Voices Carry Page 2

  Genna reached one arm out from under the covers and smacked the alarm clock into submission when it taunted her at six the next morning. She smacked it again at six fifteen, then once more at six thirty. At six forty-five, she rose reluctantly and headed for the shower, annoyed with herself for having overslept.

  Her disposition hadn’t improved much by the time she arrived at her office just before eight A.M. and clicked on the harsh overhead light. Stepping over the piles of files that littered her floor, she dropped her briefcase onto her chair, turned on her computer, and sought coffee. Next she checked her e-mail and found responses from two law enforcement agencies in upstate New York that she’d queried about the arrests of alleged child pornographers suspected of being part of a larger network along the eastern seaboard. As a member of the Violent Crimes and Major Offenders Program, Genna’s assignments were mainly kidnapping cases or cases involving the sexual exploitation of children.

  The case she was working on at that moment was giving her major headaches. One step forward and three steps back. She shook her head, wondering when she’d get the break she needed. So far, she’d received nothing but shadows where she needed substance. She printed out the information—sketchy though it was—before forwarding the notes via e-mail to several other agents in her office, then read the hard copy again as she sipped at her coffee and wondered if the respective police departments would be able to keep the suspects under lock and key until someone from her unit—preferably her—was able to get there and have a chat with all involved parties.

  Three follow-up phone calls to the sending agencies later, she had memos of her own to share internally before refilling her coffee cup and rising to straighten her gray linen skirt and head for Decker’s office, five minutes early, as was her style. She’d been taught that punctuality was a virtue, and that early was infinitely better than late.

  Sharon, Decker’s secretary, was on the phone when Genna reached the end of the hallway that dead-ended where the SAC’s office began.

  “He said you’d be early and that you should just go on in,” Sharon covered the mouthpiece with one hand and waved Genna onward.

  Genna knocked lightly on the half-opened door, then stepped in without waiting to be acknowledged.

  “Good morning, Genna.” Steven Decker stood at the windows, looking out, greeting her without turning around.

  “’Morning, sir.” Genna took a seat in the chair at the right corner of her superior’s walnut desk and slid an unused coaster over to place under her coffee mug, waiting for him to begin with his usual line. I guess you wondered why I called you in this morning. . .

  “I guess you wondered why I called you in this morning,” he said, turning now and walking toward her across a well-worn carpet.

  Genna suppressed a smile and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Do I recall correctly that you spent considerable time out in the western part of Pennsylvania while you were growing up? Near Erie, was it?”

  “Yes.” Genna’s smile began to fade, and she wondered where this would lead.

  “And your foster mother still lives in that area?”

  “Patsy lives outside of Pittsburgh, though she does still own a summer cottage on Bricker’s Lake, maybe twenty miles southeast of Erie.”

  “Would you say you know the area well, Agent Snow?”

  Whenever Decker switched from first name to title, something official was in the air. Genna’s heart sank. The last thing she wanted now was to be taken off her current case.

  “Yes. I know the area well.”

  “Growing Amish population in the area, I understand.”

  “The Amish have been in that area for decades. Certainly for as long as I can remember.”

  Decker walked around from behind his desk and sat on the left corner, opposite from where Genna sat. It was the most casual gesture she’d ever seen him make, and a sign that he was getting to the point.

  “Have much contact with them—the Amish—when you were growing up?” He asked.

  “Very little. Most of the Amish kept to themselves. I did get to know a few kids very slightly when I was thirteen or fourteen. Patsy knew their grandmother. She bought eggs and produce from Mrs. Frick—Granny Frick, they call her—every week. Still does. I usually went with her, but I always felt pretty awkward there, you know. I was the odd one, the outsider.”

  Genna leaned against the hard chair back and watched Decker pace a few steps in either direction, his hands shoved into the pockets of his trimly fit jacket, his face showing no small amount of concern. Finally his lanky frame found its way around the desk and lowered itself into his chair.

  “We have a situation there. . .” he began, causing Genna to lean forward and ask, “At Bricker’s Lake?”

  “Close enough. Wick’s Grove. You know the town, of course.”

  “Of course. It’s the only town for several miles from the lake. I always think of it as the town that never changes. It still has the same grocery store, the same gas station with the same little newsstand, run by the same families as when I was a kid.” Genna smiled. “Wick’s Grove is the only place I’ve ever been where there’s no dry cleaner, no pizza place, and no place to rent a video.”

  “The Amish influence, I take it?”

  “They own the greater part of the land in the area by far, have, for generations.” Genna nodded. “Wick’s Grove is little more than a crossroads on the way from Erie. It’s one of those places that time hasn’t seemed to touch.”

  “Well, time’s catching up to it, I’m afraid.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It appears that three young Amish men—cousins, we think—are suspected of being involved in laundering some of the money that’s coming in from Canada.”

  “WHAT?” Genna almost fell forward from her chair. “That’s too preposterous. . .”

  “Preposterous, maybe, but the information we’re getting indicates that there’s a connection within the Amish community and a local bikers’ club that calls itself JYD. Junk Yard Dogs.”

  Decker tossed an envelope across the desk to a mute and stunned Genna, who caught it with both hands and opened it. A stack of black-and-white photos slid out. Decker watched her face as she thumbed through the pictures, occasionally raising an eyebrow in surprise.

  “Who exactly are these bikers?” She waved several of the photos.

  “A few Canadians, a few Americans. All ex cons—mostly drugs, weapons offenses, assaults. Nothing surprising there. And the fact that they’re involved in drug trafficking isn’t anything new. What is new is the fact that they’ve managed to tangle a few of these Amish kids in their net.”

  Genna shook her head. “It defies belief. You’re talking about people who don’t have electricity or modern farm equipment. To visit one of their farms is like going back in time a hundred years or so.”

  “That’s pretty much what I’d like you to do. I’d like you to visit a farm. This farm.” He picked up a second, larger envelope, and held up a photograph. “I believe you’ve been there before.”

  Genna turned sharply in her seat, swiveling around to look up at her boss.

  “The Frick farm?” Her eyes widened with disbelief. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’m afraid I am.”

  “But. . . the Fricks. . . they’re the backbone of the Amish community out there. My foster mother has known Granny Frick for, oh, Lord, since Patsy was a child. . .” Genna’s voice trailed off.

  “That’s why I’d like to send you out there for a few days to check into it.”

  “But, sir,” she tucked a loose strand of hair behind one ear and tried to figure out how to remind her boss that she was not a member of OCDP—Organized Crime/Drug Program—“right now I’m working on the child pornography. . .”

  He held up a hand to stop her in midsentence. “We have reason to believe it’s all run by the same organization.”

  “But the Amish have never been involved in such things. They rarely as
sociate with the English, even on a legitimate basis. I simply can’t conceive of anyone coming from that background—particularly a member of the Frick family—being involved in such things.”

  “Every chain has its weak link, Genna, even the Amish community.” Decker sat back down on the edge of the desk and said, “I doubt greatly that the three young men we’ve been watching have any idea of just what they’re involved with. I suspect that one of them got suckered in by the organization and drew in the other two.”

  “With what?”

  “Drugs. Crack.”

  “You think these kids are selling?”

  He shook his head. “Using.”

  Genna sat silent, digesting this, before asking skeptically, “You know this for a fact?”

  “It’s the most likely scenario.”

  Genna laughed out loud, shaking her head. “It’s the most unlikely scenario. I’m sorry, but I just can’t imagine it.”

  “The photos speak for themselves.”

  She picked up the photographs and went through them again. “With all due respect, sir, these photos of a couple of bikers making purchases from a roadside produce stand aren’t very conclusive.”

  “Three times a week, same days, same times, same guys on the same bikes. Notice the large leather bags on the backs of each of the bikes.”

  “Which they appear to be packing with tomatoes and peppers.” She tossed the photo onto the desk. “Maybe they’re making salsa.”

  “Maybe they’re making change. We think they’re dropping off cash and the boys are moving it for them and getting paid in drugs. We thought maybe we’d send you out there for a few weeks just to nose around and maybe see what you could do to help out the state police.”

  “Did they ask for our help?”

  “I got a call a few days ago from Lt. Mallon, who’s been in charge of the ongoing operation. They know that there’s something going on but at the moment, they have no probable cause for a warrant. The locals just can’t get close enough to see what’s going on back there.”

  “The Frick place is huge, and set back from the road by at least a quarter of a mile. The biggest farm in the area, by far. There are at least four, maybe five, generations of the same family living there. They’ve built onto the original house over the years, and the last time I was there, they were building a new place for one of the sons—one of Granny Frick’s great-grandsons, that is—who’d just gotten married. Their land covers a lot of acreage.”

  “You think you can get back there without raising any suspicion?”

  “I can probably get back to the farmhouse,” Genna nodded, “but I can’t very well start poking through their barns. What would I be looking for, anyway?”

  “I don’t know,” he answered honestly. “But being the good investigator that you are, and having known these people over the years, I guess I’m just hoping that if there’s something obviously amiss, that you’ll pick up on it and at least help the locals obtain their warrant.”

  Genna tapped her fingers on the desk, trying to decide just how much a waste of her time this venture would be.

  “How long has it been since you’ve had a vacation?” Decker asked.

  “A while,” she conceded. Since the trip she’d taken to Mexico two years earlier with the man she’d been in love with at the time. Genna snapped off the memory before she had time to think about how wonderful those ten days had been.

  “And your mother—that is, your foster mother—still spends her summers up there at the lake?”

  “Patsy’s been summering on Bricker’s Lake for more than half a century. She always says she’ll die on that lake, and she wants her ashes flung from the back of a powerboat so that she never has to leave.”

  “I imagine she’d be happy to have you there with her for a week or so.”

  “She’d be ecstatic,” Genna admitted with a nod. “So when do I leave?”

  Decker held his hands up, a gesture of finality. “You can leave as soon as you can get packed.”

  “But what about the case I’ve been working on? We just got our first really decent leads.”

  “Liddy will take over while you’re gone. Fill him in before you leave.”

  “Fine,” she said, though it wasn’t really. “I’ll just finish up the paperwork I started this morning for the file, then I’ll go over everything with Liddy.” Genna stood and smiled halfheartedly. “Thanks for the unexpected vacation.”

  “You’re welcome.” Decker stood as well. “I’ll let Lt. Mallon know that you’ll be there by tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I seriously doubt that these Amish kids have any idea of what or who they’re involved with,” Decker said as he walked Genna to the door. “And no one’s been able to get close enough to them to figure out just what their role is in all this.”

  “I don’t know that I’ll be able to find anything that will be helpful.”

  “All we’re asking is that you scope it out.” Decker opened the door. “You never know where it will lead.”

  Genna chewed on her bottom lip as she walked back to her office. On the one hand, she hated putting her ongoing case on ice, even for a week or so. On the other, thinking about how pleased Patsy would be to hear that Genna would be joining her at Bricker’s Lake for a surprise visit put a smile on her face. Of course, Patsy wouldn’t need to know any of the details or the reason for the trip. After all, what she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her.

  Genna buzzed Paul Liddy and let him know he’d been tapped to fill in for her for a week. After briefing him and kicking a few ideas around for the better part of an hour, she packed up a few files she’d been needing to find time to read, and tried her best to ignore the calendar that insisted upon reminding her that today was her sister’s thirtieth birthday. They hadn’t seen or spoken to each other in eighteen years.

  Pushing aside the images that threatened to crowd her, Genna snapped the lid of her briefcase and flicked off the light in her office, and headed out into the heat of a summer day.

  2

  At the precise moment that the oven timer went off and the phone rang, someone leaned hard on Genna’s doorbell.

  Without missing a beat, she turned the timer off with her left hand, lifted the cordless phone from the wall with her right, and reached the front door before the bell could ring a second time.

  “No, thanks,” she told the salesperson on the other end of the phone line, juggling the potato she had been about to pop into the preheated oven. “I don’t need my basement waterproofed. I don’t have a basement, and I. . .”

  She’d leaned close enough to the peephole to see that the man waiting in the hallway had dark brown hair, cropped short, and was wearing the requisite dark suit and white shirt. In one hand, he carried a large bag from Genna’s favorite restaurant, and in the other, a large bouquet of coral-colored roses. She opened the door and leaned against the jamb, blocking the entrance, and, not being able to think of one word to say to him, merely stared. She disconnected the phone call and stopped playing with the potato.

  “And it’s wonderful to see you again, too, Genna,” he said in that deep voice she knew so well. “And yes, I think I’d love to have dinner with you, thank you.”

  “I don’t recall having invited you to dinner,” she replied with as little emotion as she could manage.

  “But you were just about to.” He grinned and held up the bag from Gagliardi’s. “Tomatoes in basil vinaigrette. Grilled swordfish for you, veal scaloppine for me. New potatoes in dill and garlic butter for both of us. And a fabulous assortment of appetizers.”

  She smiled in spite of her best efforts not to, and shaking her head in resignation, accepted the coral roses, her all-time favorite. No one knew her better than John Mancini. Former FBI Academy instructor. Special agent. Former love of Genna’s life.

  “Tiramisù,” he leaned forward and whispered, waving the smaller bag slightly in front of her.

  Genna laughed out loud and stepped aside to let
him enter her apartment.

  “You know, they always say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. But I think we both know the truth about that, don’t we?” John winked and walked past her and into her kitchen as if it was something he did every day and lifted the bag onto the counter. “Me, I can eat just about anything, but nothing seems to get your attention like a really great meal.”

  He opened a cabinet and took down two plates, then paused to ask, “The deck or the dining room?”

  “Since you brought it and are obviously preparing to serve it, why don’t you decide?” Genna turned off the oven and the timer, and dismissing the lone potato she’d planned to bake, opened another cabinet and reached for a blue glass vase, which she filled with water.

  “Now, why aren’t you always this agreeable?” he grinned at her from over one shoulder, the warmth of his smile nearly stopping her heart in her chest.

  Ignoring him, not ready to accept the fact that she really wanted him there in her apartment, and needing an excuse to put a little distance between them, she plunked the roses into the vase and placed it on the counter before unlocking the door that led to the small balcony off the dining room. Not quite a deck, as John had called it, there was room for little more than a table, two chairs, and a large planter which she had, for the third summer in a row, neglected to fill with plants. On the railing sat a bird feeder, which she had forgotten to fill with birdseed, and a window box that held only some dried dirt and the debris of last year’s petunias and geraniums—planted by Patsy—that hung under the sole window.

  The table would need to be washed off before they could put plates on it, and the chairs would need to be cleared of dead leaves before they could sit down. It would give her something to do, and prolong the conversation she knew they would have. Genna went back into the kitchen and reached around John for the roll of paper towels that fit snugly into a white plastic holder fastened to the wall behind him.

  “Excuse me,” she said, avoiding his eyes. She grabbed the roll of paper towels at the same time he grabbed her arm and encircled her wrist with one hand. She waited for him to speak, a current passing through him to her, causing her pulse to race, the way it always did when John got a little too close.