Free Where's Hansel and Gretel's Gingerbread House?: A Gabby Grimm Fairy Tale Mystery #2 by Sara M. Barton

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,