Nina Wright - Whiskey with a Twist

Something had changed. The barking intensified; the human cry became a hysterical sob.

“What on earth-“ Brenda began.

And then the generators kicked on, igniting low-level perimeter lighting. Although the show ring remained in deep shadow, a distressing tableau emerged: Handlers struggled to control their leaping, lunging dogs, and a man appeared slumped near the edge of the circle. At first I thought it was the judge and wondered if he’d had a heart attack. Then I identified his tall, lean dog-less figure among the vertical shadows. So who was down? And if it was a handler, where was the unattached hound? A man inside the circle shouted, “Somebody dial 9-1-1!”

The regular lights banged back up. Brenda screamed.

The very still body in the ring belonged to Matt Koniger. Perry crouched next to him just as, an hour earlier, he had crouched next to Ramona. This time, though, I feared that the victim had suffered more than a rump wound. Matt wasn’t an actor-unless you counted gigolo in that category. He had struck me as a virile young man not inclined to exaggerate an injury. From where I stood, he appeared unconscious.

“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” Brenda chanted, shaking her finely manicured hands as if to restore circulation.

Suddenly she bolted toward the ring, if in fact “bolting” is possible in Manolo Blahniks. Without thinking, I followed her. Neither of us reached our destination.

Wild-eyed and livid, Sandy Slater inserted herself between us and the show ring. Fixing her mad rage on Brenda, she screamed, “You wanted my son dead! Everybody here knows that!”

Brenda froze but did not reply.

“Wrong,” I said. “Everybody here knows he’s her boy-toy.”

I glanced sideways at very pale Brenda. “Sorry to be so blunt,” I said.

Back to Sandy. ”Why would she want him dead?”

“Because he’s blackmailing her, that’s why!”

That was when the ever-pleasant Brenda Spenser revealed her inner bitch. In a single smooth move, she slipped off one of her prized Manolo Blahniks and pounded Sandy’s face with it. Fortunately for Sandy, Brenda employed the pointy heel as handle, rather than as a stabbing device. Yet I had no doubt that the finely crafted leather sole could sting, particularly when applied with manic vigor.

“Down, girls, down!” boomed an authoritative male voice.

As I stood helplessly by, the dog show judge broke up the cat fight. He seized Brenda’s right arm, effectively stopping her in mid-swing, at the same instant that Perry pulled Sandy beyond striking distance. The intervention happened so fast that I barely had time to savor the irony: Sandy was dragged to safety by the very man she’d accused of sand-bagging her late ex-husband and her son.

“How’s Matt? What happened?” I shouted over Sandy and Brenda’s spewed epithets.

“EMTs are on their way,” the judge said.

But Perry locked eyes with me, and in them I read what I knew to be the real answer: Matt was beyond human help.

As the judge restrained a squirming Brenda and Perry did the same with a kicking Sandy, Susan darted past us all, bound straight for Matt. Perry called after her to wait; she didn’t listen. Handlers and breeders closed in around her, blocking both Susan and Matt from my view.

Looking stern, Perry said something to Sandy, who shook him off. Then she stepped away to compose herself by drawing several sharp breaths. When she turned back, her face was as hard as a statue’s.

Meanwhile, the judge was holding Brenda’s arm like collateral and whispering to her. The scene reminded me of a parent trying to calm a tantrum-prone child. Brenda’s eyes seemed to lose their focus. She swayed like a dizzy drunk before folding herself against the judge.

My eyes followed Sandy as she lurched toward the ring. The snood business may have been good this weekend, but her personal life had gone hideously wrong. I expected the small crowd gathered around Susan and Matt to spring open as his mother approached. Instead, they visibly tightened ranks.

Why? To protect Sandy from the sight of her dead son? Or to protect Susan from Sandy? Maybe insiders feared that Sandy, in her moment of grief, would blame Susan for choosing Matt as handler. Or maybe they knew that Sandy had other issues with Susan, beginning with “A” for adultery.

Then again, hot-tempered Sandy could have had issues with lots of folks. If this was a woman who’d never given up loving, or at least lurking around, her first husband, she might be the kind of gal who nursed every grievance.

Several people moved in to comfort-or stop- Sandy, and soon I couldn’t see her at all.

Watching the handlers lead their dogs from the ring, I realized that Matt was not the only casualty of this round. Silverado, best in show, was gone. I hadn’t seen him when the lights first came up, and I couldn’t see him now. The dog had vanished.

Had Susan even noticed? When Silverado charged out the side door earlier in the day, she had freaked. But that had no doubt been to highlight Kori’s incompetence. As Perry had suggested, the gaffe was surely a set-up intended to make Liam’s niece look bad.

This scene differed in every detail. First and foremost, it appeared to be murder. Susan would look shallow indeed if she showed as much concern for a missing hound as for a mortally wounded handler.

I couldn’t imagine who or what had taken Matt down. It was unthinkable that one of his fellow competitors would kill him at close range. There was not only the logistical problem of shooting, stabbing, or bludgeoning to death a man running in the dark; there was also that longstanding AKC tradition of sportsmanship. At least inside the ring.

Yet the handler of the best dog in show was down, presumably dead or dying. And the winning dog was gone. Sirens grew louder as, once again, emergency vehicles converged on the Barnyard Inn.

The Two L’s stood nearby, identically pale and drawn. Although they paid no attention to me, I heard Lauren tell Lindsey, “Thank god Susan never hires us.”

Whoever took the dog had probably killed Matt. But what came first: the plan to steal the dog, or the plan to kill Matt? In other words, which was the primary crime? I was sure, without quite knowing why, that one was the motive and the other a consequence. Or a side effect.

EMTs dashed into the ring, dissolving the clot of bystanders. I glimpsed Matt-still in the same sprawled position-with Susan kneeling to his right and Sandy standing to his left.

What had happened here? I replayed my mental snapshot of the side door opening to reveal a large man in silhouette. There was no dog in that picture. Unless… the man had been carrying the dog. Mature male Afghan hounds like Silverado weigh about 70 pounds. The man in my memory was large enough to carry such a load. Who could he be, and why would he kill Matt? Or maybe his goal was to take the dog, and Matt’s death was collateral damage. Had Matt made the fatal mistake of trying to save Silverado?

There was no point watching the EMTs. I was quite sure that this time they wouldn’t be able to work their medical magic. And I desperately needed a breath of fresh air. My sour stomach had returned with a vengeance that I couldn’t blame on the concession stand.

Across the ring, I spotted the red-haired writer furiously jotting notes on a pad. Either she doubled as a local newspaper reporter, or she was harvesting material for a future novel. Odette had said she wrote humorous mysteries. How the hell do you make murder amusing?

I chose to exit via the side door, not only because it was closer, but also because I was curious about the man whom I’d glimpsed using it. Would I find any trace of him? Or Silverado?