“Shouldn’t you be at your brother’s funeral?”
“Are you trying to get rid of me?”
“Leaving is one thing you’ll never need help with, JP. The only thing I’m trying to do is investigate a possible crime.”
“I already took care of that-Noah didn’t kill himself.”
“Tossing a hose over a bridge isn’t research, it’s a childish prank.”
“What do you know about this guy, Gwen?”
She continued to sift through rocks. “Did I just hear the great JP Warner actually ask little ole me for information?”
I moved closer, struggling to balance the plastic cleats on the rocks. Miraculously, I arrived safely at the river’s edge and sat next to her on an adjoining rock. When I took a closer look, I saw the vulnerable girl from our younger days.
After a moment of awkward silence, she asked, “Have you ever heard of Casey Leeds?”
Chapter 41
“About a year and a half ago, a rash of suspicious fires hit Rockfield. And what really raised people’s eyebrows, was that a local fireman named Casey Leeds was showing up before anyone to save the day,” Gwen began.
“Hero syndrome?”
“That’s what the police thought, so they had Leeds tailed.”
“Let me guess, the cop who tailed him was none other than Kyle Jones.”
Gwen nodded. “And he must have been willing to work holidays, because Jones called in on the Fourth of July, claiming that he’d witnessed Leeds set an old farm ablaze on the north side of town. Sure enough, Leeds was the first one to arrive at the scene, seemingly to save the day. Within minutes, half the Rockfield police force arrived.”
“I’m presuming this didn’t turn out good for Casey.”
“He’d taken Jones hostage with a gun that he’d somehow wrestled away from a trained police officer. Casey was ordered to freeze and drop the weapon. He refused, and frantically yelled out that a mysterious caller had been informing him about the fires. And that he was the only one who could save the children inside. He sounded just like a man holding a police officer at gunpoint should … crazy.
“The police gave Casey his last warning to drop the weapon. But he was a paranoid mess and didn’t trust anyone. When he made it clear he wasn’t relinquishing his weapon, Jones pointed toward the burning farmhouse, yelled, ‘fire!’ and dropped to the ground
“Casey was a fun-loving gregarious man, but he wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, so he thought that Jones was referring to the burning farmhouse. By the time Casey figured out that ‘fire’ was a cue for them to shoot, he was riddled in bullets.”
I began throwing out questions as fast as they popped into my head. Who was the caller? How exactly did Leeds get Jones’ gun? Why couldn’t he let the police go in to save the children?
“The whole thing was fishy to me, too,” Gwen responded. “Especially since there were no children who resided at the residence. So I started checking around. His sister, Mary Leeds, was the one person he confided in. Over time, I gained her trust enough that she talked to me off the record. She told me that the caller initially threatened to expose a secret in Casey’s past if he didn’t follow orders. The caller continued setting the fires, providing him the chance to redeem himself from his ‘sin’ if he saved the children inside the burning homes. But if he didn’t save the children himself, or if he told anyone about the phone calls, the caller would continue to set fires, but this time wouldn’t inform him, and the children would die. So Casey thought he had no choice, and made Mary promise that she wouldn’t tell a soul.”
I flashed a confused look. “His sin?”
“He never revealed it to Mary, so I continued searching. I found a source in the First Selectman’s Office who told me of an incident from years ago, long before I returned to town. There was a house fire on Grayson Drive. When the call came in, Casey was at Main Street Tavern. By this point, he’d long forgot the difference between drunk and sober, and sped to the firehouse. He drove the large hook-and-ladder truck, his usual role. On the way to the fire Casey drove off the road, rendering the vehicle useless. The rest of the fire trucks made it safely. All of the family members were rescued, except one-a seven-year-old girl died of smoke inhalation.”
“Did Casey’s accident cause the girl to die?”
“Probably not. But the fact that Casey was over the legal limit when he crashed the fire truck was covered up by the fire department. But by the time the truth came to light, Maloney had replaced you father in office, and he didn’t operate with the same integrity.
“After Noah’s trial, Maloney had used the lingering negative publicity surrounding the perceived light sentence to reinvent himself into the drunk driving warrior. It became priority number one around here, and the money started to role in from the ADDs and other similar organizations. Problem was, he’d learned about the Leeds incident prior to Noah’s trial, and chose to keep it covered up-my source told me he rationalized that it would have hurt the public confidence if people believed the firefighters were driving around drunk, especially since the incident had happened years ago. So if the Leeds incident came out after Noah’s trial, then so would the questions as to why Maloney didn’t do something about it, and at best he would have looked like a total fraud.
“Until Noah’s death, I didn’t know that we were dealing with a vigilante-style serial killer,” she went on, “or that drunk driving was the common thread. I considered Leeds and the fires to be an isolated incident. I wish I’d put it together earlier, then maybe I could have warned Noah he was in danger.”
I was now pacing the river edge, thinking aloud, stating what was now obvious, “Jones was the caller, and the redemption referred to the fire truck accident-the accident that both Leeds and Maloney hoped would be buried forever … and the secret that Jones obviously stumbled upon. I’ll bet that Jones offered to be the one to follow Leeds, and made it look like he was a team player willing to do the dirty work. No cop I’ve ever met likes stakeout duty.”
“And being first to arrive, gave him time to drop his gun without witnesses. And knowing that Casey was at his wits’ end, he was betting that he’d do something irrational … like pick up the gun and take him hostage. By being taken hostage, Kyle would be absolved from any blame in the shooting.”
Gwen had begun to shiver. The temperature had plummeted. “Since you were offered the highest salary in the news business, maybe you can tell me why Kyle Jones is so obsessed with those who drink and drive?”
“I’m actually just an unemployed farmer living with his parents.”
“I’ll be sure to temper my expectations.”
I shrugged. “I’ve checked a few items in his past, but I’ve come up empty.”
I didn’t waste time running any of my initial theories or research by her. With her direct access to Jones, she was already two steps ahead of me on all fronts. Problem was, I got the feeling that Jones was about a mile ahead of both of us.
A sound startled us-a scurrying through the brush. Gwen’s eyes cut through the darkness, as if she was feeling Jones’ presence, and expecting him to leap out at us. But I knew that wasn’t his style-everything he did was meticulously plotted out. It was likely some sort of wild animal, which I found strangely comforting.
“Let’s get out of here,” Gwen said. It was the first thing we’d agreed on in a long time.
Instead of dropping me off at my car, she took me to the house she shared with her father and Tommy, off River Lane.
We went inside and Gwen disappeared into a bedroom. She returned with a printout and handed it to me.
“It’s an exclusive interview Noah gave to me about a month ago. He opened up about the accident with Lisa, and the aftermath. I promised him I wouldn’t print it until he was ready. I figured you should see it.”
I sat at the kitchen table and began reading my brother’s words. After a few pages, my emotions grabbed me so tightly I thought Carter had me in a chokehold.