Page 78 of Lost Hours
Nolan put the conversation with Percy behind him as he stood near Abe’s cubicle in Mina’s office. Abe crossed his arms in a defensive attitude. Whether his attitude was because he’d wanted to be Mina’s sidekick instead of Nolan, or if he felt bad about not having additional information for them, Nolan didn’t know. Because so far, all he’d mentioned was that he’d ruled out any law enforcement officers as potential suspects. The last thing the guy would want was for Nolan to question his work, but he’d been vague, and Nolan couldn’t leave it at that.
“Is this for sworn staff only, or did you include the non-sworn staff?” Nolan asked.
Abe tightened his arms, the thick biceps straining his shirt sleeves. “I looked at everyone. It’s not like we have people coming and going here very often.” He glanced at Mina. “You’re the only one on staff who’s left town and come back.”
“But I didn’t leave the sheriff’s department and come back,” she clarified. “I hadn’t started working here until I moved back to town.”
Nolan didn’t think her comment was important to the investigation, but it was clearly important to her to clarify what Abe was saying. Apparently, Abe still hadn’t accepted the fact that she’d beaten him for the sheriff’s seat and he remained a sergeant.
“What else do you have for us?” she asked.
He relaxed his arms. “Only two trophy companies in the county. I called them both and neither of them sold or engraved the trophies found at the escape room.”
“It wouldn’t be surprising if our suspect didn’t purchase them locally,” Nolan said.
“Yeah,” Abe said. “I checked online too. Found a variety of companies that he could’ve gotten them from. Some have same-day delivery.”
“Online is a good possibility since this is obviously a premeditated murder, and he had time to plan ahead,” Mina said. “Go ahead and request credit card records for any of the suspects you can get a warrant for to see if we have any charges for trophies. In a store or online.”
“You won’t have to request Jude’s records,” Nolan said. “I’ll ask him to provide them, and I’m sure he will.”
“I had better luck with the caterer,” Abe said. “Tide and Thyme handled the food.”
“That new one in town,” Mina said.
He smirked. “If you mean new in the last two years, then yeah.”
“Has it been that long? Anyway, what did they tell you?”
“The order was placed online and paid via Zelle.”
Nolan wasn’t all that familiar with P2P, peer-to-peer, payments like Zelle, but he did know they consisted of automatic transfers from one bank account to another.
Mina gritted her teeth. “So it’ll be harder to trace the payment than if done via credit card.”
Abe nodded. “The order was picked up on Monday at four p.m. I showed our electronic sketch of Smythe to the owner. She said he was the one she dealt with. He was already dressed in his butler attire.”
“Anything else the owner could share?” Nolan asked.
“He drove a plain white van that she thought might be a rental.” Abe leaned back as if feeling more comfortable all of a sudden. “I’m calling all rental agencies in the county. Without a warrant, I’m hitting a wall. Still, I eliminated three companies who don’t rent cargo vans. But then, they told me to check moving truck rental companies, too, so that’s added just as many places back onto my list.”
Mina gave a strong nod of approval. “Keep after it. What about the Seaside Harbor mayor?”
“It’s a friendly competition.”
“Says who?” Nolan asked.
Abe snapped his chair forward. “I didn’t just take his word for it if that’s what you’re suggesting. I asked some of the city council members, and they agreed. Nothing there as far as having a real motive to kill Mayor Sutton.”
“Sounds like you were thorough,” Nolan said to put the sergeant at ease again.
Abe stretched his hands behind his head. “Daisy’s alibis check out too. So that’s at least two people off our list.”
Mina shared their conversation with Cadence and Percy. “Hopefully, he’ll remember something and get back to us. Until then, keep your eyes open for any groups of people that the mayor might have been involved with.”
“You sure this dude knows what he’s talking about?” Abe asked.
“No, but we have to treat this lead like any other.” Mina gave the guy a tight smile. “Thank you for all of your work. Hopefully when the DNA and fingerprint information comes in from the Veritas team, it’ll bring us some additional leads.”
