The Woman in the Library

Freddie buys and reads Settling that night from start to finish. She is powerfully moved by the language in the novel; even though the central character is a violent person, Cain has done a good job of humanizing him. She finds the book dark and compelling. The doorman of her building reveals that Leo B is the person who has been sending cupcakes secretly to Freddie. Using her Japanese notebook, Freddie enters the new information she has learned but still concludes Cain is the only clear connection between them all. She also thinks Jean is lying about Cain being the attacker; perhaps she is doing so on behalf of her clients, Caroline Palfrey’s parents.

Leo B stops by later that night and warns Freddie that she really should stay away from Cain and that love is clouding her reason. A friend of Leo B is working on a story about the murder, and soon everyone will be aware of who Cain is. Later that night, Freddie talks with Cain on the burner phone to fill him in on her discoveries. She wants them to meet, but he tells her the police are watching her building and only leave briefly for breaks. She realizes he is watching her from nearby, and the thought makes her uncomfortable. She agrees to come to him during the next police break.

Leo A tells Hannah he is flattered that she has used his relationship with her as an inspiration for the relationship between Freddie and Leo B. He bemoans the pandemic for preventing her from traveling to the United States, where he believes he would’ve been able to be a guide for her and show her something “unimaginable” (224).

Freddie sneaks from her apartment when Cain tells her the police are on break. She heads to an alley where she expects to meet Cain, leaving behind her phone and bringing a bag with everything a fugitive might need. Someone grabs her from behind and covers her mouth; she is terrified at first, but then she realizes it is Cain. They head to an empty apartment across the street. Cain stays in the interior rooms to avoid notice. Freddie shares all the notes she has made in her Japanese notebook about what she has discovered so far, but they are unable to figure out who is behind the killings.

Leo A writes that he went to get one of the free COVID tests yesterday out of curiosity. He speculates about whether it would be possible to kill a person with a swab to the nose. He suggests that Cain could have punched Freddie for a nice touch of realism. He also reiterates that he thinks Cain is Black; if Hannah has Cain wear more hoodies, people will pick up on that as a racial cue. Leo calls Hannah “Hannie” (229).

Cain and Freddie go out to breakfast at an Australian-themed restaurant where the staff wear hoodies. Freddie wears a hoodie as well. Cain tells Freddie what he knows: Boo had an unusual amount of money in the days before his death, so perhaps that had something to do with his death. He sends Freddie to talk to Darryl Leonowski, the man running the soup kitchen where Boo frequently ate. Darryl wears a hoodie. Darryl confirms Boo did have money, and he told Darryl that a woman in the library (likely Caroline) fooled people by screaming in it. Boo told Darryl the woman was going to suffer punishment.

Darryl believes Boo was essentially harmless, so he doesn’t think Boo killed the woman. One other odd thing about Boo’s last days is that he came by with fancy doughnuts. Freddie assumes these doughnuts could only have come from Marigold, who bought the fancy doughnuts on the day Whit was stabbed. She shares these details with Cain, and he realizes that he now has no alibi for Caroline’s death since she didn’t necessarily die when he was in the Reading Room with the others on the day they heard the scream.

In his email to Hannah, Leo A is furious that Hannah is once again pointing at Marigold as a possible murderer. He writes, “Perhaps you have become jealous of my fondness for her. […] I cannot tolerate disloyalty” (237). He is also furious that Hannah has clothed so many characters in hoodies; he believes Hannah is mocking him and should have everyone wear masks instead. She ignored the re-write he did of her book to include the pandemic and more violence, so she must be fearful that he can tell her story better than she can.

A second email from the FBI Agent Michael Smith acknowledges the call Hannah made to them after the last frightening email from Leo A. The agent reveals that Leo A is actually Wil Saunders, also known as Leo Johnson, a Boston man who is wanted in connection with several murders. Unfortunately, Wil is in Sydney, Australia, having used his law enforcement credentials to break Australia’s strict quarantine.

Freddie calls Whit to warn him that Marigold is likely behind the murders, but Whit ignores the warning. Cain and Freddie go to the Metter house to save Whit and to give Marigold a chance to explain herself. Whit shoots Cain and confesses that he killed Caroline and Boo. Freddie is shocked and says, “My God, it was you. It was you from the beginning” (242). Whit explains that the other three “digging into things like some kind of idiotic Scooby Gang” (243) pushed him to kill Boo. The whole mess began when he and Caroline came up with an investigative story idea. They wanted to see if a murderer-turned-writer like Cain could truly be reformed. Their plan was to use the scream to draw the people in the Reading Room—including Whit or Caroline—together. Whit or Caroline, having gained the trust of Cain and the others, would then sow distrust among the new friends and manipulate events to put pressure on Cain until he lost control. Caroline tried to take the story from Whit by replacing him in the Reading Room, so Whit killed her in a fit of anger the night before the scream. Boo saw him do it and “went Batman. Decided he needed to get justice for Caroline” by extorting Whit (243), so Whit killed Boo. The police interrupt his monologue and cuff everyone.

Leo A writes to apologize for being out of touch for so long (likely by email given the plain text; hard-copy letters appear in italic text). He was held in Australian jails and is now in a penitentiary in the United States. It is hard to get emails out. He tells her he has not had the chance to read her latest book, but he hopes the four characters from her manuscript survived. He tells her that he hopes she got the special cupcakes he had delivered to her house, which should’ve been left on her kitchen counter. He regrets that they only got a glance of each other before his arrest. He is a loyal man, so he will wait as long as it takes for them to “encounter each other in the flesh eventually” and he promises to show up should she ever “need” him (245).

The detective interviews Freddie and fills her in on some of the missing details. Whit and Caroline knew about Cain’s story through their family connections. Whit stole Cain’s phone early on and sent the pictures of people’s doors to sow distrust between Cain and Freddie. The police release Marigold and Freddie after questioning the two women. They immediately go to the hospital to see if Cain is okay, but he is still in surgery. His uncle and mother are there, allowing Freddie to meet his family for the first time. Marigold blurts out that Cain and Freddie are in love. Cain survives his surgery, and Freddie visits him briefly. Freddie and Marigold are trying to slip past the reporters when Leo B shows up, shocking Freddie, who didn’t know or expect him to be there. He tells them he came because he thought they might “need” (249) him.