“Yes.” The old man slowly nodded, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “When you get home, place them in a cup of water on the nightstand next to your bed. After you fall asleep tonight, the flowers will turn into fairies and sprinkle your room with magic fairy dust.”
“Wow.” Violet reverently grasped the bouquet with her pudgy hands.
“Now…you must be asleep for the fairies to appear.”
“I will. I’ll go to sleep right away.”
“When the flowers die, it means it was time for the fairies to return home until they visit another princess, so you mustn’t be sad.”
“I won’t,” Violet solemnly promised. “I won’t be sad.”
“Thank you, Mr. Cagle,” Tony said. “You made our afternoon here at the museum…”
“Enchanting,” Shelby finished her husband’s sentence.
“You’re welcome. Violet reminds me of my great-granddaughter, Molly.”
“Does she live nearby?”
“No. She lives in Atlanta. My wife and I will be moving there soon to be closer to her.”
“And I’m sure she will love all of the wonderful stories you have to share,” Shelby said. “She’s one lucky little girl.”
Mr. Cagle nodded. “Good-bye, Violet.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Magical Man.”
They all chuckled at Violet’s nickname. After he left, Violet refused to release her grip on the bouquet of fairy flowers. She hung onto them tightly all the way home.
When they reached the apartment, Shelby and Violet went inside to place them in water while Tony returned to work.
He found his mother working alone. There were several shoppers inside, and Mercedes was nowhere in sight. “Where’s Mercedes?”
“Interviewing a potential tenant,” Carlita said. “I was beginning to worry about you. How did it go?”
“The museum was boring…definitely not my thing,” Tony said. “The gardens were interesting. Violet made a new friend.”
He told his mother how Violet ran off. “She rang the caretaker’s bell.”
“The caretaker…Mr. Cagle?” Carlita asked.
“Yes. He was a nice man. We apologized, and then he asked if he could show Violet the magical gardens. He’s quite the storyteller, weaving tales of princesses and fairies.”
“It sounds enchanting.”
“Violet loved every minute of it. Before we left, he brought her a bouquet of magic flowers from the gardens.”
“Magic flowers?”
“At night, the flowers turn into fairies and sprinkle the room with fairy dust,” Tony chuckled. “Violet heard that and hasn’t let go of those flowers.”
“How adorable. Mr. Cagle sounds like a nice man. Did you meet Mrs. Cagle?”
“No, but we heard her. She was yelling at him from inside the cottage.”
Carlita remembered the woman who stood glaring at Mercedes and her the previous night by the dumpster. “If it was the same woman Mercedes and I met, then I’m not surprised. You found nothing else?”
“No. Except for this.” Tony handed his mother the map of the museum and gardens.
She glanced at the map. “Why didn’t I get one of these the other day?”
“Shelby thought you might want it.”
“I do. Tell her I said thank you.”
The pawnshop phone began to ring.
“I’ll let you get back to work,” Carlita said. “Thank you for visiting the museum.”
“I’m glad we went. We had fun,” Tony said.
“Then we’ll have to do it again soon…hold down the fort so you and your family can enjoy some time together.” Carlita exited through the back of the pawnshop. The door to Tony’s old efficiency was ajar. She could hear Mercedes chatting with the man they’d met earlier, so she headed home.
Upstairs, she grabbed her reading glasses and unfolded the map. At first, nothing caught her attention. She started to fold it back up when something caught her eye.
Chapter 19
The front door flew open. Mercedes waltzed into the apartment. “We found the perfect tenant,” she sing-songed.
“The writer?”
“Yep. Angelica’s rep, Gary, said she’ll take the apartment. She’s moving in next week.” Mercedes waved a check in the air. “He wrote a check for an entire month’s rent along with a security deposit.”
“You’re sure this famous writer will be a good fit?”
“She’ll be perfect.” Mercedes set the check and rental application on the desk.
“Take a look at this.” Carlita handed her daughter the map.
“What is it?”
“It’s the layout of the museum and grounds. Tony and Shelby picked it up during their visit today. I noticed something very interesting.”
“A clue?” Mercedes held the map toward the light. “I see the museum and the parking lot. There’s a caretaker’s cottage in the far right-hand corner.”
“And the alley where the dumpster is located is directly behind the caretaker’s cottage,” Carlita pointed out.
“Right.”
“Look in the left-hand corner, directly across from the gardens and the cottage.”
Mercedes squinted her eyes. “It looks like a cluster of storage buildings.”
“I thought the same thing, although I don’t remember seeing them the other night.”
“Because we were too focused on following Astrid to see what she was up to,” Mercedes said.
“Let’s start with the theory that Astrid, a homeless person, was camping out in the storage buildings near the edge of the property. Someone at the museum discovered her and told her she had to leave.”
“Which was around the same time Elvira spotted her digging through the dumpster, felt sorry for her and offered her a job.”
“And a place to pitch her tent,” Carlita added. “When someone who worked at the museum discovered Elvira had hired Astrid, they saw a perfect opportunity to slip her some cash in exchange for stealing the painting, or helping them make sure the painting left the property undetected.”
“You think Astrid is an accomplice?” Mercedes carefully folded the map. “A museum employee would be familiar with the surveillance cameras, would possibly even be able to plan the ideal moment to steal the painting without getting caught.”
“If they found a way to create a power outage and someone, in this case possibly Astrid, was covering their
