Chow Down

by Laurien Berenson

Simone looked disgruntled. She reached down and snatched the bowl away. Faith watched it leave without apparent regret.

  “Well, that was underwhelming.”

  “Faith had a big breakfast.” I was lying but what the heck. The contest seemed to have that effect on me.

  “Most dogs love Chow Down.” Simone’s tone was so insistent that I found myself wondering if she was lying, too. “They can’t get enough of it.”

  Fortunately for me, Faith wasn’t anything like most dogs. And if that cost her the contest, so be it.

  That thought brightened my day enormously.

  10

  Faith and I were sent back around the corner to Cindy Burrows’s office next. Simone’s work space had been elegantly spare. By contrast, the product manager’s office was small and cluttered.

  File folders and piles of papers were stacked everywhere. Any surface that wasn’t littered with papers held framed photographs. I saw at least half a dozen pictures of a flashy black-and-white Border Collie. Cindy was with the dog in some of the photos. In others he seemed to be performing, making impossible twisting leaps to snatch a Frisbee out of the air.

  “Great dog,” I said by way of a greeting.

  Cindy immediately grinned. “Thanks. That’s Gus. And he is a great dog. He was tristate disc dog champ last year.”

  “He looks like he’d be a natural for the Chow Down contest. Did you think about entering him?”

  “I wish I could have. He’d be a great spokesdog for the product. But it wouldn’t have been fair.” She waved me toward a chair and leaned back to perch on the edge of her desk. “You know, nepotism rearing its ugly head and all. Besides, I adore Gus. He’s my best friend. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel, sitting in the committee meetings and listening to the other judges rip him apart.”

  “So that’s what you’ve been doing to us? Ripping our dogs apart?”

  “Not usually, no.” Cindy looked like she wished she’d kept her mouth shut. “Well, sometimes. But only because it’s necessary.”

  I sat down and patted my knees. Faith hopped her front legs up into my lap. I pulled her toward me protectively.

  “We have five excellent finalists. And there’s only going to be one winner. Under the circumstances, we don’t have any choice but to be critical of every little aspect. It’s a big responsibility, being in charge of a major product launch like this. None of us wants to screw up.”

  I read between the lines and decided Cindy was the one who was worried about making a mistake. Doug, Simone, and Chris were all older than she was. Their positions within the company were probably more secure. Certainly their jobs were at a higher level; each had probably handled pressure like this before.

  Judging by their titles, the other three committee members all had wide-ranging responsibilities within the company. Cindy was a product manager. Chow Down was her product. This launch was a make-or-break proposition for her.

  “I can see your point about favoritism,” I said. “Especially if the other committee members have dogs themselves . . .”

  I let the thought dangle, hoping that Cindy would feel obliged to fill in the blanks. Getting to know the judges a little better could only be a good thing. Besides, it didn’t seem fair that the contestants were the only ones giving up personal information.

  “Doug’s got a Lab,” she said with a nod. “Chocolate. His name’s Hershey, Doug’s kids named him. Then his wife divorced him and took the kids. Doug ended up with the dog.”

  I wasn’t about to comment on the contest chairman’s marital difficulties. Instead I went for an observation that seemed safe enough. “Doug looks like he’d be a Lab kind of guy.”

  The two of us smiled. Spend enough time around dogs and their owners and you realize it isn’t a myth that people tend to look like their pets.

  “What about Simone?” Cindy asked. “What kind of dog do you see her with?”

  I thought for a moment. “A Saluki.”

  “Good guess, but no.”

  “Chinese Crested?”

  Cindy giggled at that. “No way. You’d never catch Simone with a dog that was nearly hairless. Not enough to primp. No, she’s got a Pomeranian named Chloe. Sometimes Simone sticks Chloe inside her purse and brings her to work.” She glanced down at Faith. “Not on the days when we’re going to have other dogs visiting, though.”

  “What about Chris?” I asked.

  “He has a Scottie.”

  “Like MacDuff.”

  “That’s right.”

  She looked over her shoulder and pushed some papers around her desk, as if she’d suddenly remembered a task that needed attending to. I wasn’t fooled. Cindy didn’t want to talk about Chris’s pet. Which made me want to discuss him all the more.

  “So I guess he was pretty happy to see MacDuff chosen as a finalist,” I said.

  “I guess so.”

  Her tone was carefully neutral. I guessed there might be some resentment there that she was holding tightly in check. Worried about appearances, Cindy had tried hard not to practice favoritism. It must have rankled to see Chris do the opposite in making his selections.

  “How were the five finalists chosen?” I asked.

  “You know that. The procedure was outlined in the contest rules. You must have read them before you entered.”

  “Sure, but I was wondering how things worked within the committee itself. Did each of the judges look at every single entry? Did you vote on which ones you liked the best? Did all your votes count equally?”

  Queried about an easier topic, Cindy relaxed a bit. “Doug and Simone were much too busy to be involved at the beginning of the selection process. The contest was incredibly popular, there were several thousand individual entries that needed to be sorted through. That was Chris’s and my job. Between the two of us, we looked at and evaluated every one.”

  “That must have been a huge undertaking.”

  “Believe me, it was. Although some of the entries were obviously more serious than others. You wouldn’t believe how many submissions we got from little kids who thought that their pet Fluffy or Fido was the best dog in the world.”

  Little did she know, I thought.

  “Of course we had to put those aside. But even so, there was still a huge number to consider. Finally Chris and I had to split them up. Each of us did half and came up with our ten favorites. That left us with twenty semifinalists for the whole committee to consider.”

  “How many of your choices ended up as finalists?” I asked curiously.

  “Three,” she said with satisfaction. “And before you ask, yes, Faith was one of them. As soon as I saw your entry, I knew that she would be a perfect candidate.”

  “Who else did you pick?”

  I wasn’t sure Cindy would answer, but she did.

  “Ginger and Brando were mine, too. All three of my choices were dogs with great charisma. Actually I was quite certain that at least seven or eight out of the ten I presented could have won the whole thing. But when we got the entire committee together to choose the finalists, I think Doug and Simone felt kind of bad when the first three we selected came from my pile. After that they made a conscious effort to take the last two from Chris.”

  “Not an entirely fair way to do things. Maybe your semifinalists were a better group.”

  Cindy only shrugged. If she’d had a problem with the outcome, she wasn’t about to discuss it with me.

  “So your selections were all big dogs.”

  “Not intentionally, that’s just the way it worked out. I was looking for a dog that I thought would have a certain kind of presence in the print ads and on TV. In my mind, I guess that translated into using one of the bigger breeds.”

  “Clearly your director of advertising didn’t feel the same way.”

  “Not necessarily. I saw Chris’s whole group, and he had several large dogs among his final ten. A Weimeraner, I think, and maybe a Scottish Deerhound. But the two he was really pulling for were Yoda and MacDuff.”


  “And Doug and Simone agreed with him.”

  “Eventually, yes. In the beginning our choices were all over the place. And it didn’t help that there were four of us on the committee, which naturally led to some tie votes.”

  “What did you do about those?”

  “Doug dealt with them,” Cindy said with a small, humorless laugh. “Or rather, he announced that in the case of a tie, his vote carried more weight than the rest of ours did.”

  There we were, right back to that favoritism thing again.

  “Doug and Simone weren’t sold on MacDuff at first because of his age. He turned six a few months ago. It won’t be long before he starts getting grey around the whiskers. We’re looking for someone who’s willing to make a long-term commitment to the product. There’s no way we’re going to go through this procedure again any time soon.”

  “I take it Chris managed to convince them that MacDuff would be a good choice?”

  “Did he ever. Chris really went to the mat for that dog. And Yoda too, I guess. Anyway, they both ended up in the final five. Which is okay. Over all, I think it turned out to be a pretty good group.”

  Cindy glanced down at Faith who was still half-sprawled across my lap. While we’d been speaking, the Poodle had laid her long muzzle down between her front paws and fallen asleep. Now she was snoring softly, her body rising and falling gently with each deep breath.

  “Geez, I can’t believe you let me go on like that,” she said, pushing herself up off the desk. “My mother always told me that I talked too much. It looks like our time’s just about up. You and Faith are seeing Chris next, right?”

  “If you say so.”

  I’d seen a story on TV once about something called speed dating. These quick, back-to-back interviews, where Faith and I had only a very limited amount of time to make a good impression, were beginning to feel pretty similar. Except for the lack of alcohol and the fact that we’d be leaving by ourselves at the end.

  “Don’t worry about Chris,” Cindy said, misreading my silence. “He’s really a big teddy bear.”

  “One who likes smaller dogs, apparently.”

  “I don’t think he has anything against big breeds necessarily. It’s just the way things shook out.”

  Like the other judges we’d already seen, Chris Hovick was waiting for us. He welcomed us into an office that looked rumpled and well used. Kind of like Chris himself.

  Faith, refreshed from the catnap she’d taken while I was talking to Cindy, danced happily through the doorway. I followed more slowly behind. The pressure of having to be eager and enthusiastic all over again each time we changed judges was beginning to wear me out. Maybe it was time to let the Poodle speak for herself.

  “Greetings,” Chris said. When he stooped down to Faith’s eye level, she sat down and offered him a paw, a trick I’d taught her several months earlier when we’d been making nursing home visits.

  “Cute.” He accepted the paw, shook it gently, then returned it to the floor. “Did you give her a cue to make her do that, or did she come up with it all on her own?”

  “That was Faith’s idea. Poodles are thinking dogs.”

  “So I’ve heard. Have a seat on the couch over there, and we’ll talk about what else she knows.”

  I sat down and Faith hopped up next to me. She turned a tight half-circle on the cushion, then sat down beside me, also facing outward. Chris, busy pulling up a chair for himself, watched curiously.

  “You’re still not telling her what to do?” he asked.

  “No, would you like me to?”

  “Hell no. This is fascinating to watch. She behaves just like a person.”

  “Poodles do that. Most are convinced that they are people.”

  “Fast learners?”

  I grinned. “What do you think?”

  “Yeah. I guess I could have figured that out for myself. I was just talking to the Reddings. Their dog, Ginger, has all sorts of titles and degrees. How does Faith measure up in that department?”

  “She’s a champion, for one thing.”

  “That’s for conformation, right? That means she’s a good looking Standard Poodle?”

  “Yes.”

  “She ever win that—what’s it called?—Best in Show?”

  “No.”

  Chris leaned back in his seat. He rested his elbows on the chair’s arms and steepled his fingers in front of his face. “How come?”

  “I showed Faith to her championship myself. And the two of us together weren’t good enough to compete at the Best in Show level. Besides I really didn’t want her to be a specials dog. Do you know what that means?”

  “More or less. Like MacDuff.”

  “Exactly.”

  “He won Bests in Show.”

  “Lots of them,” I agreed mildly.

  I wasn’t about to dispute that. If the point of the contest was to find the dog with the best show record, MacDuff was the winner hands down. The rest of us might as well go home.

  “What about obedience? Does she have any titles there?”

  “Just one. Faith has her CD.”

  CD stood for Companion Dog and was the most basic of the obedience degrees. Even so, it was an achievement. A dog had to be pretty well trained to make it that far.

  “It’s a start,” said Chris. He didn’t sound impressed. Since he’d recently met with the Reddings and their triple-threat Brittany, I could understand why he might not be.

  “You saw Simone earlier, right?”

  I nodded.

  “She gave Faith some Chow Down to taste?”

  “Yes.” Deliberately, I didn’t elaborate.

  “How’d that go?”

  So much for the not elaborating thing. “Okay.”

  “Just okay?”

  There was no point in beating around the bush. I was certain the committee members would be comparing notes later.

  “Faith didn’t fall in love with the product right away. But that’s pretty normal for her. It usually takes her some time to decide whether she likes a new food or not.”

  “Finicky, huh?”

  “She can be.”

  “I know what you’re thinking,” said Chris. “That a little thing like that is no big deal. But at this level, everything counts. It has to. This contest is important to me. It was my concept and it’s been my baby since the beginning. I really care about the end result. And it wouldn’t say much for the dog food, would it, if the company’s own spokesdog didn’t love it?”

  I sat quietly through Chris’s lecture. But that, coming on top of what I’d learned from Cindy—that Faith hadn’t been one of the finalists Chris had backed—put me on the defensive. All at once I found myself wondering if Faith wasn’t the only one who’d had a problem with her initial sample of Chow Down.

  “How’d the others do?” I asked.

  “Pardon me?”

  He’d heard me. I knew it and he knew it.

  “I’m just curious,” I said casually. “Brando, Yoda, MacDuff, Ginger—how did they do with their first taste of Chow Down?”

  Chris hesitated, as if trying to decide how much to reveal. Then abruptly he seemed to realize that his silence itself was telling enough.

  “Some handled it better than others.”

  I waited in silence. After another minute, Chris continued.

  “Brittanys aren’t big eaters, at least that’s what the Reddings told me. And Brando, well . . . one look at Ben and you can pretty much see that that dog’s been spoiled beyond redemption. But they’ll come around in time. They’ll have to, otherwise what would be the point?”

  I wondered if it was just coincidence that the contestants Chris outlined as having problems were the ones he hadn’t chosen in the first place.

  “What about MacDuff and Yoda?”

  Chris smiled happily. “MacDuff was fine. He’s always fine. Pretty much no matter what you ask him to do, that guy’s a pro.”

  “And Yoda?”

  “She did great.
For such a small dog, she really packed it in. Then she danced around on her hind legs and asked for more.”

  “I’m happy for Lisa’s sake,” I said. “Actually I was surprised to see her today. You know, so soon after what happened.”

  “Me, too. None of us expected her to show up. And of course we’d have understood entirely if she hadn’t. But Lisa was very determined to go on. That’s what she told us. She was sure it was what Larry would have wanted her to do.”

  I’ve always done my best thinking when I’m driving in the car. Maybe that’s why it wasn’t until twenty minutes later, when Faith and I were on our way home, that something occurred to me. When I’d seen Lisa earlier outside the dog food company, she hadn’t had Yoda with her. So the Yorkie couldn’t have sampled Chow Down that morning like the other finalists had.

  Yet Chris was certain that Yoda had tried the product and liked it. I wondered when that had happened.

  11

  After Faith and I got home, I realized something else. Despite the numerous topics I’d talked about at various meetings that morning, the one thing that hadn’t come up in our conversations was any speculation about Larry Kim’s death. Oh, we’d danced around the subject a bit, spoken about how bad we felt for Lisa, and discussed the fact that she’d elected to remain in the contest.

  But like the proverbial elephant in the corner, everyone had avoided mentioning the obvious questions that still remained. What had Larry been doing in the stairwell? Had another person been there with him? And why might someone have wanted to push him down a flight of steps?

  I wondered whether the police had been searching for answers, or if they agreed with Lisa’s version of events: that her husband, suffering from vertigo, had lost his balance and fallen. It was interesting that she’d been so quick to assume that Larry’s death was an accident, especially in light of the fact that she couldn’t imagine why he would have entered the stairwell in the first place. That alone should have raised some red flags.

  Why was I the only one who seemed to be seeing them?

  I’d missed my chance earlier, I realized. While I might not have wanted to pump the grieving widow for information, I’d had interviews with several other people who’d been in the vicinity at the time of Larry’s death. And yet I’d neglected to pose a single question.