Where's Hansel and Gretel's Gingerbread House?: A Gabby Grimm Fairy Tale Mystery #2 (6 page)

That’s part of why I decided to become a
deputy sheriff in Latimer Falls. The village is a warm, friendly
place where people are decent. Keeping it safe is my job. I told
myself that if I can keep one family from experiencing what we went
through, it’s worth it. So far, I’ve actually saved more lives than
I ever imagined I would. It’s funny what pops up when you least
expect it.

As soon as I lugged my overnight bag up the
flight of stairs to my abode above the garage, I brushed my teeth,
got into my shorty pajamas, and flopped into bed. The alarm clock
was set for two. That would give me time to drive back to Albany to
fetch the gingerbread house and still get home at a decent hour.
Puss N. Boots, my wily cat, joined me, parking himself on Sam’s
side of the bed and proceeded to take a long bath. My own would
have to wait. I was just too exhausted. Long before the last bit of
fur was licked by my companion, I was sound asleep.

“Beep-beep-beep-beep!” Hours later, I tapped
the alarm button on the bedside table, wishing I could dream on. I
wasn’t really sure what I had been imagining as I slept, but I knew
it was good enough to put a smile on my face. And then an image
popped into my head. It was Annette, in the farmhouse kitchen,
decorating gingerbread cookies. It had been a long time since she
had been with us at Christmas. It brought back some happy
memories.

When we were kids, she used to visit us in
Manhattan with her parents and brothers. Gerhard was Angelika’s
brother, and the two of them would take us skating at Rockefeller
Center. All the twinkling lights and hot cocoa were magical. They
would arrive in the family station wagon, packages and suitcases
behind the back seat, unload everything in front of the building,
take the elevator up to the fourth floor apartment I shared with my
parents and sister Gisela, and we would celebrate over several
days. The adults got the bedrooms and we kids slept in sleeping
bags on the living room and den floors.

Now everyone was scattered across the country
and we rarely got together any more. Oh, there were phone calls and
emails back and forth, but it wasn’t the same. We all had our own
lives. Sometimes I really missed the old days, when we all had fun
together.

“How about some kibble, Puss?” I rolled out
of bed, groaning when my feet hit the floor. My fanny muscles
protested. Nothing that a long, hot shower wouldn’t fix in the
short run. I was not looking forward to the drive.

Half an hour later, my hair still damp, I
headed down the stairs to the car, dialing Gerhard as I went.

“How’s everything?”

“Fine. Annette is still up in her room.”

“Good. Hey, Dad, remember all the times that
Aunt Angelika and Uncle Tom would bring everyone to the city, for
ice-skating?”

“Some of my favorite winter days,” Gerhard
replied, a wistful tone in his voice.

“Mine, too. We should have a reunion,” I
decided. “Maybe in the summer time. We could put folks up at the
bed and breakfast.”

When Ervina married my father, she still
owned the old house she had lived in with her late husband, on the
dairy farm they operated. Gerhard helped her renovate; together,
they turned it into a charming guest house. Not a big money maker.
In fact, it barely broke even. But it was a sweet little place for
families to come to enjoy life on a working Vermont farm.

“That’s a wonderful idea, Gabby. We’ll have
to talk about it. You know what would be perfect?”

I rolled my eyes and shook my head. Gerhard
had been lobbying for a wedding ever since I met Sam Hogan. He was
relentless.

“What’s that, Dad?

“We could go hiking as a group.” Even as he
said that, I could hear the rush of breath exit my mouth as a sigh
of relief. “And take the horses for trail rides.”

“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.”