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StopDropAndTroll:
Ruth has some real daddy issues doesn’t she? But then again, all the best girls do. . .
BurntheBookBurnerz:
U r gross.
CapoteParty:
Hey, has anyone looked into murders in Abrams, New York? Any Daphne connections there?
StopDropAndTroll:
[This comment has been removed by a moderator.]
PreyAllDay:
I’m too focused on the Tylenol murders right now. I think there’s a good chance Daphne did them.
StopDropAndTroll:
Daphne commits murders for MONEY. Nobody made any money off the Tylenol murders so fucking drop it.
ShockAndBlah:
Stop trying to make fetch happen.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Ruth stood in front of the big blue house, awed at the size. It was the kind of house she had dreamed of as a kid, when she was stuck inside a succession of cramped, humid apartments readingLittle Women. A thought crossed her mind—I would be happy if I lived here—before she quickly rejected it. A house couldn’t make someone happy. Although, she thought, as she stared up at this gorgeous behemoth and imagined fireplaces and bookshelves, it couldn’t hurt.
She had felt something similar the first time she’d visited her father’s penthouse apartment in the Seacrest Building. He had moved there after his wife died, because the family home contained too many memories, and Ruth had been amazed at the expansive views across the ocean and Richard’s book collections and photos from his life.
The photos dotted around the place were primarily of his wife and daughter, but he had proudly pointed out to Ruth a new photo of the two of them on his desk—a selfie he’d had framed. It had made her smile at the time, had made her feel part of the family, until later, at his birthday party, when Ruth had noticed how everyone had avoided looking at the picture just as much as they had avoided having to make awkward small talk with her.
But that was seven years ago. A different lifetime.
And Ruth had left all of that back in Florida, if only briefly. It was like the credit card she had used to pay for this trip. Today, she could spend freely, but she knew that at some point in the future, her bill would arrive.
The Leosville saga was what true crime fans loved: murderous housewives, picturesque settings, and the secret underbelly of small-town America. Ruth knew that she had to balance out Daphne’s interviews about David’s murder with local color about the town, her impressions and, most importantly, interviews with people who remembered David and Daphne. Give the listeners a bit of a palate cleanser.
She felt safe here, far from Officer Rankin, the Montgomerys, and Daphne’s stalkers. It was also a relief to take a break from Daphne herself, even though she was the focus of this entire trip. It was getting harder to be in the same room with Daphne, to set aside Ruth’s own personal grievances and act like an impartial journalist. Especially as Daphne seemed to have a sixth sense for the topics Ruth was trying to avoid, the painful details she didn’t want to reveal to a cold-blooded killer. And that was the problem. She had traveled almost fifteen hundred miles, the entire length of America’s east coast, but the one thing she couldn’t escape were the memories.
EPISODE SEVEN: 2022
RUTH (Voiceover):I walked up the steps, anxious to see if I could talk to the people who lived in this gorgeous house. I also got out my recording equipment because I knew that from a legal standpoint, it was better if they knew that I was a journalist and was recording them right from the start. I hoped they might show me around. I imagined how strange it must be for them to stand in the bedroom where David Priestly died, completely unaware that in sixty years someone would finally be telling his story, his real story. I rang the doorbell and a woman around my age answered. I noticed immediately that she was wearing heels. In the daytime. In her own home!
FEMALE HOMEOWNER (warily):Can I help you?
RUTH:Hello, my name is Ruth Robinson. I’m a journalist and I’m making a podcast calledThe Four Murders of Daphne St Clair. Maybe you’ve heard of it?
FEMALE HOMEOWNER:No, I haven’t heard of it.
RUTH:Well, uh, Daphne St Clair is a ninety-year-old woman who just confessed to killing a number of men throughout her life.
FEMALE HOMEOWNER (sounding distasteful):Oh, thatdoessound familiar. But why are you here at my house?
RUTH:Well, one of the husbands she killed lived. . . here.