Page 42 of The Six Murders of Daphne St Clair

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Lucan. Ruth always knew that she would have to come here. This was where it all began, the bitter soil where Daphne had been planted, then cultivated by other people’s cruelty.

She had been planning this trip for ages but had to wait for her first passport to arrive in the mail.

It was a demanding itinerary; it had taken a number of flights and a long drive to reach Lucan.

And now she stood on the edge of town, surrounded by an unfamiliar landscape.

In Florida, the sky was a watery backdrop, pinned up and sagging.

Here it was like a bowl turned over on the land, a vast dome that seemed as deep as eternity.

The sunlight was uncompromising, flat and harsh, the horizon humming across the landscape, with only the odd tree or house to break up the noise.

It seemed like a strange time to leave Florida, to take a hiatus from her regularly scheduled life, but this trip was essential for the podcast. She just hoped she could keep it together on such a demanding journey.

Ruth’s insomnia was getting out of control.

She moved through her waking hours as if she were underwater, fuzzy-headed and irritated from all the coffee she drank to compensate.

But at night it was as if her body was seized with an incredible fear, her nerves so jangled that every time the wind blew or the pipes gurgled, she shot straight up in bed.

She had felt so scared recently: a nameless fear that she couldn’t quite put into words.

Death and fear were at the heart of it all and Ruth knew that she couldn’t keep doing this forever, that she needed to finish this story and move on.

Ruth hoped that by going back to where it all started, she might find a way for it to end.

EPISODE TEN: 2022

RUTH: Hello, and welcome to The Six Murders of Daphne St Clair .

I’m your host, Ruth Robinson. Today, I’m in Lucan, Saskatchewan, population nine hundred.

This town has almost no information online, with no famous events or notable people to distinguish it.

Or so they thought. Because as you know, this is the birthplace of Loretta Cowell, the girl who would become Daphne St Clair.

I’m hoping by coming here that we can find someone who might remember Daphne, even though it was a long time ago.

[Sounds of a diner. People chatting and laughing, cutlery clinking.]

WAITRESS: Do you want anything else to eat?

RUTH: Just the bill please. And I’m working on a research project about a woman named Loretta Cowell who grew up here in the Thirties and Forties. I don’t suppose you remember her?

WAITRESS: It was before my time but I remember hearing about the Cowell family. But it was a big family, so I don’t know if I’ve ever heard the name Loretta. People left in droves back then, looking for work.

RUTH: The other Cowell children, do you know what happened to them?

[The waitress laughs.]

WAITRESS: Why don’t you just ask Buzzy? He’s still here.

RUTH: Buzzy?

WAITRESS: Russell Cowell. One of the youngest Cowell children. Don’t know why everyone calls him Buzzy.

RUTH: Loretta’s brother?

WAITRESS: Yeah. I don’t know why you’re surprised. Some people leave here first chance they get; some people stay forever. But he’s the only Cowell in Lucan on this side of the ground so he’d be the one to talk to.

RUTH: Thanks.

There was only one old folks’ home in town, which consisted of a set of apartments and rooms attached to the local hospital, so it was easy to find Buzzy.

Ruth approached a woman in a wheelchair smoking in front of the center and she pointed to an old man sitting outside.

He had leathery skin, a plain cotton jacket, and a baseball hat planted firmly on his thinning hair.

He was sitting on a patio chair, hands lying flat on each thigh, staring at the horizon as if an important decision depended on the weather.

“Hi, Buzzy?” Ruth asked, approaching him. She fumbled in her backpack for her microphone.

“Yeah, that’s me,” Buzzy said, examining Ruth warily.

“My name is Ruth Robinson. I’m a journalist. The reason I’m here, Mr. Cowell, is to talk to you about your sister Loretta,” Ruth said.

His eyebrows shot up over his square, tinted glasses.

“Loretta? It’s been a long time since I heard that name!

I haven’t seen her in over seventy years!

Why the heck are you interested in Loretta?

” he asked, his whole demeanor changing.

He gestured at the other lawn chair and Ruth sat down, holding her microphone out in front of her.

“I’ll explain everything. But first, I just wanted to confirm that you remember her?”

“Of course! She was my older sister. She took care of us kids, always the first to pick us up when we were crying or distract us when Dad was mad. But she left when I was seven,” Buzzy said.

“Do you know why she left?” Ruth asked, wondering if her connection to the preacher, or the fact that she’d stolen from him, had ever become public knowledge.

“No,” he said bluntly. “But I never wondered. My dad was a son of a bitch. Especially to the girls,” he said ominously. Ruth knew she’d have to get him to spell it out. Implications didn’t make for good podcast interviews. But it wasn’t her happiest moment as a journalist.

“What did he do to the girls?” she asked.

He glared at her and for a moment she thought he was going to ask her to leave.

But he clearly wanted to know about his sister and maybe he was even just pleased to be talking to someone new.

If Ruth had learned anything in the last few months, it was that seniors’ centers tended to be the same, day in and day out, and most people struggled with a frustrated sense of boredom.

“He. . . abused them. But I don’t want to talk about that,” Buzzy said, swatting the air away. “There’s not a lot of secrets in a one-room cabin but that don’t mean I need to go dredging it all up.”

“What was it like after she left?” Ruth asked.

Buzzy frowned. “Well, us young kids cried a lot. And my mom got quieter and quieter, almost as if she was invisible. But my dad acted like nothing happened. One time he backhanded my brother Ray for talking about her. After that, we didn’t speak about Loretta anymore.”

He sighed and went quiet, as if saying all those words had tired him out. Ruth and Buzzy sat, squinting at the dry horizon for a few minutes, baking in the heat.

“That house could make you mean. It taught you not to care about anyone but yourself,” he said finally, breaking the silence. “So, you going to tell me why you’re asking about Loretta?”

“Loretta. . . changed her name. She goes by Daphne St Clair now,” Ruth began.

She wondered if she would see a flicker of recognition but there was nothing.

Maybe American news wasn’t shown much up here, or maybe Buzzy just stuck to the sports channel.

“Daphne lives in Florida, and recently she confessed to multiple murders. She would marry men for their money and then poison them.” It was an oversimplification of Daphne’s life, but it was a lot of life to cover in one explanation.

Silence. Buzzy’s face remained frozen for a long time, until finally he raised his gnarled hands to his face and emitted a wet cough.

“That’s a shock,” he said. “You’d never expect it to be someone you know, even if you haven’t seen them for a long time.”

Ruth recognized that he was speaking in generalities as a kind of mental protection.

They were discussing what it was like to have a murderer for a sister in the abstract, nothing to do with him.

Ruth could understand, sometimes she used the same technique when she was talking to Daphne, so she could momentarily forget that Daphne was the reason her life was ruined, so that she could stand to be in the same room with her.

Buzzy whistled, his dry lips contorting into a pucker.

“I feel like I’m about to fall off my chair,” he said. “Well at least she didn’t keep her name.”

Ruth stayed silent, waiting for him to react further.

But he just kept shaking his head, looking shell-shocked.

“And the police caught her?” Buzzy asked finally.

“No, she just confessed out of the blue after they treated her most recent murder as a natural death.”

“Why would she do that?” he asked. “Out of guilt?”

Ruth remembered Daphne’s smug smile as she recounted Warren’s death.

“Definitely not guilt. It’s a mystery, really,” Ruth said with a shrug.

“Have you told people in town about her?” Buzzy asked slowly.

“No,” Ruth said. “I only just got here. And the waitress didn’t ask why.”

“Good, keep it to yourself. When my dad died, and my older brother, who was a bit wild and moved out west, people stopped talking about those no-good Cowells. I built a nice life here, raised a good family. I don’t want the town talking about us again.”

“But. . . people will find out,” Ruth said. “It’s a huge news story, and this podcast is getting bigger by the day.”

Buzzy smiled and said confidently, “You’d be surprised how much gets overlooked here. Unless it’s baseball or hockey, people don’t care.”

“Okay,” Ruth said, knowing that Buzzy was stuck in the past.

“She was so kind,” Buzzy said, almost to himself. Ruth felt a wave of surprise. She had interviewed a lot of people who had known Daphne and Buzzy was the only one who had called her kind. “Why would she do those things?”

“I don’t know,” Ruth said. “Daphne usually says she had a hard life, that she did what she had to do. But that’s clearly not the full story.”

They sat and talked for a long time. Ruth told Buzzy about Daphne, her life story, and what she was like now. He kept nodding impassively but always asking more questions. When there was a lull in the conversation, Ruth decided to get a couple of her own questions in.

“What happened to the rest of your siblings?” Ruth asked.

“Well, most of the girls married men as shitty as my father, probably because it was what they knew. They were good mothers, but I don’t know how much use that is when you’re saddled with a bad husband.

And some of the boys struggled; one went to jail for burglary.

Others had broken marriages and problems with drinking and gambling.

But a couple of the kids did okay, me included. ”

Buzzy picked up the cup of coffee on the table and drank deeply, even though it must be cold and stale. Then he resumed talking.

“You know, Loretta was pretty close to my next oldest sister, Irene.”

“Is she still. . . with us?” Ruth asked, trying to find a polite way to ask if Irene was six doors down or six feet under.

“No, she died in ’86,” Buzzy said. “Car crash. Hard to say what happened but I think she did herself in. Or at least drank so much that she didn’t care either way.”

“She was troubled?”

“Oh yeah. She was married three times, each man drunker and meaner than the last. She drank too, but she was depressed. Honestly, it’s a relief when I lose touch with one of my siblings.

I don’t like to hear their stories,” Buzzy said quietly.

He suddenly looked even frailer, almost like a child again.

Ruth nodded. Irene’s story was an object lesson in what would have happened if Daphne had stayed.

She’d hoped Lucan would give her clarity but she only felt more confused.

Here was a family of neglected, abused children who had all grown into wildly different people.

Some had made happy, healthy lives for themselves while others had fallen into bad marriages, addiction, and crime.

And one had become a monster. Why had they all taken different paths?

And how much control did Daphne really have over her journey into darkness?

For the last six years, Ruth had watched her life spiral downwards, a tailspin into failed relationships, a stalled career, and an obsession with the mystery at the heart of it.

She had become a different person, and none of it had felt like a choice.

She and Daphne were both stuck on dark paths, both unable to break free of their own natures, even when it would be better for everyone if they did.

Buzzy waited until she shut down her recording equipment, his red-rimmed eyes watching her zip up her bag.

“Will you let her know I said hey?” he asked, his voice round and vulnerable.

“Sure, but I can also give you her phone number. You could give her a call,” Ruth suggested, slinging the bag across her shoulder blades. Buzzy shook his head, letting the brim of his Saskatchewan Roughriders cap cover his face.

“No, it’d be like talking to a stranger. Just tell her hello from me,” he muttered.

Ruth nodded. “I understand. Thank you for your time. I really appreciate it.”

She was already walking away when she heard him croak: “Okay! Give me the number, just in case.”

HauteHistoire: “Okay well, not a lot to work with this episode for a fashion TikTok. I’ve gone for kind of a farmer look. . . Levi’s jeans. . . and a Carhartt jacket with a baseball hat. Honestly. . . this isn’t my best work.”

PreyAllDay:

Hey, guys, just wanted to share something creepy.

My cousin, who used to work at Coconut Grove, is friends with someone who still works there.

Anyways, she said the staff have seen someone lurking around the center.

A man with a backpack and a baseball hat who disappears in the woods whenever he’s spotted.

The staff are really freaked out and walking to their cars in groups.

ShockAndBlah:

Okay, I know this is left field but what if it’s a GHOST? Daphne killed so many men, surely one of their spirits is restless!?!

StopDropAndTroll:

Were you dropped on the head? Best-case scenario for Daphne it’s a reporter; worst-case scenario it’s one of her victim’s family members, out for a revenge. Or a deranged fan who wants to wear her skin like a coat.

PreyAllDay:

Lololol. . . It’s gonna take A LOT of lotion to get those wrinkles out!

BTW, CapoteParty, did you get to Florida yet?