Best in Show (8 page)

T
he first person I ran into when I got back to the hotel was Aunt Peg.

I'd parked my car and taken Eve inside through the lobby, which was unexpectedly crowded. After a moment, I realized why. The morning's symposium, held in a meeting room that opened off the entryway, was just ending. Aunt Peg was standing in the doorway as people left, handing out questionnaires for feedback, accepting congratulations for a job well done, and basking in Mary Ludlow Scott's reflected glory.

I sidled over to where she stood. “I gather things went well?”

“Superb.” Peg was beaming. “There were so many questions, the program ran long by an hour. Mary stayed at the podium until every single person got an answer. There's barely time now for people to grab a quick lunch before the afternoon session starts. That's why everyone's in such a rush to get out.”

Maybe. Or perhaps the stampede had something to do with the fact that the expert was being followed by a charlatan. Not that I said as much, of course.

“I noticed
you
didn't think it was worth your time to attend,” Aunt Peg sniffed. She hates it when her relatives fail to meet her expectations.

“I'd have been thrilled to hear Mary Scott speak. But in case you've forgotten, someone needed to go over to the show and open up the raffle table.”

“Oh.” Aunt Peg pondered that. I sensed that my lapse was being forgiven. “Speaking of which, do you happen to know where Edith Jean is? She hasn't checked out, but she doesn't seem to be in her room either. Everyone's been looking for her.”

“I just left her back at the arena. She showed up there this morning, determined to run the raffle, just as she and Betty Jean promised they'd do.”

Aunt Peg stepped back out of the flow of pedestrians. She pulled me aside with her. “You can't be serious. Surely Nancy or Cliff must have told her that they'd find someone else to take over.”

“I imagine they did, but Edith Jean doesn't want anyone else doing her job. She said she and Betty Jean had been looking forward to the show all year, and there was no way she was going home before it was over. She's hoping to watch their puppy, Bubba, go Winners Dog tomorrow.”

“That's the silver Toy I told you about yesterday,” Peg remembered. “I judged him in Virginia in April. I'm pretty sure I put him up, too.”

“Just about all the judges did. To hear the sisters tell it, he was the star of the circuit. So much so that Harry Gandolf started making trouble for them.”

Aunt Peg waved merrily at several departing participants, then turned back to frown at me. “Harry Gandolf is based in Illinois. I don't recall seeing him in Virginia at all. Roger Carew was handling the puppy there.”

“Harry isn't on the Boones' team, he's a competitor. Apparently he's convinced that his Toy puppy is the one that ought to go Winners Dog tomorrow. He tried to buy Bubba earlier in the spring, and when that failed, he started all sorts of rumors about the dog.”

“Like what?”

“That he was oversize, that he'd been dyed. You know, disruptive stuff meant to put an end to his winning streak.”

“Hmmm.” Aunt Peg tapped her lip thoughtfully. “Now that you mention it, I suppose I did hear something about that. At the time I just passed it off as circuit gossip. Perhaps I should have paid more attention. It came up at the judges' dinner, the night after I'd done Poodles. I was seated next to Rollie Barnes.”

Roland Barnes had started his career in Basset Hounds and bore an unfortunate resemblance to his favorite breed. He was squat in stature, dour by nature, and almost entirely lacking in finesse when it came to judging Poodles. He seldom found the best dog in his entry; and some exhibitors claimed he judged by the pound, as his winner was invariably the fattest dog in the ring.

“Rollie was doing Poodles the next day,” said Peg. “He asked whether I'd had a silver Toy puppy and if so, what I'd thought of him. Well you know we're not really supposed to discuss such things but, of course, it does happen. I thought perhaps he wanted my opinion since Poodles are my breed. In the same way that I might have gone to him to ask about a Basset Hound.”

“No, you wouldn't.” I grinned.

After a moment, she smiled too. “You're right, I probably wouldn't have. Nevertheless, Rollie said someone had told him Roger's Toy puppy was big, that the judges weren't doing their job in letting him slip by. Since I'd already had him, he wanted to know what I thought.

“It's the nature of dog shows, I suppose. People are always talking about one another's dogs, and they're not killing them with compliments, either. I hate that aspect of the sport. Why can't the dogs simply be allowed to speak for themselves? I told Rollie I thought the puppy was lovely and well within size.”

“Well within?”

“I had a point to make,” Peg said innocently.

“And after you'd given Bubba your seal of approval, did he put the puppy up?”

“I have no idea. My assignment was over. I left for home first thing the next morning. Until you mentioned that Harry had been causing problems, I hadn't given the incident another thought. But while we're on the subject of the Boones, there's something else you ought to know. Cliff got an update from the police this morning.”

“I heard they were questioning people. Did they talk to you?”

“Yes, last night. They came to my room after we split up. Cliff had told them I was one of the first people on the scene. And of course, I
had
touched Betty Jean. Turned her over, actually. So they wanted to know what I thought I was doing.”

“As if that wasn't obvious.”

“That's what I thought. I told them I was trying to see if she needed help. Just as any responsible person would have done. At the time, they weren't overly concerned. Apparently they were thinking she might have had a heart attack. But this morning I heard from Cliff that that theory's been ruled out.”

I felt a chill. “What did Betty Jean die of?”

“It was the blow to the head that killed her. When she hit the planter, it fractured her skull.”

“How awful. You mean she tripped in the dark and did herself in?”

“Not exactly. There was a bruise on her chest that doesn't look as though it was caused by the fall. The police told Cliff that they're looking into the possibility she might have been pushed. It seems it wasn't an accidental death after all. Betty Jean Boone was murdered.”

 

 

You'd think news like that would take my appetite away, but it didn't. Not even close. Instead, I left Aunt Peg to her hostessing duties, dropped Eve off in my room, then went off in search of Bertie. My new sister-in-law, Peg had informed me, had been sitting front row center during the morning's program. I wondered if she'd been taking notes. Maybe I could still gain some of Mary Scott's knowledge, even if it wasn't firsthand.

Not unexpectedly, I found Bertie standing in the buffet line in the hotel coffee shop. These days, she was hungry all the time. And since it was probably the first time in her life that she wasn't keeping an eye on her figure, Bertie was eating with gusto. I grabbed a plate and joined her.

We caught up over a hurried lunch, which mostly meant that Bertie rhapsodized over Mary Scott's vast wealth of knowledge, skill, and generosity while simultaneously stuffing her face with pasta. “I'm going to start handling Poodles,” she said. “I can't imagine why I haven't already.”

“Possibly because of all the extra hours you'd have to spend grooming?” Watching her eat was fascinating. I didn't think I'd ever seen linguine disappear so fast.

“Like I don't do that now with some of my other breeds.” Bertie used her fork to wave away my objection. “Besides, I can pass along the costs. I guess I've always been intimidated by all that hair. And the trims that aren't like anything else I do. I figured if you weren't practically born into the breed, you'd never be able to make a success of it.”

“I wasn't born into it,” I pointed out. “I never even went to a dog show until I was thirty.”

“Yeah, but you're different.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“No, I mean it.” She stopped and looked at me. “You came into the dog show world with Peg. That's kind of like having the queen bring you in and introduce you around the palace.”

“I thought Mary Ludlow Scott was the queen.”

“All right, a duchess then.” Bertie clung to her metaphor. Just on the basis of her arguing skills, I could tell she was going to be a great mother. “You didn't have to start at the bottom, like most people do.”

“I'm pretty sure I resent that,” I said, thinking about it. “I had to pay my dues. It took me more than two years to finish Faith's championship. That's a long time.”

Bertie was shaking her head. “It's all relative. Most people don't finish their first show dog at all. Either because they lack the handling skills, or because they're too new to the sport to be able to figure out who the good judges are. Or because some breeder saw that they were novices and sold them a puppy that wasn't show quality in the first place. Having Margaret Turnbull on your team gave you a leg up on the whole process.”

Put that way, she was probably right. Breeding and showing dogs wasn't a sport for those who lack perseverance or determination. Especially Poodles.

“So now it's your turn to give something back,” Bertie said.

I put down my fork and braced myself.

Really, what else could I do? Bertie was my favorite sister-in-law. Well, my only sister-in-law actually; but I was sure that if I'd had more than one, she would still have been my favorite. Whatever she wanted, I knew I'd help if I could.

“What?” I asked.

“Teach me to trim a Poodle.”

“You must be joking.”

“Why? You don't think I could do it?”

“
You'll
be fine. I'm the one who couldn't do it. I don't know enough.”

“Sure you do. You finished Faith. And you've got points on Eve from the puppy class. So how bad can your trims be?”

“As you just so eloquently pointed out, they're not
my
trims, they're Aunt Peg's. In the beginning I was barely allowed to touch a pair of scissors to my own dogs.”

“And now?” Bertie prompted.

“Now she considers me almost competent,” I grumbled.

“See? You're halfway there.”

“Which is why I shouldn't be dragging you down with me. You need to learn from the best.”

“The best don't have time to teach me.” Bertie held up a hand to stop me from interrupting. “I know, you don't either. But that's the beauty of this plan. I'm a member of the family. It's not like you can get rid of me.”

Good point. “You really want to show Poodles,” I said.

“I'm here, aren't I?”

“All right then. You've got a deal.” I glanced at her stomach. “I hope this means you're going to name your firstborn after me.”

“What if it's a boy?”

“Mel.”

“Give me a break.” Bertie grabbed the check and signed it to her room.

“It works for Gibson.”

“Now Gibson,” she said, “I'd consider.”

The coffee shop was emptying fast. We got up and joined everyone else, heading back to the conference room. Oh yeah, this partnership was going to be fun.

Rosalind Romanescue's program started out with a bang.

Despite the brevity of the lunch break, Aunt Peg's meeting room was full. All the chairs were taken; more people stood in the back. As Bertie and I had found our seats, I wondered what had caused the psychic to be such a draw. I wouldn't have guessed that the inexact science of animal communicating would find such a large and enthusiastic audience at PCA.

Then Aunt Peg introduced the woman, and after a brief, polite round of applause, a question was shouted out from the side of the room. “Since you see visions and stuff like that, can you tell us what happened to Betty Jean Boone?”

Rosalind had just stepped up to the podium to begin her talk. She was a mild-looking, middle-aged woman with bright red hair that was half tamed into a French braid. She wore faded blue jeans, a denim shirt, and sturdy leather boots. Small silver earrings sparkled in the light. Her fingers, nails bare of polish, gripped the sides of the speaker's stand as she glanced over at Aunt Peg.

“I'm sorry,” she said, looking suddenly flustered. “I'm afraid I don't understand.”