David Rosenfelt - First degree

As we near the entrance gate, Tara seems to watch this scene with some measure of horror, much as I would approach a mosh pit. But she's a good sport; she checks her dignity at the door and enters with me. I walk toward the humans, and so does Tara. She'll do this for my sake, but she's not about to go fighting for a tennis ball like some animal.

The conversation, as might be expected, pretty much centers around all things canine. The dog park, the dogs, dog food, dog toys … it all seems fascinating, except as a male I'm not included. Tara keeps leaning against my leg, in a subtle suggestion that we bail out of here. I am preparing to do just that when a woman deigns to speak to me.

"Your dog seems a little antisocial." She's talking about Tara, and if she hadn't said it with a smile on her face, we'd be duking it out right now.

I decide to go with glib. "This isn't really her scene. She's an intellectual. Bring her to a poetry reading, and she's the life of the party."

The woman, nice-looking despite her "yuppie puppie" headband, for some reason decides this could be a conversation worth continuing. "I have a friend looking for a golden retriever puppy. What breeder did you get her from?"

I shake my head. "I didn't. She was in the animal shelter."

She is amazed by this, as I was, as would be any normal human being. "You mean somebody abandoned this dog? And she could have been …"

She doesn't want to say "killed" or "put to sleep," so I take her off the hook with a nod. "She was on her last day when I got her."

The horrified woman calls some of her friends over to tell them this story, and before I know it I'm holding court in the middle of maybe twenty women, all of them gushing over my sensitivity for having rescued this dog. The dog in question, Tara, stands dutifully by my side, enduring the embarrassment and apparently willing to let me take the credit, even though she was the one stuck in that shelter.

After a few minutes of embellishing the story about the animal shelter, which I am now referring to as "death row," I move smoothly into light banter. This is interrupted by a woman standing toward the back.

"Hey, aren't you that lawyer who won that big case? I saw you on television. Andy Carpenter, right?"

I nod as modestly as I can manage. She is talking about the Willie Miller case, in which I proved Willie's innocence in a retrial after he had spent seven years facing the death penalty. The women connect the dots and realize that I am that rare person who saves both dogs and people from death rows everywhere, and the group attitude quickly moves toward hero worship. It's daunting, but that's the price I pay for being heroic.

Suddenly, there is a sign of life and interest from Tara, as she moves quickly toward a woman approaching our group. The newcomer, to my surprise, is Laurie Collins, the chief (and only) investigator for my law practice, and the chief (and only) woman that I am in love with. She would not have been my first choice to interrupt this meeting of my all-female sensitivity class, but she looks so good that I don't really mind.

As Laurie comes closer, I can see that she doesn't only look good, she looks intense. She doesn't even lean over to pet Tara, an uncharacteristic oversight which surprises me and positively shocks Tara. Laurie comes right over to me, and my devoted fans part slightly and grudgingly to let her through.

"Alex Dorsey is dead," she says.

"What?" It's a reflex question. I wasn't asking it to get more information in the moment, but that's exactly what I get.

"Somebody decapitated him, then poured gasoline on his body and set it on fire."

If you ever want to get rid of twenty adoring women, I know a line you can use. My fans leave so fast you'd think there was a "70% off" sale at Petco. Based on the gleam in Laurie's eye, that's exactly what she expected. Within moments it is just Laurie, Tara, and myself.

"Sorry to interrupt, Andy," she says. "At first I wasn't sure it was you. I thought it might be a rock star."

I put on my most wistful look. "For a moment there, I was."

"You up for breakfast at Charlie's? Because I'd like to talk to you about Dorsey."

"Okay," I say. "I'll meet you there."

She nods and walks to her car. I'm going to drop Tara off at home and then go to Charlie's, which is just five minutes from my house.

On the way there, I reflect on Dorsey's death and what it might mean to me. The answer is that it means absolutely nothing at all to me, except for the impact it will have on Laurie. But that will be considerable.

Alex Dorsey was a lieutenant in the Paterson Police Department when Laurie was making detective, and she was assigned to his command at the time of her promotion. It didn't take long for her to realize that whatever he once had been, he had ceased to be a very good cop. If there was an easy way out, Dorsey would find an even easier one. He was a walking billboard for the twenty-year retirement rule, although obviously he had chosen to take his retirement while still on the job.

It took a while longer for Laurie to realize that laziness was not Alex Dorsey's biggest vice. Like most of her colleagues, she had heard the rumors that Dorsey was on the take, but she came to believe that the truth was something even worse. Dorsey was playing both sides; he was partners in business with the criminals he was supposed to be investigating. And he was such a tough, resourceful son of a bitch that he had been getting away with it for a long time.

Laurie agonized about what to do but emotionally didn't really have a choice. Her father and uncle had been cops, good cops, and she learned from a very early age that what Dorsey was doing was the worst kind of public betrayal.

Laurie developed some evidence against him, circumstantial but a compelling start, and presented it to Internal Affairs. It was not her job to prove the case, and besides, she knew that they could take it from there. Conclusive evidence would not be difficult to uncover, and it wouldn't belong before Dorsey paid for his sins.

But the first sign that Dorsey was not going down easily was the almost immediate public knowledge that Laurie was the person who had turned him in. That leak was a violation of department policy, which guarantees anonymity to those who turn over evidence implicating an officer in a crime. Laurie's action was also considered by some a violation by her of the ridiculous code of silence, which says that cops don't turn on other cops, no matter how slimy those other cops might be.

The controversy brought chaos and bitterness to the department. Dorsey had developed quite a power base over the years, and he was aware of skeletons in closets where most people didn't even know there were closets. The rank and file, and probably the department leadership, were drawn to one side or the other, and it became perceived as Alex Dorsey versus Laurie Collins. His supporters viewed her as the enemy, or worse, as a traitor.

It became apparent to Laurie that the investigation, mired in departmental and even mayoral politics, was going to be neither complete nor fruitful. So when the word finally came out that Dorsey was merely reprimanded for "improprieties," rather than dismissed and charged with felonies, Laurie's disenchantment and disgust were complete, and she left the department. She opened her own investigative agency, and I became one of her clients. Happily, I became much more later on.

A week ago, word got out that new information had surfaced and that Dorsey was facing imminent arrest. Unfortunately, that word must have also gotten to Dorsey, who proceeded to disappear. Laurie openly admitted to feeling vindicated by the turn of events, which was the last we had heard of Dorsey until today's grisly discovery.

I drop Tara off, give her a biscuit, and head over to Charlie's. It is basically a sports bar/restaurant, but it has recently added a terrific breakfast menu. One of the many things I love about Laurie is that she likes Charlie's as much as I do, which is about as much as is possible to like a restaurant. Even on Sunday mornings, when there are no games on the ten television screens, it's a great place to be.