CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
“All the pieces are falling into place,” DeMarco said as she pulled back out into traffic. “I just got the call confirming that as of right now, all of the surviving book club members are currently under police watch.”
“Excellent,” Kate said.
DeMarco then pointed to her phone, attached to the dashboard. "Janet Klein's address is already pulled up. She's twenty-two minutes away… assuming traffic cooperates."
“I’ll call ahead and make sure she’s home. Did Records give you a phone number, too?”
“Yeah. Grab my phone. It’s in one of the most recent texts.”
Kate did as she was asked, and after sorting through all of DeMarco's multiple, active windows, she found Janet Klein's number. She then used her own phone to make the call as DeMarco navigated toward the highway.
“You think she’s our killer?” DeMarco asked.
"I don't know just yet. Her history with the club does seem a bit suspicious." Kate found the number Records had provided and dialed it. "If she's innocent, she'll be cooperative. If she's involved… well, I think that will be apparent, too."
She set the phone to speaker mode, and it rang three times before a woman's voice answered. "Hello?"
"Hi, is this Janet Klein?" Kate asked, as she held the phone out to make sure DeMarco could hear clearly.
"Yes, this is Janet. Who is this?"
"Ms. Klein, this is Special Agent Kate Wise with the FBI. I have my partner Agent DeMarco here with me. We'd like to speak with you about your time with the Willowbrook Book Club and your connection to some of the members."
There was a brief pause before Janet responded, her voice carrying a note of genuine puzzlement.
"The book club? I haven't thought about that group in years.
" She chuckled a bit, but then seemed to remember that there was an FBI agent on the other line.
“Why would the FBI be interested in a book club from… my God… twenty years ago?"
As far as Kate was concerned, Janet's confusion seemed authentic, not the kind of defensive response they might expect from someone who had been planning murders for twenty years.
"Ms. Klein, we're investigating some recent incidents involving former members of the group. We understand you were part of the original founding membership about twenty years ago."
"Well, yes, I was there at the beginning.
But I only stayed for a few months before I decided it wasn't the right fit for me.
" Janet's voice remained puzzled but cooperative.
"I've been completely disconnected from those ladies for decades. It’s actually rather sad.
As far as I know, no one ever held any ill will toward me for leaving, though. "
"Can you tell us why you decided to leave the group?" DeMarco asked.
"Oh, it was nothing dramatic. The group just wasn't what I was looking for. I thought it would be more focused on contemporary mystery fiction, but some of the members wanted to read classics and literary novels. We had different preferences, that's all."
Kate noted that Janet's explanation was much more mundane than Sandra's records had suggested. "Ms. Klein, when you left the group, do you remember making any comments about getting what you needed from the book club?"
Janet laughed softly. "I might have said something like that. I was probably trying to be polite about the fact that the group wasn't meeting my expectations. You know how it is when you're trying to exit gracefully from something that isn't working out."
"Have you maintained any contact with the members over the years? Eleanor Whitman, Margaret Carlisle, Jennifer Haynes?"
"No, not at all. Like I said, I've been completely disconnected from that group.
I moved on to other things, other interests.
" Janet paused. "Is everything alright? You're asking very specific questions about people I knew briefly twenty years ago. I hope you’ll forgive me if my memory is sort of hazy on it all. "
Kate decided to reveal the information that would test Janet's true involvement in the situation.
Even over the phone, shock was usually quite apparent.
Guilt, too. "Ms. Klein, three members of the book club have been murdered recently.
Margaret Carlisle, Jennifer Haynes, and Eleanor Whitman are all dead.
" She knew that if Janet had truly severed ties completely twenty years ago, then she wouldn't know Margaret.
Probably not Jennifer, either. But the impact of the news itself would probably still shake her.
The silence that followed was immediate and profound.
Kate could hear Janet's breathing change on the other end of the line, becoming faster and shallower.
When Janet spoke again, her voice had transformed completely.
Gone was the puzzled but cooperative tone.
Instead, her words carried a note of dawning horror and recognition that made Kate's pulse quicken.
"My God," Janet said, her voice barely above a whisper. "He knows."
And then the line went dead.
“Mrs. Klein?” Kate said, looking at the phone with a confused expression.
“What the hell?” DeMarco said.
Kate immediately hit redial. It rang five times and then went to voicemail. She tried again with the same result, as a growing sense of worry and dread started to build up within her.
"She's not answering," Kate said, looking at DeMarco with growing urgency.
"He knows," DeMarco repeated. “Not 'someone knows' or 'they know.' She said 'he knows."
“The killer, maybe?”
“I’m assuming so,” DeMarco said.
"And she hung up immediately after realizing the connection. Either she's terrified of this person, or she's… I don’t know… maybe warning them somehow."
DeMarco was already reaching for the car's siren controls. "Either way, we need to get to her house immediately."
The siren's wail filled the afternoon air as DeMarco pressed the accelerator to the floor. The sound seemed to thunder within the interior of the car. Kate gripped the dashboard as they wove through traffic, her mind processing the implications of Janet's reaction to the news about the murders.
"Janet Klein isn't our killer," Kate said over the roar of the siren. "Her surprise about the murders was genuine. But she knows who is responsible, and that person apparently knows about her connection to the book club."
"Which means Janet could be the next target," DeMarco replied, taking a sharp turn onto the main road leading toward Mechanicsville.
"If the killer is working through people connected to the original book club, and Janet was a founding member, she's definitely at risk.
Especially with that closing statement she made. "
He knows, Kate thought.
Kate tried calling Janet's number again, but there was still no answer. Not that she’d actually been expecting one. "Or she could be trying to warn the killer that we're getting close. We don't know whose side she's on."
Kate found herself thinking about Janet's specific words. "He knows." Not "someone knows I was in the book club" or "people are asking questions." She had said "he knows" as if there was a specific person she was afraid of, someone who might target her for her connection to the original group.
"DeMarco, what if we've been looking at this backwards? What if the killer isn't someone who was rejected by the book club, but someone who has a grudge against the founding members specifically?"
"Like what kind of grudge?"
"I don't know yet. But Janet's reaction suggests she knows exactly who we're dealing with and why he might be targeting people from the original group." Kate checked the GPS on DeMarco's dashboard. "How much farther?"
"About nine more minutes if traffic stays light." She steered ahead as traffic was slow to respond to their sirens.
Whether Janet Klein was the killer's next intended victim or a potential source of crucial information about his identity, they needed to reach her quickly.
The transformation in her voice when she realized the connection between the murders and the book club suggested she knew things that could break the case wide open.
DeMarco pressed harder on the accelerator, the siren continuing to clear their path through the afternoon traffic.