“Liar!” he said for the tenth time. Helen sat on her bed, her father in a chair. She had been banished to her bedroom for an unspecified length of time the moment Chief Ryser had left the house with a silent, raging Pinky in tow. “Dad,” said Helen, trying to keep her voice steady, “the cans were full. I felt them. They were heavy.” “They were empty. The police went through every morphine cannister in those cartons, and every single one of them was empty.” “Dad, please. Please listen. I picked up all the cans in the carton I opened. They were sealed in an oily paper, all except for one, and they were all full. When the cops came back, every single can was empty, and the oily paper wrappings were gone. Somebody was there after Pinky and I left. By the time we got out of the police station, he would have had at least an hour and a half.” “The cartons were covered with dust,” said her father. “The cops said they hadn’t been touched in a hundred years.” “There was dust in every corner of that cellar, Dad.
