Page 50 of Witches of Honeysuckle House
“Don’t worry. If I were reporting another death, I’d call it in,” she said wryly. He’d taken her call when her mother died and let her mother’s body sit inside Honeysuckle House until the fourteenth, too afraid to send any of his men on a curse day.
He broke eye contact and started shuffling a few papers on his desk. “What brings you in?”
“I was wondering if there was a report filed for the car accident that killed Helen and Christopher Caldwell,” she said.
That got his attention. The officer looked back up at her, eyebrows raised. “Those files haven’t been digitized. I’d need the exact date—” he cut himself short.
They stared at each other in silence for a few moments until Florence tilted her head to the side and said, “October 13, 1947.”
“Normally I’d need you to fill out a couple of forms,” he said, still not moving from behind the desk.
“I’m trying to stop it from happening again,” Florence said.
“And a police report is going to help you do that?” the officer asked.
“Where are the forms?” Owen cut in. “We’ll fill them out while you get the report.”
Officer Rollins narrowed his eyes at Owen. “Aren’t you the beekeeper Evie Caldwell hired to work the festival?” He glanced at Florence. “Here I thought you were the sister whowasn’tdragging people into your family’s mess.”
“Tillie Grey was my great-aunt,” Owen said. “I dragged myself into this. Now about that paperwork?”
Rollins gave a long, drawn-out sigh before he pulled out a form from behind the desk and handed it over, then disappeared without another word.
“What was his problem?” Owen asked.
“My sister has done a lot to change the way this town thinks about our family, but there are still plenty of people who don’t want anything to do with us,” Florence said. “It’s easier to keep us at an arm’s length than worry about becoming the next victim.”
They hadn’t even finished filling out the form by the time Rollins returned with a file box markedCaldwell.There were several dates scrawled across the front.
“This is everything we have on the deaths,” he said.
“That was fast,” Owen said. “You made it seem like it was going to take a while.”
The cop raised his brows. “You want this or not?”
Florence finished the form and handed it over. Rollins led them to an interrogation room. He flipped the light switch on, casting them in the harsh glare of fluorescents, and Florence found herself wishing she was back at the bookstore with a cozy lamp and a squashy chair. Rollins dropped the box in the middle of the table with a grunt.
“Don’t take anything out of the station.”
With that, he left them alone. As soon as the door closed behind him, Florence opened the box. Inside she found six file folders, all so thin she doubted they were going to be much help. Still, she pulled them out and opened the first one, labeled 2012.
Inside she found a police report detailing her mother’s death. Florence’s witness statement had been typed up alongside Evie’s. Thecase was labeled closed and cleared. Cause of death: Accidental injury. Behind the report were the photos the officers had taken. Florence fanned them out on the table and stared at them for a few moments.
Her mother’s body lay on the floor of her bedroom, neck twisted at an angle, eyes open and unblinking. A metal chandelier pinned her to the ground. Blood pooled from where its iron spikes had driven through her arms, her stomach, her chest.
“You shouldn’t have to see those,” Owen said.
Florence blinked up at him, surprised to find tears on her eyelashes. She brushed them away. “I already saw it in person.”
“That doesn’t mean you need to relive it.”
Florence shook her head slowly as if she could dislodge the grief that had pushed its way out of the hole where she’d tried to bury it. When Owen reached for the photos, she didn’t stop him. He carefully put the report and the images back in the folder, then set it off to the side.
Florence took out the rest of the folders in order. They were much the same as her mother’s. A few short pages detailing the scene of the death. A ruling of accidental injury. Photographs she’d rather not be looking at but couldn’t seem to tear her eyes away from.
Her father, dead on the front lawn.
Her grandmother, neck broken at the base of a spiral staircase.
