Page 26 of The Six Murders of Daphne St Clair

Chapter Eighteen

Ruth walked slowly along the beach, clutching a thermos of coffee and inhaling the heady ocean air. The sky was still tinged pink from the sunrise and the sand was bathed in a soft light.

She had woken up early, with a head full of to-do lists, and another missed call from her mother.

Ruth had hoped to sleep in because she had stayed up past one, trying to wade through all the emails she was receiving, from places like The New Yorker or NPR, asking for interviews or inviting her to write pieces.

She tried to defer as many as she could until after the podcast was finished, but it was all so tempting.

Ruth had also spent hours the night before editing the latest podcast episode, which was now called The Three Murders of Daphne St Clair .

The Geoffrey story had been fascinating and would be a real bombshell for his daughters, Rose and Diane, but Ruth was still waiting to hear about a different murder, and it was getting harder to stay patient.

Now it was morning, and she had woken up with a racing heart and a pounding headache and needing to do something other than stare at her laptop.

Even though it was still early, the beach was already full of people exercising and walking their dogs, and Ruth marveled at how anyone could be so vigorous so early in the morning.

Many of the people she saw were wearing headphones.

Were any of them listening to her podcast?

Ruth liked to think about her listeners.

She often pictured them, scattered around the country, even the world, walking their dogs on a cloudy day, stuck in traffic on a dreary commute, strolling aimlessly through their neighborhoods with screaming babies strapped to their fronts, listening to her voice. It was a comforting thought.

A cluster of luxury apartment buildings stood like blonde sentinels along the road, all built by Sunshine Development.

The Ashburton, the Blue Diamond, the Seacrest, some of the most expensive condos in the area.

Ruth’s eyes slowly traced a route up the curving lines and shimmering glass walls of the Seacrest Building until they landed on the penthouse.

It was magnificent, the prow of a grand ship turning out to sea.

Ruth knew the views from inside were even more spectacular. She missed seeing them.

This beach meant a lot to Ruth. The first time she ever met her father was in a café here.

She had just turned twenty-six and he was in his mid-seventies.

She hadn’t even known his name until he emailed her out of the blue and introduced himself.

They had met a few days later, and Richard had apologized for his absence, admitting that he’d kept his distance to stop his wife from finding out about the affair.

But after she died from cancer the year before, he was now trying to change his life.

He had retired from both his medical practice and his family business (Sunshine Development), sold his home in the suburbs, and started dating again.

But his biggest wish was the opportunity to get to know Ruth.

That was the year their relationship settled into a really good place; he had seemed so proud of her achievements and her ambitions, he’d believed that Ruth could do anything, and he wanted to help her.

Months later, he had made her a promise on this beach that would change her life forever.

He had been thinking about his legacy, a pressing issue for a man in his seventies with diabetes and a number of other health issues, a man who had watched his beloved wife wither away from cancer.

He told her that he hadn’t been there for her as a child but now he wanted to give her some real security as an adult.

Ruth thought about that moment often, when she had believed that she finally had a father who loved her and that everything was going to be okay.

It had been a happy memory for only a moment.

And then, for many years after, it was a source of pain.

Ruth took another sip of coffee and stared out at the rolling waves.

It felt good to take a break from her laptop, however brief.

But Ruth knew that she could only afford a moment’s respite.

Daphne could be carted off to prison any day now and, once that happened, Ruth would lose her chance at making a new future for herself, one that looked more like what her father had promised her, back when she still believed in happy endings.

Ruth was running out of time.

“Hey, Grandma, I’m still listening to the podcast.” Harper always seemed to call in a hushed voice, likely because she had squirreled herself away in a corner to hide from her mother.

“What do you think?”

“It’s interesting, but kinda weird for me. I mean, that guy you killed was technically my grandfather,” Harper said.

I nodded. “Well, you never would have met him; he was on his way out no matter what I did. Harper. . . I can’t stop you listening but try to remember that I’m more than those murders.”

“Are you sure you can trust Ruth?” Harper asked. “She doesn’t really seem like she’s on your side. The things she asks you. . . it’s almost like she’s working for the police.”

“I don’t think she’s a cop. She actually seems to hate the local police; I think she’s got history with them. But I understand what you’re saying. She is sneaky.”

“Have you ever googled her? I was looking at this Reddit thread about the podcast and it has all these links to true crime articles she wrote. I read one she did about the Miami New Year’s party. She’s really into investigating unsolved mysteries.”

“Oh. . . well that’s good to know,” I said, wishing I had asked Harper to google her for me before I hired her.

What did I really know about Ruth? You know, other than she had terrible taste in clothes and no money.

I didn’t want someone to investigate me, I just wanted someone to press record and share my story on the Internet.

Maybe I had been hasty, hiring her and trusting her with my secrets.

“Anyways, I saw some old photos of you on Sexy Devils,” Harper said.

“What in God’s name is that?” I asked. “If it’s some kind of skin flick then I don’t want to know, and neither should you.”

“It’s an Instagram page that shares pictures of hot criminals, mostly murderers. It’s really popular.”

“I’m honored,” I replied sarcastically. I’ve never even been on Instagram although I probably would have loved it when I was in my prime. I could have taken pictures of myself all day long when I was young and beautiful. “So, who else made the cut on this illustrious page?”

“Oh, you know, it’s mostly guys. Richard Ramirez and Ted Bundy, people like that.”

“I never saw the appeal of Ted Bundy,” I said. “People always say how handsome he was but one look at those bugged-out eyes and you can tell he was crazier than a shithouse rat.”

Harper laughed. I rolled my eyes.

“I think you should stay off those sites. It’ll rot your brain.”

“But what if one day I grow up and become a homicide detective and solve a bunch of crimes because of the stuff I’m learning now?” Harper asked. I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not. That kid loved to stir the pot.

“Oh, like all the clever detectives who caught me? Don’t waste your time. Get a job that makes you a lot of money but gives you weekends off. That’s the ticket,” I said.

“Like what?”

“Be a dentist. Or, if you really want to work in crime, start a crime-scene cleanup business. I saw a TV show about them once. They make a lot of money cleaning up murder scenes and meth labs.”

“Isn’t that kind of disgusting?” Harper asked.

“Sure, it is. And so is renting porta-potties to music festivals, but I bet those guys make a lot too. You can become rich and powerful if you’re willing to do something that most people won’t do. That’s the secret, Harper,” I said, tapping my forehead even though she couldn’t see the gesture.

“Like murder?” she asked slyly.

“Don’t be a smartass,” I said.

“So, what’s with the curtains?” Ruth asked Daphne. “It’s a beautiful day, why do you have them closed all the time?”

They usually had a few minutes of small talk before they launched into the interview, a chance to get used to each other before the recording started.

Daphne usually used this time to criticize her outfit.

Today she’d taken one look at Ruth’s T-shirt, which had been washed so many times it was almost transparent, and said that Ruth’s clothing reminded her of the drifters who rode the rails in the Depression.

“It’s always a sunny day in Florida,” Daphne scoffed. “But, well. . . the staff have asked me to keep my curtains shut because someone might be trying to find me.”

“Find you? What do you mean?” Ruth asked, feeling her stomach clench. She stared at the blocks of shadow that the curtains made, with the warm sun, as yellow as egg yolk, seeping around the sides.

Were there others like her? Others who wanted justice for their unsolved murders but who didn’t have the access she did?

Or were they after something far darker?

Ruth could understand the impulse. It was hard, sitting here day after day, watching Daphne crow about the men she’d killed, especially as the offenses that earned them a death sentence were getting increasingly hard to justify.

Ruth’s sleep was getting more fractured and her stomach seemed to be permanently roiling.

But she had to keep it together no matter the cost, had to hold on until they got to the right time, the right man, the right murder.

“Some kind of private investigator, or a man pretending to be a PI. I don’t know, they think he might be dangerous, so they’re keeping me under lock and key.”

“Strange how everyone’s trying to protect a serial killer from the public,” Ruth said wryly, trying to keep her face neutral.

“Yeah, life’s a hoot. So. . . do people ever ask you what it’s like interviewing a killer?” Daphne asked.

“All the time,” Ruth said, clenching her hands, feeling them ache from the stress of countless hours at the computer.

“And what do you tell them?” Daphne asked, her eyes pinning Ruth down like a butterfly on a specimen board. Ruth didn’t like the predatory gleam in Daphne’s eyes, as if Daphne had remembered that at ninety years old, she was still capable of being very dangerous.

“Well, I say that you’re interesting to talk to.

. . I mean interview ,” Ruth stuttered. “But that it’s strange to talk to someone who’s committed such terrible crimes.

That I’ll always wonder if you’re telling me the whole story, or whether you’re planning to keep some secrets tucked away,” she said, examining Daphne’s reaction.

Just tell me I’m right about him , Ruth thought.

“I am telling you everything,” Daphne snapped. “I’m the one who confessed, remember?”

“Of course, but it’s different sitting here now. Some part of you wonders: would she kill someone I care about? Would she kill me too?” Ruth murmured. These questions were at the core of this story, but Ruth tried to act casually, as if she were just a diligent journalist doing some fact-checking.

A silence fell over the room. An uneasy, stomach-squirming silence, as the two women stared at each other. Ruth knew that Daphne hated being put on the spot, hated ‘gotcha’ journalists. That maybe, in a strange way, she saw Ruth as just as much of a threat as Ruth considered her one.

It made her afraid, the way Daphne was staring at her, the barely contained rage beneath the surface.

But it also made her angry. How dare this woman decide who lived and who died?

Ever since Ruth had heard about Daphne, had realized that it was her, the killer she’d been waiting for, she’d felt this anger growing inside her, spooling in her intestines, wrapping itself around her heart, her lungs, her head, crowding out her empathy and her tolerance more and more.

“I wouldn’t worry,” Daphne finally said, her words careful, but with a hint of warning. “I only kill men.”

More silence. Ruth felt a strange impulse to grab Daphne’s bony shoulders and shake her, watch that dyed black perm and wrinkly face flop around on her brittle neck.

“Let’s keep going,” Ruth said finally, letting the moment pass, resuming their usual dance. “What happened after Geoffrey died?”

“My whole world opened up,” Daphne said. “I sold his place and bought a great place downtown. I got a live-in to help me with the kids and after they went to bed, I hit the town.”

“Were you looking for men?” Ruth asked.

Daphne shook her head. “No! At that time, I was batting men away. I was rich! I was free! Sure, I went on the occasional date, but that was it. At that point I believed this would be life forever.” Daphne sounded almost giddy.

Ruth noticed that this was one of the rare times she seemed happy talking about her past, this brief moment when she believed that she was finally satisfied.

Ruth sighed, feeling suddenly drained. If the story had ended there, if Daphne had gone straight and spent the rest of her life raising her three children, using Geoffrey’s money to give them the opportunities she’d never had, then maybe she could have been salvaged.

Yes, she had killed four men (and counting) but two were violent assholes and the other was a terminally ill fuckboy.

Okay, and there was Warren, but he was very old.

All human life was precious of course, but most people would concede that some of it was a teensy bit more precious than others.

If the story had ended there, some people would have still been able to forgive Daphne.

“So, what changed?” Ruth asked.

Daphne shrugged, a vacant, heavy-lidded stare settling on her face.

“I got bored.”