J.M.J.

Author's note: Thanks for continuing to read! I'm having fun with this story, even though the writing process is slow going because I have an original story that I'm really working hard on to get the first draft done by the deadline that I set for myself. In the meantime, I've enjoyed reading the reviews on the last chapter. Thank you so much to Bkworm4life4, Cherylann Rivers, ErinJordan, Candylou, max2013, and drogorath! As per one of your comments – yes, there's no way anyone could rise so high in the ranks of the NYPD so quickly in real life. I'm taking some creative liberty in having Fenton a lieutenant, mainly because in the books, he is said to have been a distinguished member of the NYPD and I think that the rank of lieutenant is thrown out there, but he clearly resigned fairly early in his, since Frank and Joe seem to have grown up in Bayport and Fenton doesn't seem to be more than mid-forties in the books. I'm trying to be realistic otherwise, so hopefully you can overlook this bit of unlikelihood. ;)

Chapter III

Battle Plans

"Fenton, what's wrong?" Laura asked, watching her husband's face as he hung up the phone after talking with Casey.

Fenton slowly sank back down into his chair, suddenly no longer very interested in breakfast. "It's just this case. I need to get a couple of hours of sleep, and then I need to go back in."

Laura looked at him closely. She hadn't been able to hear Casey's part of the conversation, and so she hadn't fully understood Fenton's part, either. Yet, it was clear to her that the news had upset her husband deeply. "Okay, but just remember that I'm always here if you want to talk to me."

"I know." Fenton looked up at her and tried to smile, but his thoughts were clearly elsewhere at the moment. "I think I'll go to bed."

He stood up and turned around to head for the bedroom, but two little boys were blocking the way. Their faces lit up as they seemed to realize who was here.

"Dad!" shouted Frank, the older one, while his younger brother, Joe, echoed, "Daddy!"

The boys started to rush forward, and Fenton crouched down so that he could be on their level. They practically bowled him over trying to give him a bear hug.

"Oof!" Fenton put one hand out behind him to catch himself. "Either you two are getting bigger, or that old age your mom and I were just talking about is catching up to me."

"Are you staying home today?" Frank asked eagerly.

Fenton sighed. "I'm afraid I can't today."

If Frank was disappointed by the answer, Joe didn't seem to understand. Instead, he just said, "Watch me," and then ran over to the couch and started to climb up on it. Laura quickly scooped him up.

"You can't jump off the couch, Joe. I already told you that," Laura said.

Joe began to squirm and reached toward the couch. "I want to!"

"You can't," Laura insisted. "Anyway, it's too early for both of you to be awake. Why don't you go back to bed?"

"Dad and you are awake," Frank pointed out.

"But I'm going to go to bed myself," Fenton told him.

It took some persuading, but finally both boys were back in bed, asleep once more. As soon as that was accomplished, Fenton crawled into bed without even bothering to undress. Even Laura could feel her restless night getting the better of her, and she, too, took the opportunity to get a few more minutes' sleep.

HBHBHBHBHB

It was early afternoon when Fenton returned to the precinct and met with the other officers who were key in working on the two cases. In addition to himself, there was his partner, Mitch Johnson, as well as Alex Casey, who was heading the missing persons case, and Danielle Harbinger from Forensics. Finally, there was Christine Roche, an FBI agent whose specialty was mob activity. Fenton introduced her to the other three officers.

"So," Christine said after acknowledging the introductions, "I understand that you have a theory that these two cases, the Moretti case and the Beretta case are connected, Lieutenant Hardy?"

"Right," Fenton agreed and briefly outlined his reasons for thinking so.

Christine listened intently, and if she thought the theory was farfetched, she didn't say so. Instead, she simply said, "We'll need to be careful not to simply assume that that's true or that it's false, but I agree that having a single team work on both cases might be advantageous. The fact that Nico Beretta may have had some dealings with Gregorio Moretti does lend credence to the whole idea."

Danielle stirred uneasily in her chair. "Um, I don't want to sound like I've been going around my entire career with my head in the clouds, but I don't know very much about Alessandro or Gregorio Moretti. Could we go over everything we do know about them so that we're all on the same page about that?"

"Good idea," Christine agreed. "Alessandro Moretti was born in 1935 in Chicago. His parents were Italian immigrants, and his father worked as hired muscle for some of the various gangsters of that era until he was arrested shortly after Alessandro's birth and served out a life sentence in a state penitentiary. That left Alessandro's mother to raise him alone, a circumstance for which Alessandro has evidently never forgiven society. His mother brought him here to New York when he was twelve. It was shortly thereafter that he fell in with the mobs. He clawed his way to the top, started his own family, and there he remains to this day.

"There are four things that it takes to do that: good strategies, enough money to keep your people loyal, an excellent lawyer, and a willingness to eliminate competition when necessary and not more than that. Alessandro Moretti has all four. He's old-school with his convictions, too; he's as much a '30s gangster as you could expect to find here in the '90s. It's his one weakness, but it's not much, considering how long we've been trying to use it against him without success.

"His son, Gregorio, has succeeded in this where we've failed. From what we've learned, when Gregorio was in his twenties – he's past forty now – he had a falling out with his father over Alessandro's old-fashioned ideas. In the end, Alessandro essentially disowned him. We're about ninety-nine percent sure that Gregorio has been involved in dozens of violent crimes over the last two decades, but he did inherit one thing from his father: the ability to pick out an accomplished lawyer. We've nearly nailed him several times, but every time his lawyer has been able to get him off, or at least get him a lighter sentence. In the last twenty years, he's spent a total of five and a half in jail, just in the minor charges that we were able to bring against him. I guess it's still better than we've done with Alessandro."

"Who is this lawyer that Gregorio has been using?" Mitch asked. "From the sounds of it, if we could do something about him, we could get Gregorio."

Christine chuckled humorlessly. "Not much chance there, but for what it's worth, his name is Michael Wade."

"Doesn't sound Italian," Mitch commented.

"He's not," Christine confirmed. "One of the old-fashioned ideas that Gregorio has rejected is the idea that he only surround himself with fellow-Italians. He'll take whoever fits his needs the best."

Fenton cast a significant look at Mitch before turning to Christine again. "What are the chances of Gregorio trying to start his own mob and then going after Alessandro?"

"He hasn't done it yet," Christine said with a sureness that indicated it was a possibility that she had thought of before now. "At least, not that we know of. Now that he's older and more experienced, I would think that he would realize the risks involved in that and shy away from trying it, but it is a possibility."

"So this Rose Gang, or whatever you want to call them, could be Gregorio's own little family?" Mitch asked.

"It's possible," Christine agreed. "What do we know about them so far?"

"Danielle probably knows the most of any of us yet," Fenton said, and everyone looked over at her.

Danielle brushed a strand of hair from her face. "Right, yes, well. For starters, we know that they're not a traditional mob, and three out of the three known members of this gang have that rose tattoo on their neck, which could be an identifier for this gang. We've tentatively identified one of the men who were killed in the fight as Robert Hatch, who lives – or, most likely, lived – in the Bronx. We're still waiting for DNA confirmation from samples taken from the apartment, but there doesn't seem to be much doubt. The other two men received significant wounds to their faces, so we're still working on full facial reconstruction on them as well as DNA tests.

"The medical examiner has been doing autopsies on all the bodies to confirm COD. So far, they all seem to have actually died from the gunshot wounds received, except one. The body that most likely belongs to Robert Hatch, despite having two gunshot wounds, neither of which would have necessarily been fatal on their own, has a high concentration of cyanide and appears to have died as a result of swallowing a cyanide tablet."

"That's a twist," Alex Casey commented. "If his wounds were non-fatal, why would he take cyanide? Why would he have even had a cyanide tablet in the first place?"

"The most likely reason is that he was ordered not to allow himself to be taken alive," Fenton said. "If he was wounded so that he couldn't escape, he probably took the tablet to keep himself from being captured either Moretti or by us."

"That's not normal mob behavior, either, and it doesn't sound particularly like Gregorio," Christine pointed out.

"What about you, Casey?" Fenton asked. "You identified those bills. Have you made any other progress?"

Alex shook his head. "Not a bit. We got the kids put in a foster home, but that's it so far. There was nothing in the Beretta apartment that seems to indicate who Beretta was mixed up with, other than those bills."

"What about the uncle?" Mitch asked. "Did you find him yet?"

"No. We're looking into every Giovanni Beretta in the city, but so far none of them seem to be the one we're looking for. We did get out of Mario that his uncle is his father's brother, so that cuts out the possibility that he has a different last name, unless, of course, he's a half-brother or a step-brother. Plus, too, there's a strong possibility that the one we're looking for no longer lives here. We'll keep you all updated, of course."

"So, what are you planning on doing next?" Christine asked.

"Divide forces now. There are quite a few angles to work on," Fenton said. "Casey, you and your people keep trying to find Giovanni Beretta. Even though he's apparently estranged from his brother, he may have some idea what Nico is up to. Dr. Harbinger, keep doing what you're doing. We need those other two bodies identified. Also, get a picture of one of those tattoos to Johnson here. Johnson, I want you to get to work on the angle with those tattoos. See if you can find the artist who did them and if you can find any matches for known criminals. Of course, I'm in no position to be giving you orders, Agent Roche, but I am hoping that you can focus on getting information on Gregorio's current situation, what he's up to, who he's been seeing, all that sort of thing."

"Definitely," Christine agreed. "What will you be doing?"

"I'm going to pay a call on Alessandro Moretti," Fenton said.

"What?" Mitch asked. "What can you possibly hope to gain from that? Alessandro's not going to admit to being involved in the shooting, and he just might take objection to a cop asking questions like that."

"Alessandro's not stupid," Fenton told him. "He's not going to try anything. I doubt he'll even be surprised. As for how much I'll learn, he won't give me anything intentionally, but he might let something slip by accident, especially if he's under the strain of knowing that his son has declared war on him."

"Are you sure you don't want me to come along?" Christine asked.

Fenton shook his head. "Bringing an FBI agent along will only make him suspicious. I'll pick another officer to bring with me. Okay. Now let's get to work. And remember, I want to informed of any and all developments as they happen."

HBHBHBHBHB

"Rar! Rar!" Joe said as he walked his toy T-Rex across the floor, straight at the Duplo wall that Frank was building. With another roar, Joe had the T-Rex walk right over it and knock it down.

"Joe! Stop it!" Frank said in disgust, as he righted the wall.

"No," Joe replied with a mischievous grin, bringing the T-Rex back for another round.

This time, the building blocks came apart, and the wall separated into three pieces. Oblivious, Joe continued playing, crawling away so that he could have the dinosaur "walk" on the floor beside him. Frank picked up two of the pieces of the wall and looked at them with as much horror as if they had actually broken. Suddenly, playing Duplos didn't sound so fun anymore and he began to look around for some other way to entertain himself.

Meanwhile, Joe's T-Rex was continuing its rampage around the living room before making its way to the kitchen, where Laura was baking a pie while keeping half her attention on her boys. Joe stopped in the middle of his game to look up at his mother.

"Water me, mommy," he requested.

Laura smiled at his choice of wording for the request. "What do you say?" she asked.

Joe look confused for a moment before repeating his petition, "Water me, mommy."

"Can you say, 'please'?" Laura asked gently.

"Please," Joe repeated eagerly, understanding this time.

"Okay. Just a second."

Laura picked up his sippy cup from the counter and began filling it.

"No," Joe said as he watched her. "Orange juice."

Laura looked down at him and sighed. After pouring the water back out, she filled the sippy cup with orange juice instead. She had only just begun screwing the top on the cup when there was a loud crash from the living room that made her jump. Frank wasn't in sight, so she hurried around the counter to where she could see the entire room. Frank was standing shame-faced beside a fallen floor lamp, pieces its shattered light bulb all around it.

"Oh," Laura said, a little too surprised to think of anything else to say. "What happened?"

"I wanted to see the light." Frank pointed at the shattered light bulb and started to walk toward it.

"No!" Laura told him sharply in her concern. "Don't move, Frank."

She hurried forward and unplugged the lamp before picking Frank up with the intention of carrying him to safety. No sooner had she picked him up than she heard the thump of something hitting the kitchen floor, a splash, and a cry from Joe. She rushed into the kitchen and found Joe sitting in a puddle of orange juice, his head and the front of his shirt drenched and sticky and the sippy cup, which he had evidently tried to get off the counter by himself, was lying beside him. He was already starting to cry.

That was only the beginning of a very long afternoon for Laura. While she was washing Joe and getting him changed into dry clothes, Frank announced that he would be helpful by cleaning up the glass in the living room. Laura had to chase after him, while Joe, who only had his shirt on at that point, wandered into the kitchen where he decided that the puddle of orange juice, which Laura had forgotten by this point, was much more fun than terrifying. He started splashing around in it.

Laura cleaned up the glass as quickly as she could, and then she went into the kitchen to find orange juice tracked all over and Joe once again soaking wet and sticky. While she was cleaning and drying him off and getting him into dry clothes again, Frank once again tried to be helpful. This time, it was by sopping up the orange juice with an entire roll of paper towels, although his own clothes soaked up just as much of the water. That left Laura to wash Frank as well, during which time, Joe declared he was hungry, a sentiment which Frank echoed.

In the end, when Laura had both boys clean and fed and had managed to get Joe to take a nap and Frank to sit down and play with his toys again and had both messes completely cleaned up, she sat down at the table to try to catch her breath and steady her nerves again. She had no sooner sat down than she remembered the pie in the oven and realized that in her distraction, she had forgotten to set the timer. She ran to check it only to discover that the edges were burned black and the filling had bubbled out over the sides and onto the bottom of the oven. For a moment, she had to just close the oven door and rest her face in her hands.

"I need to get out of this apartment tomorrow," she groaned aloud.

"Can we go to park?" Frank asked, overhearing and coming running from the living room.

"Sure, why not?" Laura replied, although at the moment, a spa day sounded more appealing than a trip to the park. Then she set to work dealing with the pie.

She was in the middle of cleaning the oven when the phone rang. She wiped her hands off as well as she could and picked it up with a "Hello?" that was far more harried than she meant it to be.

"Is this the home of Fenton Hardy, the detective?" a voice asked.

"Yes. Who is this?" Laura replied.

"An acquaintance," the voice answered. "Tell your husband I know where he lives now, and I'll make good use of that knowledge if he doesn't lay off this case."