Stirred (8 page)

1990s Work

Thomas’s second novel,
Sunset Is the Color of a Broken Heart (1990)
, was a critical and commercial flop. Straying from the page-turning horror and suspense of his debut,
Heart
was a tender, autobiographic coming-of-age story about a young boy growing up in the piedmont of North Carolina. Following the disappointing performance of his second novel, Thomas released a string of commercial successes that were seen as a return to the thrills of his debut, while also incorporating elements of true crime. These included
The Way the World Ends (1991), Blue Murder (1992), Plan of Attack (1993), Midnight: Collected Stories (1994),
and
The Passenger (1996)
.
Blue Murder, Plan of Attack,
and
The Way the World Ends
were all adapted for film, with
Blue Murder
becoming a box-office hit. By the time Thomas released
The Scorcher
in 1996, he had established himself as one of horror fiction’s rising stars and the heir apparent to Stephen King and Dean Koontz.

The Heart Surgeon Murders and the Unraveling of Thomas’s Career

On October 31, 1996, a box containing human hearts was left in Washington, DC, at the Ellipse, near the site of the national Christmas tree. Some of the bodies those hearts had been taken from would later be unearthed at Thomas’s wooded property on Lake Norman in North Carolina. It is widely believed that Thomas was responsible not only for planting the box of hearts at the Ellipse, but for the Heart Surgeon Murders as well.

Murder of Jeanette Thomas

Thomas’s mother was found strangled in the basement of her home, the same house where Thomas had lived as a child, on November 2, 1996. An arrest warrant was issued for Thomas, as he had been seen visiting her close to her estimated time of death, on the evening of October 30, 1996.

Disappearance and Presumed Murder of Walter Lancing

Walter Lancing, editor of the Charlotte-based nature magazine
Hiker
, had been a close friend of Thomas since Thomas’s relocation to Lake Norman following the success of his first novel. Lancing’s white Cadillac Deville was found one week later, parked beside a Dumpster behind the Champlain Diner in Woodside, Vermont. The interior of the Cadillac was covered in blood, which testing later proved to be Walter Lancing’s. His body has never been found.

Incident at Ricki’s Bar in Scottsbluff, Nebraska

On November 7, 1996, a shootout occurred at a rural bar on the outskirts of Scottsbluff called Ricki’s. Eyewitness accounts support the theory that the incident involved Andrew Z. Thomas and an unidentified man with long, black hair, both of whom fled the scene.

First Extended Disappearance of Thomas: 1996–2003

The shooting at Ricki’s Bar was the last public sighting of Thomas for almost seven years. In the wake of his disappearance, four bodies were exhumed from Thomas’s lakefront property in North Carolina, and warrants for his arrest were issued in connection with these killings. Thomas had been a successful writer leading up to 1996, but with newfound infamy, his books became massively popular, resulting in reissues of his backlist, remakes of his movies, and the emergence of a cult following devoted to unraveling the mystery of what led a successful writer to murder. In addition, much speculation abounded regarding his disappearance—was he dead or alive? If the latter, was he still writing?

Reemergence and North Carolina Killing Spree #1: October 27–28, 2003

On October 27, 2003, Zach and Theresa Worthington, and their two children, were murdered in their home on Lake Norman, North Carolina. Their next door neighbor, Beth Lancing (widow of Walter Lancing), was abducted from her home by a man later described by Jenna Lancing as tall, pale, and with long, black hair. The next day, October 28, a clerk was murdered in the men’s restroom of a Wal-Mart in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. The photograph taken of the murderer by Wal-Mart security cameras is the only good photograph in any law enforcement database of the man believed to be Luther Kite. While Kite is believed to have been aboard ship during the Kinnakeet Ferry Massacre, the images don’t confirm this. The night of the 28
^th
, Karen Prescott, former book editor and girlfriend of Thomas, was found hanging from the lighthouse on Bodie Island. Thomas was immediately suspected of these murders, with rumors spreading that he had come back out of hiding.

Disappearance of Detective Violet King

Violet King, a homicide detective with the Davidson Police Department, traveled to Ocracoke Island on November 4, 2003, to investigate a lead in the murder of the Worthington family and abduction of Beth Lancing. A partial fingerprint belonging to Luther Kite had been lifted off a laser pointer found in the hand of the Worthington’s youngest child. Kite’s family lived on Ocracoke. King last contacted Davidson PD on November 6, and was not heard from or seen again, with the brief exception of her appearance in North Carolina Department of Transportation video footage of the November 12 Kinnakeet Ferry Massacre.

Kinnakeet Ferry Massacre: November 12, 2003

On the morning of November 12, 2003, six vehicles boarded the 5:00
A.M.
Kinnakeet ferry traveling north out of Ocracoke. For reasons unknown, a slaughter ensued. The ferry captain was killed, along with five passengers, and when the ferry finally ran aground on the shoals off Hatteras Island, Rufus and Maxine Kite were also found dead, crushed to death against the railing by a Chevy Blazer. The final death count was eight. Video footage on the ferry showed some of the carnage, including shots of what appeared to be Andrew Thomas, Violet King, and a man with long, black hair whose identity could not be positively confirmed as Luther Kite. Their bodies, however, were never located among the dead, and it is assumed that they were either killed and thrown overboard, or escaped.

Controversy and Second Extended Disappearance of Thomas: 2003–present

Up until his reemergence in 2003, the prevailing theory (also held by prominent state and federal law enforcement officials involved in the Thomas investigation) was that the writing of
The Scorcher
, Thomas’s most violent book to date, had pushed him over the edge, beyond the realm of fiction, into an attempt to experience and embrace violence in the flesh. However, in light of the 2003 murders in North Carolina, culminating with the footage of the Kinnakeet Ferry Massacre, competing theories have emerged, some supporting Thomas’s innocence—whether in fact he could have been the victim of a massive frame. Other theories debate whether or not Thomas is still alive and writing, and if so, under what popular pseudonyms he may still be producing fiction. Some believe he continues to release new work under the name Jack Kilborn, a writer who emerged on the scene in 2009 with the popular horror novel,
Afraid
.

Writing Style

Thomas employed a sparse, clipped writing style, punctuated by scenes of hyper-violence, which, despite many complaints that it was gratuitous, in reality left much to the reader’s imagination.

Influences

Thomas has been frequently compared to King, Koontz, Richard Laymon, Edward Lee, Jack Ketchum, Clive Barker, and other horror and pulp fiction masters.

Critical Response

Thomas was never a critics’ darling. Over the nine-year span of his career, none of his books received a starred review from either
Publishers Weekly
,
Kirkus Reviews
,
Library Journal
, or
Booklist
. His prose has been described by the
New York Times
as “ranging from careless to wretched” and
Kirkus Reviews
famously bemoaned the planned continuation of his first novel,
The Killer and His Weapon
, “sadly, a sequel is in the works.” Recent critical analysis, however, has begun to take the view that with another decade or so, Thomas might have reached the broader audience enjoyed by stalwarts of the horror genre, such as King and Koontz, finally earning him wider recognition and acclaim for his intense characterizations of depraved human behavior, and provocative plotting.

Bibliography

The Killer and His Weapon (1988)

Sunset Is the Color of a Broken Heart (1990)

The Way the World Ends (1991)

Blue Murder (1992)

Plan of Attack (1993)

Midnight: Collected Stories (1994)

The Passenger (1995)

The Scorcher (1996)

The Dark Heart (unfinished) (1998)

Personal Life

Even prior to the events of late 1996, Thomas was known as a reclusive writer and rarely seen in public outside of bookstore events and the occasional mystery convention (Bouchercon 1995 in Indianapolis being his last). For several years, he was romantically involved with Karen Prescott, an editor at Ice Blink Books, but their relationship ended prior to Thomas’s 1996 troubles. His literary agent, Cynthia Mathis, was also a close friend, and although she denies having had any physical contact with Thomas since 1996, she maintains her belief in her client’s innocence, even to this day.

March 31, 12:50 P.M.

W
hen 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.