Best in Show

by Laurien Berenson

  “Was it something I said?” I asked.

  “No, that’s just Harry. He’s not a big talker.”

  Maybe. Except that Harry and Roger had been chatting quite amicably until I’d arrived. I’d even go so far as to say that they’d looked rather chummy. There was nothing unusual about that, of course. Professional handlers spend much of their lives on the road, and most of their time in close proximity to one another. Even the fiercest competitors inside the ring were often friends under other circumstances.

  But what made me think twice was the fleeting look of concern on Roger’s face as I’d approached. He’d been wondering how much I’d overheard and that made me wonder too. Everybody pays somebody in the end, Harry had told me earlier. Now I put that thought together with Aunt Peg’s question. Who whistled isn’t important, she’d said. What matters is, why did Roger look?

  All at once, I was afraid I knew the answer.

  “Harry offered Edith Jean seven hundred dollars to pull Bubba from the competition,” I said softly. “I hope you held out for at least as much.”

  Roger had been staring fixedly at the photographer’s setup. Now his head swiveled back around. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”

  Like hell.

  “Harry needed Vic to go Winners Dog to ensure the dog’s sale to Japan,” I said. “There was a lot of money riding on that win, and he was willing to pay Edith Jean to make sure that Bubba didn’t beat Vic. She turned him down. I think he came to you next, and you accepted his offer.”

  “What a ridiculous idea. Bubba was Reserve Winners and best Toy Puppy. At a show of this caliber, I’d hardly call that losing.”

  “I agree. But Harry didn’t care how much you won, as long as Vic ended up with the purple ribbon. I think when Harry approached you, you saw a way to make everybody happy, including yourself. Considering how devastated Edith Jean would be if she ever found out, I just hope your piece of the pie was big enough to make it worth your while.”

  “That’s nothing but conjecture on your part.” Roger’s tone was low and menacing. “You can’t prove any of it.”

  “I don’t have to,” I said. “The judging’s over. Nothing can be changed now. But you’d better hope that Harry wasn’t so desperate for the win that he’d have been willing to stoop to murder. Because that might make you an accessory.”

  “I had nothing to do with that,” Roger snapped. “I don’t know anything about what happened to Betty Jean.”

  “You don’t have to convince me,” I said. “Tell it to the police. They’re the ones who’ll be interested to hear about what you’ve been up to.”

  I felt the heat of his glare burning into my back all the way out of the ring. I passed by Harry, who must have been watching the exchange. He looked incensed as well. I gave him a glance and kept right on walking.

  It was a relief to pass through the gate and lose myself in the crowd.

  25

  I was debating what to tell Edith Jean when I got waylaid by Bertie.

  “I need to talk to you,” she said, falling into step beside me.

  “Can it wait?”

  “Not for long.”

  Across the way, the Miniature Best of Variety class was being called into the ring. Forty-four Miniature Poodles in assorted colors, all groomed to perfection, paraded out into the arena. Spectators found seats and settled in for the duration. Catalogs opened, pages flipped. A heady sense of anticipation filled the air.

  I changed course, angling away from the ring and heading toward the less crowded area in the shadow of the stands. Bertie followed.

  “What?” I said when we’d found a quiet place to talk.

  “I know who Dale Atherton was with Monday night.”

  “Who?”

  Even though there was no one near us, her voice dropped to a whisper. “Nina Gold.”

  “No!”

  “Yes!” Bertie replied, just as emphatically.

  “Are you sure? Dale would have to be crazy to take a risk like that. The wife of his best client—”

  “The very fancy, younger wife,” Bertie interjected.

  “Even so, remember what Dale told us? Getting Christian Gold as a client is what catapulted him into the big time. Most of the Poodles he shows now are from GoldenDune.”

  “Hey.” Bertie held up her hands. “I’m not defending the guy, or his intelligence. I’m just telling you what I saw.”

  Even as I stood there arguing, I remembered that Sam had made a similar comment. “Which was what, exactly?”

  “I went to Dale’s setup a few minutes ago to wish him luck with his Mini. Christian and Nina were there, doing the same thing. Except that Christian was giving Dale a pep talk which, reading between the lines, sounded pretty much like win or else.”

  That sounded like what I knew of Christian, especially after the episode I’d witnessed that morning. Unlike Edith Jean who lived with her Poodles and treated them as pets, Christian must have kept his Minis in a kennel. If Rita had been at all attached to him, he couldn’t have been able to visit with his handler just before the Poodle went in the ring. That knowledge did nothing to elevate him in my opinion.

  “How did Dale respond to that?” I asked.

  “Pretty much as you’d expect.” Bertie was a handler herself. She was also a pragmatist. “Yes sir, no sir. Whatever you say, sir.”

  “And Nina?”

  “She wasn’t saying much, but her eyes never left Dale. She wasn’t even subtle about it. If Christian hadn’t worked himself up into such a lather about the show, I imagine he’d have noticed himself.”

  “Okay, but that’s hardly enough—”

  “Don’t worry,” said Bertie. “There’s more. So I was watching all this from the fringes and after a few minutes, I began to think that maybe I should step in and try to rescue the poor guy. I mean, it’s not like Dale doesn’t have enough pressure on him already. I figured he could probably use a few minutes of peace to compose himself and his dog before he was due in the ring. But as soon as I stepped forward, Nina reached out and grabbed my arm. She practically yanked me away.”

  “You’re kidding.” This was better than a soap opera. “Then what happened?”

  “She was hissing at me under her breath.” Bertie grinned. She has an appreciation for high drama herself. “She said she’d seen me hanging around. That she didn’t want me there and I should get lost.”

  Nina wasn’t the first woman insecure enough to be threatened by Bertie’s outrageously good looks. She probably wouldn’t be the last either, despite the wide gold wedding band that Bertie now wore. Of course, Nina wore a wedding ring herself, which may have explained why she didn’t take Bertie’s commitment to her marriage as seriously as she might have.

  I considered what Bertie had said. “Still, it’s not as though Nina said something totally damning like keep away from him, he’s mine.”

  “Believe me, she didn’t have to. The subtext of what she was telling me was perfectly clear. That’s why Dale wouldn’t tell us who he was with on Monday night, not because he was concerned about protecting the woman’s privacy but because he was worried about saving his own butt.”

  Applause from the Mini ring kept me from replying for a minute. After it died down, I said, “That explains why Dale came flying out of his room so fast. He heard a woman scream and thought it might be Nina.” Then that reminded me of something else. “Speaking of which, Rosalind Romanescue was outside behind the hotel on Monday night too.” I related the conversation I’d had with the animal communicator. “I wonder if she saw Nina out there.”

  “If she had, wouldn’t she have told you?”

  “Not necessarily. Rosalind probably doesn’t know what Nina looks like. However, if we were able to point her out in the crowd of spectators . . .”

  “Let’s go for it,” said Bertie. My sentiments exactly.

  It took us a while to find Rosalind. By the time we did, the Miniature BOV judging was almost over. I’
d been keeping tabs on the ring as we searched. Christian’s Mini, Rita, had made the final cut; but if I was reading the judge’s body language correctly, she wasn’t going to win the top prize. Instead, the judge seemed to have narrowed his selection down to two heavily coated males whose handlers were battling one another for supremacy as if the fate of the western world hung in the balance.

  “There!” Bertie pointed suddenly into the stands. I looked up and saw Rosalind sitting by herself in a corner seat. Up high, removed from the action on the ground floor level, I supposed she could see well enough for someone who didn’t know the dogs and had no stake in the outcome.

  Bertie and I raced to the tunnels, and from there up the stairs. Considering our abrupt and somewhat breathless arrival, Rosalind didn’t seem particularly surprised to see us. Maybe she knew we were coming?

  “Hi,” I said. Bertie and I grabbed seats on either side. “Do you mind if I ask you one more question?”

  “Would it stop you if I did?”

  “Probably not,” I admitted, ignoring Bertie’s knowing smirk. “Monday night when you were out behind the hotel, you said you saw a number of people.”

  “That’s right.”

  “If I pointed out a particular woman, do you think you would remember whether she was there or not?”

  “I might,” said Rosalind. “Then again, I might not. As I told you before, I wasn’t paying that much attention to the people. Mostly I was watching the Poodles.”

  If my hunch was correct, Nina Gold hadn’t had a Poodle with her. Still, it was worth a try. I gestured down into the crowds below where Christian and Nina had a pair of ringside seats. The two of them were fairly easy to pick out.

  “The woman I want you to see is Christian Gold’s wife. She’s sitting right next to him.”

  Rosalind sat up and gazed where I’d indicated. “Spike heels,” she said.

  “Pardon me?”

  “Spike heels, that was how I thought of her. Of course I had no idea who she was, but everyone else in the field was wearing sneakers or flats. She had on a pair of three inch heels. I don’t usually notice people’s shoes but she looked ridiculously overdressed. Who could help but notice that? You say she’s Christian’s wife?”

  “That’s right,” said Bertie.

  Rosalind had herself another look. “Good. He deserves a silly wife.”

  “You didn’t happen to see what she was doing, did you?”

  “No. I only know that when I’d just arrived she was hurrying along the walkway. I remember she had her head down, as if she didn’t want to talk to anyone. She went right past me and kept going. That was when I veered off to circle the field. I didn’t see her again after that.”

  So Dale had been right. His lady friend had left a few minutes earlier, before Betty Jean had been killed.

  “Thanks,” I said. “That’s all I wanted to know.”

  Bertie and I stood up and went back downstairs. “She was there,” Bertie said. “The fact that Rosalind didn’t see her with Betty Jean doesn’t mean she didn’t do it.”

  “There were at least a dozen people out there. Plus probably more I didn’t see.”

  “Yes, but not all of them had as much to lose as Nina and Dale did if their affair ever became known. If someone saw Nina coming out of Dale’s room, I can see how she might have taken steps to keep that person quiet.”

  “But . . . murder?”

  “If that’s what it took,” Bertie replied.

  With Minis wrapping up in the ring, I knew Sam would be in the grooming area finishing Tar’s preparations. The Standard Poodle had done a creditable amount of winning since Sam had started showing him as a Special early in the year. Already he’d amassed nearly a dozen Non-Sporting group wins, as well as his first Best in Show. With a record like that, he would walk into the ring a contender.

  Had Tar been my Poodle, I’d have been too nervous to even breathe, much less scissor. Not Sam. He had the situation under control. Dog and handler were both ready, awaiting only the announcer’s call to bring them to ringside. Both looked, quite predictably, gorgeous.

  “Good luck,” I said. Squeezing in beside the grooming table, I stood up on my toes and gave Sam a kiss.

  “Thanks.” He smiled in my direction, but I could tell his thoughts were elsewhere. In his position, I’d have been preoccupied too.

  “Anything I can do to help?”

  “Not right now, but if you could bring Tar some water later, in the ring, I’d appreciate it.”

  “No problem.”

  Sam was holding his catalog. It was open to the Standard Poodle Best of Variety listings. More than seventy dogs and bitches were entered, each one a champion, and all with owners and handlers who hoped that their Poodle would figure in the outcome of the day’s judging. It had to be a daunting thought.

  I glanced at Sam’s armband. His number would place him squarely in the middle of the pack. “Don’t get lost in there,” I said, repeating Aunt Peg’s words of wisdom to me.

  “Don’t worry,” Sam said firmly. “We won’t.”

  The announcer asked for the Standard Poodles. Tar stood up on his table. Sam hopped him carefully down to the ground. The Poodle shook out his coat. Sam used his comb to flick the hair back into place.

  It was a familiar ritual; one I’d seen and performed myself hundreds of times. But today was different. It wasn’t just another dog show. This was PCA, and everything mattered.

  I grabbed Tar’s water bowl and followed Sam to ringside. At an all-breed dog show, getting a fully coiffed Standard Poodle from table to ring unjostled often requires a handler to use the blocking skills of a linebacker. Not at PCA. Here, all the handlers shared the same concerns and the same objective. Of necessity, they were respectful of each other’s dogs and space. Despite the huge crush of big Poodles moving simultaneously toward the ring, there was no crowding or pushing.

  I watched Sam check Tar in with the ring steward at the gate. Then I raced over to the raffle table to check in with Edith Jean. In the same way that I’d freed her to watch Bubba, I was hoping she wouldn’t mind if I watched the Standard judging. I was also still debating how much I should tell her about the conversation I’d had with Roger.

  On the one hand, what had happened was already over and done. Edith Jean was pleased with Bubba’s results so far; plus the Toy puppy still had a shot at Best Puppy in Show later that afternoon. Telling her that her handler had accepted a bribe wouldn’t change anything and it might cast a pall over the pleasure she’d taken in the puppy’s accomplishments.

  On the other hand, Roger was Edith Jean’s handler. That was an ongoing relationship, one whose duration might span years. If she couldn’t trust Roger to look out for her best interests, that was something she needed to know.

  By the time I’d battled my way through the crowds, I’d come to the conclusion that I had to tell Edith Jean what I knew. It wasn’t going to be easy; nor was it a conversation I was looking forward to having. So when it turned out that Edith Jean was no more anxious to listen than I was to talk, I didn’t exactly insist.

  Seeing me coming, she stepped out from behind the raffle table. “What are you doing here?”

  “I work here,” I quipped. The joke fell flat.

  “Not this afternoon you don’t.” She looked past me, scanning the throng as though looking for someone. “I figured you’d be watching Standards.”

  “I’d like to, but there’s something I need to tell you.”

  “Do we have to do it now?”

  Edith Jean was all fluttery hands and fidgety movement. If I’d had to guess, I’d have said she looked nervous. But about what? I wondered if one of the board members had stopped by to talk to her about the memorial service. Or maybe I was reading her wrong. Maybe she was mad at me for turning her in.

  “We can talk later if you’d rather—”

  “Good.” Edith Jean dragged her gaze back to me briefly. “Don’t worry about the memorial for Betty Jean. It turned
out things weren’t going to work the way I wanted so I’ve made other plans.”

  “I’m happy to hear that—”

  “Look.” Edith Jean flapped a hand toward the ring as the spectators behind me began to clap. “The judging’s about to begin. You’re going to miss the first go-round. Isn’t that Sam in there? You really ought to go and watch. He’s going to think you’re not interested if you don’t.”

  Sam would understand. Luckily for me, he always did. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to see. I ran around the back of the table, grabbed a chair, and hopped up to stand on the seat. Yet again. Hopefully Aunt Peg would be too busy watching to notice.

  I set Tar’s bowl down on the table and flipped open my catalog. Due to the huge number of entries, Mr. Lamb had sent his bitch Specials out of the ring so he’d have more room to concentrate on his dogs. As I watched, he raised his hands and set the long line in motion.

  I sighed with appreciation. The sight of that many Standard Poodles, all exquisitely groomed and presented, was absolutely breathtaking. Best of all, Tar looked wonderful. Even from my peculiar vantage point, he was a standout: tall and masculine, and every bit as black as his namesake. Muscles rippled across his hindquarter as he trotted around the ring with proper reach and drive, a beautiful example of a Standard Poodle in motion.

  “See?” Edith Jean said when the dogs had finished their circuit of the ring and I’d hopped back down. “You shouldn’t be here. Go away.”

  She didn’t have to tell me again. Not when the offer was that tempting. “I’ll check back later,” I promised.

  “You do that.” She shooed me in the direction of the ring.

  I found Aunt Peg in her usual seat. She’d piled her sweater, purse, and a shopping bag filled with new grooming supplies on the chair beside it to save it for me.

  “You won’t believe what I found out,” I said as I rearranged the stuff on the grass at our feet and sat down.

  “At this point, I’m inclined to believe almost anything.” Aunt Peg’s eyes remained trained on the ring. “But whatever it is, save it for later. I’m watching.” A hallowed experience, her tone implied. One to be savored without interruption. “You’ve already missed the first go-round. Tar looked very good.”