Where's Hansel and Gretel's Gingerbread House?: A Gabby Grimm Fairy Tale Mystery #2 (3 page)

“I just got a call from an assistant special
agent-in-charge in the New York FBI field office, wanting to know
how you got the phone number of a man by the name of Mike
Alves.”

“Long story,” I said in reply.

“Give me the short version.”

“The guy was romancing my cousin. He
compromised her and left her in the lurch. I’m trying to figure out
how to resurrect her reputation.”

“Well, I just got my ass chewed out by a very
irate FBI agent, who told me in no uncertain terms that I was to
call you off the case.”

“Uh....”

“You can thank me later for not telling him
there is no case. I suggest you get back here pronto and bring your
cousin with you, so I can say we actually have a case and the
jurisdiction that goes with it.”

“Right.” That sounded an awful lot like a
direct order.

“By the way, this self-important,
sanctimonious FBI piece of head cheese warned me that your cousin
is in deep trouble for her connections to organized crime.”

“What? That doesn’t sound like Annette.”

“Well, that’s the word he gave me. The FBI is
taking a long hard look at her for federal charges.”

“Seriously? Rufus, something’s just not right
here. This guy, Joe Fortuna....”

“Gabby, save it. Don’t tell me over the
phone. Get back here now and we’ll work it through in person. In
the meantime, I’ll call Ronny Glieb, just in case either of you
need a good defense attorney."

Chapter Three --

“Holy mother of pearl, are you freaking
kidding me?” I stuttered, utterly incredulous. “Why would I need a
defense attorney for trying to help my cousin find a missing
guy?”

“Maybe the guy is a lot more than missing. Or
maybe you blew an undercover op.”

“Geez,” I groaned. “How did this get so
complicated?”

“Sounds like this was supposed to be a high
profile case, Gabby, and you threw a monkey wrench at the gear
box.”

“By wanting to talk to a guy who took off
with confidential information he conned out of my cousin?” Rufus
and his wife had socialized with Annette on her occasional visits
to Latimer Falls. He knew she was a decent, law-abiding
citizen.

“Bring whatever paperwork and documents your
cousin has that might be relevant. We’ll go over it and see if we
can sort this out with the feds.”

“Okay. Thanks.” I looked down at my watch. It
was now a little before ten. “We’ll leave first thing in the
morning.”

“Leave now,” the sheriff insisted. “I know
these guys, Gabby. They could be tapping a judge for warrants as we
speak. Get yourself out of there pronto.”

I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand
why Rufus was so adamant about this. He was definitely spooked. I
was starting to get scared myself. Annette working for the mob?
That didn’t even make any sense. And just because I left a message
for Mike Alves, that didn’t warrant all this fuss. Why not just
ignore it? Or tell me I got the number wrong?

“Okay. We’ll be leaving shortly,” I
promised.

“Gabby, do me a favor. Shut off your phone,
pull out the battery, pick up a disposable, and call Ellie at home
in about three hours. I want to know you’re okay.

“Rufus, is all this really necessary?” It
seemed like an awful lot of trouble for a romance gone sour.

“Just do it,” he growled. “As a cop, I did a
stint with the DEA as a liaison for a while, and whenever I saw
federal agents get this nuts, it meant the case was so big, they
were willing to use just about anyone as collateral damage. Your
cousin sounds like she’s being set up as the perfect patsy, so
maybe someone’s career is headed for the toilet if this goes
bad.”

“Maybe. I’ll be in touch.”

By the time I got off the phone, Nettie was
at my elbow, demanding answers. Alas, there wasn’t time.

“Pack a bag. We’re heading to Vermont.”

“Now?”

“Now. Joe Fortuna’s in some kind of mess and
the FBI is looking at you for mob activity. We’ve got to get you to
Latimer Falls and sort this out. My boss wants all your documents,
paperwork, anything that might pertain to this case.”

“I left it all at the office,” she
admitted.

“Can we get in there?”

“I guess. There’s a night watchman, but it
wouldn’t be the first time I went in at night to pick up
papers.”

“Great. You go pack. I’m just going to check
my emails.” I flipped on my laptop computer and waited for it to
boot up. I wanted to check my three accounts, to see if Sam Hogan
had been in touch yet. The love of my life was on a covert mission
and the usual communication was overdue by a week. But then, that’s
the trouble with special ops guys. You can’t know what the
assignment is, where it is, or what’s going on. Sam and I had been
involved for the better part of a year now, so I was used to the
periodic absences when he was whisked away to some God-forsaken
hell hole to rout out the bad guys. Sometimes we got lucky and he
was assigned stateside for a big chunk of time, but with the
current fight on terrorism, he spent more and more of his time
away. Lord, I missed him. Reluctantly, I shut off my computer and
packed it away.

“Ready,” Nettie announced. She had changed
out of her sweats and was wearing jeans and a pink scoop-necked
sweater. She normally looked like she was still thirty-five,
especially without any makeup, but her eyes were now almost swollen
shut from all the tears shed. I wondered how she was going to
drive.

“Now we look like twins who got the crap
kicked out of us,” I decided.

“Are you telling me I look horrid?”

“We both do. And you know how that ‘misery
loves company’ thing works. We’re two peas in a pod.”

“I’d be mad at you if it wasn’t for the fact
that I know you’re right. Let’s go. My car’s downstairs in the
garage.”

Twenty minutes later, we were parked outside
Frist and Company. I sat in the car, watching Nettie walk into the
building. A part of me was reluctant to let her out of my sight,
but I figured it would seem a lot more legitimate if she went in
alone to collect the papers. As the minutes ticked by, I considered
what I was going to do if this went sour. I’d have to get into the
building, but as a civilian. No jurisdiction here. The Latimer
Falls badge wasn’t going to do diddily squat for me here.

Finally the door opened and two people came
out from the lobby. One was dressed in jeans and a black wool coat.
Annette. The other was in uniform, carrying what appeared to be a
gingerbread house on a board. I saw my cousin point something at
the car. The remote key fob. Scooting out of the front passenger
seat, I went around to the back of her Toyota Corolla and lifted
the trunk.

“Do you think it will fit?” I wondered, as
the pair arrived. The security guard was confident it would.

“Thank you, Smitty.” Nettie poured on the
feminine charm. “I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t
been there to help me.”

“Oh, you would have managed. You’re a bright
young woman.”

“Well, I appreciate it. Come on, Katie. We
have to schlep this over to the Fountain House for the Christmas
party.”

Katie? Just as I was about to ask her who
Katie was, Nettie gave me a little push back towards the front
passenger seat.

“Thanks again. If I don’t see you, have a
Merry Christmas.”

“You, too, doll.”

As soon as Nettie was behind the wheel, she
buckled her belt and the engine roared to life. “We’ve got to get
out of here!”

“Oh?”

“My boss was in his office. He wanted to know
what I was doing there. I told him I forgot to bring the
gingerbread house to the venue where we’re having the Christmas
party on Sunday. I made it last week.”

“Good cover.”

“You’re not the only one in the family with
beauty, brains, and bluster, Gabby!” Even as she pulled onto the
Henry Hudson Parkway, she was patting herself on the back.

“You’re just full of surprises,” I grinned.
“Did you manage to get the documents?”

“Mr. Grimes was in the next room, working on
a report for Mr. Frist, so I had to be careful. I didn’t dare take
the originals, in case he needed them, but I did make copies.”

“You did?” I shifted my aching fanny in the
seat. Boy, it was going to be a long drive. “Great work. At least
we’ll be able to figure out what was so damaging that Joe Fortuna
had to disappear. Where are they?”

“In here.” She handed me her purse. I opened
it up, expecting to see the papers.

“Where?” For a brief moment, I worried that
Nettie had left them behind.

“Pull up the bottom of my purse,” she
instructed me. Sure enough, there was a false bottom.

“Where did you learn this little trick?”

“The security guards are really nosy. Once,
when I had a lab test in my purse, Doug actually read it. That’s
not part of the security process, Gabby.”

“Well,” I said, looking down at the pile in
my lap, “they might have just been making sure you weren’t stealing
documents. I guess it’s a good thing you took umbrage, because look
at what we have.”

“Do you think they’re important?”

“I hope so, Net. We need to know why Joe
Fortuna disappeared and Mike Alves took over his life.” I took out
my cell phone and began to snap photos of the documents, trying to
get them clear enough to read. When I was satisfied, I shut it off,
pulled out the battery, and tucked both into a side pocket of my
over-sized purse. “Now, let’s find an open store, so I can buy a
new phone.”

The benefit of shopping three weeks before
Christmas is that lots of stores are open late, so we were in luck.
Annette sat in the car while I ran into Target and picked up a
Tracfone with an unlimited data plan. I gave the young sales clerk
a real sob story about losing my phone while on the road. He was
sweet enough to let me use his cell phone to activate the service.
I slipped him a ten.

“Have a little holiday cheer on me, Steve,” I
told him.

“Thanks. Have a good one.”

“You, too.” I made my way past the late-night
shoppers in search of bargains and out the front doors. As I slid
into the passenger seat, I threw the box for the phone into my
whale of a hobo bag and got to work photographing the documents
with the replacement phone. Better safe than sorry.

“I thought you already did that,” Annette
pointed out.

“This is what I’m sending to Rufus,” I
explained. “The others are my back-up copies. I like to make sure I
don’t lose the evidence.”

“That seems like overkill, Gabby.”

“Maybe so, but if Rufus told me to go to the
trouble of buying a new phone, that tells me he was worried. And if
he’s worried, I want to make sure we’re covered.”

“That’s silly. I made all those copies,” she
pointed out. “It’s not like you don’t have the real thing in
hand.”

I didn’t have the heart to explain to her my
misgivings. Instead, I sent the photos off to Ellie before turning
my attention back to the side mirror. For the last ten miles, the
same dark sedan was hanging back, keeping a steady pace. All the
other drivers on the highway in the wee small hours of the night
were zipping past us, but not that one. That’s the benefit of
having a cousin who’s a Nervous Nellie behind the wheel. She
doesn’t drive all that much, especially in the city. The 2004 sedan
was Paul’s, and the widow used it only for the occasional drive to
the mall or for trips to visit family and friends. Otherwise, it
stayed in the parking slot of her condo garage. When she did drive,
it was rare she went over fifty miles an hour. Probably why I
usually drove when we went somewhere together.

Normally, this rate of speed on the wide-open
expanse of I-87 was enough to set my teeth on edge, but tonight, I
was actually grateful. It was a good part of the reason why I
wanted so many copies of the documents. I had a bad feeling about
this situation, and I had to agree with Rufus that it was important
to take security precautions.

Two and a half hours later, at quarter to
three, we pulled off the highway in Albany for a pit stop at a
24-hour Mobil gas station on Central Avenue. Light snowflakes
danced down from the sky like celestial visitors. Even as I looked
at my cousin, I could see the fear building up in her. She’s
terrified of rain and snow.

“Pull up to the pump,” I told her. “I’ve got
this.”

“Shouldn’t we let the gas station attendant
do it?” she asked naively. I shook my head in wonder. For all her
city ways, Nettie really is at a loss when it comes to handling
mundane everyday matters. Maybe it was that Paul was always her
champion, ready to meet her every need. Or maybe it was that she
just never found herself in the position of having to do some
things for herself.

“Watch and learn,” I directed her. “Remember
one rule about winter and gas pumps. When the air is dry, get rid
of the static electricity before you pump. Not so much of a problem
on a night like this. The humidity is up.”

I swiped my credit card, and lifted the
nozzle to the hose. Nettie stepped back, alarmed. With one hand, I
popped the door to the gas tank, unscrewed the cap, and loaded the
nozzle into the hole. “And if you flip this little metal
contraption, the gas pumps, hands free.”

“Oh, Gabby. You really are something else.
You’re so...so competent at everything.” There was a touch of
sadness in that voice.

“Nonsense. Look at you. Look at that gorgeous
gingerbread house. A masterpiece of cookie architecture,” I pointed
out.

“Well, I do work for a developer,” she
acknowledged. “I’ve picked up some pointers over the years about
construction. I just applied them to the gingerbread. Did you know
I even put in trusses?”

“Really?” I laughed at the thought. “Gerhard
is going to love this.”

My father, Gerhard Grimm, is a well-known
architectural designer. There is nothing that gets him excited more
than good construction.