Chapter Six --
“There might still be time,” said my cousin. I could see her already considering the possibility.
“Gerhard, you could help her make the templates, couldn’t you?” That was my stepmother, taking advantage of the chance to add some more dazzle to the display at the winery gift shop. “I could roll out the dough and bake it.”
“Wow, you people lose no time,” I laughed. “On that note, I’m off to the carriage house. I’ll call you before I leave for Albany.”
“We will take good care of Annette in your absence,” said my stepmother, patting her guest on the shoulder. She pulled back the covers on the big brass bed, beckoning Nettie to get some rest.
Just outside the door, I grabbed Gerhard and pulled him away for a private conversation. We huddled by the linen closet.
“Dad, Nettie’s had a spot of legal trouble we’re trying to sort out. Keep an eye on her and be wary of strangers. Rufus and I are going to see if we can help her, but I need to get that gingerbread house back. We hid some documents in there.”
“Will I need my shotgun?” he wanted to know. My father’s a crack shot.
“I don’t think so. Just watch out for her.”
“Okay, Gabby. I am glad you are helping her. Your cousin has had a tough time of it since Paul died. She needs a good man to look out for her interests.”
That was Gerhard’s philosophy of life. People need people. Love makes the world go ‘round. Walk on the sunny side of the street. That comes from the hard lessons learned. My mother was murdered several years ago. She returned unexpectedly and interrupted a robbery at their home. Life changed in the blink of an eye. In that split second, our whole world turned upside down. One moment she was full of smiles and hugs, the next she was lying on a slab in the morgue and I was standing there identifying the body. It didn’t help that her killer was sorry. There was no do-over. Dead is dead. The pain never really goes away. It may dull with time, but it’s always still there.
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!”