Page 46 of The Six Murders of Daphne St Clair

Chapter Thirty-Two

DAPHNE: When the school year ended, we packed up and moved to Abrams, a wealthy commuter town in the middle of nowhere.

It was just close enough to the city that it was possible to commute but far enough away that only men going in for work ever bothered.

On weekdays, the town was eerily empty of men, the streets filled only with mothers and children.

RUTH: You seem to dislike everywhere that isn’t New York City.

DAPHNE: Well, only because people keep dragging me to the back-ass of nowhere. I would have been open to Los Angeles, London or Paris. But Abrams? I’d spent my childhood busting my ass on a farm, what did I care about nature? And don’t even get me started on small-town values!

RUTH: Were the kids happy?

DAPHNE: The twins were happy because we lived near a famous stable.

They’d been riding for years but only once a week; now they could go all the time.

It was a bit tedious, listening to them yammer away about dressage and quarter horses all day, but I liked seeing them compete in their fancy velvet coats and tall boots.

Geoffrey had loved reminding me that I was trash, but no one would ever do that to my girls.

RUTH: And James?

DAPHNE: He was a city boy like me. We’d put them all in the local private school, Abrams Country Day, and it was full of jocks.

It was hard for him to make friends there because my son didn’t want to play lacrosse; he wanted to be at a museum or taking pictures.

I was worried about James and I was worried about my marriage with Robert.

I was starting to hear that little voice again, that little whisper that reminded me how much easier it was to keep the money but not the man. But I was trying to ignore it.

RUTH: You haven’t mentioned Gabrielle yet.

DAPHNE: Well, it turns out fresh air isn’t a cure for being an asshole.

She was rude, and she’d steal stuff that belonged to the twins and me.

In Abrams, she made friends with kids who were older than her and would be out at parties, smoking and drinking.

She was so defiant of me. And the worst part was that Robert never noticed.

One night, when we were in the bedroom, I tried to talk to Robert again.

“Robert, Gabrielle has been so rude lately. And she’s always out. During the week when you’re not around, she never makes her curfew,” I said, curling up against him in bed.

“You keep telling me this but I see a sweet little girl,” he replied, shifting as if he was trying to get out from under my body.

“She’s manipulating you. Trust me, she’s not that sweet. I know she smokes and drinks, and those sleepovers are just house parties,” I snapped.

“Maybe you can’t stand the fact that I have a daughter. Maybe you’re just jealous. She’s a little girl who lost her mother and all you do is antagonize her,” Robert said coldly, turning over in bed so he was facing away from me.

“She antagonizes me! And she’s making the twins’ lives hell,” I protested. Slowly, stiffly, he climbed out of bed, clutching his pillow.

“I don’t believe a word you’re saying. And I think it’s disgusting that you’re trying to poison me against my own child.” Robert stomped to the doorway in his pajamas, still clutching his pillow. “I’m going to move to the guest bedroom. I’ll come back when your attitude improves.”

“Fine,” I hissed. “Then just leave!”

He shut the door but not before glancing back at me one last time in bewilderment. I balled up my hands and punched a pillow, my ring cutting into my finger with every hit.

That night I didn’t sleep, too consumed by all the old feelings.

DAPHNE: Almost a year passed. It was October 1974 and I was still living in Abrams. I had no friends, no hobbies, and so much hired help that I couldn’t even distract myself with housework, not that I was ever that tempted.

Robert would get up early and leave for work in the city and I would drive the kids to school.

And then I would just. . . sit around until it was time to pick them up.

RUTH: That’s it? You’d just sit around?

DAPHNE: Pretty much. I watched a lot of TV. I made cocktails. Sometimes I took a Valium, just to forget about it all. But that’s it, really.

RUTH: This seems out of character for you. Did you think about the past?

DAPHNE: All the time. Sometimes it would just hit me.

I’d be driving back from the grocery store or watching the twins compete in dressage and I’d think: I killed four men.

And when I was poisoning David and Geoffrey, I’d felt like I had so much power over my own life.

Remembering that impressed me but it also made me sad.

I used to make things happen. Now life was just happening to me.

RUTH: How was your marriage to Robert?

DAPHNE: Terrible. After he moved into the other bedroom, he never moved back. He claimed it was insomnia, but I knew he couldn’t forgive me for not loving his daughter. And I couldn’t forgive him for ruining our happy life.

RUTH: This might sound callous to ask, but why hadn’t you already killed him?

DAPHNE: Now, I’ve always been a big believer in murder as a way to fix my problems, but killing Robert wouldn’t solve anything as there was still the problem of Gabrielle.

RUTH: Then what about divorce?

DAPHNE: Well that’s expensive, and if I planned on going back to the city, I wanted to afford a good life for my kids. Robert was also very clever with money and he had a lot of lawyer friends. I didn’t want to leave him and end up penniless.

RUTH: What did you fight about?

DAPHNE: Gabrielle mostly, and the way we argued. It infuriated me; I couldn’t control anything in my life, not even a kid. Robert blamed me for it, saying that I was cold to her and treated her worse than my own children. Everything was my fault.

RUTH: Seems like you were definitely out of the honeymoon phase.

DAPHNE: Yes, the margaritas had melted and we were all sunburnt. Honestly by that point it was pretty obvious that Robert didn’t even like me anymore, much less love me. And that feeling was sure as shit mutual.

My kids were still struggling with Gabrielle as well.

James, reacting to all the conflict in the house, seemed to retreat further into himself, spending more and more time at the library.

He was at the top of his class and never caused me any trouble, but I missed my best friend and hated that he didn’t feel comfortable at home anymore.

The twins had it worst though. They seemed particularly vulnerable to her torture because they were only two years younger than Gabrielle.

One night, I found Rose sobbing in her bathroom, long after everyone else had gone to sleep.

She was huddled up by the toilet, crushing a towel into her face to muffle the noise.

“Please don’t make me go to school tomorrow,” Rose begged plaintively.

“Why? Are you sick?” I asked, sitting on the toilet and rubbing her hard little back.

“No . . . Gabrielle . . . she told everyone lies about us!” Rose squeaked out, tears streaming down her face.

“What did she say?” I asked, feeling a strange predatory cold come over me.

“She-she-she told people that Diane and I are freaks! That we take b-b-baths together and kiss each other!” Rose whispered through her tears, looking ashamed. “And now no one wants to be friends with us.”

“Oh, Rose,” I sighed, shaking my head and pulling her into me. “You two can stay home tomorrow. And don’t worry, we can figure something out,” I murmured into her hair.

I could feel Rose trembling against me. “Please don’t tell Robert,” she whispered. “He’ll just get mad and take her side.”

“I won’t.”

Two days later Rose and Diane were still staying home from school. I had ordered brochures for new private schools for the girls but I resented Gabrielle for running my girls out of their school, when they’d already had to start over so many times.

That night, a Thursday, Robert came home earlier than usual and noticed that Gabrielle hadn’t returned for her curfew, yet again.

“Did you call around to her friends?” Robert asked.

“The ones I know,” I replied. “She’s very secretive.”

“She could be lying in a ditch somewhere,” Robert retorted. I had been sitting in the living room with the twins watching TV when he confronted me, and they shuffled off to bed, casting worried looks back at me.

“She does this all the time!” I protested. “And if I tell her she’s grounded, she just ignores me! I’ve told you time and time again! What do you expect me to do?”

Robert stood there, cold and seething. He was unrecognizable from the man he’d been when we’d first married, back when his commute was a fifteen-minute cab ride and his biggest concern was where we could get dinner reservations.

Now he was permanently exhausted from the long days, brittle from our fights, and obsessed with his new daughter. He didn’t care about me anymore.

“I work hard all day and the only thing you’re expected to do is take care of the kids,” Robert said, throwing my purse at me. “Now, go out there and look for her. And don’t come back until you find her!”

RUTH: Did you find her?

DAPHNE: No. I did look but I figured she was probably at a party, smoking grass and drinking beer.

Robert was furious when I got home, and he went out to look too but he was back within twenty minutes.

I knew he wasn’t really prepared to drive around all night; he just wanted to prove that he cared more than me.

A couple hours later, there was a cop on our front step.

He had tears in his eyes and his hat in his hands.

Gabrielle had been killed in a hit-and-run on a country road out the other side of town.

The driver hadn’t stopped, and it had taken over an hour for anyone to find her.

As soon as he heard, Robert fell to the floor and lay there, howling.

I hugged him for ages, tried to give what comfort I could.

RUTH: How did you feel about her dying?

DAPHNE: Obviously, a child dying is horrible but she made life so hard for me and the kids. And she was always flouting my rules. If she’d actually respected her curfew, she wouldn’t have been biking so late at night.

RUTH: But I’m sure Robert was devastated.

DAPHNE: Oh yes. He was a wreck, a bloodless, sleepless wreck.

He’d only been a father for eighteen months, but he was very upset about it ending.

You see, I didn’t kill Gabrielle but her death did make things awfully convenient.

Even more so when, a few weeks later, Robert killed himself out of grief.

And the thoughtful way he did it, jumping off his office building, left no question that it was suicide. He was my freebie.

ShockAndBlah:

Is anyone buying this?

BurntheBookBurnerz:

No. It just. . . sounds like a lie. Like a lie she didn’t have time to really practice.

ShockAndBlah:

Do you think that Gabrielle was as terrible as Daphne says?

PreyAllDay:

No.

BurntheBookBurnerz:

Maybe? But she was also just a kid who’d lost the only parent she’d ever known. So that probably wasn’t her being an asshole, that was grief.

StopDropAndTroll:

My mom died when I was a kid.

PreyAllDay:

That tracks.

ShockAndBlah:

I’m shocked no one’s tried to off Daphne yet, especially now that we know she kills children. I feel like enough people know where she lives. I’m surprised no one’s snuck in and finished her off.

PreyAllDay:

If they want to, they better hurry. She’ll be going to prison any day now.

CapoteParty:

How do you know?

PreyAllDay:

Friend of a friend. I can’t say more without implicating them. But it’ll be this week for sure.

ShockAndBlah:

Wait, CapoteParty?? You’re back!! We’ve been wondering about you!?!?

ShockAndBlah:

. . . CapoteParty?

ShockAndBlah:

Ah fuck. They’re gone again .