Where's Hansel and Gretel's Gingerbread House?: A Gabby Grimm Fairy Tale Mystery #2

by Barton, Sara M.

  “That would be fun,” I agreed. “Listen, Dad, I should be back by eight-thirty, maybe nine. Call me on my cell if you need me.”

  “Will do. Drive safely.”

  “Roger that.”

  It was a big relief that the trip back to Albany was uneventful. I called the sheriff to update him. The traffic was light at this time of the afternoon. I put the pedal to the metal and kept a steady speed, pulling into the police station shortly before six. After introducing myself, I was escorted to the dispatch room, where a good-looking plain-clothes detective hoisted the board, gingerbread house and all, and carried it out to my waiting VW beetle. With the hatch up, I stepped back to let him put it down safely on the floor of the trunk.

  “There you go, Deputy Grimm,” he smiled. “Malcolm Jackson, by the way.”

  “Thanks, Malcolm.”

  “No problem. Hey, while I have you here, can I ask you about the guy who fired the shots?”

  “Sure.” I gave the detective my full attention. “What do you need?”

  “The prosecutor has some problems with what went down inside the store.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  “Those bullets, the lab said were police-issue.”

  “That makes sense. He said everything you’d expect a cop to say. But he didn’t want to be seen. Did you get any footage of him at all? Any of the security cameras have a glimpse of him?”

  “Nothing. What I was wondering, you have any idea what he was doing at the gas station? He never identified himself as a cop. He didn’t buy any gas. He didn’t buy any Twinkies or Ding Dongs.”

  “You mean he was just passing by?” I thought about it. “Not really logical. And I’m not a big fan of coincidences.”

  “Neither am I. Was he after the gingerbread house?”

  “Why would he want a gingerbread house?”

  “I asked myself that very question, Deputy Grimm. I went over that Christmas display with a magnifying glass. I even checked it for hidden compartments. Nothing. Was your car secured?”

  “Call me Gabby. It was. I’m sure of that. I had my handgun in the glove compartment. I was very careful to lock it up tight.”

  “And when you and your cousin got back to the car, there was nothing suspicious? No reason to think someone had tampered with anything?”

  “The doors were locked.”

  “And yet, the display was removed from you car at some point between Manhattan and Albany. Sounds pretty professional, don’t you think?” Those big blue eyes were watching me with intense interest. It was time to throw the guy a bone.

  “My cousin had some trouble at work with a new co-worker. That’s part of the reason I was bringing her to Vermont. My boss told me that if she came with me, we could try and figure it what the guy was doing.”

  Malcolm nodded, but I knew he was skeptical of my explanation. Frankly, I would have been, too, if I had been in his shoes. There was definitely something weird going on, but I still wasn’t sure what that might be.

  “You check the car for a tracking gizmo?” That got my attention.

  “Aw....” Was that how the dark sedan managed to stay with us so consistently? If so, did that mean the FBI had an active case on Annette? How else could they justify the tail?

  “Is that a ‘no’ I hear?” he wanted to know. I nodded.

  “That’s a complication I hadn’t considered. She had a thing with a guy and the guy took an unexpected powder, leaving her with egg on her face at work. This is beginning to look like a much bigger problem than we originally thought.” I looked down at the gingerbread house. Something wasn’t right. It looked different. I couldn’t put my finger on it. It was more than the missing documents. On first glance, it looked like the same gingerbread townhouse. It even smelled the same. But there were subtle differences. Slightly bigger. A heavier hand on the icing. More M&M candies on the roof. The peppermint disks were bigger. Someone went to a lot of trouble to make a duplicate gingerbread house. No wonder there was nothing for the detective to find.

  “You okay?”

  “Sorry. I’m just wondering if I’m going to get blind-sided,” I said, looking up at the detective, his brawny arms crossed in front of him. He was in his shirt, and the winter wind was clearly chilling him to the bone. “It’s cold out here. I shouldn’t keep you. Thanks for letting me know. I should get going.”

  “You take care now, Deputy. Watch your back.”

  “I will, Detective. Thanks.”

  I watched him hurry back into the station as I started the engine. Was Malcolm right? Was this a professional job? I thought back to the events of last night. Had I locked the car? I was fairly certain I had. Was it still locked when we got back after giving our statements? I assumed so, but I popped the remote while we were still walking towards the car. It could have been open. Then again, the gingerbread thief could have simply pushed the button before shutting the door and disappearing. But why make a duplicate display? What was so special about Nettie’s cookie version?

  That question haunted me all the way back to Latimer Falls. I pulled in and parked by the back door of the farmhouse ten minutes after nine, eased my aching body out of the driver’s bucket seat, and climbed the steps up to the door. I knocked and then let myself in. I found Annette at the table, a pastry bag in her hands. She was dabbing royal icing on two large gingerbread figures.

  “Check it out, Gabby. Hansel and Gretel live,” she grinned. I wondered how she was going to take the news. “I thought I would add them to the display. Aren’t they cute?”

  Gretel had yellow icing for hair, blue eyes, and a dirndl skirt. As I watched, Nettie added stripes to the stockings. Hansel ended up with a shorter hairstyle, shorts, suspenders, and similar stockings. I slid into the chair across from her.

  “So, is the display damaged?”

  “Nope, everything is intact.”

  “Let’s go get it. I want to show Gerhard and Ervina.” Might as well get this over with, I decided. I followed her out the back door.

  A few minutes later, walking backwards, I stepped up and into the kitchen, maneuvering my way over to the counter by the sink. “Let’s put it down here. We can always move it later.”

  There, under the glow of the recessed can light above, I held my breath, waiting. As the seconds passed, I began to second-guess myself. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe I was wrong.

  “Son of a....This isn’t mine!”

  “I know,” I told her. “I noticed it was different.”

  “Hand me that knife,” my cousin demanded. She was studying the roof. I picked up the paring knife on the counter. Nettie began slicing at the edge of the roofline just as Gerhard and Ervina arrived.

  “Nice,” said my father, admiring the gingerbread architecture.

  “Lovely,” my stepmother agreed.

  “Bulldocky!”

  Chapter Seven --

  “This isn’t the gingerbread house Nettie created. Someone made a duplicate.”

  “Why?” Ervina asked, slightly baffled.

  “That’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

  The roof came off in two pieces. Gerhard caught the second one as it dropped.

  “Terrible,” Annette decided. “Look at this. No trusses. And here, it’s missing the cross-bracing.”

  “What did you do with the other one, work from original blueprints?” My father was curious.

  “As a matter of fact, I did.”

  “Amazing,” he responded. They examined the construction of the gingerbread house. “Fairly ordinary. Not particularly stable.”

  “Made by a baker, not someone who understands construction,” I decided.

  “Someone didn’t know I made such an accurate replica of the townhouse. You know, on the outside, it looks pretty good, but on the inside, it’s a dismal failure.”

  “Too bad we can’t see the original interior,” my father, the architectural designer, sighed.

  “Oh, but we can. Angelika wanted to see it,”
the gingerbread expert announced. “I took photos and emailed them to my mother. I just need to sign onto my account and I can show you the copy in my sent mailbox.”

  Half an hour and twenty photos later, I had an appreciation of Nettie’s dedication to the task. It was clear she had created a masterpiece. Where was it now? And why had it been taken?

  “What’s the problem at work?” Suddenly Gerhard wanted to know what the snafu was. My cousin explained about the bids for Phase One and Phase Two. Lucky for her, Gerhard was experienced in the construction trades, and he understood the problem immediately. As they bantered back and forth, I found myself wondering if all that work on the original was the reason it was stolen.

  “Nettie, if you put all that effort into the model, would someone have been able to get some kind of idea of the problems with the concrete at 1423?”

  “I don’t follow you,” she told me.

  “Did you build it with ingredients that would compare to the actual materials? Was there extra royal icing where there would be concrete fortification? Did you have trusses where the actual trusses would go?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Maybe that’s the problem,” I decided. “It was a little too accurate. It made you look like a very credible witness, someone very knowledgeable about the 1423 project. Even if the documents were stolen, your display would show that you very much understood how it was constructed.”

  “Well, I did want to be an architect when I was growing up,” she replied.

  “I never knew that,” I told my cousin. I never really thought of her as someone that precise.

  “That concrete situation was a real mess. The three top bids were all from companies known to have serious issues with the quality of their product. Klinghoffer Concrete had provided the mix for a six-story tower that developed cracks within five years of completion. Tomasino Construction had been sued for three projects that went over-budget by several million dollars when the concrete had to be replaced on the footings. Zavaro Cement was sued by the developer of Lincoln Park because the sidewalks all crumbled during the first winter.”

  “In other words, the top three bidders shouldn’t have had a chance to provide the concrete because of failures?”

  “Exactly, Gabby. It doesn’t make sense that the projects were so much above the original Phase One bids, especially because the average increase isn’t that high. Why did these three companies get the opportunity to bid? Those previous problems should have kept them out of the running.”

  “It must involve kickbacks,” Gerhard suggested. “Did you get a new boss?”

  “No, same boss. He’s got a new wife, Christine. Boy, is she a pain in the ass. She’s spending money faster than her husband can make it.”

  “Is that right?” Maybe the boss needed the extra cash from the kickback to afford his new wife’s desire for the good life.

  “Yes. His divorce was really ugly and it cost him a pretty penny. His ex-wife was a doll. The new wife? Not so much.”

  Was Mr. Frist expecting Annette to be called as a witness against him? Maybe this was about destroying her credibility as a potential witness by making her seem so uninformed. Maybe someone wanted to knock her out of the running before she could be tapped to testify.

  “Too bad the documents are missing,” Ervina sighed. Nettie and I looked at each other and grinned.

  “Well, the paper versions are gone,” I agreed, “but we have photos of them on my cell phone.”

  “Are they legible?” Gerhard’s appetite for investigation was whetted.

  “I believe they are.” I flipped on my cell phone and showed him. As he read, his eyes widened and narrowed. I could only imagine what he was thinking.

  “Can I download these?” Ah, the benefits of buying the same Smartphone as my dad. I took his cord and plugged in both ends to complete the transfer. Moments later, the data had been copied to his laptop.

  At eleven, I bid the group good night and headed back to my carriage house. I got into my pajamas and poured myself a glass of wine, settling on the sofa to watch the day’s news. I turned on my laptop, hoping that Sam had left me a message. It had been quite some time since he had sent me one. Coming up to Christmas, I missed him more than I cared to admit. In all the months we had been together, he had been gone more than he had been around. I understood it was his job to travel the world, on the hunt for terrorists, but that didn’t make life any easier, especially at the holidays. Boy, New Year’s Eve was looking like a bust, too.

  I quickly cleared the spam from my inbox and then went through the messages. A part of me felt like I was wasting my time checking the emails, getting my hopes up for no reason at all. And then I read the email from “Harry Mann”. Instantly, I knew it was a message from Sam.

  Dear Fraulein Grimm, we are sending your Christmas marzipan pig and Schladerer pralines next week. Please expect delivery of your order by 17 December. Sincerely yours, Harry Mann, manager.

  That rascal was sending me goodies again. Only this time around, he would not be around to help me burn off those calories. How cruel was that? I decided I would share them with the family. Either that or go cross-country skiing for the next six weeks. Boy, when I saw him again, I was going to wrap my arms around that body of his and hold him tighter than tight. It would take a lot to satiate my lust for him, given how long he was gone this time. And I still had no way to know when I would actually see him again. I longed for those lips on mine. I ached for the touch of his hands on my naked skin, the feel of him on top of me. This longing wasn’t going away anytime soon.

  With a groan of frustration, I sipped my Riesling, trying to think of anything but those strong hands and that tasty mouth. No matter what I tried, I came back to Sam. I was getting hooked on him. Maybe that wasn’t such a great idea, not if he was going to be away more than he was home. And yet, he was worth the wait. I was getting to the point I couldn’t imagine life without him.

  I felt a nudge on the back of my head. Puss in need of a chin rub. I pulled the cat into my arms and settled him down on my lap to watch the weather report. We were expecting a light dusting of snow overnight, temperatures in the twenties. It was enough to send me to my bed, pull the down comforter up to my neck, and cork off for the night.

  I woke up at seven and brewed myself a pot of coffee. With a dish of Ervina’s cranberry-pecan Greek-style yogurt and a whole-grain English muffin in front of me, I turned on my laptop and downloaded the photos of the documents Annette had given me in the car. I was missing something important. There was that nagging doubt floating around in the back of my head as I scanned the information. This was all about concrete, a subject with which I had little familiarity. This was about financial bids for a construction job. This was about kickbacks. So how did Joe Fortuna fit into all this? How did the FBI become interested in my cousin?

  I stepped back a bit, trying to see the bigger picture. What did I know about Annette’s work with Frist and Company? I knew she started working there three years ago, after she and Paul moved to their new condo in Manhattan. She had always been a very organized person, used to managing the day-to-day operations of Harvey Builders on Staten Island. The small company was well-regarded in the tri-state area. Never building more than thirty units in any one location, they specialized in luxury townhouses in popular areas. No big fancy gym or swimming pool attached to the property. No gold-plated bells and whistles. The units were always solid, well-crafted buildings that increased in value with time because Harvey Builders always selected great locations for the properties. The company would tear down seven or eight post-war tiny Cape Cod homes less than a mile from a train station, houses that were slab construction and outdated by today’s building standards. That gave the developers a chance to put in a low-rise buildings with attractive architecture scaled to fit the neighborhood. The landscaping was lush, the views were usually decent, and the residents were extremely happy with their choices. Turn-over on the units was low. Most folks who moved in had n
o intention of moving out any time soon. That’s because Harvey Builders gave the customers what they wanted, value in an attractive package.

  What about Frist and Company? I did an Internet search. According to articles in several newspapers and even the company’s website, Kevin Frist started out with his brother, Kyle, back in 1982 as K and K Builders, constructing single family homes in New Rochelle, New York. As the company grew, the projects began to pop up in the city. A pre-war building here, an old factory complex there, a row of townhouses by a park. The more they renovated, the bigger their reputation became. Soon the company was focusing solely on taking over established properties, gutting them, building luxury housing from the shell up, and getting top dollar for their efforts. Sometimes that meant buying out rent-controlled units in established residential buildings. Sometimes that meant unhappy people losing their homes to unhappy accidents. The more I read about Frist and Company, the more I began to see the pattern of bullying and buy-outs. Maybe Kevin and Kyle wouldn’t take no for an answer when they wanted what they wanted.

  In 1993, Kyle Frist disappeared, and so did 1.2 million dollars from the company’s coffers. There were rumors that he had run afoul of organized crime, but nothing ever came of it. Exactly seven years, four months, and two days after Kyle was last seen, Kevin Frist had his brother declared dead, collected on the insurance policy he held for his business partner, and received nearly two million dollars. What if Kevin had some kind of involvement in his brother’s disappearance? It wouldn’t be the first time that bad blood spoiled a family business.

  Once he had that money in his hot little hand, Kevin Frist had dissolved K and K Builders and created Frist and Company. Suddenly, he went from being a small-scale business owner to being a big-name developer. I still could remember how excited Annette was when Kevin Frist approached her to come to work for him. Harvey Builders folded up shop when Latham Harvey retired. His daughters weren’t interested in keeping the company going. His junior partner was planning to start his own remodeling business. Nettie had run into Kevin Frist at a building trades show at the convention center and he had offered her his card. “If you’re ever in the market for a job, let me know.” She had been dazzled by the fact that such a prominent businessman showed some interest.