwich while you talk?”

Only Aunt Peg could skip back and forth between murder and food without missing a beat, and make the juxtaposition sound perfectly natural.

“Yes, I missed lunch, and no, I'm not hungry.”

“Maybe that's good news! Maybe you're—”

“All right, I won't.” Peg frowned. “But that doesn't stop me from thinking it. Now, back to a topic you
will
discuss without getting cranky for no good reason, which, by the way, is another possible sign . . .”

Not trusting myself to speak, I simply leveled a glare.

Aunt Peg shrugged. She recognizes outrage only when it suits her. When I'm the outraged party it usually doesn't.

“So we're back to Mr. Perfectly Nice Yorkie Owner and his presumably perfectly nice wife,” she said. “Tell me more about them.”

“My first impression was that they were both rather quiet. The entire time we were there, Lisa let Larry do almost all the talking. But halfway through the interview, the two of them stood up and threatened to walk out.”

“It's always the quiet ones that surprise you.”

“This surprised everyone. But they were right. Chris— he's director of advertising for the company and one of the judges—wanted us all to let our dogs loose in the room so they could run around and jump on one another.”

“No wonder the man with the Yorkie balked at that. It sounds like good common sense to me.”

“It sounded like common sense to all of us. Well, except Ben O'Donnell. He'd already turned Brando loose.”

“He would have. Anything to draw attention to himself.”

“By the way, does that Boxer bite?”

“How would I know?” Aunt Peg snorted. “Despite appearances to the contrary, I am not privy to every single little thing that goes on in the dog show world.”

“Oh.”

That was a shame. My life had been easier when I'd thought Aunt Peg was omniscient.

“Does it matter?”

“Probably not, but I just saw something that made me wonder. Anyway, Chris and the committee backed down. The meeting concluded amicably and we were told we'd all be contacted about our next assignment.”

“This is beginning to be a very long story,” Aunt Peg said. “The stairway will be making an appearance soon, won't it?”

“Very soon. The meeting took place on the third floor of the building. And when it was over, we all had to go back down to the lobby.”

“Elevator?”

“Faith hates them.”

“Not surprising, lots of dogs do. So you looked for steps.”

“First we stopped in the ladies' room for a drink of water.”

“I assume we're talking about Faith?”

I nodded.

“A long group interview on a hot summer day and nobody thought to supply water for the dogs?”

“They supplied biscuits instead.”

“Not those horrid licorice ones?”

“The very same.”

Aunt Peg shuddered slightly. She reached down and patted Faith, who was lying between us, her fingers combing lightly through the dense, dark hair. “Poor girl. The things your mother puts you through.”

I considered mentioning that it was Davey who'd signed Faith up for this particular ordeal, then thought better of it. Peg wasn't the only one to whom this recounting of events was beginning to seem long.

“Anyway, because we were in the ladies' room, I didn't see how people split up or which way they went. All I know is that when I pushed open the fire door, the stairwell appeared to be empty. I figured everyone else was either ahead of us or behind us, or else they'd taken the elevator.”

“A logical assumption. Then what happened?”

“We'd gone partway down when I heard a door open above us. I heard voices, too.”

Aunt Peg sat up in her chair. “Saying what?”

“That's the problem, I don't have any idea. It sounded like there were two people. They must have been pretty far above me in the stairwell and I wasn't really paying attention. I mean, why would I?”

“Why, indeed?” Aunt Peg said tartly. Like Terry, she tends to eavesdrop as a matter of course.

“Next thing I knew, somebody screamed, and then Larry Kim came tumbling down the steps.”

“Did you see him fall?”

“No. I heard him, though. He ended up on the landing above us. And then Yoda came flying down to where we were, trailing her leash along behind her. Larry must have been holding her in his arms when he fell.”

“Lucky she wasn't injured,” Aunt Peg mused. Trust her to gloss over the fact that a man had died and worry about the dog's welfare. “And where was Mrs. Kim when all this was happening?”

“Lisa told the police that Larry had hung around after the meeting was over because he wanted to have a word with the judges. He'd sent her ahead to the parking lot to open up the car and get the air conditioner started.”

Aunt Peg didn't comment but I knew what she was thinking, because the same thought had crossed my mind. Lisa Kim must have been more biddable than we were. Neither one of us was particularly good at taking orders.

“So she was outside when her husband fell to his death,” Peg said. “Or at least she claims she was. Did anyone see her out in the parking lot?”

“You'd have to ask the police about that. Though I didn't see them asking very many questions. They seemed more concerned with consoling the grieving widow.”

Aunt Peg nodded. “Because they assumed the fall was an accident.”

“I told them about what I'd heard—”

“Which was woefully vague, if you ask me. How do you know Mr. Kim wasn't speaking to Yoda? Lots of people hold conversations with their dogs.”

Including the two of us, I thought.

“Yes, but what about the scream?”

“Good point. Unusual for a man to scream, don't you think? Are you sure it was Mr. Kim that you heard?”

“No, but since he was the one who fell, I think it's a pretty logical assumption.”

“So you and Mr. Kim were in the stairwell, possibly along with at least one other unspecified person. And Lisa Kim was outside. Where were the other contestants while all this excitement was taking place?”

“I believe the Reddings had already left. By the time the police got around to talking to us, they were long gone. Dorothy and Ben were still somewhere in the building, though both claimed not to have heard or seen anything.”

“So you were the only witness, so to speak.”

“Yes.”

“And a reasonably poor one, too.”

No way to refute that.

Aunt Peg patted her knee and Eve stood up. Peg hauled the Poodle up into her lap, ran her fingers through the dog's coat absently, and thought for a minute. She always concentrates better when she has her hands on a dog.

I sipped my tea and said nothing. I'm good at that.

“Who called the police?” she asked after a bit.

“That was Doug Allen. He's the vp of marketing and also the contest chair. I heard Larry fall, but I was a flight down and busy grabbing Yoda. Before I could get back up the stairs, Doug opened the fire door on the third floor and saw the body on the landing below.”

“Interesting timing,” Peg commented. “Did he say why he happened to open the door at that particular moment?”

“He told the police that he was on his way outside to sneak a smoke. He said he had no idea anything was wrong until he saw Larry lying there.”

“Surely he must have seen
something
. Or more importantly, someone. If he was in the third-floor hallway, he should have seen someone exit the stairwell in a big hurry, don't you think?”

“The same thought occurred to me. I asked Doug about it, but he said that he'd been in his office grabbing his cigarettes and when he stepped out into the hallway it was empty.”

“Pity,” Aunt Peg muttered. She hates it when potential witnesses refuse to cooperate.

“Indeed.”

Neither one of us was entirely convinced by Doug's version of events. We both filed the information away for further consideration.

“What about security cameras?” Aunt Peg asked. “Lots of companies have them in the fire stairs.”