“Which way?” Nans shined her flashlight down one tunnel, then the other.
“I say we take the cutoff,” Ida said. “If I was gonna hide stolen bank robbery money, I’d hide it down one of the side tunnels as opposed to in the main tunnel.”
“Good thinking.” Nans started down the tunnel off to the side.
“Wait a minute!” Helen said causing everyone to stop. “We should mark the path, so we can find our way out. This place is like a maze down here and if we take too many turns … well, we could get lost in here and end up as skeletons just like Midas Mulcahey.”
She swung her arm in front of her and snapped open her purse.
“Let’s see… What do I have in here we could use?” She motioned for Ruth to hold the items as she plucked them from her purse. “Masking tape, scissors, breath mints, a scone wrapped in a napkin, a lighter … oh here’s something—lipstick. We can make a mark on the side of the tunnel so we’ll know which direction to go in when we come back.”
“Good idea,” Nans said.
Helen sprinted to the section where the side tunnel cut off from the main one and made a mark, then sprinted back and opened her purse so Ruth could dump the items she’d been holding inside.
Okay, let’s keep moving.” Helen snapped her purse shut and they continued down the side tunnel. After a few feet, Lexy heard a crunch then saw Nans jump back and point her flashlight at the ground in front of her.
Ruth, who had been right behind Nans, gasped.
“Holy bone fragments,” Ida said. “How many skeletons are down here?”
Lexy looked at the floor in front of Nans where the bones of a full skeleton lay.
“This one has its head,” Helen said. “So it’s not the rest of Midas.”
“I wonder who he is?” Ruth mused.
“I think you mean she.” Lexy pointed to the wrist, which still wore a cluster of bangles.
Nans bent down. “Well, I’ll be. Looks like Midas might have had female company down here.”
Ruth crouched at the head, turning it slightly.
“And looks like she met the same fate,” she said pointing to a hole in the side of the skull.
“She must have been shot right here and Midas was shot further down in the main tunnel.” Helen glanced back at the main tunnel. “That’s why she’s intact. Her body is in the offshoot here where the water doesn’t rush through, so her bones didn’t get washed down like Midas’ did.”
“So you think she was shot along with Midas?” Ruth raised a brow at Helen.
“That makes the most sense.” Helen bent down to inspect her bracelets. “These look like bangles from the 1940s era. They’re made from that old plastic—Bakelite. It’s very collectible today.”
Lexy could see the twinkle in Nans’ eye as she aimed the beam of her flashlight into the dark tunnel.
“This is a good sign. I feel like we’re getting closer.” Nans practically skipped down the tunnel she was so excited.
Nans’ excitement must have been contagious, because Lexy could feel a tingle of anticipation working its way through her veins. What if the money really was down here after all these years? Would they be able to solve Midas’ murder? And find out who the other skeleton belonged to?
As they continued, the tunnel grew narrower. They were forced to stoop over and it looked like they’d eventually have to crawl. Lexy felt the enthusiasm draining from her.
“I don’t think I want to crawl down there,” she said. “And isn’t it getting late? I told Jack I’d be home by supper.”
“Maybe we should turn back,” Ida said.
“But I was sure something would be down here.” Nans’ face fell and Lexy’s heart crunched at the dejected sound in her voice.
“Maybe we can come back and explore another tunnel later,” Helen said as they all turned.
“Yeah, I guess you guys are right.” Nans gestured with her flashlight for them to turn around.
Out of the corner of her eye, Lexy saw the beam from Nans’ flashlight glint off something on the wall.
“Wait a minute, what’s that?” She grabbed the light from Nans and pointed it at the side of the tunnel. The original concrete of the tunnel had obviously been chipped away at some point and new concrete patched up in its place. The new concrete was crumbling away on the edges and it looked like something was behind it … something that glinted like gold.
“Hold on.” Nans lifted the flap on her giant purse and rummaged around inside coming up with a Swiss army knife. She flipped out the blade and approached the crumbling wall. Working the blade behind a crack, she wiggled and pushed until a fist-sized chunk of concrete fell out.
Lexy held the flashlight to the hole and peered in, her stomach fluttering with excitement. “There’s something back there. It looks like a small room or hiding place … it’s hard to tell, it looks like I’m looking through a window or something.”
“Let me dig out more,” Nans said and stabbed at the concrete with the knife.
“I can help.” Ida rushed over with her own Swiss army knife.
“Me too.” Ruth attacked the concrete with a nail file.
Lexy watched as they crumbled away the concrete, revealing a door with a small window near the top. The window Lexy had looked through with the flashlight earlier.
Nans reached for the door handle and, much to Lexy’s surprise, the door swung open.
Lexy’s eyes widened.
Nans, Ruth, Ida and Helen gasped in unison.
They were staring at a room filled with stacks of money and gold bars.
The five of them stood silent for several heartbeats. Nans was the first to speak. “We found it! We found the money! I knew it was down here!”
Click!
Lexy whirled at the metallic sound that came from behind her, her heart jerking when she came face-to-face with the barrel of a gun. Her stomach sank when a voice spoke out from the other end of the gun.
“I knew it was down here, too, but thanks for doing all the hard work and finding it for me.”
Chapter Sixteen
Lexy wrenched her eyes away from the barrel of the gun and into the cold, shark-like eyes of its owner.
Caraleigh Brewster.
“You! I knew your bakery was a scam!” Lexy said.
Caraleigh laughed. “I still got more customers than you.”
Lexy simmered with anger. “Yeah, well, with your grocery store pastries, I bet none of them were repeats.”
“Really? If you weren’t worried, then why did you steal my ring and try to frame me?”
Lexy’s brows knit together. “Steal your ring? Why do you keep saying that? We know you broke in and dropped it; there’s no sense in pretending now.”
Caraleigh narrowed her eyes at Lexy. “Shut up. None of that matters now, anyway.”
Nans held up her hands. “Well, now I think we can come to some sort of agree—”
“Zip it, old lady,” Caraleigh cut Nans off and took a menacing step forward, waving her gun at all five of them. “Get in the room.”
Lexy, Nans and the other ladies backed up slowly into the money room.
“Did she call me an old lady?” Nans whispered indignantly.
“Okay, listen up. You’re going to load the money onto that cart.” Caraleigh gestured toward one of the old metal-wheeled wooden carts that sat on the side of the room, already partially loaded with gold bars.
“And then what?” Ida asked.
“My brother, Harvey, is right behind me and we’re going to wheel this money out of here, just like we planned.” Caraleigh sneered at Ida.
“And what will you do with us?” Lexy asked.
Caraleigh laughed, then looked at her gun. “Harvey’s gonna help me finish you ladies off. I don’t think a few more skeletons down here will be a problem.”
Lexy’s blood froze as she heard footsteps behind Caraleigh.
That must be Harvey coming to finish them off, she thought, but then her grim thoughts tu
rned to a stab of surprise when a gun appeared, pointing right at Caraleigh’s head.
Click.
Caraleigh’s face froze in a mask of confusion. “Harvey?”
“Nope. Harvey won’t be coming to help you.”
Lexy’s heart skipped when she recognized the voice. She craned her neck to see past Caraleigh’s shoulder to verify her suspicions.
“Victor! Thank god,” Nans gushed.
Victor ignored Nans, his hand snaking around to Caraleigh’s gun hand. “Now give me the gun nice and slow and I won’t have to hurt you.”
Caraleigh’s eyes darted from side to side, the gun wavering back and forth in her hand.
“I know you’re thinking your brother is gonna come up behind me, but I took care of him back in the basement. He’s not going to come and save you,” Victor said.
“What did you to do him?” Caraleigh whirled around, and Victor, with surprising agility for a man of his age, grabbed her gun and pushed her into the room.
He stood at the doorway, a gun in each hand.
“Oh, Victor! Thank you for saving us. How did you know?” Helen rushed toward Victor only to stop short, a look of confusion on her face as he aimed one of the guns at her.
“Get back!” he yelled.
“Victor … what is going on?” Nans asked.
“I didn’t come here to save you, you nosey old biddies … I came for the loot!”
***
Lexy, Nans, Ruth, Ida and Helen stared open-mouthed at Victor.
“Hey, you’re the guy who stole my ring.” Caraleigh crossed her arms on her chest and narrowed her eyes at him.
Lexy swiveled her head toward Caraleigh. “What? How could he steal your ring?”
Victor chuckled. “She’s right. All my pick-pocket training as a young lad paid off.”
“You mean the ring they found in my bakery after the break-in?” Lexy asked.
Victor nodded. “I lifted it right off her finger when I was paying for one of those god-awful stale muffins. Then I broke into your place and planted it so it would look like Caraleigh was the one who broke in.”
“But why would you do that?” Nans asked.
“I was hoping to put Blondie here in jail,” Victor nodded toward Caraleigh, “so she couldn’t run around looking for the money. Sorry, Lexy, nothing personal.”
“You knew I was here looking for the money?” Caraleigh asked.
“Of course, you look just like her.”
“Who?” Nans, Ruth, Ida, Helen and Lexy asked, their heads ping-ponging back and forth between Victor and Caraleigh.
“Rose Cranston,” Victor said wistfully. “You are her granddaughter, aren’t you?”
Caraleigh nodded.
“Rose Cranston … that sounds familiar,” Ida’s brows knit together.
“She used to run with Midas Mulcahey!” Ruth exclaimed.
Nans turned to Caraleigh. “So you knew about the money being here all along and that’s why you opened the bakery across the street?”
Caraleigh nodded. “My grandmother said the money was down here somewhere. She’d made several attempts to find it, herself.”
“Wait a minute,” Lexy said. “That doesn’t make much sense. Why didn’t she just think Midas took off with the money like everyone else?”
“She knew he didn’t take off with it … because she’s the one who killed him.”
“Oh well, I see you planned to follow in her footsteps,” Ida snorted.
“Yeah, your grandma and Midas were pretty tight, but what Rose didn’t know was that Midas was fooling around with a pretty little redhead named Scarlet on the side,” Victor said.
Ruth gasped. “The other skeleton!”
“I always wondered what would happen if she found out … Rose sure was feisty.” Victor’s lips curled in a smile. “I figured she took off with Midas and the money back then. Did she confess to you on her deathbed?”
Caraleigh shook her head. “No. In her diary. We read it after she passed. Apparently, she had her suspicions about Midas. She followed him down here, caught the two of them in the act and shot them. She figured Midas hid the money down here, but she never did find it.”
“So once you read that in the diary, you figured you’d come and find it yourself,” Nans said.
“Yep. We rented an apartment in town figuring we’d be able to find a way into the sewer system pretty easily. We didn’t count on the sewer construction screwing stuff up. The blueprints showed the only entrance we could use was below The Cup and Cake. All we needed to do was get rid of you somehow.” Caraleigh thrust her chin toward Lexy.
“So you sold grocery store baked goods at ridiculous prices, scammed the whole town into thinking you baked them, got a big spot on TV to draw even more people, and sabotaged my scones so that critic would give me a bad review?”
Caraleigh nodded. “Yeah … no wait—I didn’t sabotage the scones.”
“That was me,” Victor said proudly.
“You? Why?” Lexy couldn’t help but feel betrayed by the old man who had been in the neighboring store since before she opened. All this time she’d thought he was just a nice old man … and her friend.
“My other efforts to get rid of Caraleigh weren’t working, so I figured I’d try to pit you against each other. I was hoping if Lexy got good and mad she’d have her police detective husband do something. So, I just sprinkled some cat hair in the scones one day when I came in to buy one. I distracted Lexy by dropping my cane when I was picking out a scone—already had plenty of cat hair from Icharus on my sleeve.”
“So you knew about the money all this time, too?” Lexy asked.
“Knew about it? I was one of the robbers that stole it.”
“You were?” Ruth wrinkled her face at him. “We read all about that robbery. I don’t recall your name being mentioned.”
“Oh yeah.” Victor straightened, keeping the guns steadily pointed at them. “Did you hear about ‘The Bomb’? That was me … Victor Nessbaum.”
“Well, I’ll be …” Ruth said.
“Anyway,” Victor continued, “Midas disappeared a couple of days after we robbed the bank. When Rose picked up and left town too, I figured the two of them took off with the money. Double-crossed the rest of us. I never even knew about his sewer hideout … that is until I saw them dig up the skull. I knew it was Midas right away on account of the two gold teeth. That’s when I put two and two together and figured the money might still be down here.”
“And we led you right to it,” Lexy said.
“Yes.” Victor nodded his head at them. “Thanks, ladies.”
“So that’s why you were so interested in what we were doing,” Nans said. “And all this time we thought you were sweet on Helen.”
“Helen is a looker, but I’m more interested in the money. Which reminds me … you ladies better start loading that cart before they raise the locks on the river.” Victor motioned with his guns toward the cart.
“Huh? What locks?” Ida looked at Victor.
“Didn’t you know?” he asked. “They do it in the years when there’s been excessive rainfall to lower the level of Lake Humphrey before winter. The excess water swells the river and the runoff comes through the sewer system here. Floods it right out. Hasn’t happened since 1947, so it’s a good thing we got in here to get the money out in time. No telling what might happen once these sewers flood.” He waved his guns at them. “Now hurry!”
Everyone, including Caraleigh, started loading up the cart. Lexy didn’t dare say anything, but she hoped Nans had a plan. Should they rush Victor? She was sure they could overpower him, but with two guns pointed at them, she didn’t know if it was wise to make a move toward him.
Lexy hefted the last brick of gold onto the cart and glanced sideways at Nans, her spirits sinking when she saw the worry on her grandmother’s face.
“Now bring the cart here. Just you, Helen … the rest of you stay back,” Victor commanded.
Helen wheeled the
cart over to him.
“Drop the handle and get back,” Victor said.
Helen did as asked. Victor picked up the handle and wheeled the cart out into the tunnel.
“Well, ladies, this has been fun, but now it’s time to say good-bye.” Victor stuffed one of the guns in his belt and grabbed the door.
“Wait. You’re not going to leave us in here?” Ruth’s voice was edged with panic.
“I’m afraid I must,” Victor said.
“But the water’s coming.” Caraleigh pointed to the bottom of the tunnel, which now had a shallow, but steady stream of water running down it. “We’ll drown.”
“Yes. It’s so sad. But I can’t leave any witnesses to tell that I made off with this money now, can I?”
And with that, Victor slammed the door shut and clicked the lock into place.
Chapter Seventeen
The six of them ran to the door, their fists thudding hollowly on the solid wood.
“Hello!”
“Help!”
“Let us out!”
After several minutes, it became obvious they were wasting their energy, so they stopped yelling and banging. Lexy collapsed with her back against the door.
“We need a plan,” she said.
“Don’t you have one?” Nans asked.
“No, I thought you might have one.”
“No.”
“I know!” Ida reached in her purse. “We’ll use our cell phones to call for help.”
She pulled out her phone and pressed a few buttons, then held it to her ear.
After a few seconds, her brow creased.
She shook the phone and put it back to her ear.
A few more seconds and her brow creased even further.
“What the heck?” She pulled the phone away and looked at it. “Darn … no signal!”
She walked to the corner of the room. “Maybe over here …”
“It’s no use,” Ruth said. “We’re underground … the cell phone tower signals don’t come in down here.”
Lexy puffed out her cheeks, her heart sinking as she felt the cold water seeping under the door and soaking her shoes.
8 Scones, Skulls & Scams Page 9