The Woman in the Library

Content Warning: This portion of the guide includes descriptions of stalking behavior, sexual assault, gender-based violence, and murder.

Freddie is late for an appointment with a Boston detective, so the detective shows up at her apartment. The detective is shocked when Cain comes downstairs on his way out. The detective warns Freddie that Cain is very dangerous and asks if Freddie has read his novel. Cain’s first novel is the story of how a convicted man systematically kills everyone he holds responsible for his imprisonment. Caroline Palfrey was the granddaughter of the judge who sentenced Cain, so Caroline’s death is fact that reads like Cain’s fiction.

Evidence in Cain’s case shows Cain locked his mother in her room before his stepfather came home on the night of the murder, and Cain had a knife ready under his pillow before the murder. Freddie is shaken, but she reminds the detective that at least three other people were in the Reading Room when the murderer killed Caroline Palfrey (presumably at the time of the scream). The detective suggests that Cain was providing himself an alibi while an accomplice did the killing. Leo B shows up. Freddie forgot that she agreed to go to a dinner in Rockport, Massachusetts, with other fellows of the Sinclair Foundation.