Chow Down (A Melanie Travis Mystery)

Bridge and the Manhattan skyline looked serene and beautiful bathed in an early morning glow. Faith, still looking faintly disgruntled and snoozing with her nose between her paws on the seat beside me, missed the whole thing. Then again, since dogs score pretty high on the Inner Peace scale, she probably didn’t need the lift as much as I did.
    I left the Volvo in a parking garage two blocks away from the midtown address I’d been given, and Faith and I presented ourselves to the studio receptionist with a few minutes to spare. The streets and sidewalks below had been mostly quiet, but the tenth floor workplace was a hub of sound and activity. Everyone looked wide awake and incredibly busy. They had probably all been up for hours.
    The receptionist signed us in, then turned us over to an efficient looking assistant. That young woman checked off our names—Faith’s and mine both, I saw—on a clipboard she was carrying. Then she escorted us down a hallway to the green room which, I noticed immediately, wasn’t green at all.
    About half the participants in our segment had already arrived. Dorothy, sitting next to a table filled with breakfast items, looked as bleary-eyed as I felt. Bill and Allison, side by side on a couch with Ginger sitting between them, appeared predictably chipper. Chris Hovick, nursing a tall cup of coffee, looked rumpled and glum. Cindy and Doug were conferring quietly about something in one corner of the room. Unfortunately their whispered voices didn’t carry.
    I waited only long enough for Faith to touch noses with the other dogs, then made a beeline for the coffee. Faith lifted her muzzle, sniffing the air in front of the table and scoping out the food choices. The selection consisted of bagels and muffins. No dog biscuits.
    Coffee in hand, I went and sat next to Dorothy. Faith turned a small circle, then lay down at my feet. “What’s that about?” I asked under my breath, nodding toward Doug and Cindy.
    “I don’t know. Simone was in here a few minutes ago. She said something to Doug that didn’t make him happy, then she turned around and left again. Doug called Cindy over and they’ve been talking ever since.”
    “What about Ben and Brando?”
    “I haven’t seen them yet. But you know Ben, he’s always running late.”
    “Lisa and Yoda?”
    Dorothy chuckled. “No sign of them either. Maybe our little group of five finalists just got reduced to three. The odds are improving every minute, aren’t they?”
    She reached down and gave MacDuff a cheerful pat. The Scottie gazed up at his owner adoringly. Chris sipped his coffee and regarded them both over the lip of his cup with a stern expression. I guessed I wasn’t the only one in the room who wasn’t a morning person.
    “Chris?” Doug beckoned to the advertising director.
    Chris rose slowly from his seat. He looked like he’d prefer to do almost anything rather than join his fellow judges, but he set down his cup and ambled in their direction.
    A large monitor on one wall had been showing only a blank screen, but now another assistant ducked into the room and turned it on. The volume came up, and I heard the morning show’s theme music begin to play. Rob Dalton and Darlene Minnick were the show’s cohosts. Both were poised and perky, with a natural, unaffected manner that went over well at the crack of dawn. The program opened with Rob and Darlene sitting side by side behind a news desk, trading jaunty banter.
    The assistant remained standing beside the monitor. He waited a beat until all our eyes turned his way. “Everybody good?” he asked.
    Dutifully we all nodded.
    “Excellent! Someone will be along shortly to escort each of you upstairs to hair and makeup. In the meantime, just make yourselves comfortable and enjoy the show.” He dashed out through the open doorway and disappeared.
    “They’re going to do our hair and makeup,” Dorothy said happily. “Imagine that! I wish I’d remembered to set my VCR this morning before I left home.”
    “We did,” said Bill. “We can make an extra copy for you if you want. This show is going to be Ginger’s television debut. There was no way we were going to miss having a tape of that.”
    “MacDuff has been on TV lots of times,” Dorothy replied. “Westminster and the other top shows get plenty of coverage. But still it’s exciting . . . And of course I’d love to have a tape of this appearance, seeing as it will most likely be the beginning of our new