Chow Down (A Melanie Travis Mystery)

They’d come to make sure that I didn’t blow it.
    Well that was depressing.
    “Oh honey,” said Terry. “Don’t go getting all crestfallen on us. You so do not want to take this personally.” He patted an empty grooming table next to the one he was working on. “Let those two work their magic. You come sit by me and we’ll dish about everybody at the show.”
    I had to admit, the idea had a certain appeal. As did the notion that Eve would look perfect when Sam and Aunt Peg were finished working on her. I wouldn’t have to lift a finger to achieve that effect; all I’d have to do was accept the end of the leash when they handed it to me and walk into the ring.
    Giving Eve’s nose a good-bye pat, I turned sideways, slid through the bank of stacked crates that separated our setup from his and went to join Terry. “Okay, I said. “Do your worst. Who do you want to talk about first?”
    “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