Page 59 of The Women of Wild Hill
She pulled out a photo album. “Here we go.” She flipped through the pages until she found what she was looking for. “Henry Jansson. My grandfather. My grandmother, Rose, claimed he drowned after a boat crash. But now they’re saying he’s one of the men buried downstairs. If so, he must have done something terrible. Aunt Ivy wouldn’t have killed anyone who didn’t deserve it.”
Calum came over to look. “And they still don’t know what did him in?”
“No,” Flora said. “But I suspect it was poison. Aunt Ivy was a master botanist. She used to sell tonics and such to women in Mattauk.”
“What did your mother do?” he asked.
Flora’s brow furrowed with confusion at the change of subject. “I told you. My parents were both chemists. They owned a company that made skin cream.”
“Did they ever murder anyone?”
“Not to my knowledge,” Flora said with a laugh.
“So then, this must be harmless?” Calum had found an old-fashioned ladies’ carry-on bag and removed two small vials of a clear liquid.
Flora grimaced at the sight of the valise. It had been among the luggage recovered from the plane crash that killed her parents. In all the years since, she’d never found the strength to open it. Like so many of Lilith and Levi’s belongings, it had made its way to the attic, where it sat, gathering dust and waiting to be rediscovered.
“May I?” Flora held out her hand and he placed one of the vials in her palm. It was two inches long and closed with a wax cork. The label readPoison Ivy.
“You look surprised,” Calum noted.
“I’m sure it was just a joke.” Flora tucked the vials back into the little suitcase. When Calum wasn’t looking, she would stash it someplace safe.
“YEAH, THAT STUFF WAS DEFINITELYnot harmless,” Sibyl said.
“What was it?” Phoebe asked.
“The poison Lilith used to kill Nazis.”
“What are you talking about?” Phoebe scoffed. “Lilith didn’t kill anyone.”
“Here we go again.” Sibyl sighed. “You want to tell her?” she asked Brigid.
“Apparently Grandma went on quite a killing spree,” Brigid explained. “The ancestors told Sibyl.”
“Boring old Lilith?” Phoebe still couldn’t believe it. “How many Nazis is she supposed to have murdered?”
“Five hundred. And it’s true. I was there with her,” Sibyl said. “Why didn’t anyone tell you before I came along?”
“Maybe because they died?” Phoebe responded tartly.
“Smart-ass,” Brigid added.
“Gen Z, am I right?” Phoebe rolled her eyes.
CALUM STEPPED THROUGH THE FRONTdoor of the cottage. He’d been in town most of the day.
“I think your aunt Ivy might have been a serial killer,” he informed Flora.
Flora looked peeved. “What makes you say that?”
“I just spent some time at the courthouse. Over the last fifty years, the death rate in Mattauk has been higher than in any other small town in the Northeast. Seventy percent of those deaths have been men, and a high percentage of those men have died at an early age.”
“What’s been killing them?”
“As far as I can tell, natural causes.”
“And you think my aunt was responsible for men dying of natural causes?”
