Triple Cross

That was a different story, and Tull’s revision did cause me to pause. “Why would he have done that?”

“I asked Thomas that same question,” Liu said. “He said he remembered things differently. But then again, he was sleeping with Hale for most of the investigation.”

“Is that true?”

“It’s a fact,” she said. “She left her husband for Thomas and they were together for almost a year after the book came out. But by then he was in Germany, working on Noon in Berlin and sleeping with Inspector Ava Firsching of the Berlin criminal police.”

I frowned. “He didn’t mention that relationship in the parts I read.”

“He doesn’t talk about his relationships with female detectives in any of the books,” Liu said. “And I didn’t find out about Inspector Firsching until I was over there for the German-language launch of Noon. You’ll never guess what else the inspector told me.”

CHAPTER 34

I WAS LISTENING CLOSELY by that point. I pulled out a notepad and began jotting down some of her assertions. “It would help if you just laid it out.”

Liu seemed irritated. She took off her sunglasses, looked straight at me, and said, “Did you know Thomas speaks perfect German? His mother was from Munich and he spent many of his summers at a lake in Bavaria.”

“I don’t remember that from the book.”

“Because it’s not mentioned,” she said. “He portrays himself as being out of the loop half the time because of the language barrier.”

“Why would he do that?”

“Exactly. I asked and he said it made him more sympathetic, as lost in the investigation as the reader.”

I said, “It’s odd, but not a crime.”

“There are other inconsistencies, Dr. Cross,” she said. “In Noon, for example, Thomas depicts Inspector Firsching as the one who comes up with the idea of focusing on Berlin Zoo employees because the initial victims were all killed with darts loaded with animal tranquilizer.”

“I remember that.”

“Except that’s not exactly correct,” Liu said. “Ava told me she and Thomas were sleeping together by that point and he was the one who came up with the logic of focusing on the zookeepers.”

I held up my hands. “I apologize because I’ve read only the first hundred pages. Was the zoo really involved?”

“Ultimately, yes. But Firsching did not find that damning evidence until very late in the investigation, after she’d dropped the zoo angle and taken the probe in a different direction, arresting two suspects only to release them.”

“I’ll bite. Who ended up being the killer?”

“A large-animal veterinarian who was an outside contractor. He came to the zoo occasionally to treat elephants, rhinos, and the like. The vet’s wife had cheated on him with various men over the years, all during the noon hour. When she divorced him and took half his money, he got obsessive and then turned homicidal.”

Liu put her sunglasses on again and said that in the book, Tull claimed he was only tangentially involved in the big break in the Noon case. But Firsching told her that it was Tull’s idea to focus on the zoo again, not on staff but on the vendors and consultants.

“Do you see the pattern?” she asked. “Thomas underplays his role when in truth he has a great deal of influence over these investigations.”

“And the investigators,” I said.

“Exactly,” she said.

“What about the third book? I haven’t gotten to it. Female investigator?”

“Heidi Parks with the South Carolina State Bureau of Investigation,” Liu said. “She and Thomas were shacking up within a week of his arrival on the scene, which was shortly after the body of the second doctor was found. Again, I think he downplays his role in the book and gives all the light and praise to Parks.”

“You think?”

“Okay, I have strong suspicions based on the way Detective Parks reacted when I called her yesterday and asked several pointed questions about that investigation. She got quite hostile, so hostile she called Thomas and told him what I was up to.”

“Which led to the threat?”

“Yes,” she said. “Are you finished with breakfast? With this wind, you’ll be able to hear what he said better inside.”

“I’m good, thanks,” I said, putting my napkin on the table and standing up in the stiffening breeze. “Let’s go hear it.”

We left the dishes on the table and went inside. Liu crossed to the suite’s bar and retrieved her phone.

As she did, I looked around, seeing through the open bedroom door two of the hotel’s robes lying on the bed.

“It’s a little garbled,” Liu said, returning. “And I didn’t start recording until Thomas turned abusive. But you’ll get the gist of it.”

The book editor pushed a button and there was a static hiss through which a male said, “Suzanne, what the hell are you doing? Are you trying to gut me? Get revenge? Grow up! You lost out after making big money off me for years. Live with it and don’t be a crazy bitch. I’m telling you, I won’t take this lying down. If you keep trying to smear me, Suzanne, you’ll pay for it. One way or another, you will pay for it.”

Liu turned it off. “Believe me now?”