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

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!”
     

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,