Chow Down (A Melanie Travis Mystery)

community, don’t bother.”
    I didn’t respond, just waited in silence until she continued.
    “Larry wasn’t a particularly nice person,” she said after a minute. “He wasn’t a good winner and he wasn’t a good loser. Frankly I don’t know how Lisa ever managed to live with him. He was always bossing her around, telling her what to do and where to go, as if she didn’t have a single original thought in her head.”
    “So . . .” I said slowly, “you think maybe Lisa just got fed up?” Certainly Dorothy seemed to be leading me that way.
    “All I know is that I wouldn’t blame her if she had. If I’d been married to Larry Kim, I would have pushed him down a flight of stairs a long time ago.”

17
    C ome on, I thought, tell me how you really feel. There was no need to encourage Dorothy to continue, however. She was warming to her subject now.
    “There’s nothing more annoying than a young woman who looks to a man to make her decisions for her. Good Lord, what do they think women’s liberation was all about? My generation burned their bras and marched on Washington. We had to. Nobody would have listened to us otherwise. Now the girls that are coming up behind us take our accomplishments for granted, and that’s a huge mistake.”
    “So you think Lisa was too subservient? A moment ago, I thought you were implying that she might be the one who had pushed him down the stairs.”
    “Perhaps she simply snapped,” said Dorothy. “And bravo to her if she finally gave Larry some of his own medicine back. It was probably no more than he deserved. I’d like to think that times have changed, but they haven’t, not really. This is a man’s world and sometimes a woman has got to look out for her own.”
    “You really disliked him,” I said.
    “On the contrary, I didn’t know Larry Kim well enough to like or dislike him. What I abhorred was the way he treated his wife in public. One could only imagine what their private life must have been like.”
    Pretty strong words and a surprising amount of emotion coming from someone who claimed not to have known the murder victim very well.
    I’d always enjoyed watching Dorothy and MacDuff in the show ring. She’d looked like such a sweet and unassuming little old lady. But she definitely had a core of steel. And perhaps—considering the way she and the Scottie had made their way into the contest—a duplicitous side as well.
    Faith shifted at my feet, snoring softly in her sleep and turning from one side onto the other as the bus rolled beneath us. I reached down and flicked several long, silky strands of ear hair out of her mouth. We were crossing the Triboro Bridge and entering Manhattan. It wouldn’t be long now until we arrived at our destination.
    “I think it’s rather odd, don’t you?” Dorothy asked abruptly.
    I turned and looked at her. “What is?”
    “The way nobody talks about the fact that one of our contestants died right in our midst. Everybody, including the dearly departed’s wife, just soldiers on as if nothing even happened.”
    “It seems very odd,” I agreed. “I can only think that the judges are afraid that talking about it will cast a pall over the proceedings.”
    “Maybe the company is worried about liability,” said Dorothy. “That’s what everyone does these days, isn’t it? They go off and sue someone?” She paused, gazing up one side of the bus and then back down the other. “Frankly if I were them I’d be more concerned about the fact that this tight little group they’ve put together is, in all likelihood, harboring a murderer. It makes you stop and think, doesn’t it? Maybe Larry was only the first target.”
    Dorothy didn’t look like the sort of woman who would be afraid of much. I wondered if she actually felt threatened; or whether, considering that we’d started the conversation by talking about her own impropriety, she was simply trying to deflect attention in another direction.
    “Would you kill someone for a hundred thousand–dollar modeling contract?” I queried. It was a question I seemed to be asking a lot.
    “My ethical code isn’t what’s under discussion here. But since you’ve asked, I will point out that wars have been fought for less. And with luck, the initial contract is only the beginning. Assuming that Chow Down is successful, there will be further commercials and public appearances. The promotion could go on for years, and the value to the winner could increase