The quiet, mourning sounds of the wake drifted through to them, from elsewhere in the house. The younger detective looked at the hard wood surface of the desk, now clear, and clean except for a faint tinge of rust that would probably never go.

“A lot of blood.” The older police said, noting his attention. “Remember the scene? The overkill? And the fatal wound?”
“Yes, guv. Sooner a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy, the pathologist said.”
“Quite.”
“Do we have to take her in? By all accounts, he was a right ‘orrible cunt, and you saw her hospital records.”
“The law is the law, lad. We can but hope the courts are kind.”
“Still…”
“Look, we’ll wait until the guests are all gone and the wake is over. That’s the most we can do. Give the poor woman a little dignity.”
“Right you are, guv.”

The two sipped their tea and waited for the widow to say her goodbyes.

So on the second year, I got him diddly squat, whereas he bought me a car.

For the third, I upped my game and took him to Paris for the weekend. He bought me an ironing board.

On the fourth, I retaliated with a pair of socks. He took me to the Ritz.

Neither of us showed our hand on the fifth anniversary; we both bought each other nothing.

The sixth saw a cautious return to form with an ipod from me and a spa day from him.

This leaves us in a tricky position for the seventh. He’s been very secretive lately, I know he’s got me something big. Unfortunately, for him he’s going to be totally out-trumped again because I’m giving him something very special that money can’t buy – I’m growing it myself.

“Another one,” he mumbled into the hood of his Level A,  full-encapsulation hazmat suit. He listened to the hum of his cooling vest, heard his own breath like a hiss in his head. He retrieved several more cards, and released them likewise into individual, air-tight packets. His ear-bud crackled as Lt. Fuentes checked on his status. “Everything’s fine and dandy,” he answered into the voice-activated radio attached to the collar of his Tyvek undersuit.

He struggled to stay comfortable squatting on his knees. His mind began to drift. He found it hard to focus through the magnifying lens in his viewport; there was glare from the work lamp he’d secured overhead. “Get Well Soon,” he read aloud as he retrieved a pink and lavender square decorated with gold butterflies. He wondered how many cards were left, balanced on their open edges in neat rows like tiny tombstones. He paused to shift his body so he could see how his comrades were progressing throughout the misty space that was filled with spidery shadows cast by multiple, portable lights. After a moment he smiled, as it seemed they were just as slow, and just as unhappy, as he was.

He watched his neighbor for a moment–in an identical orange suit, on hands and knees–then turned away, amused. Dawoud, do you have to inspect each bottle? But he was jealous, too. That collection of liquor was at least interesting. He lifted another greeting card that read, “Happy Anniversary” and deposited it. “This is one weird-ass situation,” he said out loud, and winced, because he realized he’d just broadcast that to the entire team.

“Ballyntine! Shut it!” came Lt. Fuentes’ immediate, sharp response. “This is ‘secure and retrieve’ and does not require commentary from you.”

He exhaled slowly, so it wouldn’t sound like a sigh, and continued removing cards from the top of a minuscule credenza; it was a lifetime’s worth, each with a different message and each no more than a half-inch high. Their mission specialist, Thompson, had explained, the contents of the exclusion zone were on a scale of one foot to one inch; the cards had originally been six-inches.

“Lt. Fuentes,” a voice buzzed over their network. It sounded like PFC Davis, who knelt three feet away, facing Ballyntine. He’d already deconstructed the bathroom tile walls and now was in the process of disassembling and packing the fixtures. “Does anyone have any idea what happened here?” Davis continued. “This is a perfectly normal Kohler toilet–I can see the brand name–and all the plumbing is standard and intact, but it’s … like, you know … the seat is like 1.2 inches wide and the whole thing is only 2.5 inches high. Couldn’t this have been fabricated, and those two old coots created some kind of scam?”

There was silence, and everyone stopped what they were doing. Because this was what all of them were thinking. PFC Ballyntine kept the three-inch high sofa-table with the cabriole legs hanging from a sterile clamp as he maneuvered around so he could see the back of Fuentes’ suit in the murk behind him.

After a minute, Fuentes said, “We follow orders and we do our jobs. I told you everything the briefing team from Homeland Security told me. Family members reported finding their elderly parents dead in their house–this house–a suburban, three-bedroom, frame and brick rancher built in 1958. Everything on the outside looked normal. Upon entering the home, investigators discovered the tiny corpses of a man and woman in their late eighties, desiccated and almost mummified as if they’d been dead for decades instead of days, curled up in the middle of their living room floor on top of an eight- by ten-inch oriental rug. And everything else around them … every goddamned thing including the interior walls, was miniaturized. No sign of a struggle. Nothing out of place except the electricity was dead. A doll house inside a regular house.” He waited a moment then added, “Now get back to work.”

Ballyntine sighed audibly this time, and returned to his task. He dropped the table into another plastic pouch and sealed it, moved it to his specimen case. A little shiver went up his spine as he thought about what Fuentes had just said. “Tiny corpses,” he whispered as he used the tweezers again to remove inch-high pictures from the ten-inch high walls. He suddenly wanted to get out of there.

The housekeeper shows me to the morning room. This is my domain, it has French windows looking out onto the long lawn and I am expected to write my letters and invitations here, acceptances and refusals. I think the majority may be refusals, my new husband is not particularly sociable, indeed, it is a surprise I met him at all.

The staff have been courteous to me and as welcoming as they care to show. The housekeeper has been kind, showing me where and how to do things, explaining the running of the household to me. I should stamp my authority on the household in the next few days but, really, I just want this capable woman, who is only a little older than me, to organise my house and my marriage for me in her cool, measured way.

Once she has shown me the stationery and we have gone over the day’s menu – hardly an arduous task when there is only me to feed and I have lost my appetite – she leaves me alone. When she is gone I hardly know what to do. Without knowing it, I had been dreading being left alone. Too much time to think.

I will occupy myself by exploring my husband’s home. I have seen all of the downstairs reception rooms of course – they are all much of a muchness, high ceilings and long windows. Upstairs, my husband’s bedroom is sparser than I would expect. No books, no ornaments or momentoes from his travels. Nothing to suggest character or interests at all. His study simply holds a small library of books, a neat desk with a blotter and the drawers are all unlocked and empty.

But there is a door in the corner of the study, which must lead somewhere. So here it is, Bluebeard’s secret room. To my surprise it is unlocked. When I step inside, I find a small room lined with glass cabinets. And in those cabinets, pegged out neatly with meticulous care, are hordes of gloriously coloured insects – butterflies, beetles and dragonflies, all captured and pinned onto baize.

I could gaze at them for hours. Beautiful, extraordinary things. It is peculiar to think they were all alive, fluttering and scurrying, before my husband caught them. What kind of man keeps this sort of collection? I can only hope he has not collected me.