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

by Sara M. Barton

  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 no 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.

  Paul, on the other hand, was suspicious. I remembered the holiday party at Mallow’s. My cousin had invited me to join them in the hopes of finding me a “suitable man”, one not connected to law enforcement.

  “Kevin Frist wants to get into your pants,” he told his wife. “The guy has a reputation.”

  “That’s silly,” Nettie countered her husband’s comment, glass of Chardonnay in hand. She waved it about, punctuating her points. “In the first place, he’s married. In the second, he knows I’m not interested. And,” that wine sloshed around as it was launched above her head, “you’re presuming that my only talents are superficial, just because I have a great-looking fanny and face. I happen to be a good organizer, I am familiar with construction from the inside out, and I know how to get permits and inspections done without paying out bribes.”

  “And I’m telling you the guy is a weasel. He’s going to bide his time before he makes his move. You mark my words.”

  It took him a few months, but Kevin Frist managed to prove Paul right. Unfortunately, by that time, Nettie’s husband was going back and forth to Sloan-Kettering for cancer treatment and she needed the job. Debilitated by chemotherapy and fighting a losing battle, Paul worked from home for the first two years as a policy analyst for an insurance company. Eventually, he was forced to cut back his hours as his energy waxed and waned. He took on some consulting jobs, but there came that point where he needed to retire and he did, spending his days in the chair in their living room. Annette took a leave of absence for the last three months of his life to care for him. Once he was buried, Kevin Frist asked her to come back and fix the mess her replacement made.

  Was any of that important to the investigation? Had Nettie come across something when she was reorganizing the office after Paul’s death? Maybe it wasn’t just the concrete bids on the 1423 condo project in Queens. Her career at Frist and Company was clouded by Paul’s cancer. Maybe she was more distracted during those years than she appreciated. And maybe, when she went back to the office, she noticed the things she missed the first time around.

  Even as unfocused as she was made by Paul’s cancer, I knew Nettie was capable of keeping up a good front. She often busied herself straightening things up wherever she went. She blustered on, charging through life like she could control the chaos, even as Paul slipped away from her on his way towards death. I thought about Joe Fortuna. Had he played some kind of role in this mess? Was he working for Frist and Company or working for the feds? Was he there to get information or for another reason?

  I still couldn’t figure out why someone had made a replica of Annette’s gingerbread house. What kind of baker goes to such trouble to create such a realistic replacement in cookie dough? Why substitute the second display for Annette’s original? Even more important, why leave it for the cops at the Mobil station after the robbery. It was almost like someone was creating a mystery, drawing our attention to the switch, sucking us into something unsavory.