The next day, another warm, humid sort, the enemy of fine pastry, Ophelia began to systematically dismantle the living room. Buckets and buckets of ash were dumped in a bin in the alley, urns and rugs and sofa slip covers were shoved into the furnace area of the cellar as she scrubbed at the dark rust coloured stains on the wide pine board floor.

Fred had left for Brown the Sunday before, and Ophelia had breathed easy as she carefully wiped down the house. They had done it. It was over. She took down the Frida Kahlo beaded curtain that hung over the door between the living room and the study, and vacuumed the swags in the draperies.

She stopped, and turned off the Hoover Elite, at the sound of the gong-like doorbell. She walked through and opened the front door.

Officers' Harrison and Greyson stood on the doorstep, several patrolmen behind them.

'May I help you?'

'Ophelia Carmichael, we have a search warrant for the premises. You can stand there and argue all day, or you can let us do our job.'

'I argued with paper when I read Twilight. And failed, so go on. Be my guest.' She stepped aside, and watched as the police trouped through, all over the house.

Detective Harrison opened the doors in the hall, and peered into the study. It hadn't been touched in years, the screen of the IBM PC more dusted over than a Russian Tea Cake. A fax machine sat on top of a pile of technical manuals in three ringed binders.

'My father's study.' Ophelia said as she pulled the door shut.

'He's not at home?'

'Business trip.' She replied, over-brightly.  She told herself that again and again, and she almost believed herself.

Harrison crossed the hall to the dining room. A white clothe was draped across the table, and a thin glass vase was filled with slightly wilted harebell and bittersweet. 'I take it you don't use this room much either.'

'No. It was really mom's office, we only brought the table in for the funeral, and never actually took it out in the end.'

Detective Harrison's first impression of the Carmichael's kitchen was brown clutter. A raised brick hearth covered the original inglenook, and dented stainless steel pots and pans were on the stove and in the sink. Cheap Americana covered the walls, and there had been a half-hearted attempt to repaint the drywall.

Ophelia came up behind Harrison. 'I meant to clean up in here, but the living room's been a mess for a while.'

Harrison didn't want to see the bedrooms. But he had to.

They walked up the stair, and Harrison met Greyson on the landing. 'What can you tell me?'

'Brother left in a hurry, and they only use two of the rooms. The others have more mothballs and cobwebs than a Halloween haunted house. Scads of dresses like the one the victim was found in though.'

'Where?' Harrison looked out over the alley to the buildings backed up against it.

'Her room.'

Harrison turned and walked up the last few steps, and into the room with an officer by the door. He stopped in front of the double-doored closet crammed with dresses a la Dior's New Look. 'Anything else?'

'There's a typewriter. It's like the one used to write the note.'

'Anything else?'

Greyson couldn't think of anything else, and threw her hands up. 'That's just it. We have all this evidence, but none of its useful.'

'We haven't found the murder weapon itself?'

'Flat, blunt object, broad curve, might be scalloped. Nothing, unless you count sadirons.'

'What?'

'Victorian irons. They would be heated on the stove, and lost more heat than a dying mouse.'

'Hmm. Oh well, it's a wash then. Nothing. We can go back.'

Greyson was deflated. This case had become a source of more than mere interest. The only thing more interesting than the case was her sisters love life, which was at a stock still stall three yards behind the line.

They made their apologies, and left.  Ophelia nodded throughout the exchange, and smiled as she closed the door behind them.  She leaned against the door and sighed as she slid to the floor.  The dust particles whooshed through the sunbeams that shone through the windows, and a bird sang in the yard, the sound a diversion through the window screen. 

Ophelia stood, and opened the door to the cellar.  The cellar was built of granite blocks, each one a little larger than the size of a coffin.  The floor had been laid brick in the coastal sand, undulated like waves with age.  Ophelia walked through the brick arch that supported the chimney to the stairs that lead to the bulkhead doors on the side of the house.

Some of the bricks had been laid to show the name of the bricksmith, Elbridge Gage, Dover, New Hampshire.  Ophelia picked up a claw hammer from the plateau of tools jumbled on a workbench shoved against the brick archway, and prised up first one brick, then another.  She then picked up the other bricks by hand, and tossed them into a small pile.  A thin layer of sand was brushed aside, and a scrap of plywood was lifted away.

In a square-ish hole was the serpentine fronted grate from the living room fireplace.  Shoved into a plastic shopping bag from Market Basket was a peach gingham blouse and creamy white shorts.  On top of them was a needlepoint Kaffe Fasset clutch and a brooch pendant on a thin gold chain. 

Ophelia plucked a fringe of hair matted with some blood and skin off the edge of the grate, and dropped it on top of the blouse.  She set the bag to the side, and replaced the plywood, sand, and bricks.  She hadn't known Eli to be like this.

Poor Eli. He wouldn't get away with this, killing Beatrice. Ophelia had seen him walking toward Prescott Park that night. It was only a matter of time, and then -

She turned back to her work. After lunch, she would dump the clothes in the bins for store on the road behind the Thawne house. Ophelia knew that it was a risk, but she could go to that store, to buy something, and just walk round to the side, and dump them in the bin, then some flowers, to make it look real.