8 Scones, Skulls & Scams

by Leighann Dobbs

  Lexy’s heart swelled as she breathed in the sweet smell of cinnamon, sugar and almond. The results of the latest rendition of her scone recipe sat in rows cooling on the counter, wisps of steam rising up from their browned tops.

  She felt grateful there had been a steady stream of customers today. By comparison, The Brew and Bake had been empty and Lexy had glanced over to catch Caraleigh looking back at her more than once. She just didn’t know if the woman was looking to see how many customers she had, or trying to figure out how to get into the basement.

  The jangling bell in the front signaled the departure of the latest customer Cassie had been waiting on.

  Cassie breezed into the kitchen. “Oh, you added almond? Those smell so good. Can I try a little piece of one?”

  “Sure.” Lexy sliced into one of the scones and a gasp of steam escaped. It was still quite warm, but she managed to extract a piece, even though it fell apart on the plate. “It’s not pretty, but I’m sure it will still taste good.”

  Cassie dug in. “Yum … It does! This is the best one yet. You’ve got to use this recipe for the contest tomorrow.”

  “I don’t have much choice,” Lexy said. “There’s no time for me to come up with any more variations.”

  “No need,” Cassie said, shoveling the last of the crumbs into her mouth. “This one is perfection.”

  “Thanks,” Lexy said. “I guess we might as well shut down early today. Most of the town will be at the parade practice and the evening festivities, so I don’t think we’ll get any business anyway … plus the ladies are intent on exploring the sewer tunnels tonight and the sooner we get started the better.”

  Cassie laughed. “You couldn’t persuade them not to go in there?”

  “Honestly, I didn’t try very hard. Not after we figured out what’s really going on with The Brew and Bake. If our theory is true, then the sooner we find that money, the sooner Caraleigh will be out of our hair.”

  Cassie nodded. Lexy had told her how Caraleigh had signed out the sewer blueprints and Nans’ theory of why she’d opened the bakery in the first place. “Just be careful. If she finds out what you’re up to, there’s no telling what she might do.”

  Lexy’s stomach twisted. Cassie was right. Caraleigh and her brother had already gone to a lot of trouble and might resort to anything to get the treasure, but the way she saw it, she didn’t have much of a choice.

  The bell over the front door jingled.

  “Oh, that’s probably Nans.” Lexy gingerly placed some of the scones on a tray, trying not to burn her fingertips. “I’ll have the ladies taste-test these fresh out of the oven.”

  Nans, Ruth, Ida and Helen stood in the front room of the bakery looking ready for action. Their jackets hung open to reveal the same grungy paint-splattered tee-shirts they’d worn the night before.

  “Good grief Lexy, we don’t have time to eat,” Nans said eyeing the tray Lexy held in her hand.

  Lexy’s heart sank. “You don’t? I was hoping you’d try out my latest recipe.”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry dear. Of course we have time for that.” Nans looked truly sorry and Lexy’s demeanor brightened as she placed the scones onto paper plates.

  The four ladies grabbed the plates, shoveling the scones into their mouths without even bothering to sit down.

  Lexy glanced over at The Brew and Bake her heart skipping when she caught the other baker watching them. Caraleigh looked away quickly and busied herself with something in the bakery case.

  “Mmm … this is the best one so far,” Ruth said.

  “I agree,” Nans added.

  “Yep, it’s a winner.” Ida lifted the plate to her mouth and tapped the crumbs in.

  “It’s perfect,” Helen said. “Now, let’s get over to Victor’s and get a key before he closes his shop.”

  Lexy frowned at Nans. “Are you sure you even tasted it? You scarfed them down pretty quickly.”

  “Yes, it truly was delicious.” Nans licked the sugar that had dotted the top of the scone from her fingers and waved Lexy toward the door.

  “Now remember, don’t let on why we want the key. We don’t want him to know about the door in the basement so he doesn’t try to tag along,” Ida said.

  “What are you going to tell him?” Lexy asked.

  “We’re going to tell him we need it for an old trunk Helen bought at a yard sale,” Nans said.

  “He’ll do anything to help Helen,” Ida teased.

  “Oh shush!” Helen swatted at her as they made their way out the door.

  “Cassie, I’m going to close up out here. You can head on home … I’ll lock the front door,” Lexy yelled over her shoulder as she turned out the lights, flipped the sign to “Closed” and locked the door.

  She followed the ladies to Victor’s shop, whose door was about thirty feet down the sidewalk. Sneaking a glance at The Brew and Bake as she walked, she caught Caraleigh watching them and uneasiness settled on her like a prickly wool blanket, causing her to wonder if going into the sewer tunnels was such a smart idea after all.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Nans ripped open the door to Victor’s shop and Lexy followed the four older women in.

  The shop was crammed full of old furniture and display cases with sparkling cut crystal, green and pink Depression glass, and hand painted porcelain. Vases, clocks and statues could be seen everywhere—no surface was left unadorned.

  “Hi ladies. Welcome!” Lexy turned to see Victor standing behind a massive oak counter, his face lit with a welcoming smile.

  “Hi, Victor.” Ida made a show of looking around. “So, this is your shop? It’s very nice.”

  “Thank you. Did you ladies just come for a social visit, or did you come to invite me on an adventure?” Victor asked hopefully.

  “Actually we’re here to buy something,” Nans said.

  “Yes, we were wondering if you had any big skeleton keys,” Ruth added.

  “Skeleton keys?” Victor narrowed his eyes at them. “Whatever would you need a skeleton key for?”

  “Helen bought a big old trunk at a yard sale and it’s locked,” Nans said. “The lock takes a skeleton key.”

  Victor pressed his lips together. He turned in a semi-circle looking at the wall, frowned and then bent down behind the counter coming up with an iron ring about eight inches in diameter that held a collection of several skeleton keys in various shapes and sizes.

  “Do you think one of these would do?” The keys tinkled together as he held the ring out to Helen.

  Ida, Ruth and Nans rushed over to squint at the keys along with Helen. After a few seconds, Nans nodded.

  “I think one of these two here might work.” She pointed to two of the larger keys.

  “How much for those?” Helen started to open her giant purse, but Victor held his hand up.

  “Oh no. Just take the whole ring. You never know which key is going to fit—it’s so hard to tell.” He smiled at Helen. “When you find the one that fits, just bring the rest of them back. The key is on me.”

  “Oh well, thank you.” Helen blushed.

  “You’re welcome.” Victor leaned on the counter. “Say, did you ladies ever get into those sewer tunnels?”

  “Oh no.” Nans feigned disgust. “They would be so dirty.”

  “And dangerous,” Ruth added.

  “We were never going to actually go in there,” Ida said. “We were just doing research … like we said.”

  “Hmm ...” Victor scrunched his face up. “What were those noises I heard over there last night, then? I thought maybe you ladies were tearing up the cellar trying to get in.”

  Lexy’s stomach lurched. “You were here last night in your shop?”

  “Yep, heard a lot of banging and crashing.” The orange cat jumped up on the counter in front of Victor and he scratched him behind the ears. “Scared poor Icharus here almost to death.”

  Nans, Ruth, Ida and Helen all wore deer-in-the-headlights looks. It was unusual for them not to be
able to come up with a convincing lie to cover their tracks, so Lexy stepped in.

  “Oh, I know what that was. I have a new commercial grade mixer I was trying out. The dough got all clumped up on one side and the darn thing got off kilter and started banging on the wall and making all kinds of ruckus. It took me quite a while to get it working properly.”

  “Is that so,” Victor said warily. “Huh, well, it sure did sound like it was coming from down below.”

  “Nope.” Lexy turned and ushered the ladies toward the door. “It was right in my kitchen.”

  “Oh, okay. Well, come back soon!” Victor yelled after them as they escaped out the door.

  “Phew,” Nans said. “Thanks for getting us out of that one, Lexy. I was stuck for words!”

  “Unusual for you,” Ida added causing the others to laugh as they stopped in front of The Cup and Cake.

  Lexy unlocked the door, glancing again across the street and noticing The Brew and Bake was also dark with the “Closed” sign facing out. She held the door open for the ladies and then slipped in behind them, locking the door after her.

  It was late afternoon and the sun cast slits of light through the window. Nans stood in the middle of the bakery, her green eyes gleaming with excitement. She rubbed her hands together.

  “Okay girls,” she said, a smile lighting her face. “Time to get to work.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The ladies raced for the basement door, their over-sized purses dangling from their arms.

  “You can leave your purses in the bakery … the door is locked,” Lexy called after them as she sprinted to catch up.

  “Oh no, we’ll bring them,” Nans yelled over her shoulder, taking the stairs two at a time. “We carry a lot of useful things in here and you never know what we might need.”

  Lexy shrugged and followed, listening to the keys jangle as Helen ran down the stairs with the ring in her hand.

  By the time she reached the bottom of the stairs, the four ladies were already over at the door, picking out a key from the large ring.

  “I think it’s this one.” Nans pointed to the largest key on the ring and Helen separated it, then shoved it into the lock. She pushed, wriggled and twisted, but the key did not turn.

  “Try another one,” Ruth said.

  Helen picked another large key and tried it, but it didn’t work either.

  “Oh boy,” Ida said. “What if none of these keys work?”

  Nans pressed her lips together and then her face lit up. She pointed to the duffel bag full of tools they’d left on the floor the night before. “Why, that’s no problem. We’ll just use the hacksaw and cut the door up!”

  “Whoa there.” Lexy held her hands up. Somehow, having a big gaping hole in the basement of her bakery, leading to the sewer, didn’t seem like a good idea. “Let’s try all the keys first and then if we can’t get one to work we’ll talk about what to do next.”

  “Okay, okay. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.” Helen waved her hand at Lexy and then picked out another key. She shoved it into the lock, jiggled it, and turned.

  Click.

  Lexy sucked in a breath as the door swung open revealing pitch-black darkness.

  Nans reached into her purse pulling out a small flashlight, which she switched on and aimed into the space behind the door. The thin beam of light illuminated a concrete tunnel, the sides spotted with something green and slimy.

  Helen shrugged and stepped inside. Ruth, Ida and Nans followed.

  Lexy could hear the slow drip of water from somewhere inside the tunnel, which had a dank, watery smell like the ocean flats at low tide. Her stomach clenched as she stepped through the doorway leaving the relative safety of the basement behind to enter the unknown water logged world of the old underground sewer system.

  The tunnel section from Lexy’s basement angled downhill for about twenty feet, then met up with another, bigger tunnel, which Lexy assumed was the main sewer conduit.

  “Which way do we go?” Helen dug a flashlight, a bit larger than Nans’, out of her purse and aimed the beam to the right illuminating a dark tunnel passage.

  On the other side of Lexy, Nans’ flashlight illuminated another long passage to the left.

  “Beats me,” Nans said. “If we’re under the street in front of the bakery, then this way heads toward downtown.”

  Nans gestured with her flashlight into the tunnel on the left.

  “And this way,” Helen waved her flashlight toward the right, “leads toward the river.”

  “I vote we head toward downtown,” Ida said.

  “I second that,” Ruth added.

  “Sounds good to me.” Helen shrugged, swinging the beam of her flashlight in the other direction.

  The ladies took off down the tunnel slowly with Nans and Helen shining their flashlights in front of them and to the sides to illuminate the surroundings.

  Lexy hadn’t put much thought into what the sewer system looked like inside, but now she was getting a firsthand view. It consisted of giant concrete tubes that acted as tunnels. They were about seven feet in diameter—big enough to stand up in, but small enough to make you feel slightly claustrophobic.

  The insides of the tunnels were damp. Shallow puddles of water dotted the bottom. The sides oozed with something wet. Lexy noticed chunks of concrete crumbling here and there and remembered Jack’s warning about the old sewers being likely to cave in.

  “Jack was right about these old tunnels being in disrepair,” Lexy said. “It looks like big chunks could come lose at any time, so be careful.”

  Nans swung her beam of light around the edges. “Yes, I see that. Step lightly, girls.”

  They continued forward a few more yards until Nans suddenly stopped short, causing Lexy to skid on something slimy and bump into Ruth who turned around and gave her a dirty look.

  Nans had turned to face the side of the tunnel, her flashlight pointing straight in front of her. “Girls, I think our theory was correct.”

  Lexy craned her neck to look around Ruth whose body blocked her view as the four ladies huddled together in front of whatever Nans had found. Lexy stood on her tiptoes, so she could look above Ruth’s head, her heart skipping when she saw Nans had discovered a small room … and it wasn’t empty.

  There was an opening in the cement sides of the tunnel, and a cave-like room had been carved into the earth beyond. The room measured about ten feet square and was set about two feet above the ground level of the sewer pipe. Lexy assumed that must be above the water line, which would allow the room to remain dry.

  The beam of Nans’ flashlight illuminated a pile of faded, dirty fabric. The room also contained an old chair, some papers and a few pallets.

  Nans hopped up into the room and started poking through the debris. “Maybe the money is in here,” she said excitedly.

  “I think if a million dollars was stacked up in there, it would be obvious,” Ida replied.

  “Yeah, looks like nothing but old clothes,” Ruth added.

  Nans turned to them. “But this proves our theory … someone was down here.”

  “Probably just vagrants,” Ruth said.

  Nans shook her head. “No. Look at the hat. It’s from the 1940s.”

  Nans shined her light on something that lay in the corner. Even in its dilapidated state, Lexy could see it had the same shape and style as the hats they’d seen in the 1948 newspaper ad.

  Lexy heard a muted bang and felt a vibration on the tunnel floor. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a piece of concrete crumbling loose from the side of the tunnel.

  “Look out!” She pushed Ruth aside just before the piece of concrete smashed to bits on the floor.

  “Oh my,” Ruth looked down at the bits of rock and dust. “Thanks Lexy. That would have hurt.”

  “You’re welcome. What was that noise?”

  “Noise?” Ruth’s brows knit together.

  “Yeah, didn’t you hear a noise and feel the floor shaking before the ceme
nt fell?”

  Ruth raised her brows at the other ladies who all shook their heads.

  “I didn’t hear anything,” Nans said. “But we’re right under the street. I bet a bus going by could cause a noise and vibration.”

  Lexy chewed on her bottom lip, glancing back down the tunnel uncertainly. “I suppose so, but I thought it came from back there.”

  “Well, we don’t have time to investigate that now.” Nans came out of the room back into the tunnel. “I feel we’re hot on the trail of the money.”

  Nans proceeded up the tunnel, a little faster this time. Lexy brought up the rear, her stomach tight with anxiety as she kept her eye on the ceiling of the tunnel waiting for another chunk of concrete to fall.

  Lexy wasn’t paying attention to where she was going and suddenly she stepped on something soft and squishy. A small furry body ran across her foot and she let out a screech that echoed loudly down the tunnel.

  The four ladies swung around to look at her, their faces etched with concern.

  “What happened?’

  “Are you okay?”

  Lexy hopped around on one foot, her heart thudding in her chest. “Yes. But I think a rat ran across my foot!”

  “Eww.” Helen and Nans both made faces of disgust and trained their flashlights on the floor of the tunnel.

  “I don’t see any rats,” Helen said.

  “Me either.” Nans waved her flashlight around to expose every nook and cranny of the floor.

  “I tell you, something ran across my foot,” Lexy said.

  “Well, there’s nothing here now.” Nans turned to face forward. “Let’s keep going.”

  They fell in step behind Nans. Lexy kept an eye on the tunnel behind her. Did she hear something back there? She strained her ears, but couldn’t pick out anything except the sound of dripping water. It had sounded like footsteps. She hoped it wasn’t more rats.

  A few yards up, they came to an intersection. The main sewer tunnel continued ahead, but a smaller tunnel branched off to the right.