Page 52

“In the meantime, I’ll be listening,” Jenn said, giving Ruth a wave goodbye. Ruth waved back, promptly knocking her matcha over. By the time she finished mopping up the spill, Jenn was gone.
A few blocks from Ruth’s apartment was a cemetery, with a mosaic memorial wall and a small garden of remembrance. There was a park bench in the garden where Ruth liked to sit at twilight and smell the fragrant musk of the night-blooming jasmine. When she came here, she often thought about him. She didn’t know where he was really buried, or even if he was buried at all, so this was her substitute memorial.
She walked over one evening after spending the afternoon with Daphne. Ruth still had a lot of editing to do but she needed a break, an outlet for all the churned-up emotions rolling through her. It was getting harder to be with Daphne, harder to keep a straight face as Daphne joked about murdering people. When she did, Ruth always imagined Daphne looming over him with an insulin needle, a cruel smile playing over her face.
When Ruth was in college, she had once attended a murder trial of a fellow student who had gotten into a drunken brawl at a party and pushed a nineteen-year-old guy off a six-story balcony. Ruth had been covering the case for her college paper. The judge had looked at him there, surrounded by weeping relatives (both his own and his victim’s) and told him: “It is a monstrous thing to deprive a person of the natural course of their days.” It was a strangely poetic way to describe murder, especially in a criminal trial, but it had stuck with Ruth. This was what Daphne had done to so many people. She had robbed them of the most precious thing: time. That was what she took from Ruth as well: a future with him in it, a million conversations and questions answered, of sunlit brunches and evening strolls, a life that wasn’t riven with tragedy and generational trauma.
Ruth took a deep breath, feeling the metal bench slats, still warm from the day’s heat, melting her coiled muscles. She was surprised to find that tears were running down her face, flowing as quickly and as easily as a tap. The tears continued down her chin, dripping into her lap and Ruth didn’t bother to wipe them away; she just let them come.
She had been running in place for so long, trying to get past something that had never been fully resolved. And now, finally, she had her answer. She just needed Daphne to say it out loud. Say it out loud and free Ruth from years of regret, confusion, and mistrust. Daphne had put her in this hell and now Daphne had the power to free her, if only she wouldtell the truth.
She stayed in the garden until the final traces of sunset had been wiped from the sky and the groundskeeper had gently ushered her out, closing the gates behind her.
Ruth was standing in front of the cemetery gates when she saw the flash of a camera phone pointed in her direction. The light momentarily startled her, and she crouched down, as if she was in danger. By the time she’d regained her senses, the photographer was gone.
Why had they taken her picture? She wondered if they recognized her, or if they just liked the image of a woman leaving a cemetery at dusk. She hoped they wouldn’t post it online, even as some sort of aesthetic Instagram post. Because even if they didn’t recognize her, someone online might.
And she didn’t want anyone to put the pieces together before she did.
There was a police car parked in the Coconut Grove parking lot when Ruth arrived the next day. She could hear her sneakers crunch against the gravel as she walked, and she tried to step lighter, to not draw any more attention than she had to. She found herself holding her breath as she drew level with the car, praying that she wouldn’t recognize the police officers inside and that they would ignore her. Ruth would happily go the rest of her life without ever talking to a police officer again, ever seeing a fluorescent bulb and a two-way mirror.
And then Officer Rankin’s blond head popped out of the driver’s side window. Ruth was so close to him that she could see the reddish skin on his scalp from a recent sunburn. Her heart began to pound and she felt her legs wobble. But she resisted the urge to stop. He gave her a little smirk and slapped his hand against the car door, the whack resounding through the empty parking lot.
“You look tired, Ruth! I know you like to work at night, but come on, one a.m.? That’s too late,” he said casually. His partner, a redheaded man she didn’t recognize, laughed.
Ruth nodded curtly and kept walking, her back and neck feeling vulnerable and unprotected. She didn’t look back to see if they were watching her. She knew they were. She hated these little power plays, the many ways that the police could hassle you without fully crossing the line, not that it had ever stopped them before.
It was only when she went inside that the full meaning of Officer Rankin’s words sunk in. Ruth crashed down onto a chair in the lobby, clutching her backpack to her chest. Shehadstayed up late working last night, sitting at her desk in the living room. And shehadturned the living room lights off and went to bed around 1 a.m. Which meant that the entire time she had been sitting at her desk, combing through audio, stitching an episode together, Officer Rankin had been outside, in a dark corner of the parking lot, watching her every move. Was he also the one who had taken her picture at the cemetery? There was no way to know for sure. Tears rose in her eyes but she blinked them away furiously, scared that someone, anyone might see her crying and post about it online.
After all, people were watching her now. And there was nothing she could do about it.
Ruth found Daphne asleep in her armchair. The chair dwarfed her fragile body and made her look as small as a child. Ruth sat down in the armchair across from her and watched her sleep. Daphne’s brow was smooth and untroubled, the wrinkles around her eyes lying slack as her thin lips vibrated with silent murmurs. She slept like an innocent person, when all over the country good people, people who’d lost family members to Daphne, were tossing and turning, anguished and unsettled by her revelations.
Ruth ambled around the apartment thinking of all the ways she could kill Daphne. In her state, it would be easy. A pillow to the face now when she was sleeping would finish her off. Or maybe a hard shove in the bathroom. No one would really care if Daphne died, the authorities would probably be relieved that they wouldn’t have to spend any more time and money on their investigation of her. And Ruth too would be free. No more investigations, no more maddening conversations with an elderly sociopath, no more sleepless nights wondering what it all meant.
Daphne St Clair seemed to think it took a certain kind of courage to murder another person. Ruth clutched a tasseled throw pillow and then slowly lifted it up, extending her arm forwards. It would be an unforgettable ending to the podcast. How long would Daphne struggle for? Would she understand why Ruth was doing it?
The pillow brushed against Daphne’s cheek, and she jerked her head, muttering something in her sleep. Ruth sighed and dropped the pillow, the cushion landing on the carpet with a soft whump. Ruth wasn’t a killer. She knew it, and soon, everyone else would know it too. All she could do was get the story down, to unpack Daphne’s life: the good, the bad, and the ugly, to bring it all out into the light.
Ruth slid out of her chair and gently shook Daphne’s arm to wake her. It was time to start recording.
[EDIT: DO NOT INCLUDE IN PODCAST]
[Ruth adjusts her microphone and types something into her laptop.]
RUTH:I’ve been meaning to ask, what exactly happened between you and your son? How did you become estranged?
DAPHNE:I don’t want to discuss that. I haven’t seen him since he was in his early twenties.
RUTH:That must be hard.
DAPHNE:It’s the hardest thing in my life.
RUTH:But you know where he is, right? Or do the twins keep in touch with him?
DAPHNE (angrily):Jesus you’re like a dog with a bone. I don’t want to talk about this! And you better not put this in the podcast or I’ll stop this whole damn thing!
[A knock on the door.]