Page 15 of The Six Murders of Daphne St Clair

Chapter Eleven

RUTH (Voiceover): Lisa Diaz runs an Etsy shop dedicated to female serial killer merchandise.

RUTH: So, Lisa, I see you’re wearing a Daphne T-shirt today. For the listeners, there’s a sketch of Daphne smiling with ‘Homewrecker’ written under it.

LISA: Yeah, you like it?

RUTH: It’s. . . interesting. Have you had a lot of sales in your Etsy shop?

LISA: Sure, Daphne merch is way outselling Aileen Wuornos products, my usual top earner. Gotta love those Florida gals!

RUTH: What’s been your biggest seller?

LISA: Probably the Daphne wine glasses. It’s a range of big wine glasses with slogans and pictures of her.

There seems to be a huge overlap between people who love true crime and people who love wine.

I’ve never quite figured out why. . . But we also have these great aprons that say: ‘Daphne’s Killer Cooking! ’

RUTH: How do you respond to critics who might say you’re glorifying these murderers?

LISA: Well, go home and look at the ‘serial killer merch’ section of Etsy. This is big business. People want to buy these things and who are we to tell them it’s wrong? It’s not illegal and it’s not hurting anybody.

RUTH: Why do you think the public is so fascinated with Daphne?

LISA: I think everyone’s wondering the same thing. Why would a woman who’d gotten away with murder for decades call up one day and confess? She could have taken it to her grave, which, let’s be honest, isn’t far away! Has she told you why yet?

RUTH: She says she wanted to make something happen, that she was bored. And that she wanted everyone to know that she’d got away with murder so many times.

LISA: That’s all she said? I don’t know, I bet there’s more to the story.

But whatever the reason, Daphne St Clair is good for business!

And to top it off, she was a hottie when she was younger, so the merch is a bit more photogenic.

Nobody really wants a T-shirt with Nannie Doss or Rose West on it.

I learned that the hard way after losing big on a line of Rose West crop tops.

RUTH: Is it mostly women buying your merch?

LISA: I think so. Maybe, in a funny way, they find it empowering.

We focus so much on female victims that it’s refreshing to hear a story of a female serial killer.

And maybe this is a way for women to say: don’t assume you can take advantage of me.

If you look at the Etsy shops that sell male-serial-killer-themed stuff, they’re far more popular.

I’m just saying, before you buy a Ted Bundy T-shirt or a John Wayne Gacy poster, think about a Myra Hindley sweatshirt or a Belle Gunness coaster.

I’ll send you a Daphne wine glass. You’ll love it.

RUTH: Might be an interesting choice for a party but I could pass it on to Daphne. She’d love a big wine glass with her face on it.

LISA: Bit of a narcissist?

RUTH: You said it, not me.

After quite a lot of badgering, Daphne’s daughter Diane finally set a date for Ruth to interview her. Ruth drove down the gleaming streets of Diane’s gated community, squinting at the massive McMansions, looking for the right address.

The houses were a confusing mix of styles.

She’d driven by a black and white Tudor home with ivy that sat next to a plantation-style home with great columns stretching up to the sky and then by a home that seemed to have no recognizable architectural style at all unless “Big” counted.

Being rich felt like another country to her.

Ruth slumped in her seat. She wondered if any of the Montgomerys lived in this gated community.

Not Lucy, of course—Ruth knew exactly which luxury building Lucy lived in.

Ruth was still reeling from the letter the Montgomerys had sent her, and she’d been up past midnight reading law blogs about journalistic rights.

Not that it would be much use if the Montgomerys decided to go after her.

She didn’t have the money to fight them in court and she suspected that real estate developers might have some shady people on speed dial, people who found extrajudicial ways to get their point across.

The threat of eviction also weighed heavily on her mind.

When Ruth was seven years old, they had been kicked out of a rental and ended up at a pay-by-the-week motel, where she could always hear the cars driving by and smell their exhaust fumes.

Ruth would walk to school, terrified that one of her classmates would find out where she was living.

Her situation had felt so alien and embarrassing even though every motel room housed a different family crammed in with their worldly possessions.

They’d been there for weeks, until finally her mom had broken down and called Ruth’s father for help, something she did only twice in Ruth’s childhood.

Louise never talked about her father, never even told her daughter his name.

Ruth had only found out who he was in her late twenties, when he’d reached out to her.

But she still remembered seeing him for the first time.

He pulled up in a Lexus and handed her mom an envelope of cash.

She remembered seeing the suntanned arm, the Sunshine Development parking tag, the shiny gold Rolex on his wrist. He had barely glanced at little Ruth, sitting on a curb nearby, alone and afraid, before driving away.

Ruth had learned from a very young age that she had very little control in life; the constant threat of eviction and poverty had taught her that.

Daphne had grown up in a similar way but seemed to have come to a very different conclusion. It was wrong, of course, but Ruth couldn’t help thinking that maybe anything was better than a perpetual sense of powerlessness.

“Hello,” Diane said stiffly, as she opened the door. “Please come inside.” She was wearing a fuchsia silk dress and was covered in gold jewelry. Ruth was surprised she could still stand upright with that much metal strapped to her.

Her heels echoed on the marble floor as Ruth shuffled behind her, her cheap loafers already beginning to chafe her heels as she moved through Diane’s palatial home.

She wondered what kind of person she would have been if she’d grown up in her father’s home and not her mother’s, if this was what normal looked like for her.

She felt disloyal just for thinking it, but maybe a tough childhood didn’t sting so much when you had your own horse.

It would have at least taken the edge off.

“If any of the neighbors see you and ask why you’re here, tell them you’re my dog’s masseuse. I’ve been meaning to hire one anyways, to help with her anxiety.”

“How do you know she’s anxious?” Ruth asked.

“She pees on our laptops,” Diane said, rolling her eyes as if Ruth should have known that a keyboard dripping in dog urine was the telltale sign of a canine mental health crisis.

Diane showed Ruth into a lounge whose décor could only be described as ‘expensive hideous.’ The couches were a mix of animal prints, and the walls were patterned in gold Versace wallpaper.

A housekeeper bustled into the room with a pitcher of cucumber water and Gucci branded glasses. Ruth took a deep sip before glancing in her glass.

“Are those—” she began.

“Yes, Gucci ice cubes,” Diane said, tapping the pitcher, which was full of floating G’s.

“Nice,” Ruth said. She thought it was fucking stupid, but she was also dying to know how much rich idiots would pay for a branded ice cube tray. She wondered if they sold Gucci water to match.

“So, I only have a limited amount of time,” Diane said frostily. “And I would like this done before my daughter comes home from school, to protect her from this.”

“Sure,” Ruth said, pulling out her recording equipment.

She had heard Daphne talking on the phone to Harper before and been surprised at their relaxed, friendly conversation.

Ruth had been close to her grandmother, but her grandmother watched game shows and complained about her care workers, all very harmless activities for an old woman.

Was it healthy for Harper to be so close to a woman who had confessed to murder?

Then again, everyone lost their grandmother eventually—for Ruth it was an aneurysm, for Harper it would be a jail cell.

“So, I’ll start recording now,” she began hesitantly, pressing the button. “Just as a preliminary, have you been listening to the podcast?”

“No,” Diane scoffed. “Why would I want to give my mother more attention? Especially now? But Harper is listening so I’m sure she’ll tell me if I miss anything important.”

“Oh okay,” Ruth said, momentarily taken aback. “So, how are you coping with your mother’s confession?” Ruth asked.

Diane exhaled a rush of air. “It’s been a nightmare.

I still don’t understand why she confessed, when she must have known how hard it would be for her children.

My social life has been decimated. Nobody wants me on their charity boards or at their fundraisers.

I’ve even been kicked off the Peony Foundation’s Board, and I was MC’ing the gala this year!

” Diane said, slapping a hand on the table.

“What’s the Peony Foundation?”

“It’s a charity that helps victims of crime move on with their lives. Apparently, they don’t like the optics,” Diane said bitterly, making air quotations. “They don’t understand that I am a victim of my mother’s crimes!”

“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Ruth said. She meant Diane calling herself a victim, but Diane assumed she was being sympathetic.

“Yes, I just want to help people, you know? And I already bought the most beautiful Dolce & Gabbana dress for the gala.”

“I’m sorry,” Ruth said insincerely.