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.
“And cross-bracing. The gingerbread house is even based on the model of the carriage houses in Phase Two.”