Page 65 of Lost Hours
He gave an offhanded wave. “A cinch. I’ll just need the web address for the form used to submit a reservation.”
Mina took out her notebook and wrote down the request. “I’ll text it to you.”
“So what’s next?”
“I don’t know if you can do this, but Jude French, one of the Lost Lake Locators team members, doesn’t have an alibi for the time of the mayor’s death. Since the escape room was set up with memorabilia from all team members, that makes all of them suspects. But five of them have solid alibies. Not Jude. He was alone in his car on his way back from Portland, and no one can vouch for him.”
“How can I help with that?” Dylan asked.
“He was on the phone for the entire trip,” Nolan said before she could. “Can you determine which towers the call pinged from, so we can have proof he wasn’t in town during the window when the mayor was killed?”
“Yeah, sure,” Dylan answered. “Give me his phone number, and I’ll give you a triangulation report. But…” He paused. “Here’s the thing, and I gotta think you already know this, even if I trace the call, that only says where his phone was located. Not that he was with it.”
“You’re right, we do know that,” Nolan said. “But it’ll still help to have proof that he could’ve been in his car as he says.”
Dylan picked up a pen and grabbed a notebook. “Okay, his phone number?”
Nolan shared the number from his phone’s contact list.
Dylan looked up. “So far, this shouldn’t take me long. What else do you need?”
Mina took a step closer. “We have an Instagram user who left negative comments on the mayor’s posts. We’d like to locate him, but obviously his address and phone number aren’t accessible on Instagram. He goes by Patriotic Puzzle.” She jotted @patrioticpuzzle on a slip of paper and handed it to him. “Can you find out his real name and contact info?”
Dylan tucked the paper in a file. “I can, but I have to tell you, you’re not going to like what I have to do to get it.”
“I’m good with that, if you are,” Mina said.
He chuckled. “I’m good with whatever I have to do to help locate a killer.”
“Maybe keep your procedures to yourself.” Nolan laughed.
Dylan joined in.
Mina didn’t want to waste time joking around. “Can you also look into Becca’s social media? We’ve done a review of her accounts to see if she mentioned a trip somewhere, but I wondered if you can write an algorithm, or whatever it is that you do, to see if anyone has posted negative comments. Or even if it seems like she might’ve had a stalker or someone who wanted to do her harm?”
“That’s a little more complicated and will take a little longer, but yeah, I can do that as well.” Dylan scribbled on his legal pad.
“We’ve also looked into both the mayor and Becca’s finances,” Nolan said. “We’ve learned that the mayor was selling off things through an auction house and on eBay. He’s received several deposits from PayPal, and we’re hoping to find out what he was selling. Is there a way for you to learn that?”
“Well, yeah, I can easily do it if I find his passwords and logins on his computer.” He tapped the large monitor on the desk. “I’ll start on that after the image finishes processing. If no passwords are on here, you won’t like how I have to do it.”
“Same rules. Don’t tell us what you’re doing, and I’m good with getting the information from you.”
“I have one more thing for you.” Nolan explained about the personal items in the escape room. “Can you find out where the person who set up the room could’ve gotten our police academy graduation photos?”
Dylan frowned. “Not having any idea who the setup person was, I can’t tell you exactly where they could’ve gotten the pictures, but I can scrape the internet and let you know if I can come up with them.”
Nolan frowned. “I guess that’ll have to do until we have a better suspect for you.”
Mina wouldn’t be disappointed. Not when this guy was going to find something in all of his work, she was sure of it. “Is it also possible for you to use a sketch we had made of our suspect to search the internet for him?”
“I could do it, but I’ll only get sketches that resemble him in return, not real people.” He intertwined his fingers and cracked his knuckles. “If that’s all, take off. I’ll get what you need as fast as I can.”
Mina slipped her notebook back into her pocket. “Call me the minute you know anything.”
“Don’t worry,” Dylan said. “I’m more than glad to brag about what I find when I find it.” He laughed and waved his fingers at them, then turned his attention to his laptop.
Back in Daisy’s office, they said goodbye to her and stepped out into the darkness of Main Street, where Founder’s Day decorations had already been erected at the courthouse and were being strung up on storefronts and light posts. But it was the stars glistening overhead in the picturesque little seaside town that caught Mina’s eye.
