Where's Hansel and Gretel's Gingerbread House?: A Gabby Grimm Fairy Tale Mystery #2 (8 page)

“He can’t be. How could he be? He wouldn’t
have slept with me if he was a cop!” she corrected me. “Cops aren’t
allowed to do that kind of thing! Besides, he would have told me he
was a cop.”

There it was, the self-appointed expert on
life, oblivious of her own naivety, coming through loud and clear.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that men, even men who were
supposed to uphold the law, could and did often put their careers
ahead of their ethics. If Joe Fortuna was a fed, and I was
beginning to suspect he was, then my cousin, with her pretty face
and pleasing fanny, was just a rung on his career ladder. If the
FBI was out to get Frist and Company, Nettie was collateral damage.
Had Joe flipped her before resuming his real life as Mike Alves? Or
was that his real life?

“When did he get the job with Frist?”

“About a month after we met.”

“How soon after you broke it off with Pete
did you meet Joe?”

“Let’s see.” She added a carrot nose to a
snowman gingerbread cookie. “I knew Pete for about a month before
we hooked up. That was in June, half a year after Paul died.”

After Paul died. Those words still caught in
her throat. I let her tell her story her own way, figuring she
needed to put it all in perspective. As a woman married to the love
of her life, Annette had spent much of her adult life cherished by
a man who adored her. His death cut her loose from all that love,
and in her search for some semblance of romance, she was easy prey.
Maybe part of it was that Nettie didn’t actually want to replace
Paul. Maybe she was going through the motions, needing the physical
contact without the emotional attachment.

“And he lasted three weeks before his wife
caught you two?” Even now, her face went red at the memory of that
embarrassing incident in the elevator, despite her best efforts to
fight the blush. Finally, she shrugged and gave me a nod. “When did
Joe show up?”

“A month later. At first, we just got
together for a meal here or there, talked about the business. It
didn’t turn...romantic,” she confided, stumbling over the memory
like she was climbing a pile of rubble, “until the night I was
robbed after I left the office.”

“You were robbed?”

“It was no big deal. Joe chased after the guy
and got my purse back. It had my cell phone in it, with all my
photos of Paul. That was the first time Joe came to my place. He
transferred all the photos from the phone to my computer, and even
put them on a USB stick, so I would have back-up copies.”

“Interesting.”

“Is it? Why?” Those big blue inquisitive eyes
bore right through me. “I want to know, Gabby.”

“Because it was a nice thing for him to do
for you. Did Joe ever make promises he didn’t keep? Offer you
things he never delivered?”

“If you’re asking me if he treated me like
Pete, the answer is no.”

“Did your boss know you were seeing Joe? Did
anyone at Frist and Company know?”

“Not after that thing with Pete. I wasn’t
about to be a joke at the water cooler again.”

“People at work knew about Pete?”

“His wife showed up at the office, screaming
at the top of her lungs about me being a slut. Mr. Frist had her
escorted out of the building.”

That explained the deep red flush to her
cheeks. The word got around that the widow was interested in sex
again. And yet, when Joe Fortuna entered the picture, he didn’t
rush into a sexual relationship with her and he didn’t seem
determined to go public. So, why did he give her a phone number he
also used for Mike Alves? Who was Mike Alves, another cover? Had he
worried about Annette and given her that phone number as an
emergency precaution? Maybe Joe-Mike thought she could end up in
danger. Maybe Joe-Mike knew that if she called the number, he’d at
least know something was wrong and be able to funnel help to her
through back channels. Maybe that’s why the FBI was so upset when I
left the message as a sheriff’s deputy. But did it explain the
substitution of the gingerbread house? In my book, that was just
too weird.

“Annette, let me just change the subject here
a minute.” I saw the relief on her face as the topic moved from sex
to baking. “When you made that replica in gingerbread, you made
templates from the actual blueprints of the 1423 condo project.
Were there any revisions of the blueprints at any time?”

“There are always revisions as any project
goes forward. Plumbing gets moved, electrical gets added, a wall
goes up there or comes down here.”

“Was your cookie version very different than
the actual building the company constructed?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen it yet. Mr.
Frist asked me not to go down there until the decorator had
finished. He said he wanted it to be a surprise for me.”

“Was this before or after you made the
gingerbread house?”

“It was after I brought in the display. He
took one look at it and called me into his office. He said,
‘Annette, that’s amazing. It’s so well-done, I want to do you one
better. Let Paula finish decorating before you take the tour of the
model.’ So, I haven’t seen the completed unit yet.”

“This was after Joe disappeared?”

“No, maybe a day or two before.”

“Did Joe see the display you made?”

“Are you kidding? He was there the night I
finished it. I had to let the royal icing harden before I attached
the roof. Joe said the trusses were interesting, because they
looked like the real thing in the blueprints.”

“You gave Joe the concrete bids the next day
at Louie’s, when you had dinner?”

“He looked over the plans the night before,
while I was finishing the gingerbread house. We talked about the
actual condos and the problems the structural engineers found. Joe
asked me about the concrete used for the project, and we got to
discussing the differences in the bids on Phase Two. The weight of
the walls and floors dictated the positions of the trusses and, in
this case, because it was an old factory building, it was necessary
to fortify everything, because the original building had a number
of weak points, according to the structural engineers who inspected
it.”

“These structural engineers wanted Frist and
Company to strengthen the building?”

“Yes, to handle the added weight of new
floors, systems, and all the rest. The load-bearing walls were
missing support beams and headers, so when the building was divided
up into individual units, each one had to be crafted to overcome
the original construction faults.”

“If the changes weren’t implemented, Nettie,
what would happen to the 1423 condos?”

“Well, they’d probably be okay for a few
years, but eventually the unsupported weight would probably take
its toll. You’d have serious structural problems.”

“Could Frist and Company have changed their
construction to cut costs?”

“How could they? They’d have to bribe the
building inspectors, get them to sign off on the construction
without doing the proper work. That would be unconscionable. Not to
mention dangerous, Gabby.”

“And criminal,” I added. “I think you’re the
skunk at the Frist and Company picnic, Nettie. You’re too ethical.
You see too much. That’s why Kevin Frist didn’t want you near the
showcase unit. You studied those blueprints. You would have
recognized things weren’t where they should be.”

Maybe that’s what Joe Fortuna noticed before
he made a quick exit. Maybe he wanted the information on the
concrete bids because he knew the concrete hadn’t been poured or
the building properly fortified. Had Kevin Frist defrauded his
investors, jacking up the costs of Phase Two, bribing building
inspectors to pass the shoddy construction on Phase One, all while
pocketing the profits and the kickbacks?

“How was 1423 financed? Loans?”

“No, Mr. Frist sold the controlling shares of
the company to Blue Ridge Investments last year. He only owns a
third of the company. The venture capital investment firm took on
the debt, betting on the success of 1423.”

“When are the condos going to be sold?” I
wondered.

“Oh, most are already under contract. A lot
of buyers are using them for investment purposes, and once the
whole development is finished, many of them will sell their
individual units for a hefty profit.”

“Unless the development goes belly up when
the shoddy construction is revealed.”

“Gabby! How can you think I would work for a
company like that! I would never condone anything like that.
Never!’

“Which is why you’re a target.”

“That’s crazy!”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But I think I know now why
that gingerbread house disappeared. And I think I know who stole
it.”

“You do?” She looked at me in wonder.
“Who?”

“Someone who cares about you. Someone who was
protecting you.”

“Mr. Frist?”

“Hardly. The guy’s a creep, Annette. His
brother, Kyle, disappeared and he made a fortune off the insurance
money. Now his condo development is owned by investors who are
being defrauded. Kevin Frist is hardly your champion. He’s a
mobbed-up creep.”

Chapter Nine --

“That’s not nice. You shouldn’t talk about my
boss that way, Gabby.” I could see Little Miss Sunshine was
disappointed in my cynical mindset, as far as her boss was
concerned. “He was very good to me when Paul was ill. He let me
take a lot of time off with pay.”

“Did he? And never expected anything in
return?”

“No. As long as I kept up with the filings,
the permits, and the rest of the paperwork, he didn’t care if I
worked from home, from the construction site, or from the
office.”

“Listen, Nettie. I’ve got to go see Rufus and
get this mess straightened out. Just tell me one thing. Did Joe
know I was a deputy sheriff?”

“Sure. We often talked about you. I told him
all about you and Sam, how you saved the Klarsfeld family from
those terrorists.”

“What about your boss? Does Kevin Frist know
about me?”

“Oh, heavens no! I don’t discuss that sort of
thing with Mr. Frist. He doesn’t have time for that. He’s a very
busy man.”

“Okay. I’ll be back later. You can reach me
on my cell if you need me.”

“The old one or the new one?”

“The old. By the way,” I said as I got up,
“you missed your calling. You’re a genius with gingerbread.”

“Thanks. You should see the architectural
models I made for Mr. Frist. They’re even more amazing in
cardboard.”

“You make his models?” I was surprised by
that bit of news.

“Sure. I used to do all the models for Harvey
Construction when I worked there. When Mr. Frist found out, he
asked me to do the same for his company.”

That explained why Annette was such an
attractive target. No wonder the FBI was all over this.

Rufus was in his office when I got to the
Latimer Falls Sheriff’s Department. After Marge buzzed him, she
told me to go right in.

“Brief me,” he demanded, sitting behind his
massive desk. He waved me into a chair opposite and waited. I
obliged, filling him in on all the information I had developed on
the case. We talked over a couple of possible scenarios and kicked
around a few ideas on how to proceed. We came to a consensus half
an hour later, after I outlined a scheme I thought might yield
dividends. Rufus agreed.

“Do it, Gabby. Put his feet in the fire,
don’t take any crap, and don’t worry about me. I can handle the
FBI.”

“Think it will work?” I wondered.

“It’s worth a shot. At the moment, we don’t
really have much, do we?”

I had to agree about that. Between the
duplicate gingerbread house, the likelihood that I was being tailed
by the feds, and the fact that Joe Fortuna was a possible
undercover FBI agent who set up my cousin, there was too much
confusion clouding our view. We couldn’t afford to sit around
waiting for the dust to settle. Better to stir it up and see what
surfaced.

I left him as he sat at his desk, making
phone calls and cashing in old favors for current information. I
stopped at the winery for a quick conversation with Gerhard. And
then I called Mike Alves and got his voicemail.

“Joe,” I said breathlessly, in my sexiest
voice. “This is Harriet. I have those bids on the concrete you
wanted. Can you meet me?”

Twenty minutes later, my cell phone buzzed
and an unfamiliar number with a New Jersey area code popped up on
the screen. I counted to ten before answering.

“Talk to me, Mike, or I’ll nail your ass to
the wall a hundred different ways for messing with my cousin.”
That’s the thing about me. When I get my dander up, it’s tough to
smooth those feathers into submission. Nobody messes with my
cousin, just to make a case.

“Don’t you know better than to threaten a
federal agent, Deputy Grimm?” There was some serious venom in the
hiss of that snake. I wasn’t about to let the reptile bite me.

“Don’t you know the Office of Professional
Responsibility will hang you out to dry for compromising an
investigation by sexually taking advantage of a vulnerable woman to
get information on a criminal enterprise when the woman has no
direct connection to the criminal activities? You think I can’t
find a good lawyer to represent Annette and expose your shady
dealings? Film at eleven, pal.”

“Look,” the voice on the other end suddenly
dropped the hostile tone and became conciliatory, “it’s not like
that.”

“Oh?” I gave him a good dose of Ice Queen,
letting the frosty word put a chill on his attempt to sweet talk
me.

“Gabby..., er, Deputy Grimm,” he replied. “I
really like Annette. She’s a good, decent woman. Why do you think I
stole that gingerbread house?”

“Because you’re the Grinch and you wanted to
spoil Christmas for a woman who’s still grieving for her late
husband?”

“No. She’s too smart for her own good. Why do
you think I disappeared? I needed her to get out of town. I knew
that she’d go running to you the second there was any trouble.
That’s what she did when that jerk, Pete, used her.”