CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN
Jessie moved fast.
Three minutes later, she and Devery were back in the main lobby of the library. The officer confirmed with Mr. Peele, the head of security, that someone would go up to escort Sinclair to her car when she called to say that she was leaving for the day.
“I guess you don’t need me anymore, then?” Devery said as they headed for the exit. He sounded like a disappointed child.
“We always need you, Devery,” she assured him. “But I think we’re good here. Thanks for your help, greasing the wheels with security.”
He smiled at that, suddenly more like a happy child than a pouty one. Just then, her phone rang. It was Ryan.
“I’ve got to take this,” she said. “But I’ll see you back at the station.”
Devery nodded and headed out as Jessie answered.
“What’s up?”
“I’ve got Alexander Krantz in an interrogation room at the station,” he said. “The sedation has worn off, and I wanted to question him some more, but didn’t know when you’d be back.”
“I was just leaving, as I have a couple of questions myself,” Jessie told him. But as she said that, a sign in the lobby caught her eye. “Hold on a second.”
She hurried over to Mr. Poole. “Hey, I see that you have study rooms on the second floor. Are those soundproofed?”
“They are,” he said.
“Can I borrow one for a few minutes?”
“Sure,” he said. “Normally, you have to reserve one, but if anyone gives you trouble, tell them I okayed it.”
“Thanks,” she said, returning her attention to Ryan. “I had an idea. There’s one question I want to ask right now. It could help determine if Riley Sinclair really needs to take all these extra precautions. Can we do a quick video interview? Then I’ll head back.”
“Sure,” Ryan said. “Give me a minute to get the recording set up.”
“By the way, has Krantz asked for an attorney yet?” she asked.
“No. He’s under the impression that he can still convince us of his innocence. I think he’s worried that calling a lawyer will make him look even guiltier. I haven’t disabused him of that notion.”
Jessie ascended the stairs and found an unoccupied study room.
By the time she had locked the door, settled in, and propped up her phone in front of her, Ryan was ready.
His phone was resting on the metal table in the interrogation room.
Alexander Krantz, his hands manacled to a loop in the table, stared at the screen.
“Mr. Krantz,” Jessie began, “You’ve been insistent that you had nothing to do with any of these murders.”
“Because I didn’t!”
“But how can we trust that you’re being honest about that when you weren’t forthright about something so relevant to our investigation?”
“What are you talking about?” he demanded.
“You never told us about your involvement with Jennifer Nash.”
She squinted at her small screen, focused on how he’d react. Krantz’s jaw dropped open in surprise.
“My involvement?” he said unconvincingly.
“Did you have a one-night stand with her while in high school?”
His guilty expression provided the answer before his words did.
“We slept together one time.”
“Why didn’t you mention it when we asked you about your relationships with the victims?”
“I’d hardly call it a relationship,” he said weakly.
“That’s not a very convincing answer from a man under arrest for multiple murders,” she said acidly. “Care to try again?”
He was quiet for a moment. When he answered, his voice was thick with regret.
“Because Amanda didn’t know about it,” he said.
“Everyone joked about me dating Caroline and Diana. Amanda joined in the teasing. It was all good-natured—no jealousy. But I wasn’t sure if she’d be so sanguine about the Jennifer hookup.
And after so many years of keeping it a secret, it felt like admitting to it would be this big thing. So I never did.”
“How do you know Jennifer didn’t tell her?”
“Because she told me she didn’t want Amanda to know either,” he said.
“She felt the same way. We were both worried that it would cause awkwardness or worse. And since it was just one time years ago, we just decided to bury it. I had no idea that anyone else even knew about it. How did you find out?”
“I learned about it from Riley Sinclair. But it sounds like it was common knowledge.”
“Who?” he asked.
“Riley Sinclair,” Jessie repeated. “You don’t remember her? She was a junior when you were all seniors.”
“I think the name sounds vaguely familiar,” he said. “But I can’t really place her. I guess she was one of the friends who kind of fell away over the years. I only really kept track of the ones that Amanda still actively stayed in touch with.”
That jibed with what Sinclair had said, too—that over the years, she’d fallen out of communication with the others. If Krantz was the killer and he was being truthful, it seemed that Sinclair was safe from him, as he appeared to barely remember her, much less hold some kind of grudge.
On the other hand, if he was being honest about being unaware that anyone knew about him and Jennifer, that muddled his reason for killing her, if he did it at all.
Why kill her over a secret she was keeping?
The other question was: who else might have known about their involvement, and could they have some reason to kill all these women?
“How well did you know Alannah Murray, Kylie Stoner, and Tess Singleton?” she asked.
He shrugged. “I mean, I know their names, that they went to Thornfield and were generally part of the friend group. But I’m not sure I could pick any of them out of a lineup these days.”
That last comment made his whole face sag. Jessie suspected that he would be pictured in a lineup sometime soon. But she didn’t care about that at the moment.
“Look, Mr. Krantz, I’m going to be straight with you,” she said. “Right now, you’re on the hook for this. Some people will claim you did all this yourself. Others will suggest you were in cahoots with Amanda and then killed her to shut her up.”
“Who says that?” he bellowed, his face turning red.
She plowed ahead without answering. “I’m willing to entertain the idea that it was someone else who did all this.
But if that’s the case, we need your help to determine what might be motivating the killer.
There are still four women out there who are potentially at risk, if not from you, then from someone else.
I need you to help us find the connective tissue among them. ”
He shook his head violently. “Don’t you think that if I could, I would? The woman I love is dead. My whole life is in shambles. If I had some magical answer for you, I’d already have given it. I feel like I’m being set up to take the fall for this, and I don’t know why.”
Jessie froze at hearing that. It was an intriguing idea.
If one were to give Krantz the benefit of the doubt, then the theory that he was being made a patsy suddenly seemed credible.
Why would the killer leave the tie beside Amanda Krantz’s dead body when they didn’t do the same with the scarves that served as the other murder weapons?
If he was being set up, that meant the real killer was still out there and that all four remaining women from Thornfield were potentially in danger.
“I’m going to ask you this again to be clear,” she said. “Did you ever have any romantic or sexual involvement with any of the women I just mentioned: Riley Sinclair, Alannah Murray, Kylie Stoner, or Tess Singleton?”
“I swear I didn’t,” he implored. “Like I said, I barely know who they are.”
If that was true, then there was some other connection among all these women, something Jessie had missed, something that still put them all at risk.
“Detective Hernandez, can I speak to you privately for a minute?” she said.
Ryan grabbed the phone and stepped out of the interrogation room.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
“If he did this, then the other women are safe,” she explained. “But if he didn’t, and I’m open to that possibility, then I think we need to take it to the next level.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t think that the private security personnel at hotels, resorts, gated communities, or apartment buildings are sufficient. If this person got into people’s homes without leaving a trace of their identity, then they can probably get past rent-a-cops too.”
“So what do you want to do?” he asked.
“I want to send squad cars to every location and have the officers take each woman into the local police station. I know it’s a lot, and they’ll probably balk.
But we shouldn’t play games with their security.
Let’s bring them all in where we know they’ll be safe.
We can’t entrust this to security guards, no matter how professional they are. ”
Ryan sighed. “Okay.” He sounded reluctant, but knew better than to fight her on this.
“While you all coordinate for the other three women, I’ll see if Riley Sinclair is still here at the library,” she said. “If so, I’ll bring her in to Central Station myself.”
“No,” he objected. “I don’t want you getting in the crossfire if she’s the next target. You can let her know the plan, but I’ll have Devery come back and bring her in.”
“Fair enough,” she said. “I’ll wait with her until he arrives, and then I’ll come back.”
After she hung up, she started to call Sinclair, then thought better of it.
News like this was better delivered in person.
Based on Sinclair’s irritation with all the fuss so far, she was likely to object.
But once Jessie explained the gravity of the situation to her face-to-face, she’d come around.
She left the study room and headed for the Children’s Literature department. Despite the library’s security, she walked fast. Until the identity of the killer was certain, she wasn’t taking any chances.