Page 41 of Lost Hours
“I believe you. Of course I do.” Mina slid her notebook across the desk to Daisy. “But I need you to jot down the names of the people who saw you yesterday afternoon.”
“Gladly.” She grabbed a pen and wrote quickly before passing the book back to Mina. “They’re all local, so you shouldn’t have a hard time finding them.”
“Did Mayor Sutton happen to leave his phone here?” Nolan asked.
“Not that I know of, but I haven’t been in his office this morning. Let me call it to see.” She picked up her desktop handset and punched a speed dial number. “It’s ringing but not from here.”
Daisy sagged as if this was getting too much for her, but Mina had to press on. For Becca’s sake. “The mayor was famous for his social media posts. Have you noticed anything unusual in his posts lately?”
“Actually, he didn’t do his own posts.” She gave a half smile. “He didn’t have a personal account, and it was our little secret, but I did all of the social media and other promotions for his job.”
Mina thought about the creative, often humorous posts and smiled. “Then you’re a very talented social media creator.”
Blushing bright red, she waved a hand. “I’m not sure I’m proud of that fact, but I find it very easy to do. Maybe it’s so easy because I respected Ernie so much.”
“If you generated the content,” Mina said, “there’s no point in looking at his posts, but has anyone left negative replies that we should consider?”
“Oh, yes!” She sat up in her seat. “One person in particular likes to post negative comments on everything I put out there. Even on best wishes on holidays. He goes by the name Patriotic Puzzle.” She wrote@patrioticpuzzleon a Post-It note and slapped it on top of her list of those who could vouch for her. “He really doesn’t have anything in the description on his account and has zero posts of his own. I don’t know what the name is supposed to mean other than he might like politics and puzzles.”
Mina shared a look with Nolan. He gave a brief nod. Yeah, he’d caught the connection between puzzle and cipher and the mystery room.
“I wanted to block him,” Daisy continued. “But Ernie wouldn’t let me. He said it would just infuriate the guy and make him escalate into something other than leaving negative replies. Besides, Ernie said, all positive comments on a post isn’t realistic, and he wanted to come across as realistic to his constituents.”
“He was a real down-to-earth man,” Mina said sincerely, and the three of them fell silent enough to hear the hammers pounding outside on Main Street.
Daisy’s focus shifted to the window. “Founder’s Day. It won’t be the same without Ernie.”
“Do you think we should cancel it?” Mina asked.
“No. No.” Daisy leaned closer. “That’s the last thing Ernie would want. He loved that day, and he loved his town. He wouldn’t want anything to interfere with it.”
“Maybe we could do something special to honor him,” Nolan suggested.
“Yes!” Daisy grabbed her pen and paper. “I’ll get ahold of the council members, and we’ll plan something.”
“Can you please hold off on that?” Mina said. “I don’t want word getting around about the murder until we have a better handle on the investigation.”
Daisy dropped her pen. “Just tell me when I’m cleared to take care of it, and we’ll do something special.”
“I know you will.” Mina smiled at the amazing woman and wanted to stop here, but she had additional questions. “He was also once a partner in a charter fishing boat. Was he still involved in that?”
Daisy frowned. “He has a boat with his brother-in-law, Wade Collins.”
“You don’t think that was a good thing?” Nolan asked.
“Wade is kind of a freeloader.” Daisy shook her head. “I don’t need to speak badly of anyone, but he didn’t work very hard, and when he ran out of money because he didn’t sign up enough clients, he always hit Ernie up. Of course Ernie gave the money to him out of his share of the business profits.”
“So the mayor didn’t make any profit from this fishing venture then,” Mina said.
“Again, I don’t know his finances, but on the surface it didn’t seem like he could have. When his wife was alive, I heard him tell her he wanted to get out of the fishing business, but he stayed in it for her sake.”
Mina made a note of that. “And yet two years after she passed away, he was still involved with her brother.”
Daisy wrinkled her nose. “It makes no sense to me, but it must’ve made sense to Ernie.”
“Do you know if they both owned the boat?” Nolan asked.
“That I don’t know, but I’ve lived here long enough to know fishing boats like that one are pricey. I doubt there was any way Wade could’ve owned it outright.”
