"It was just Eva and Beth."

"Okay, just don't tell anyone else that was there. Do not tell anyone, Chelsea. Do you understand me?"

"I don't feel comfortable asking Eva to lie for me if I killed a dog."

"Did she sign her confidentiality agreement?"

"Yes, but she didn't see what I fed Dudley. She just saw the tail end of him eating the napkin. I'll say it was one of those raviolis."

"Okay."

I felt a new wave of fake tears ready to make their way through the phone just in time for me to explode, "I'm a murderer, Ted! I'm a murderer. A dog murderer! I'm just like Phil Spector minus the music career."

"No, Chelsea, you need to get ahold of yourself. You are not a murderer! This was an accidental dog homicide!"

"What if they find out?"

"No one's going to find out anything. Let me make a few calls. I'll call John to give my condolences and feel around to find out if he suspects anything. Stay strong. You did nothing wrong. This was an accident. Chelsea.... I love you."

"Thanks," I muttered as meekly as possible, and then added, "His a.s.sistant said they were doing an autopsy."

"What?!"

"An autopsy."

"The dog is f.u.c.king ten years old! They said last night they gave him open-heart surgery two months ago."

"I know. That means they think something fishy happened last night. They're going to find out. I can't believe I killed someone's dog." We hung up the phone, and I spent the rest of my ride into work craning my head around trying to find out where exactly the speakerphone in my car was located. Ted's voice had sounded like it was coming straight out of the sky.

I had an extra bounce in my step walking into the office that day and headed straight into Tom's office, where he was sitting with Brad, one of the writers on my show.

"What did you think about that dog Dudley last night?" I asked Tom as I sat down on the sofa opposite Brad.

"I'll tell you what I thought of Dudley," Tom said, placing his morning coffee on his desk. "I believe Dudley is what two bears can produce when they fall madly, deeply in love under a waterfall. A cub in the shape of a bulldog that goes by the name of Dudley."

"I thought that dog looked like he could take a punch in the face. And I wanted to punch him, because he didn't stop farting all night."

"That was you, and you're a fool if you think everybody at that party didn't know it."

"That may be true, but that's not what I'm here to discuss. Let me tell you a little story about Dudley. Last night I fed him a ravioli, and he ate the whole napkin with it. For Ted's benefit I later changed the ravioli to one of those crab appetizers. I spoke to Ted earlier this morning and told him that Dudley pa.s.sed away last night and they're doing an autopsy today at three."

Anyone who has seen Brad on the show knows how ridiculous-looking he is, but to see him when his face turns bright red and he is unable to control his heart-attack-like fits of hysteria is worth playing any practical joke on anyone. He immediately starts contorting his body and grabbing his head, and his face turns into the exact color of his ridiculous orange hair. Basically the same way a person would react during an earthquake, minus the laughter. "How can he believe you?" he bellowed as he started writhing on the couch. "How can he believe anything you say anymore? A dog autopsy?! Who the h.e.l.l gets a dog autopsy?!"

While Brad was going into what anyone walking by the office would perceive to be seizures, Tom was as cool as a cuc.u.mber.

"This is excellent work, Chelsea. I like what you've done here."

"You have to call him on speakerphone and let us listen!" Brad sobbed.

"Cool your heels, Tinker Bell," Tom told him. "This has to be thought out very carefully. You need to call all the other people that were there last night and tell them the deal. There's a lot of potential here. What's your weekend looking like?"

"Wide open."

"Well, why don't we stage a little dog funeral somewhere and have our little producer, Mr. Johnny Kansas, film the whole episode. You're on Leno Leno Tuesday night. You know how much Ted likes to be on television." Tuesday night. You know how much Ted likes to be on television."

This was true. As much as he pretends he hates it, Ted loves to be talked about or displayed on television.

"Johnny!" Tom yelled.

Johnny walked in, and Tom asked him what his plans were for this weekend.

"I've got a christening on Sunday," he told us. "I'm free Sat.u.r.day."

"Then Sat.u.r.day it is. Where can we have the funeral?" Tom asked me.

"Well, it would have to be somewhere on our side of town, because there's no way I'm going to drive forty-five minutes for a fake funeral. How about the Santa Monica Pier? We can say we're spreading Dudley's ashes because he wanted to be cremated."

"The Santa Monica Pier!" Brad was now slamming his head on the arm of the sofa. "I can't take it! I can't take it! Dog ashes at the Santa Monica Pier!"

"Brad, pull yourself together, you f.u.c.king idiot. This is business," Tom told him.

"Okay, okay, okay, wait! You have to do the funeral after five so I can come."

"No, you can't come. You'll give it away before he even finds out," I admonished him.

"No! I have to be there."

"Brad is not coming," Johnny said, looking at him in disgust. "He'll ruin everything."

"Brad, you're not coming," I told him again. "But I will call Ted on speakerphone to tell him about the funeral, and you can listen."

"Not on my watch," Johnny said as he walked out. "I will not be a party to this other than videotaping the funeral."

"Hi, sweetie," Ted said in his very melodramatic way when he picked up the phone.

"They're having a funeral on Sat.u.r.day at the Santa Monica Pier."

Brad jumped off the sofa and buried himself under Tom's desk, which had been vacated when Tom stood to shut the door.

"A funeral? I just got off with John, and he didn't say anything about a funeral."

"You just got off with John?" I asked, thinking I was screwed because I hadn't even spoken to John yet. "And?"

"And he sounded awful. I don't think he suspects anything. He just sounded terrible."

I looked over at Tom, who was standing by the door rubbing his goatee, and his eyes widened.

"Well, did he say anything about what might have caused it?"

"No, he says they just had open-heart surgery on the dog a few months ago, so he doesn't understand what happened."

The amount of fluid that you could hear coming out of Brad's body was unsettling. Luckily, the desk m.u.f.fled his fits of laughter enough for Ted not to hear. I walked behind the desk and kicked him.

"He didn't say anything about a funeral, Chelsea. I don't think we have to go."

"No, his a.s.sistant is e-mailing everyone at the party. They want everyone who was there when he left the world to be there when he enters the ocean."

That was the only line I actually had trouble delivering with a straight face, and I fumbled a little but made a quick recovery. "It's Sat.u.r.day."

"Sat.u.r.day?"

"Yeah."

"Oh, my G.o.d. I have to go to a dog funeral on a Sat.u.r.day?"

"It's at the Santa Monica Pier."

"Well, at least that's not too far."

This was just like Ted, to have a problem with the event as a whole but not take issue with the idea that the dog's ashes were basically being spread off a circus fairground into the Pacific Ocean.

By now the desk was vibrating, and I knew that Brad wouldn't be able to hold out much longer, so I ended the conversation with a final sniffle. "I'll call you later," I said, then hung up the phone.

"Did you tell John that you were faking his dog's death?" Tom asked.

"No, but he's familiar with the inner workings of this office, so he must have put two and two together."

"Pretty impressive work on John's behalf. I didn't know he had it in him. I think your next move is to have Eva call John's a.s.sistant and have her send out an e-mail asking everyone at the party if they saw Dudley eat any of the hors d'oeuvres at the party. And make sure you e-mail Claire and Jake just in case Ted starts calling the whole town."

"Exactly," I replied while looking over at Brad, whose face had turned two shades darker than a lobster.

"After that little desk performance, you are definitely not going to the pier," Tom told him.

"Pleeeeeease?"

I walked over to Eva's desk to give her instructions on the next phase of Operation Dudley Is Dead.

The next e-mail was sent by Eva a few minutes later: Hey guys. Did any of you see Dudley ingest or eat anything last night that maybe he shouldn't have? The animal doctor that is doing the autopsy asked John's a.s.sistant to find out. It's a little awkward so she asked me if I could help.

Before I even finished reading the e-mail, my phone rang. "Did you get the e-mail?" Ted asked me.

"Yes. They know it's me."

"No, they do not!"

"They're gonna find out when they do the autopsy. They're gonna find the crab right next to that black napkin in Dudley's belly."

"Yes, but they aren't going to know who did it."

"I have to come forward."

"No, Chelsea! We don't even know if the dog is allergic to sh.e.l.lfish. It could have been something else."

"Was allergic to sh.e.l.lfish. Dudley is dead, Ted." allergic to sh.e.l.lfish. Dudley is dead, Ted."

"We don't know that it was the sh.e.l.lfish. It could've been anything. Just wait until we get the autopsy results."

I took a deep, loud, dramatic breath.

"Chelsea," he said in the voice that a grief counselor would use with a patient attempting to do bodily harm to herself. "I have to go into a meeting now. Please don't talk to or call anyone who was at the party. Did you tell Tom?"

"Yes."

"Anyone else?"

"Brad."

"Why did you tell Brad?"

"Because he saw me crying."

"Oh, honey. You poor thing. Sweetie, you have to remember, this was an accident. The dog could have had another heart attack. We don't know it was the crab. It might just have been his time."

"I'm fine. I have to go, Ted. This is all too much."

A little later Eva walked into my office to tell me that Ted had called her and made it very clear to her that she saw nothing unusual at last night's party. "He also said that you were in a very fragile state and that I should keep an eye on you." Eva told me all this with a straight face and then turned on her heel and laughed all the way back to her desk. I was impressed with this side of her and her skill set in dealing with an unexpected dog homicide.

Luckily for me it was Friday. The spreading of the ashes would be Sat.u.r.day, so I would have to go through with this charade for only one night and a morning.

Needless to say I had a terrific day planning the next day's events. I hadn't been this charged up since the presidential inauguration. On my way home from the show that evening, my attorney Jake called.

"Chelsea. I was on the phone with Ted trying for forty minutes to figure out who fed the dog what. He was trying to protect you and convince me you had nothing to do with it. This is so f.u.c.king stupid. I kept having to put the phone on mute. Are you really going to take the CEO of a cable company to a dog funeral?"

"Yes, it's at the pier. Would you like to come?"

"Yes, but I have my kid's soccer game tomorrow. Can't we do it Sunday? How can he believe this?"

"Johnny is filming it, and he has a christening on Sunday. Your loss."

"s.h.i.t. I really want to see this."

"Well, unless Ted hits me, I'll probably show it on Leno Leno Tuesday night." Tuesday night."

"You should tell Ted that John's hiring a pet detective to put on the case."

"I don't have time for shenanigans," I told Jake, and hung up.

When I got home, I jumped on the treadmill. As soon as Ted walked in, I texted Eva to send the follow-up e-mail we had coordinated earlier: Hi guys. John's a.s.sistant just told me confidentially that the autopsy revealed that Dudley was allergic to sh.e.l.lfish and that seems to be the culprit. Chelsea, if I recall correctly that is not what you gave him. I'm pretty sure it was one of those raviolis. Poor guy! Hi guys. John's a.s.sistant just told me confidentially that the autopsy revealed that Dudley was allergic to sh.e.l.lfish and that seems to be the culprit. Chelsea, if I recall correctly that is not what you gave him. I'm pretty sure it was one of those raviolis. Poor guy!