CHAPTER SEVEN: THE PAINTER WHO REMEMBERED
Before returning to the park, Daniel and Carol stopped at the home of Lorna Beck, a retired art teacher who had painted the first Lantern Maze.
Lorna lived above a florist on Oak Street, surrounded by canvases of bright imaginary cities.
She opened the door wearing an apron marked with purple paint.
When Carol showed her the brass case, Lorna’s welcoming smile disappeared.
“Where did you find Victor’s little guardian?”
“In the trash,” Daniel said.
Lorna looked at Carol, who seemed embarrassed.
“And why was it in the trash?”
Daniel explained the recreation center clearance and his failure to recognize the selector.
Lorna took the case without touching the steel strip.
She turned the blue disc once and stopped at a notch shaped like a small window.
“Victor hated the word impossible,” she said.
“He designed puzzles so even the youngest child could finish with enough patience.”
Daniel asked how she had helped build the original maze.
Lorna pulled an old painted board from behind a shelf.
It showed a crescent moon over a narrow blue door.
“I painted this for the northern exit,” she said.
“It was a real exit because you could recognize it from every direction.”
Carol asked where the board had gone.
“A contractor picked it up with the old scenery,” Lorna replied.
“He said they were restoring it.”
Daniel recalled the plain wall and artificial silver lights near the mirror room.
The blue door was nowhere to be seen.
“What did the contractor look like?”
Lorna described a tall man with a red baseball cap and a bent measuring tape clipped to his belt.
He had offered her money to repaint the old symbols in a more mysterious style.
She refused when he asked her to remove the blue exit markers.
“He told me modern audiences wanted uncertainty,” she said.
“I told him children deserve to know when they are safe.
”
Carol looked at Daniel.
“I warned the committee about the missing markers.”
“How did they answer?”
“They told me the artist had approved everything.”
Lorna laughed without humor.
“Nobody asked me to approve anything.”
She walked to a cabinet and returned with a paint-splattered notebook.
It contained sketches for a dozen maze scenes, including the central chamber.
Beside each door, Lorna had written the color of a small square intended to help volunteers guide lost children.
Those markings were visible even when the overhead lanterns were off.
Daniel compared the drawings with the modified maze on his phone.
The contractor had painted over every square.
“That’s not an accident,” he said.
Lorna asked whether anyone had inspected the maze after the modifications.
Iris had tried, Daniel replied, but nobody had granted her access to the new route until that morning.
Lorna picked up her coat.
“Then I’ll tell the committee what I know.”
Carol shook her head.
“They haven’t listened to either of us.”
“Maybe they’ll listen when we stand together.”
Lorna turned toward Daniel.
“And maybe they’ll listen to the man who can show them the hardware.”
Daniel felt the weight of the case in his pocket.
He had entered the day thinking he was dealing with an unreasonable neighbor and a bag of rubbish.
Now he had a retired artist, a frightened safety coordinator, and a missing device that had once protected children.
He called Iris before leaving.
“Lorna painted the exit markers, and she says nobody approved removing them.”
Iris asked him to bring the notebook.
“The sponsor just submitted another diagram,” she added.
“This one doesn’t even show the service ramp.”
Daniel hung up and looked at the women.
“We have to move.”
Lorna closed her notebook.
“I know a shortcut through the park.”
CHAPTER EIGHT: THE CONTRACTOR’S SECOND JOB
Lorna’s shortcut led behind the florist deliveries and across a narrow footbridge over the park’s ornamental pond.
From there, they could see the maintenance trailers without passing the festival entrance.
A crew was loading wooden panels into a white van.
Daniel recognized the vehicle that had slowed outside his house that morning.
He stopped walking.
“That’s the same van.”
Carol squinted at its rear doors.
“I thought so.”
A man in a red baseball cap emerged from the trailer, carrying a bundle of blue painted boards.
Lorna gripped the railing.
“That’s him.”
Daniel called Iris and described the van.
She told him the contractor had been instructed not to remove any more original equipment until the safety review.
“Somebody needs to stop the loading,” she said.
“I’ll send the park manager.”
Daniel approached the trailer without touching the van.
The contractor turned as he arrived.
“We’re closing the old stock area,” the man said.
“You can’t park here.”
“I’m not parking,” Daniel replied.
“Why are you taking the blue exit signs?”
The contractor shifted the boards against his shoulder.
“Those are obsolete decorations.”
Lorna stepped into view.
“I painted them, and their purpose wasn’t decorative.”
The man recognized her.
“I already explained the new visual concept.”
“You explained that you wanted people to feel lost,” Lorna said.
“You never told me you’d remove the route markers.
”
The contractor glanced toward Carol.
“Did she bring all of you?”
Carol raised her chin.
“I came because you sent Victor’s selector to recycling.”
“We didn’t know what it was.”
Daniel held up the brass case.
“Then why did your crew disconnect the mounting plate at the control box?”
The man stared at the case for a moment.
“Because it blocked the motor shaft.”
“Who decided to remove it?”
“Mr. Voss.”
“Did anybody tell you what the part did?”
The contractor hesitated.
“The old volunteer explained something about the door positions.”
Carol’s face flushed.
“I explained that the selector prevented a door from opening against a wall.
”
“I didn’t design the new system,” the contractor said.
“I was following the installation order.”
Lorna pointed at the bundle.
“Those signs could still be returned before the festival opens.”
“The sponsor won’t pay us for extra work.”
“You can tell him why you’re returning them,” Daniel replied.
The contractor looked toward the field, where the crowd had begun forming.
He seemed to be making a difficult calculation.
Finally, he lowered the boards onto the trailer bed.
“I won’t move anything else until the park manager arrives.”
Daniel thanked him.
Carol said nothing.
The man turned back toward her.
“For what it’s worth,
I didn’t know they wanted to run the platform while people were inside.”
“You might have asked,” she replied.
He looked away.
When the park manager arrived, he took photographs of the boards and told the crew to remain on site.
Lorna signed a statement confirming that she had designed the markers as part of the original safety plan.
The manager promised to show the committee before the ribbon cutting.
As the three walked back toward the fountain, Daniel asked Carol why she had recognized the van so quickly.
“I watched them clear Victor’s workshop on Wednesday,” she said.
“I asked where the pieces were going.
”
“And they ignored you?”
“They said the city had given them permission.”
“Did it?”
“The city gave permission to move decorations.”
She nodded toward the compass case.
“Not to throw away safeguards.”
Daniel wondered what would have happened if he had left the broken case in his trash without examining it.
The answer was not reassuring.
CHAPTER NINE: WHY CAROL KNEW THE ROUTE
The committee postponed its meeting for ten minutes while the mayor inspected the new evidence.
Daniel found Carol sitting beside the fountain, rubbing a sore wrist.
She had carried the heavy garbage bag farther than he had realized.
“Does it hurt?” he asked.
“Only when I move it.”
“Then stop moving it.”
“That’s not usually an option.”
He sat beside her, leaving a careful distance between them.
“How did you know so much about Victor’s selector?”
Carol watched a child chase a paper ribbon across the plaza.
“I worked with him every summer.”
“As a volunteer?”
“At first.”
She explained that she had been a school custodian when Victor built the first Lantern Maze.
Teachers asked her to help because she knew how to manage a room full of noisy children without frightening them.
Victor valued her practical judgment.
He asked her to walk each maze route while carrying a box, pushing a stroller, and pretending she could not see the colored clues.
“He wanted to know where people would hesitate,” she said.
“He thought a good puzzle should challenge your mind, not punish your body.”
Daniel remembered the narrow ramp and the mirrored dead end.
“So you helped design the safety routes.”
“I walked them until my feet hurt,” Carol said.
“Then I walked them again.”
For twenty years, she had worked at the festival’s quiet control station, helping families when they became confused.
The selector was Victor’s answer to her complaint that too many volunteers lost track of the moving doors.
He built it from scrap brass, a steel strip, and paper discs painted in different colors.
Carol had been the first person to test it.
“When they announced the new competition, I asked to stay on as a guide,” she said.
“They told me I was too old to handle the crowd.”
“Who told you that?”
“A committee member who never met a crowd she didn’t want a photograph beside.”
Daniel nearly smiled.
Carol did not.
“I was angry long before I saw the changes.”
“That explains why you were upset,” Daniel said.
“It doesn’t explain the trash bag.”
“I thought you’d sold the selector.”
“I took it from a scrap crate.”
“You were standing next to Voss when he announced the new maze last month.”
Daniel remembered helping hang banners at the press event.
Voss had thanked the volunteer crew as a group.
“I wasn’t working for him,” Daniel said.
“I barely knew the man.”
“I made a story in my head,” Carol admitted.
“Then every time you ignored one of my warnings, the story sounded more convincing.”
Daniel looked at the brass case.
“I made one about you too.”
“The angry old woman next door?”
“Something close to that.”
Carol gave a dry laugh.
“I did a fine job playing the part.”
They sat in silence while workers carried folding chairs toward the stage.
Daniel finally spoke.
“I still want you to pay for the lock.”
“I know.”
“And I still want you to clean the porch.”
“I know that too.”
“But I understand why you cared about the maze.”
Carol looked at him for the first time since the conversation began.
“Thank you.”
A volunteer hurried toward them.
“The mayor wants both of you at the north entrance.”
Daniel stood.
Carol followed more slowly.
Whatever had happened between them, the afternoon was not over.
