First degree - By David Rosenfelt Page 0,3

like a restaurant. Even on Sunday mornings, when there are no games on the ten television screens, it's a great place to be.

I order some fresh fruit, hash browns, and black coffee, then sit back and prepare to listen. I know Laurie well enough to realize that in this case, when she says she needs to talk to me, that isn't exactly what she means. What she needs to do right now is talk period, and she feels a little silly if there's nobody around to hear it So I am the designated listener.

Laurie starts a five-minute soliloquy about Dorsey, rehashing some of their history together. It's nothing I don't already know, and nothing she doesn't know I already know. She wraps it up with, "He was a bad guy. A really bad guy. You know that."

Recognizing that it is my turn to speak, I nod. "Yes, I do. He was a bad guy. Absolutely. A bad guy."

Laurie is silent for a few moments, then says softly, "The thing that bothers me, Andy, is that I'm glad he's dead. When I heard about it, I was glad."

This is a major admission from someone who, when she catches a fly, takes it outside and turns it loose. "That's normal," I say.

She shakes her head, unwilling to be let off the hook. "Not for me."

"He was a dirty cop who had it coming." I twirl my imaginary mustache and inject some humor. "Said the liberal to the conservative."

She seems completely unamused, which I have to assume reflects her emotional state rather than the quality of the joke. I try again, continuing with the same theme. "At today's performance, the role of tough law-and-order advocate will be played by Andy Carpenter, and the role of defender of the indefensible will be played by Laurie Collins."

She ignores this one as well; I should be writing them down to use on more appreciative audiences. The fact is, I can't get that exercised about Dorsey's death; the planet is a healthier place for his being gone. He represented a terribly unpleasant chapter in Laurie's life, an emotional toothache, and I'm hoping she can now put it behind her.

But she's not letting it drop, so I decide to steer the conversation toward the nuts and bolts of today's news. "Do they have any suspects?" I ask.

"Doesn't seem like it. Pete's theory is that his mob friends turned on him once he was no longer of any value to them."

"Pete" is Lieutenant Pete Stanton, my closest, and only, friend on the police force, and one of the few officers who openly supported Laurie during the tough times. I'm not surprised that he would be the one to provide her with information about Dorsey's death.

"Where was he found?" I ask.

"In a warehouse on McLean Boulevard. Kids called in an alarm when they saw smoke. Turned out it was Dorsey that was on fire."

She takes a deep breath and continues. "They think his head was sliced off, maybe with a machete. Whoever did it must have kept it as a souvenir. And the body was burned beyond recognition. They only ID'd him based on some unusual kind of ring he was wearing."

My antennae go up. "That's all?"

She nods. "But they're running a DNA test to be sure."

I'm glad to hear that. I wouldn't put it past Dorsey to murder someone else and fake the whole thing. People on both sides of the law have a tendency to stop chasing you when they think you're dead.

We talk about the Dorsey situation some more, until there's nothing left to say about it.

"Are you going into the office tomorrow?" she asks.

I nod. "Probably late morning. I'm meeting with Holbrook on the Danny Rollins case at nine-thirty."

"Wow. Practice is really taking off, huh?"

Laurie is gently mocking both the fact that I'm representing Danny Rollins, who happens to be my bookmaker, and the fact that I've got absolutely nothing else to do. I haven't taken on a significant client in the six months since the Willie Miller case. And it's not that I haven't had the opportunities. The way the trial ended, with Willie getting off and the real killers exposed, I became a media darling and Paterson's answer to Perry Mason. I've been at the top of every felon's wish list ever since.

But I've rejected them all. Each turndown had its own rationale. Either the potential client seemed guilty and therefore unworthy, or the ease wasn't challenging, or interesting, or significant. Down deep it