The policeman sat on the sofa with his pen and notebook in his hands. The old lady came in with a cup of tea and set it down on the table in front of him.
"Before you take me down to the station perhaps I should tell you why I did it, officer" she said. "The truth is, it was mostly for the company. It gets very lonely when you're an old lady and young people never seem to want to spend any time with me. I enjoy just sitting and talking."
The policeman stared at her impassively.
"Mrs Ordway was the very first," she said as she sat down in her comfy armchair. "I remember it like it was yesterday. She came to my door selling beauty products. I invited her inside and made her a cup of tea. I went to the kitchen and fetched my axe. Then, when she least suspected it, I crept up behind her and chopped off her head."
"The next one was Mr Bilgeman. He was a plumber and he came to fix my leaky pipes. While he was taking a break from his work, I made him a cup of tea. Then, I took my axe out from behind the sofa and chopped off his head too."
"The third one was the paperboy. Little Jimmy Watkins. I told him to come inside while I looked for my purse. He didn't drink tea, so I gave him a plate of cookies. Children can't resist cookies. While he was munching away on the cookies, I began chopping with my axe and his head came off as well."
"I stuffed all the heads and placed them on my mantlepiece. I talk to them. Day and night. I carry on conversations with them. It helps with the loneliness. The only problem was what to do with the bodies. I couldn't stuff them all. It would have been too much work. So, I came up with an ingenius solution."
"What did I do? It was simple. I stuffed one body and used it for all of the heads. When I was tired of talking to one of them, I would take off the head, put it back on the mantlepiece and put another head on the body. Isn't that clever?"
The policeman didn't answer.
"Well, I'm getting a little bored with our conversation, officer," the old lady said with a sigh.
She stood up, took off the policeman's head and put it back on the mantlepiece. Then, she took down the saleswoman's head and placed it on the body.
"Oh, good afternoon, Mrs Ordway," she said. "It's so nice to see you again. How have you been?"