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RUTH:I’m talking just generally! The people you killed, itaffectsthings.
DAPHNE:Well, it’s certainly affected you.
RUTH (flustered):What do you mean by that? I’m just here to tell your story.
DAPHNE:But this podcast has made your career. You should be glad I killed David, it gives the public what they really want: a villain, someone to make them feel better about all their gross little secrets. ‘Oh at least I’m not as bad asher!’
RUTH:I’m not trying to make you into a villain. Or an angel. I’m just trying to tell the truth about you.
DAPHNE:Yes, well, here it is. David was nice and Ikilledhim. I killed him and I took his money, and I hightailed it back to the big city. And by then, I knew I really had a taste for murder. That I wasn’t just using it as a last resort, I was doing it because it wasfun.
When Daphne finished talking, Ruth sat in silence, her throat seized up with emotion.
For the first time, the reality of the situation was truly striking home.I’m sitting across from a killer.She had known it intellectually, but now she truly felt the implications of what Daphne had done. She had robbed people of the only time they would get to spend on earth.
Ruth gazed into Daphne’s eyes, which despite being draped in sagging skin were as cunning as a crow’s. Before David, the three men Daphne had killed seemed so unlikable that the murders felt almost justified. But it was David’s death that transformed the story, severing the link between Daphne as a victim and Daphne as a predator. It proved to her that Daphne was the killer she was looking for, the missing puzzle piece that had eluded her for so long. Because if Daphne could kill David, then she could killanyone.
Ruth pulled her water bottle out of her bag and took a gulp, forcing it down into her roiling stomach. She was stalling for time, trying to quell the panic and horror blotting out her thoughts, telling her torun, run, run. Ruth finally understood that if the situation was right, Daphne would have no hesitation in killing her. It didn’t matter that she was a good person, or that Ruth’s mother would miss her, or that Ruth had never done anything to hurt Daphne, she would kill her just the same.Because her life didn’t matter to Daphne.It was terrifying. It was infuriating.
“Anyway, that’s the whole Leosville story,” Daphne said, leaning back in her chair and clacking her bony hands against her brittle legs with gusto. It sickened Ruth, the way she did everything but smack her lips at the thought of murdering an innocent person.
“What did you do next?” Ruth asked, trying to move the story along until she could find firmer ground, hoping that they might come to a natural stopping point so she could wrap up the interview and leave. So that she didn’t have to look at the woman who’d ruined her life any longer.
“Moved back to New York, of course. I had realized that a normal life, even a comfortable one, wasn’t good enough for me. I wanted a fabulous life, full of glamour, excitement, and luxury, and I knew New York was where I could get it. I also decided to use the name Daphne. I knew my kids were getting older and I couldn’t keep changing my name, so I decided to pick one I really liked.”
“Where did the name come from?” Ruth choked out, trying to keep her water down.
“A TV show,” Daphne said with a shrug.
“Was it. . .Scooby-Doo?” Ruth asked.
Daphne chuckled. She had a strange laugh, almost as if her throat was cracking and the sound was spilling out.
“No, but it wasn’t much better. It was a soap opera calledConfessionsthat I got hooked on when I was killing time in Leosville. Daphne was this rich bitch with a string of husbands, so I guess sometimes life imitates art.”
“And you’ve been Daphne ever since?”
“Till the day I die,” Daphne said, her voice steady and her face untroubled. It was obvious that death had been a constant companion to this woman for a long time, an old friend that she never tired of seeing.
I’m going to show the world who you are,Ruth thought, as she ended the recording and began to pack up her things. She knew that the first thing she’d do when she got home was start editing these files, to get the next episode out.
But not before she changed the title of her podcast yet again.
The Four Murders of Daphne St Clair.
Ruth hit terrible traffic on the drive back and by the time she pulled into the parking lot next to her apartment, the sun had already set, although the air was still warm and velvety against her skin. The sky was a royal blue, and the parking lot lamps were few and far between, amber pools of light in a dark landscape.
The staircase was an internal spiral up the building, and it was dank and dark. As she walked up the stairs, the light above her flickering frantically, Ruth became aware of a presence behind her. She could sense it was a man, a large one at that, who had emerged from the second-floor landing and was now uncomfortably close. Her neck prickled and she felt exposed, not liking the feeling of turning her back on a stranger. Their footsteps echoed in the landing. She was wearing sandals, which slapped against the floor, but she could hear the squeak of his sneakers, and she knew that he was right behind her.
Just pass me, she thought.Just fucking pass me; you’re creeping me out. Maybe it was innocuous. Men didn’t realize how often they inadvertently made women feel unsafe. But a lot did it intentionally too.
His body seemed to grow closer, his feet striking the step just as her foot lifted off from it. They passed the third-floor landing, the stairs looping up above their head into the darkness, like the rafters of an old bell tower.
Should she turn back and glare at him? But what if she saw something dangerous in his face? An expression that told her he’d been waiting for her to look, to understand what was about to happen? What if she just started running? But maybe he was waiting for that too? Besides he was so close that he could easily grab her. She wondered if someone had sent him. Maybe the Montgomerys had hired a thug to throw her down the stairs and make it look like an accident. It would certainly make things convenient for Lucy.
As they neared her landing, she moved as quickly as she could. She pulled the door to the fourth floor open, her heart beating so hard that it felt as if it was bruising her ribs with every thump. She slipped in and went to push the door shut behind her, but he was already there, his solid body blocking the swinging door.
“Oh, Ruth! What a surprise!”