Chapter 8 - WHAT KILLED THEIR MOTHER
Rose Crawford’s death certificate said hemorrhagic stroke.
Natural causes.
Helena had signed the funeral papers herself.
Now she questioned everything.
Daniel drove them to Dr. Leonard Shaw, the physician who had signed Rose’s certificate.
He had retired two years earlier.
Shaw opened his front door, saw Helena and immediately tried to close it.
Daniel shoved his shoe into the gap.
“We just want to talk.”
“I don’t.”
Helena held up the recorder.
“My mother called Evelyn before she died.”
Shaw’s face drained.
“Please leave.”
“Did my father hurt her?”
“No.”
“Did Bell?”
“I said leave.”
Anna stepped closer.
“My grandmother died never meeting me because these men kept my mother terrified for nineteen years.”
Shaw looked at her.
His shoulders dropped.
“Come inside.”
They sat in his kitchen.
Shaw poured bourbon with shaking hands.
“Rose had dangerously high blood pressure.”
Helena waited.
“Your father knew.”
“What did he do?”
“He didn’t poison her, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Then what?”
“He took her medication.”
Helena went still.
Shaw stared at the glass.
“Rose called me the night before she died. She said Richard had found the letters and taken her pills.”
“Why didn’t you report it?”
“He brought them back.”
“When?”
“After she collapsed.”
Helena stood so fast the chair fell backward.
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“You signed natural causes!”
“I was afraid.”
“Of my father?”
Shaw looked at her.
“Of Bell.”
The room went quiet.
Shaw explained that Richard had confessed to Rose after drinking.
Not everything.
Enough.
The crash.
The cover-up.
Evelyn.
When Rose threatened to expose them, Richard took her medication and locked her in the house.
He may not have intended to kill her.
But he knew what could happen.
And it happened.
Helena walked outside before she screamed.
Anna followed.
Daniel remained inside for another minute.
When he came out, he was holding a folded page.
“Shaw gave me this.”
It was a copy of Rose’s medical notes.
At the bottom, handwritten:
Patient states husband threatened her after she confronted S. Bell regarding County Route 8 evidence. Original report may be stored at Crawford boathouse.
Helena looked at Daniel.
“Boathouse?”
“At the lake.”
“The cabin burned.”
Daniel shook his head.
“The boathouse is fifty yards downhill.”
They returned that afternoon.
Fire crews had fenced off the cabin.
Helena and Anna slipped down the hill.
The boathouse stood untouched.
Inside, they found fishing gear and rotting life jackets.
Daniel pulled up loose floorboards.
A steel box sat underneath.
Helena opened it.
Empty.
Except for blood.
Fresh blood.
Anna touched the edge.
“Someone was here.”
Then Helena saw something beneath the box.
A silver magnolia brooch.
Evelyn’s.
Anna picked it up.
There was blood on that too.
Outside, tires crunched over gravel.
A vehicle stopped.
A car door opened.
Then Silas Bell’s voice called from the top of the hill.
“Helena?”
She froze.
May you like
Bell continued.
“I think it’s time you and I finally talked.”
