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"Where's Abby?" he asked his daughter as he walked into the sitting room.
"She had a note from a sick friend and decided to pay a visit."
Andrew harrumphed and, without so much as loosening his tie, stretched out on the sofa and closed his eyes.
Note? Sick friend? When had this happened? Oh, wait, I'd been out back with Bridget for a few minutes before Andrew got home. Still, Abby must have left awfully fast...
Bridget walked in, carrying her bucket. Her gaze slid to Andrew. Lizzie shooed her into the dining room and followed, as did I. While Bridget washed the windows, Lizzie set up a board and began ironing handkerchiefs. They chatted quietly about whether Bridget was going out later that day, but Bridget confessed she was still feeling poorly. I only caught snatches of the conversation. My attention kept wandering back to the "note" and the "sick friend."
I left the two women, peeked in on Andrew, who was now snoring, and headed for the front stairs. The moment I got to the top of the stairs, I saw Abby. She was still in the guest room, and the door was still open. She was on the floor, facedown, as if she'd fallen to her knees, then slumped forward to the floor. A pool of blood surrounded her. Her head and shoulders had been...hacked. There was no other word for it. I've seen death before, and I've seen violent death, but this made even my gorge rise.
"Jesus," I swore. "How--what--?"
Kristof strode past me, and surveyed the room with a prosecutor's eye. As I walked inside, still struggling to understand what I was seeing, I nearly trampled a piece of Abby's scalp. I stepped over it, then looked down at the body.
The first blow must have killed her. If it hadn't, Abby would have cried out and Bridget or I would have heard her. But the killer hadn't stopped with one blow. There were ten, twenty, maybe more cuts, deep cuts. The fury that had gone into this killing, the absolute rage...I stood there, and I stared at the body, and I couldn't fathom the degree of hate that had done this.
"Who?" I said, wheeling on Kristof.
As his eyes met mine, I knew the answer was obvious. Dead obvious. But I thought of Lizzie, standing at the top of the stairs, laughing at Bridget's struggle with the door lock, then calmly ironing handkerchiefs while her dead stepmother lay one floor above them. To switch from this kind of rage to that kind of calm within minutes, well, it made no sense. What kind of monster--
I looked back at Abby. As I did, in my head I heard a skipping song from childhood.
Lizzie Borden took an axe
And gave her mother forty whacks;
When she saw what she had done--
"Oh shit!" I said, and raced for the steps.
I took them two at a time, turned at the bottom, and dove through the closed door.
Wearing her father's overcoat, Lizzie stood behind her sleeping father's head, with her back to me. She lifted a bloodied hatchet, then swung it down.
She gave her father forty-one.
19
WE STOOD THERE GAPING AS LIZZIE BORDEN HACKED apart her father's head. Then she laid down the hatchet. Her eyes closed, and her body went stiff as she rose onto her tiptoes.
Kristof nudged my arm.
"Look," he whispered.
There, on the sofa, lay Andrew Borden, intact and un-bloodied, reading the morning paper. Lizzie had backed up to the doorway between the kitchen and the parlor. She blinked, then walked through, needlepoint appearing in her hand.
The doorbell rang.
"Who is it at this hour?" Andrew grouched, slamming his paper to the floor.
"I'll get it, Father."
"No. Go help your mother."
Lizzie nodded, then laid down her needlework and disappeared into the kitchen. In the front foyer, Andrew threw open the door, and barked a greeting at the man there--the doctor who'd come to the door before.
"Just stopped by to see if you folks are feeling any better," the doctor said.
