It grew late, but I ordered another beer. Lit up another Marlboro Light. The television above the bar was tuned into a Red Sox game, but the sound was mercifully turned off. Bonnie Raitt belted them out from the CD juke. I liked it here, liked it plenty. The thought of returning to the Bed And Breakfast and my fellow Bordenites did not attract me, and I planned to make my overnight stay just that. Overnight.

They were a serious lot, as are most aficionados of anything. They bickered, they snapped, talking over one another as each one obviously knew more than all the rest. Turning and overturning the minutiae of the trial, and the day of the murders as if they could solve the crime themselves, here and now.

 “Lizzie dear, have you drowned?” asked a woman's voice from somewhere beyond the closed bathroom door.

Lizzie Borden’s face, with just her eyes, mouth, and nose visible, looked like a mask floating upon the surface of the water. Her feet, ankles, and part of her calves were exposed, propped against the far end of the tub. The rest of her was joyously submerged.

 “I shall be there anon,” she responded in her best Shakespearean tone. Through the water, her voice sounded almost ethereal to her own ears.

“Oh no, not today!” Lizbeth closed her eyes tightly as one hand moved up to support her temple. Up until then, she had been enjoying the warmth of the mid-May morning. Sheltered as she was within her glassed-in porch, the child’s voice carried far, and the unmistakable melody of the old song reached her ears loud and clear. She tried not to hear the words, but instead, imagined the original tune, “Ta-Ra-Ra-Boom-Der-E”. Sometimes it worked, and she could dismiss it. Sometimes it didn’t.