Best in Show

by Laurien Berenson

  Now we were getting somewhere.

  “What was Damien holding over you?” I asked. She didn’t reply, but I hadn’t really expected her to. I offered an answer of my own. “It had to do with Betty Jean’s murder, didn’t it? Is that how you hurt your hand? Shoving your sister down on the ground and making her hit her head?”

  Edith Jean glared at me. “You don’t know what you’re talking about! I loved my sister. She was all I had in the world. I would never have done anything to hurt her.”

  The vehement declaration sounded like the truth. Not only that, but I wanted to believe it. Maybe I didn’t know the Boone sisters well, but when I’d seen them together, they had seemed to share a genuine affection for one another. As I stood there, uncertain, tears welled in Edith Jean’s eyes. One by one, they began to slip down her cheeks. Impulsively I reached out and gathered the older woman into my arms. Her slender body shook with the force of her sobs.

  “Nobody knows how hard this has been for me,” she said, sniffling loudly. “Maybe I went a little crazy when Damien came after me, but I had to protect myself. You see that, don’t you? I wasn’t able to protect Sister. When that bitch hurt her there wasn’t a damn thing I could do . . .”

  Edith Jean was mumbling into the folds of my sweater. For a moment, I thought I’d misheard. I grasped her shoulders and gently pushed her away.

  “What bitch?” I asked. I’m a dog person. The invective rolled quite naturally off my tongue.

  Edith Jean hiccupped twice, then swallowed hard. She struggled to compose herself. “I saw it happen,” she said finally. “I was there. I saw the whole thing.”

  “You saw who killed Betty Jean?”

  She ducked her head. I took that as a nod.

  “Who was it? What happened? Why didn’t you tell anyone?”

  “What good would telling have done?” Edith Jean drew in a deep, shuddering breath and answered my last question first. “I couldn’t undo what happened. By the time I realized, it was too late. Sister was already dead.”

  “You could have seen her killer brought to justice,” I said. “You still can.”

  “Not if no one believes me. It will just be my word against hers.” Her tone was bitter. “Nobody even noticed I was out there. There’s nothing as invisible as an old lady.”

  “Roger noticed you,” I said gently. “He told me you were there. Why don’t you tell me what you saw?”

  “It was that flashy woman. Nina Gold. Sister and I were outside scooping. You know that, I told you all about it.”

  I nodded.

  “After a while, we went off in different directions. What’s the point if you both clean up the same area? Anyway, it was getting late, I wanted to go back to the room. I went looking for Sister. That’s when I saw her with Nina. It sounded like the two of them were arguing, so I went over to see what the fuss was about.

  “Sister saw me coming, but Nina never even noticed. She just kept right on snapping and snarling. She was threatening Sister, telling her that she’d better not tell a soul about something she’d seen. Well you know how Sister was, nobody told her what to do. She said to that woman, ‘I’ll do whatever I damn well please. You can’t push me around.’ ”

  Fateful words, under the circumstances.

  Edith Jean nodded, as if reading my thoughts. “And then that’s exactly what Nina Gold did. She reached out with both hands and gave Sister a big old shove. I heard her head hit the planter as she fell. I knew right away something terrible had happened. That woman lit out of there like she had the devil on her tail. I started to go after her but I’m not as fast as I used to be. By the time I reached the corner, she’d left me behind.

  “I went back to Sister, but by then people had begun to gather around. I stayed in the shadows, but I could hear what they were saying. Maybe it was wrong of me, but I just didn’t want to talk to anybody right then. Maybe I was in shock. I went inside to think about what I wanted to do next.”

  “You talked to the police later,” I said. “Why didn’t you tell them what you’d seen?”

  “So they could do what? Haul me down to their police station and ask more questions? Make me miss the show when I wanted to be here with Bubba? Do you honestly think they were going to arrest Christian Gold’s wife on my say-so? And then what would happen? He’d go and hire some high-priced lawyer who would make me look like an idiot. How would any of that bring Sister back?”

  “It wouldn’t, but . . .”

  Edith Jean planted her hands on her hips. She waited to hear my objections. To tell the truth, given the way she felt, I was having trouble mustering any.

  “Everything’s changed now, though,” I said. “When Damien wakes up, the detectives will come and get you. You’ll have to talk to them.”

  “I’ll tell them I didn’t have any choice,” Edith Jean snapped. “That’s what happened. Damien Bradley thought I was stupid, but it turned out I wasn’t half as stupid as he was.”

  I thought about that, trying to fit the pieces together, seeing if I could make things work. “Did Damien set up a meeting with you? Is that why the two of you were out in the parking lot?”

  “Meeting out there wasn’t his idea. It was mine.” Edith Jean sounded almost proud. “First I was going to do it while you were scattering Sister’s ashes. I thought that would add a fitting touch of irony. Not to mention a nice distraction.” She shot me an annoyed glance. “But then you refused to cooperate. How hard would it have been, really? Just for once it would have been nice if somebody could have helped me along.”

  Thank goodness that somebody hadn’t been me, I thought. I’d been saved from unwittingly abetting an attempted murder by my own cowardice.

  Edith Jean poked me in the chest with her finger. “As if it wasn’t bad enough that you forced me to change my plans, then you ended up smack-dab in the middle of them. If you hadn’t happened outside when you did, Damien wouldn’t have been found until later and nobody would have been the wiser.”

  Like that would have been a good thing. Was it just me, I wondered, or was this conversation beginning to take on a surreal cast?

  Behind us, the crowd at ringside erupted suddenly in a loud, sustained burst of applause. This wasn’t the partisan clapping we’d been hearing all along, various factions signaling their support for one dog or another. This was a wild and joyous acknowledgment on the part of the spectators, indicating that the quality of the class they’d just witnessed was superb, the best that Poodledom had to offer.

  That could only mean one thing. The Best of Variety judging was just about to end. Sam had finished showing Tar and I’d managed to miss almost every minute of it. I didn’t even know how he’d done.

  “Don’t go anywhere,” I said to Edith Jean. “I’ll be back.” I left her and sprinted to the ring. With luck, I’d catch the last go-round as Mr. Lamb pointed to his winners.

  Luck wasn’t with me. By the time I was able to push my way through the throngs, the spectacle was already over. A cream-colored dog with a handler from California was standing next to the Best of Variety marker. A black bitch from Texas was Best Opposite.

  Sam and Tar were still in the ring, though. He and four other handlers were grouped behind the first two. Their Standard Poodles had been chosen to receive Awards of Merit, meaning that the judge felt that their quality was nearly as high as that of his winners. The designation was both an honor and a distinction.

  Sam looked delighted. Tar was cavorting at the end of his lead. Aunt Peg, when my gaze slid finally to her usual seat in the corner, looked ready to spit nails. Uh-oh.

  There was no time to do anything about that now, however. The way my day was shaping up, dealing with Aunt Peg’s mood was slipping lower and lower on my list of priorities. I saw Nancy Hanlon back at ringside. Presumably that meant the ambulance had come and gone and things were returning to normal.

  If you didn’t count the fact that Damien had nearly died and that a murderer and an attempted murderer were both runn
ing loose on the grounds. And as if that wasn’t enough to worry about, once pictures had been taken it would be time to hold the drawing for the raffle.

  One thing you had to say for PCA, there was never a dull moment.

  I wondered if the police had been called to the arena to investigate Damien’s accident. Were they there now? In these dense crowds could I possibly locate them and tell them what I knew before I had to go in the ring and pull tickets out of a barrel?

  Stay tuned, I thought, and we’d all find out.

  28

  All week long there’d been police roaming around, both at the hotel and at the arena. Now when I needed one, I didn’t see any. It figured.

  Maybe they were outside, I thought hopefully. Drawing chalk outlines in the parking lot. Or doing whatever else it was they did at times like these. Surely an emergency call for an ambulance should have brought some sort of police response.

  I was heading toward a side door to find out when somebody grabbed me from behind. I smelled Chanel No. 5. A long fingernail grazed my arm. “Let’s go,” said a terse voice.

  Nina Gold. Assuming my compliance, she grasped my elbow and spun me around so that we were going the other way. Unless I missed my guess, I was heading once again to the relative privacy of the tunnels. I had to be the only exhibitor at the show for whom all the important stuff was taking place out of sight of the rings.

  I should point out that it would have been easy enough to resist Nina’s invitation. We were surrounded by people after all, many of whom I knew. All I needed to do was plant my feet and say no.

  But now that I knew what she’d done, I was curious. I wanted to hear what Nina would have to say. And in the general scheme of things, whether I took my information to the police now or ten minutes from now wouldn’t make much of a difference.

  “All right,” she said, stopping abruptly once we’d left the rings behind. “Tell me what it will take.”

  I stared at her blankly.

  Nina looked impatient. She patted the slim purse that hung at her side. “How much?”

  “How much what?”

  “Let’s not be coy, all right? I’ve got eyes, I’ve got ears, and I don’t give a flying fig for Poodles. So while everyone here has been so infernally wrapped up in the show that they can’t even begin to think of anything else, I’ve been paying attention to real life. I’ve been watching people.”

  “Me?”

  “Among others. Don’t bother being flattered. It’s just something to do when Christian gets so busy talking about bloodlines and genetic anomalies that he doesn’t even remember that I exist.”

  “Is that why you got together with Dale? Because your husband wasn’t paying enough attention to you?”

  “I’m admitting nothing about that” Nina’s eyes narrowed. “However, woman to woman, need you even ask?”

  Well, no. Not really.

  “I overheard what you and Edith Jean were talking about,” Nina said. “Let’s just say I was pretty surprised to find out that I was the topic of conversation. It’s amazing the things one stumbles over on the way to the ladies’ room.”

  Not in my experience, I thought. Not at this show.

  “Edith Jean won’t be a problem for me. I’ll handle her little dilemma with Damien. By the time I’m done, he’ll be happy to say that he threw himself in front of her van. That just leaves you. So I repeat, what’s it going to take?”

  “You must be kidding,” I said.

  “I’m not.”

  “You actually think I would agree to cover up a murder for money?”

  “It wasn’t murder,” Nina said tersely.

  “Betty Jean Boone is dead. What would you call it?”

  “An unfortunate accident. All I did was give the woman a little push. Then she slipped and fell and hit her head. I had nothing to do with that.”

  “Why did you run away, then? Why didn’t you try to help her?”

  “I panicked. Anybody would have done the same. When I left I didn’t even know how badly she was hurt. I thought she was unconscious; I knew someone would find her any second. What I didn’t want . . . what I couldn’t have, was for someone to see me there—”

  “Standing over the body?”

  Nina grimaced and lowered her voice. The words hissed out. “I couldn’t be seen standing outside Dale’s room. I wasn’t supposed to be there, okay? I wasn’t even supposed to be at the hotel. I’d told Christian that I was having dinner with an old friend from college who lived in the area.

  “I knew my husband wouldn’t be interested in something like that, not with this whole Poodle extravaganza going on. I never meant to end up in Dale’s room. It just kind of. . . happened. You know what that’s like.”

  If I thought I didn’t, the fact that we were currently standing in an alcove would be a pretty potent reminder.

  “Once I started thinking clearly again, I realized I had to get out of there without being seen. You have to understand.” Nina’s lower lip began to quiver. She caught it between the edges of her teeth. “Christian would kill me if he found out.”

  The damsel in distress act was a good one. I had no doubt that countless men had fallen for it. Women aren’t so easily taken in.

  “So to prevent that from happening, you killed Betty Jean Boone,” I said. Just to make sure she knew I hadn’t lost sight of the point of the conversation.

  “I told you I never meant for that to happen. I looked around before slipping out of Dale’s room; nobody seemed to be paying any attention to me. Then I ran into Betty Jean. Next thing I knew the woman was lecturing me about my behavior. As if she thought I gave a damn for her opinion. I didn’t care what she had to say. I certainly didn’t have time to listen. And I sure as hell didn’t want to stand there arguing about it.”

  Talking and arguing had been two of Betty Jean’s favorite things, I thought. She probably hadn’t understood Nina’s impatience at all.

  “You have to believe me,” Nina said. “I wasn’t trying to hurt Betty Jean. I was just trying to shut her up.”

  The funny thing was, having spent the week with Edith Jean, I could believe that. It wasn’t even a stretch. But unfortunately, there’d been nothing funny about what had happened next.

  “Because Christian would kill you if Betty Jean told what she knew,” I said. I didn’t bother keeping the skepticism from my voice.

  Nina’s lips pursed in annoyance. I wasn’t following her script. “All right, maybe I was being a little melodramatic. But that doesn’t mean Christian wouldn’t have gone ballistic. He’d have divorced me in a minute, and he had something put in our prenup called a “bad boy clause.” If Christian had proof of adultery, I’d be left with nothing.”

  I guess I was supposed to be feeling sympathy. It wasn’t happening. Somehow, being left with nothing did not, to me, constitute a valid reason for committing murder. Even accidental murder.

  Nina’s eyes searched my face. She frowned at what she saw. “You’re going to tell the police, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I have money,” she said. “Lots of it. More than enough to make it worth your while not to.”

  I wondered—briefly—if there was such a sum. All week long, a surprising number of people had turned out to have a price. Did I have one, too?

  Slowly, I shook my head. “It wouldn’t be right.”

  Nina hadn’t had time to argue with Betty Jean, but she was determined to argue with me. “What is right?” she demanded. “I’m not afraid of the police investigation. They’ll find out what happened was an accident, just like I told you. But as soon as they start asking questions, my marriage will be over. Is that what you want?”

  How much of a marriage could she and Christian have, I wondered, if Nina had been fooling around with Dale? “You made your choice,” I said.

  “No, I didn’t. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I didn’t choose anything about this. One minute, I was happy. Free as a bird. The next, some old lady
was butting in where she didn’t belong. She was the one who set the events that followed in motion, not me. Damn those nosy twins anyway.”

  The sisters hadn’t been twins but I didn’t bother to correct her. Instead I turned to go.

  “Funny thing about that,” Nina said. “I could have sworn I was arguing with Edith Jean that night. So how could I be in trouble for killing someone when she’s still so clearly alive?”

  And just like that, my focus shifted. I thought I’d uncovered everyone’s lies, but I hadn’t. Not quite yet. All at once I knew the real reason why Edith Jean hadn’t turned in her sister’s killer. I knew what Damien knew, the information Edith Jean had wanted so desperately to keep quiet.

  Looking pale and troubled, Nina let me walk away. “You do what you have to do,” she said.

  Just watch me, I thought.

  You would think at that point I’d have gone running straight to the police. Believe me, I’d have been happy to. I wanted nothing more than to locate Detective Mandahar and lay this whole sorry mess in his lap.

  However, I was due in the ring to draw forty-two raffle tickets out of a big rubber tub. Forgot all about that, didn’t you? I might have too, except that an announcement came over the loudspeaker, calling me to the gate.

  Amazingly, I seemed to recall there’d been a time when I’d thought that taking a vacation without my seven-year-old son would prove to be relaxing. I’d anticipated having hours of leisure time to do exactly as I pleased. Yeah, right. If this week had contained one relaxing moment, I would like to have known when it was.

  On my way to the ring, I ran into Aunt Peg. Actually it wasn’t much of a coincidence. I got the impression she’d been looking for me.

  “You missed the whole thing!” she cried. “How you could spend an entire week at PCA and still manage to miss the Standard Best of Variety judging is beyond me. What could you possibly have been doing that was more important than that?”

  “Talking to Betty Jean’s murderer,” I said. The effect was somewhat spoiled by the fact that I was out of breath and didn’t have time to slacken my pace.