Chow Down

by Laurien Berenson

  “You must be joking.”

  I hiked myself up on the empty table. “Why?”

  “Because the answer should be obvious. Rumor has it that you got caught, once again, hanging around at the scene of a murder.”

  “When you put it like that, I sound like some sort of serial killer.” I considered pouting, but decided it wasn’t a good look for me. “Two things. Number one, the police haven’t decided yet how Larry died. They’re calling it a suspicious death—”

  “Murder would make me suspicious too, hon.”

  “And two,” I continued as if he hadn’t interrupted. “I came to the show to get my mind off of all that. To think about something different.”

  Aunt Peg snorted indelicately.

  I looked across the crates at her. “Now what?”

  “You came to the show to finish Eve, and it’s about time, too. So try to stay focused.”

  “I don’t have to stay focused. You two are doing that for me. I’m not grooming, I’m gossiping.”

  “Some days it’s hard to tell the difference,” Terry said. “The mouth has to do something while the fingers are working.”

  “Words to live by,” Sam commented. He was spritzing down and brushing out Eve’s ears. “Didn’t some great philosopher say that?”

  Terry didn’t miss a beat. “I’m pretty sure it was Nietzsche.”

  I looked at him skeptically. “What do you know about Nietzsche?”

  “More than most people. I was a philosophy major in college.”

  I was momentarily shocked into silence. Terry worked so hard at being shallow, I’d had no idea he had hidden depths.

  He cocked his head to one side and smiled. “Don’t hate me because I’m intellectual.”

  “All right, Mr. Intellectual. Since you want to talk about murder, here’s a philosophical query for you. Would you kill someone for one hundred thousand dollars?”

  He didn’t even have to stop and think. “Honey, I’d be tempted to kill some of these dog handlers just so I wouldn’t have to look at their ugly-ass fashion choices week after week.”

  And he wondered why people were surprised when he said he read Nietzsche.

  Then his fingers stilled. Terry looked up, expression brightening. “Is someone offering to pay me? You know, to perform this service for the greater good of society?”

  “Right,” Sam muttered. “You’ll be issued an uzi and sole discretionary power over its use. Fire at will.”

  Geez but it was hard to get a word in edgewise.

  “Nobody’s offering to pay anybody anything. Or arm them, for that matter.” I poked Terry. He went back to grooming. “I’m asking a question. A simple question.”

  “She’s fishing for motives,” said Aunt Peg.

  “What’s to fish?” asked Terry. “A hundred grand is a perfectly good motive. I take it we’re talking about the Chow Down contest?”

  “Right.”

  “You’re thinking that one of the other finalists decided to eliminate Larry Kim from contention?”

  “I’m trying the theory on for size.”

  “Makes sense to me,” said Terry. “Especially if it isn’t just the money that’s at stake. There’s the fifteen minutes of fame that goes along with it.”

  “Fame is highly overrated,” Aunt Peg contributed. She stood Eve up and began to scissor her bracelets.

  “You can’t tell me you wouldn’t want to see one of your Poodles on television.”

  “Of course I can. I don’t even watch television.” She paused, then added, “Well, except for Law & Order.”

  Like we couldn’t have seen that coming.

  “Well as far as some people are concerned,” Terry said, “I’d imagine that was the primary reason they entered the contest.”

  “You’re talking about Ben?” I guessed.

  “Among others.”

  “Like who?”

  The handler glanced over his shoulder in both directions before speaking. He wasn’t the only one who had big ears. “I’m talking about Dorothy and MacDuff.”

  I thought about that. Over in the next setup, Eve was looking better and better by the minute. Sam had her topknot in and Aunt Peg was almost finished scissoring. Now all that remained for them to do was spray her up.

  Not only were they doing a better job than I could have done, but they were faster, too. I should have thought to enlist their services a long time ago. Not having to prep my own Poodle for the ring definitely made the whole dog show experience much more relaxing.

  “Dorothy did say something at the first meeting about MacDuff missing the limelight. That once she retired him from showing, he got bored.”

  “He got bored?” Terry said with a sniff. “I don’t think so. How old is that Scottie anyway? Five? Six? Seven? She’s been running his little feet off for years. There probably isn’t a show on the entire East Coast he hasn’t been to.”

  “And won at.”

  Terry nodded. “I never said he wasn’t a good Scottie. Just that Dorothy kept specialing him long after most owners would have been happy to let that poor old thing enjoy a well deserved retirement.”

  “It seems to me she did give him some time off on a couple of different occasions over the years,” Aunt Peg said.

  “Usually when she was bringing out a puppy of his—one she thought might be good enough to take his place. But none of them panned out the way she hoped. They were good enough to finish and maybe put a couple of groups on. But none were as good as their sire. Dorothy wanted a dog that could win week after week at the highest level. And that had to be MacDuff.”

  “But she finally did retire him,” I pointed out.

  “She pretty much had to,” said Sam. “I showed Tar against him a couple of times last fall. MacDuff had definitely lost a step or two. It was clear even then that he was pretty much just coasting along on his reputation. If she wanted him to go out a winner, it was time to stop.”

  “But then the contest came along,” said Terry. “And next thing you know, they were up and running again. If you think Dorothy was a fierce competitor in the dog show ring, honey, watch out now. Looks to me like Chow Down is offering her and MacDuff wider recognition than anything they could ever have achieved in the dog show world. Dorothy’s not about to let an opportunity like that slip through her fingers.”

  I filed that away for further consideration later, as the other three went back to work. A few minutes later, Bertie and Crawford appeared. Having finished in their respective rings, both were leading winners.

  “Eve looks great,” said Bertie admiringly. She stowed her Clumber Spaniel in a crate and tucked his purple and gold Best of Breed ribbon in her tack box.

  “Thank my capable assistants,” I said.

  “I’m glad I’m only showing a couple of puppies for experience. She’ll be hard to—”

  “Don’t say it!” Peg snapped. Where dog shows are concerned, she’s very superstitious.

  Bertie grinned and whispered, “Beat.”

  Aunt Peg glared.

  Bertie ignored her. She’d picked up the Poodle armbands on her way back from the rings. She handed me mine and I slipped it up my arm.

  Her two Standard puppies were on their tabletops, waiting patiently. She stood them up and both shook out their coats. The hair lifted, then fell right back into place, the sign of a scissoring job well done.

  “Time to head over,” she said. “Let’s go get ’em.”

  13

  Just like at the previous show, Crawford and Terry didn’t have any Standard Poodles entered. The two of them remained behind when our small procession made its way to the ring. Bertie’s puppies led the way, hopping and scampering through the crowds.

  The two were littermates, and both were bitches. Since Bertie would be handling both of them, one had been entered in the Puppy Class, the other in American-Bred. At their young age, their owner wasn’t expecting them to win. But even puppies that were showing to socialize and get experience added t
o the numbers that produced the solid major.

  Eve was eligible for the Bred by Exhibitor class, but I’d put her in Open. That was where the toughest competition would be entered; and showing her there sent a signal to the judge that Eve was ready to be a contender. Open Bitch was also the last of the regular classes to be judged within each breed, which meant that by the time our turn came, I would probably be a nervous wreck.

  Sam, who knew me better than anyone, took Eve’s leash out of my hands as soon as we reached the ring. Winners Dog was being judged; the competition in bitches would begin shortly.

  “Go away for a few minutes,” he said.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Shoo. Get lost.” His hand flipped up and down in the air, motioning me away. “If you stand here, you’ll begin to fidget. And if you fidget, you’ll make Eve nervous. Then both of you will begin to fall apart.”

  “You don’t even trust me to hold my own dog?”

  “It’s not a matter of trust, it’s a matter of expediency,” said Aunt Peg. “If you start fussing and knock all her hair down, Sam and I will be the ones who have to put it back up.”

  Well, there was that.

  “Here,” said Bertie, materializing beside me. “If you want to make yourself useful, you can hold one of these wild things while I go in the ring with the other.”

  She reached over and shoved a balled-up show leash into my hand. The big brown puppy that was attached to it immediately spun around, leapt up, and planted her front feet on my chest.

  “Hello!” I said, grunting slightly with the impact.

  “Her name’s Snickers,” said Bertie. “And trust me, you don’t want to encourage her.”

  I wasn’t encouraging her, I was merely trying to remain upright. That in itself was a job since the big puppy probably weighed half as much as I did. Prudently, I moved Snickers away from Eve so that her antics wouldn’t cause any damage. We walked around the side of the ring and watched Bertie show her sister.

  The best that could be said for the performance was that the puppy had a lot of fun, most of it at Bertie’s expense. Even the judge was smiling by the time she pinned the class. Bertie merely looked resigned to being run ragged by her exuberant charge. In a class of six, the two of them left without a ribbon.

  We switched puppies at the gate and Bertie went right back into the ring with Snickers. The American-Bred class had two entries. Snickers was only marginally better behaved than her littermate, and she and Bertie earned second place by default.

  I’d been concentrating so hard on watching one puppy while keeping the other out of trouble that I’d completely forgotten about the fact that Eve and I were due in the ring momentarily. Which had probably been everyone’s plan all along.

  Clutching her red ribbon, Bertie came flying out the gate and grabbed the leash I was holding. As she pulled the puppies away, Sam led Eve into place by my left side. Aunt Peg stooped down in front of my Poodle, making one last check of ears and topknot. Sam took out his comb, ran it quickly through my hair, then patted everything down into place.

  “Perfect,” he said softly.

  “You’re sure?” Butterflies, late to arrive, were now coming on full force.

  “Positive.”

  Sam was looking at me, not Eve; and I saw everything I needed to know in his eyes. God, I loved that man.

  “Go have fun,” he said.

  Nine Standard Poodle bitches were entered in the Open class. As usual, almost all of them were being handled by professionals. The majority of the entry had already filed around us and into the ring. Eve and I took our place at the end of the long line.

  Most handlers jockey for position in the front of the line. They like the psychological impact of leading right from the start. But since we’d already missed that opportunity, I decided that Eve and I would make the most of our place in the rear. We were going to make a spectacular last impression.

  Sam and Aunt Peg had done me a huge favor by coming to the show to prepare Eve for the ring, I realized. Earlier I’d been feeling a little demoralized, wounded by the fact that they hadn’t thought I was capable of doing a good enough job of grooming my own dog. But now I saw that their help had freed me to concentrate on the one important thing I had to do that day: showing off my Poodle to the judge to the best of my ability.

  Maybe I’d never have the handling skill that Aunt Peg possessed. Certainly I’d never have Sam’s flair. But what I was taking into the ring with me that day was an all-encompassing knowledge of the Poodle at the end of my leash.

  The other handlers in the ring were professionals. They hadn’t been there when the Poodles they were exhibiting were born. They hadn’t watched them grow up; they didn’t live with them twenty-four hours a day. In some cases, they might have met the dog they were handling only minutes earlier.

  Eve and I had a bond that none of the other exhibitors in the ring could hope to emulate. We were accustomed to working together as a team. Each of us knew what the other was thinking.

  I reached down and chucked Eve under the chin. She tipped her head back and caught my eye. We shared a look and the same thought passed between us. We’d been showing together for eighteen months. It was time to get the job done.

  The judge was a woman named Charlotte Raines. I’d shown to her before and knew what she liked. When she made her first pass down the long line, I didn’t stack Eve as the other handlers were doing. Instead, making use of the extra room I’d gained by being at the end, I stepped back and let Eve choose her own balanced stance, then baited her naturally.

  Mrs. Raines’s gaze slid quickly down the line, examining dogs and handlers alike and making mental notes of the faces she had to deal with. She wasn’t a Poodle specialist but she judged the breed often and knew a good one when she got her hands on it. She appreciated the skill that went into a professional handling job, but she wasn’t likely to let the pros con her into thinking that their Poodles were better specimens than they actually were.

  In other words, she would reward an owner-handler for bringing her a good dog, but she’d make you work every single minute for the win.

  Fine, I thought. Eve and I were up to the task.

  The first go-around passed without incident. Mrs. Raines took note of Eve, which was good; but she also gazed favorably upon three or four other bitches. Even that early in the class, the contenders had begun to sort themselves out.

  As the judge began her individual examinations, most of the other handlers pulled back out of line and let their Poodles relax while they waited their turns. Another time I might have done the same; but not that day. There was too much at stake.

  Instead I left Eve standing on the rubber mat. The Poodle responded as I’d known she would. Her dark eyes fastened on the judge, watching her intently for several minutes. It was long enough to draw Mrs. Raines’s attention her way twice.

  I looked away, smiled to myself, and let Eve continue to work her magic.

  Here’s the thing. Eve was an excellent Standard Poodle, but with a four point major on the line, she wasn’t the only good one in the class. Gazing up the line, I could see several other bitches that were probably her equal. On a given day, any one of us might deserve to win the class. But I refused to let that knowledge intimidate me. Today was going to be our day.

  I believed it. Eve believed it. And that was half the battle right there.

  Slowly the line moved forward. When Eve’s attention began to flag, I pulled a little furry mouse out of my pocket and waved it enticingly under her nose. Immediately the Poodle’s head snapped up, and her neck arched. Her tail, already high over her back, waved stiffly to and fro.

  I gave the toy a small toss and Eve caught it on the fly. Before she could shake her head to “kill” the mouse, I snatched it back and held it up in the air. Eve stood at attention and woofed softly under her breath. Mrs. Raines glanced our way again.

  The best judges, those who really understand the breed standard, know that Poodles ha
ve to do more than just look good to win. They also have to display the intelligent and playful temperament that is such an integral part of the breed. Mrs. Raines had entered the ring expecting the Poodles to entertain her, and Eve was doing her part to comply.

  When our turn came to be individually examined, I walked Eve into a free stack and left her standing there on her own. Look Ma, no hands! I was telling the judge that I didn’t have to prop Eve up to make her appear correct. That this Poodle bitch was pretty special all on her own.

  Eve stood like she’d been cast in stone while Mrs. Raines conducted her examination. The judge ran her hands over the Poodle’s body, checking her bite, examining her bone structure, feeling for muscle tone. When she had finished, Mrs. Raines stepped back and asked us to gait a triangle pattern.

  Eve and I were at the top of our game. Not only did the judge watch us move, but I saw that the other handlers were taking note, too. They’d sized up the competition and decided who they had to beat, and Eve was at the head of the list.

  Mrs. Raines sent us all the way around the ring to the end of the line, but we didn’t remain there for long. Almost immediately she beckoned us forward, waving us to the opposite mat to start a new line. As she made the rest of her selections and Poodles filled in the spots behind us, I took a moment to glance outside the ring.

  Aunt Peg was frowning, but that wasn’t unusual when I was handling. I’d learned not to take it personally. Bertie was trying to watch, but she was also busy wrangling the two puppies who were trying to play with a nearby Briard. Only Sam, standing with his arms crossed over his chest and gazing in our direction, looked supremely confident.

  He caught my eye and dropped one lid in a broad wink. Having fun yet? he mouthed.

  I grinned in reply, just as the judge stepped back to the head of the line.

  “I’d smile, too, if she was my Poodle,” she said. Then she lifted her hand and pointed to each of us in turn, awarding the class placements. “I’ll take them just as they are. One, two, three, four!”

  Quickly I hustled Eve over to the first-place marker. That she’d won the Open class was great. It meant that we’d already defeated a significant portion of the competition. But now Eve needed to defeat the winners of each of the earlier bitch classes to secure the points.