Page 28 of The Six Murders of Daphne St Clair

James hesitated, scanning the playground as he dug his foot into the dirt.

My heart began to break at his little face, peeking out shyly from under his bangs.

But then he spotted another boy sitting by himself, constructing an elaborate mountain complete with twig trees and stick bridges.

Soon they were happily playing, their heads bent together as they earnestly discussed their project.

I felt a wave of relief. You can never explain to someone who isn’t a mother how your every mood depends on your child, how even everyday disappointments become tragedies when you see your child experience them.

“Welcome to town. I’m Belinda Vaughn. This is Patsy Beauteen and Carol Davidson,” the head witch said, gesturing to the rest of the coven.

I couldn’t help noticing how her hair never moved, not even a quiver, no matter how much the wind tried.

She must have put half a can of Aqua Net into that do. Bullets would have bounced off it.

“Pleasure,” Patsy said, laying her dainty hand in my palm like it was a gift.

I understood their roles instantly. Belinda was the leader, the boss who kept everyone in line.

She wasn’t pretty but she was thin and knew how to do her makeup and a lot of people mistake that for beauty.

Carol actually was good-looking, with thick golden hair and sky-blue eyes but when you met her gaze, you could tell she was a dim bulb.

She caught me looking and smiled dreamily, as if she’d had a lobotomy for lunch.

And Patsy was the horsey one, the less attractive friend that the other two kept around in the hope that her life would be crappier than theirs.

Bonus points if she had a drunk husband, a shrew of a mother-in-law, and some juvenile delinquents for children.

“Yes, hello. My name is Cecilia,” I said, squeezing Carol’s hand and making sure the ruby in my ring jabbed her.

“We hear David met you in New York? And that he proposed after a week?” Belinda said. She was smiling but her eyes were as beady as a city pigeon’s.

“It was a few weeks,” I said, turning to check on James, who was still happily playing with the other boy. I wondered which children belonged to these women. Knowing my luck, they would all become my children’s best friends.

“Why the hurry?” Patsy asked.

I smiled at her and popped a hand on my hip. “Well, I just couldn’t wait to get up here and meet you all,” I said, my voice dripping with sweetness. They frowned, unable to tell if I was joking or not.

“We’re glad he’s married though. We all thought David might end up a lifelong bachelor.

People were starting to worry about him .

. .” Patsy said. The implication was clear.

In 1968, ‘lifelong bachelor’ was the small-town euphemism for a man being light in his loafers.

In New York City, you just called them gay.

“And are those your children from a . . . previous marriage?” Belinda asked delicately. Her eyes were fixed on me like a boxer looking for an opening.

“I’m a widow,” I said flatly.

The women visibly relaxed. “Oh good. Well, not good . . .” Patsy fumbled. I stood there smoking, watching her sputter.

“This is a small town, we were just worried you’d be one of those big-city divorcees.

They’re a little . . . fast for Leosville,” Belinda explained, as if divorcees were an invasive species, blowing through town like tent caterpillars, seducing the locals and perverting the children.

It seemed like in Leosville, you could swear off someone for serving an unfashionable dessert whereas in New York a person would have to sacrifice a shoeshine boy to the Devil before anyone raised an eyebrow.

“Nope, when I get married, it’s ’til death do us part,” I said, smiling. The women smiled back uncertainly.

“We do hope you’ll get involved with the PTA, the Women’s League, and some of our other local groups.

It’s women like us who keep this town from becoming, oh, say .

. . New York City,” Belinda said smugly.

She was clearly the president of all of those groups.

You probably couldn’t run a lemonade stand in Leosville without Belinda taking over.

“I’ll pass,” I said, already bored with the conversation. “I think this town could do with a little New York.”

I used my first cigarette to light my second one before throwing it on the ground just a little too close to their feet.

They seemed shocked that I wasn’t willing to pay tribute to their dime-store queen.

But I don’t play nice with other women, especially not a bunch of housewives re-enacting Lord of the Flies .

And yes, James’s new best friend did turn out to be Belinda’s son.

ShockAndBlah:

She’s not really a girl’s girl is she?

BurntheBookBurnerz:

No, she lives for the male gaze. She thinks all women are competition. Although it is interesting she chose a female journalist for the podcast.

ShockAndBlah:

How do you know she chose her?

PreyAllDay:

She could have had anyone. Why choose some random writer no one’s ever heard of?

BurntheBookBurnerz:

Maybe she doesn’t really respect men, doesn’t trust them to tell her story. They’re either aggressors or playthings to her.

CapoteParty:

I don’t think she respects anyone, really.

DAPHNE: At first, it was kind of fun, like pretending to be a housewife on TV.

I’d wear heels to the grocery store. I bought a cookbook.

There’d been so much pain in my life, I believed that I could scrub it clean, fill my soul with gleaming surfaces and fresh-cut flowers.

I even tried to enjoy the fresh air between cigarettes.

RUTH: Okay, so you were in your tradwife era. What did your children think of Leosville?

DAPHNE: They loved it. They spent all their time playing outside in the orchard with their friends. I even bought them a dog named Ruffles. Seeing my son sitting on the back porch, whispering secrets with his arm around Ruffles almost made up for the occasional shoe full of piss. Almost.

RUTH: That’s cute. I would have liked to grow up somewhere like that. Big house in a small town. I would have liked to have a lot of friends living nearby too.

DAPHNE: Did you switch schools a lot?

RUTH: Yeah. I think I went to six or seven schools in twelve years. After a while, I just stopped trying to make friends. I just read a lot of books and kept my head down, waiting for college.

DAPHNE: You remind me of my granddaughter. Although I hope she does a bit better than you have! And just a tip, once you’re too old for Girl Scouts, you’re too old for a backpack!

RUTH: Wow, okay, rude. But I hope she does better too, even if now you’ve made her a little infamous.

DAPHNE: I think that could only help her, really. She can write a memoir about me someday, once I’m pushing daisies, a sensitive weepy one about our relationship.

RUTH: To be fair, I could do that too.

DAPHNE: Ah but you’d need a hook. You’d have to give them something the podcast doesn’t have.

RUTH: Well, maybe I’ll write something really explosive. I could dig up some more skeletons in your closet or prove you fed me a crock of lies.

[There is a pause where nobody speaks.]

DAPHNE: You’re not smart enough for that.

RUTH: I guess we’ll see. . . I’m sure people have underestimated you too, maybe even some of your victims. But enough distractions. The listeners will want to know about your life in Leosville. Did you make any friends in town?

DAPHNE: Not really. I tried to fit in. That’s all I ever seemed to do in Leosville.

Try. But I just couldn’t do it. Every day was just like the one before, and not because it was non-stop fun.

My errands were boring and the TV we watched was boring and the conversations I had with David were boring because really, what was there to talk about when I was wasting my best shoes on the fucking grocery store!

You’d find that hard too, Ruth, if you owned any nice shoes.

RUTH: I. . .

DAPHNE: Please don’t interrupt my flow. Anyways, in Leosville, time seemed to just drag on, doubling and folding in on itself.

I didn’t recognize myself anymore. In New York I had been a mom, sure, but that was only part of my fabulous life.

In Leosville I could only be a wife and mother.

And at night I’d lie in bed and try to convince myself that I was happy.

When I was poor, I would have killed for a life like this, to have a beautiful home and a kind husband with a fat wallet.

But this little voice inside of me was whispering, Don’t waste your life here.

If you had his money and your freedom, why you could do anything . . .

[EDIT: DO NOT INCLUDE IN PODCAST]

RUTH: In a strange way, I can relate. I’ve spent the last decade writing silly articles on the Internet, just so I could pay the rent. I would have killed to have enough money to really be able to pursue journalism.

DAPHNE: Killed ?

RUTH: Okay, well no. . . Bad choice of words. I would have loved to have—

DAPHNE: You seem a little flustered.

RUTH: No, I’m fine. Sorry, I just didn’t sleep well. . . I think as the podcast is becoming so high-profile, I’m a little worried about our safety. Yours and mine both. The last time I drove home from here, I could have sworn that a car was following me. But I couldn’t be sure. . .

DAPHNE: Well, I can’t imagine anyone would go after you . I’m the murderer. You’re just someone helping me.

RUTH: Well, I don’t know that I’m helping you. I’m a journalist trying to establish the truth. . .

DAPHNE: Okay, great, whatever you need to tell yourself when you start making cash off my story.

[END OF REMOVED SECTION]

RUTH: So you weren’t happy in Leosville?

DAPHNE: I really felt like I’d lost myself. I was just another faceless woman at the kitchen sink, wishing every girl would make the same choices as her because she couldn’t bear knowing other people still had freedom.