Chow Down (A Melanie Travis Mystery)

divorce?”
    “I was working my way toward that. That was the whole point.”
    Huh?
    “The point of what?” I asked.
    “Of entering Yoda in the contest. In order to win my freedom, I had to have a plan, a place to go, a source of income. Of all our dogs, only Yoda was mine and mine alone. She was the one who would provide me with what I needed to make my escape.”
    “By winning the contest and the spokesdog contract.”
    “Exactly. There would have been poetic justice in that, don’t you think?”
    “If it happened. But you might not have won.”
    “I wasn’t worried about that.”
    “Maybe you should have been.”
    “I don’t think so. Before everything fell apart, Yoda was a shoe in to take home the prize.”
    I’d heard Dorothy make similarly assured predictions about MacDuff’s chances. And the Reddings seemed to feel Ginger was invincible. Where did all their confidence come from? It was depressing to think that I might be the only finalist who actually thought her dog could lose. Didn’t Faith deserve better of me? And how had I managed to get myself so tied in knots over a contest that I didn’t even want to win?
    “Here,” Lisa said suddenly, pointing at the EXIT sign. “This is where you need to get off.”
    “But this is Darien.”
    “Right.”
    “I thought you lived in Southport.”
    “My car is here,” she insisted. “At the train station in Darien.”
    I put on my blinker and eased the Volvo off onto the exit ramp. “So you didn’t run very far. You’ve been staying in Darien.”
    Lisa nodded. As the car slowed, the two dogs in the back seat stood up. Faith shook out her hair. Yoda hopped her front feet onto the arm rest and looked out the window.
    The train station wasn’t far from the exit. I didn’t have much more time now. “Where have you been, Lisa?”
    “With an old friend.”
    “Who?”
    “Someone whose support I could count on. Someone who let me think for myself and didn’t try to tell me what to do.”
    I thought back quickly. Just recently someone had mentioned Lisa having a friend from the past in the area. After a moment, it came to me. It had been Sue. She’d said that Lisa’s college roommate lived nearby.
    “Your roommate from college,” I said.
    Lisa’s head whipped around. Her eyes widened in surprise. “Simone told you about that?”
    So help me, I nearly hit a tree. Good thing the Volvo responded quickly when I jerked the wheel back on course.
    Simone? I couldn’t believe it. The company’s PR director was Lisa’s old friend from college?
    That put an interesting spin on things, didn’t it?

28
    “Y ou’ve been staying with Simone?”
    I tried to sound like I’d had that piece of information all along, but some of the incredulity I was feeling must have crept into my voice because Lisa clamped her lips shut.
    “She’s an old friend of yours,” I said.
    Grudgingly Lisa nodded.
    “I saw the two of you talking last week in the park. I suppose I should have put two and two together.”
    “I just needed to get away for a little while, okay?” She stared out at the street in front of us, as if she was willing me to drive faster. Fortunately there were plenty of traffic lights along that stretch of the Post Road. “That’s not a crime.”
    “No, of course not.” Though it had been a big inconvenience for everyone around her. Including Simone, who’d protected her old friend’s privacy and taken the heat from Doug for it. “What made you decide to come back?”
    Lisa sighed. “For one thing, hiding out began to feel a little childish. For another, Simone made a better roomie in college than she does now. She said something that made a lot of sense though. She told me that Yoda and I needed to go on and compete. That if we gave up and let someone else win the contest, Larry would have died for nothing.”
    I could see the railroad bridge approaching. The station was on the near side. Another minute or two and Lisa would be gone.
    “Does that mean you think your husband’s death had something to do with the competition?”
    “It happened at the dog food company. What else could it have been?”
    “You told me that Larry suffered from vertigo,” I said. “Earlier you said that you thought he might have tripped and fallen.”
    “The police have indicated to me that such a scenario is highly unlikely. So now I have to wonder what really happened. The authorities tell me they have many suspects, but no evidence against any one