Though it was not direct proof, it was proof enough that Daphne was in part responsible for the death of Ruth Ann Messenger. Allie did not accompany me to the hospital, nor did I go with Virgil. I went alone. I wanted to go alone. When I entered her room she was sitting up in bed smiling, and sitting with her, with his back to the door, was Bill Black. He turned and smiled at me.
“Howdy,” Black said.
I nodded a bit.
“Everett,” she said, “I’m so happy to see you today. Happy Independence Day.”
Black’s big frame blocked Daphne’s view of the suitcase I held in my hand.
“Guess what?” she said.
“What?”
“Bill has asked me to marry him,” she said.
Black nodded and looked back to me and smiled.
“I was stupid enough to let her get away before,” he said. “Not this time, though.”
“And you have accepted?”
She smiled.
“I have,” she said.
I moved into the room, and when I did she saw the case in my hand. She stared at it as if I were holding something dead.
“No,” she said, and shook her head.
“No what?” I said.
She stared at the case for a moment longer, then looked to Black. Black looked to the case, then looked to me.
“What?” he said with a grin.
I set the suitcase on the foot of the bed and Daphne recoiled like the thing that was dead was now alive.
“Found this in your room,” I said. “In your closet.”
“No,” she said.
“Yes,” I said.
She started to shake her head back and forth like a child refusing to listen to her parents. Then tears started to fall from her eyes.
“What’s... what’s going on?” Black said.
“I won’t let you do this,” she said. “I won’t let you do this. I won’t let you do this.”
“I didn’t do anything, Daphne,” I said.
“What?” Black said. “What is it?”
“This is your doing, Daphne,” I said.
“What’s going on here?” he said, and reached for the suitcase.
“No!” Daphne screamed, and kicked the suitcase off the foot of the bed. It hit the wall next to the bed and opened, spilling the contents across the floor.
Black stood up and moved around the footboard to see the paints and brushes. He looked to me with a confused look on his face.
I walked to the case, bent down, and picked up the tintype photograph of Bloom’s Inn and handed it to Black.
“You might want to reconsider that proposal,” I said.
Black shook his head in disbelief and looked to Daphne.
“You?”
She smiled.
“It’s not what you think, sweetie,” she said.
Black looked to me.
“I just want to know if you did this alone,” I said.
“Why,” she said, “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“You did this?” Black said.
“No, sweetie,” she said.
“You did,” he said. “Didn’t you?”
She stared blankly at Black but said nothing. Then she backed up, curled into a ball at the headboard, and cowered like she was about to be beat.
Black looked to me slowly and said, “My God.”
I moved toward her, and her eyes were wide with fear. She turned her head to the side but remained looking at me out of the corner of her eye.
“Daphne,” I said.
She cocked her head a little.
“Yes, Daddy,” she said.
I moved closer and she smiled.
“Daphne?”
She looked away.
“Daphne?”
She did not respond. She stared off, looking at nothing. It was now very clear to both Black and me that she was not well.
Black stared at her, but she did not look at him. She kept looking away, staring at nothing. He shook his head and moved the chair back away from the bed and sat.
“Daphne?” he said.
She did not respond.
“Are you not listening?”
She did not respond.
Black shook his head.
“My God,” he said.
I moved around to the other side of the bed, in the direction she was staring. I moved close to her and it was clear she was in some kind of shock. I looked to Black and he shook his head.
“Before,” he said, “I met this beautiful woman, I never knew anyone brighter, smarter, or kinder... but then there was always... I don’t know, something unusual. There were glimpses of someone other than her, within her, someone other than the bright, smart, and kind woman I got to know and love. I never was certain why I moved away from her but I knew there was something...”
“You left her?” I said.
He nodded and leaned over with his elbows on his knees and stared at the floor.
“I’d seen this before. Not like this, not this bad, but some. I also sensed a grave jealousy within her, but she never really, truly acknowledged it or acted out about it...”
“Think she’s done that now,” I said.