March 31, 12:50 P.M.
When I’d finished perusing Thomas’s Wikipedia page, this prompted me to check out the unofficial AZT website, which was run by fans. Though fans might have been a misnomer. On his message board, Thomas had dozens of haters who were convinced he was a monster. There was also an entire section devoted to theories speculating on whether or not Thomas was still alive and still writing.
I searched the site for “Luther Kite” and got more than a hundred hits on the message board. I spent an hour reading through them. The vast majority referenced Thomas’s Wikipedia page, the disappearance of Detective Violet King, and the murder of Luther Kite’s parents. There were theories that Andrew and Luther were partners, that Andrew killed Luther, that Luther killed Andrew, and that aliens had abducted Andrew and put an implant in his brain, turning him into Luther. None of them had even the barest shred of authenticity, until I came upon five entries by a poster named “ALONEAGAIN.”
Everyone here is off base. The Andy Thomas I knew is long gone. His killer, Luther Kite, is alive and well and continues to thrive.
and
Luther Kite took Andy. My lovely Andy. The poison he spreads lasts for generations. It consumed my baby.
and
Luther Kite is the devil, and the devil’s greatest trick is to convince us he doesn’t exist. The only thing worse than a devil is a devil in disguise.
I searched for info on ALONEAGAIN, but the bio page hadn’t been filled out. However, he/she did have two more entries on the message board. I clicked on the first.
Luther can do anything. He once swallowed a bus.
Whatever the hell that meant.
And:
He’s coming for you, Jack. There is no place you can run. He took my baby. He’ll take your baby, too.
I stared at the screen, feeling all the hairs on my arms stand erect. The message was dated five months ago, and it was obviously intended for me.
Was ALONEAGAIN a screen name for Luther?
It seemed that way. But talking about yourself in the third person, unless you were schizophrenic, was highly unusual. Nothing I’d learned about Luther led me to believe his particular brand of insanity was schizo-related.
So this might have been someone else discussing Luther. Someone who knew him? Someone who knew Thomas?
Maybe Thomas himself?
I let my mind grapple with it. What if Thomas hadn’t committed those murders? What if he’d been framed, by Kite, and had been in hiding ever since?
I went back to the Wikipedia page for Thomas and wrote down the name of his literary agent as I overheard Phin on the phone in the kitchen, making Geneva arrangements.
I Googled the Cynthia Mathis Literary Agency.
She had over a hundred thousand hits, most linking to her blog, The Agent Knows Better. I took a cursory look and found it was filled with posts where Cynthia belittled new writers, trashing their query letters and telling them they stunk. Authors were apparently a masochistic bunch, because they ate up her abuse like candy and asked for more.
The blog was part of her website, and I found the contact info and dialed her New York office. Got a phone tree and punched in the number for the head honcho.
A secretary picked up. “May I ask who’s calling?”
“My name is Lieutenant Jacqueline Daniels,” I said, hoping the name would be familiar. “I’d like to speak with Cynthia Mathis.”
“Hold please.”
I endured new-age Muzak.
In the meantime, on a whim, I booted up the voice stress analyzer program McGlade had installed on my computer, switched to speaker phone, and waited for the agent to pick up.
“Lieutenant Daniels? I’m delighted you called, darling. I’ve followed many of your cases. Are you thinking of writing true crime, or more of a memoir? If you’re worried about the writing part, I know several excellent ghostwriters.”
Her voice was low, her delivery fast, pure Manhattan.
“I’m not sure anyone would be interested in reading about my exploits, Ms. Mathis. I’m calling about a different matter. Your client, Andrew Z. Thomas. Have you been in touch with him?”
I moused over the BASELINE button and clicked.
“No one has heard from Andy since Kinnakeet back in 2003.” Her tone had become frosty, defensive. “And frankly, I’m tired of defending him from police officers who insist on his guilt.”
I waited, needing more in order to hammer out a baseline. Voice stress analysis was basically a lie detector, and in order to establish if a person was lying, it needed a sample of normal speech to compare it with.
“Are you there, Lieutenant? I said I no longer answer any questions about Andy. Everyone seems anxious to accuse him of murder, but no one has made any effort to find him or clear his name.”
The program flashed ACCEPT. I hit the pause button.
“I don’t think he’s guilty,” I said quickly. It wasn’t a complete lie, because I wasn’t sure. “I’m trying to find him, and I may have a lead on his whereabouts.” Now that was a complete lie, but so was introducing myself as Lieutenant.
“You know, I’ve insisted upon Andy’s innocence since—”
“I’m sort of pressed for time, Ms. Mathis. If you could just answer a few questions for me, I’d really appreciate it. And who knows, maybe there’s a book in this after all.”
“I understand. Go ahead.”
“Do you know anything about a man named Luther Kite?”
I clicked on ANALYZE.
“Never heard of him,” she said.
The machine blinked TRUTH.
“Do you know anything about Mr. Thomas’s brother, Orson?”
“No. Andy never spoke of him.”
TRUTH.
“How about Walter Lancing?”
“I never met him, darling, but I knew he was Andy’s friend. He was one of the victims. Andy would never have hurt Walter.”
TRUTH.
“Have you ever used the screen name ALONEAGAIN?”
A short pause. Then: “No, I haven’t. What would I use a screen name for?”
TRUTH.
“How about Karen Prescott?”
“Of course I knew Karen. I’d met with her dozens of times. She was Andy’s editor for a time. And he didn’t kill her, either.”
TRUTH.
I glanced at the Wiki page in another window. “Do you know the whereabouts of Violet King?”
“Violet King? I’m sorry, but I can’t place the name.”
LIE.
I sat up a little straighter. “She was a cop who disappeared when Andy did, right after the Kinnakeet Ferry Massacre. Are you saying you don’t know where Violet King is?”
“I have no idea where she is.”
LIE.
“Ms. Mathis, I think it’s imperative that you be honest with me here. Locating Andy isn’t going to be an easy task, and I think Violet may be essential to finding him.”
“I don’t know her.”
“Yes, you do, Cynthia. I’m a cop. I’m an expert at detecting lies.”
Especially with the right software.
Cynthia sighed. “I’ve never met Violet, and have only spoken with her once.”
TRUTH.
“What did you speak with her about?” I asked.
“After Andy’s disappearance, I got a letter. Written in his handwriting. It asked me to forward all of his future royalty payments to Ms. King. I called her to ask what their relationship was, but she’d been in some sort of accident. She was in a lot of pain, couldn’t answer my questions. I followed up with a letter, got a nice note back saying she didn’t know where Andy was, and didn’t want any of his money. But she cashes the checks I send her twice a year.”
TRUTH.
“Do you still have the letters? From Andy and from Violet?”
“Probably. I never throw anything away.”