MURDER HOUSE A GHOULISH RETREAT : ON LOCATION.

Byline: Alex Witchel The New York Times

It may have been the photographs of the skulls. Or the yellowed tag reading ``Mr. Borden's stomach.'' Or the red gobs on the tag that turned out to be sealing wax, not blood after all.

Whatever it was, I was about to faint and I hadn't even set foot inside the newly opened Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast Museum yet. In fact, I was still at the nearby Fall River Historical Society, standing between the blood-spotted bedspread from the room where Abby Borden had been murdered, and those skulls. Or what was left of them.

I looked at my mom.

She didn't look well, either. ``This is morbid,'' she whispered loudly. ``I feel very ambivalent about this.''

Well, yes, that's it, exactly. Ambivalence is the pull behind the still unsolved Lizzie Borden murder case of 1892. The idea that a 32-year-old woman (and a Sunday school teacher at that) would take an ax and bludgeon her 70-year-old father with 10 blows to the head and her 63-year-old stepmother with 19 dramatizes every child's parental ambivalence.

Once we stood outside the house where the murders took place, I started to understand the appeal. After all, it's not Disney fabricating this Greek revival house in a New England industrial town. This is it, the actual site of a historic murder that pushes every family button imaginable, with the added attraction of a whodunit. Did she or didn't she?

None of this mystique has escaped Martha McGinn, a co-owner, who inherited the house from her grandparents. They lived here from 1947 to 1994 and were notoriously unwilling to humor the Lizzie fanatics who appeared unannounced.

McGinn, however, saw that she was sitting on a potential gold mine. Our rate for one night was $219; the daytime tour, without room and board, is $7.50.

We have come on a Wednesday, and although the eight rooms can accommodate up to 16 guests, there is only one other couple, who came on a whim from their vacation in Newport, R.I. McGinn, who lives nearby, and her night manager, Allen Brake, joined us in the parlor, where McGinn regaled us with tales of the supernatural forces of the Borden legacy.

First though, some details. When questioned about the murders, Lizzie said she had been out in the barn eating pears when her stepmother went up to the guest room to change the linens, and hadn't heard a thing. Then she said she was out in the barn looking for fishing sinkers and hadn't heard a thing. Then she said she was in the dining room ironing handkerchiefs while her father was murdered as he napped in the sitting room (about 10 feet away) and also hadn't heard a thing. Although there was surprisingly little blood on her dress (could she have had an accomplice?), she burned it the next day in the kitchen stove.

Lizzie was arrested as a suspect, and after a 13-day trial, was acquitted in one hour. Why? In 1892, no one thought a lady from a good family was capable of committing such a crime, let alone possessing the physical strength to wield an ax.

The jury aside, however, the community must have suspected something, because it shunned her for the rest of her life. And she endured it. She never left this town, though she moved to another house she called Maplecroft and died at the age of 67 in 1927.

You can see how this type of bedtime story doesn't foster sweet dreams, and McGinn plays it for all it's worth. She told the story of how her housekeeper once was making the bed in the guest room when she suddenly saw indentations where the feet and the head of a body would be.

``She said, `I'll never go back in there again - you can't make me,' '' McGinn crowed. She also claimed a guest told her she had been awakened by the feeling that someone was sitting on her chest. ``The ghosts of the Bordens might be here,'' McGinn said warningly.

I gave Mom a look and we headed upstairs to attempt a nap. We had reserved the Lizzie and Emma suite (Emma was her older sister), which is two adjoining bedrooms next to the guest room where Mrs. Borden had breathed her last.

A sign was posted on the stairs: ``Caution! Watch your Head! Low Ceiling. There Have Already Been Two Fatal Head Injuries in This House.''

She dropped her things in Emma's room. Wait a minute. Didn't she want to sleep in Lizzie's with me? ``No,'' she said firmly. ``I like this room just fine.''

During the house tour, Brake said some overnight guests get carried away.

``One guy wanted to sleep on the couch where Mr. Borden was murdered,'' he said, still incredulous.

Mom and I and the other overnight guests were led into the dining room where pears, naturally, were on the table. ``This is the room where the bodies were embalmed,'' Brake said.

He led the way into the sitting room. ``Here, the bodies were laid out in open caskets,'' he announced, displaying a book filled with grisly autopsy photographs. The man in the couple blanched, while his wife grabbed it. ``I'll take this for bedtime reading,'' she enthused.

Inside the guest bedroom, McGinn had done a remarkable job of re-creating the original, so recognizable from crime-scene photographs. It seemed eerily unchanged. We peered at the bedding for signs of indentations. None.

Next was Lizzie's - and my - bedroom. Before we entered, Brake mentioned that no one has been able to work a camera flash inside. Defiant, the woman stood at the doorway and her flash went off.

``That doesn't count,'' I said, egging her on. ``You're not inside.'' She stepped into the room and pressed again. Nothing. Mom and I looked at each other. The woman rewound and pressed again. Again nothing. Her husband was beside himself. She pretended to be casual. ``I got what I needed,'' she said, before suddenly calling out, ``Damn you, Lizzie!''

In the kitchen was a replica of the stove in which Lizzie burned her dress. And next to it a closet where in 1949 investigators found an ax that had previously eluded them. Despite the accompanying fanfare, it was not the murder weapon, which to this day has never been found.

Time for bed. We politely said good night to the couple and to the night watchman, who assured us he had never seen anything unusual. Mom fell fast asleep, while I lay in Lizzie's room staring at the neon Exit sign above the door, which cast an appropriate blood-red glow. But I slept, undisturbed. For at least 10 minutes.

The next morning we went down to breakfast early. Jeanne St. Martin, the cook, was dressed in period clothes and turned out an impressive array of eggs, sausages, home fries, johnnycakes and cornbread, which, along with bananas and mutton broth, was the victims' last meal. St. Martin had also baked sugar cookies. Shaped like axes.

Mom picked at her plate. I didn't even try. ``I guess you don't have a hearty morning appetite,'' St. Martin observed, disappointed. We smiled weakly. ``Why don't I pack some cookies for you,'' she offered, ``so you can eat them on the way back?''

Thanking her profusely, we rushed to catch our train, where I finally slept. A few hours later, as we gathered our bags, Mom put the cookies on the seat between us. She smiled. I smiled back. We left them there.

At 92 Second St., Fall River, Mass., the Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast Museum offers tours every half-hour from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily. Cost is $7.50 for adults, $3.50 for children ages 6 to 12 and free for children under 6.

Six rooms, one with private bath, are available for $150 to $200, double occupancy, per night, including breakfast. Information: [phone].

CAPTION(S):

Photo, Box

Photo: This is an undated portrait of Lizzie Borden, the 32-year-old spinster acquitted of the murder of her father and stepmother in 1892.

Box: ON LOCATION (see text)