After interviewing Roger, the Chief has some choices for who to talk to next. There’s the bride’s father, who is in an upstairs bedroom with the bride’s mother; Greer Garrison has requested that they not be disturbed until the last possible minute because of the mother’s health. And the groom, Benjamin Winbury, asked permission to go to the hospital to check on Celeste. He promised to be back in an hour. So, as far as persons of interest go, that leaves the Chief with the groom’s brother, Thomas; the groom’s father, Thomas Senior, known as Tag; and this Shooter fellow, the best man. The Chief thinks the third option is the most promising.
Dickson said the best man was missing when he arrived on the scene, but then the guy turned up in a cab an hour later. He could have met a woman—or a man—last night and slept elsewhere. But the perplexing thing is that he had his luggage with him. It’s almost as if he’d planned to leave and then changed his mind. There might be a plausible explanation for this, but the Chief can’t come up with it himself. He will question Shooter.
The Chief finds Shooter standing behind the police tape at the edge of the beach, staring in the direction of the water. He has shed the blazer, removed his shoes, untucked his shirt.
“Hey there,” the Chief says. Shooter turns. His expression is one of fear, maybe, or alarm. The Chief is used to it. In thirty years, no one has been exactly happy to see him while he was on duty in the field. “Are you free to answer a few questions?”
“What about?” Shooter says.
“We’re interviewing everyone who’s part of the wedding. I understand you’re the best man?”
“If you’re going to ask me what happened to her, I really have no idea,” Shooter says.
“I’d just like to get some background,” the Chief says. “About the events of last night. Easy stuff.”
Shooter nods. “I can handle that, I suppose.”
“Great,” the Chief says. He leads Shooter across the driveway to the white wrought-iron bench under the rose arbor where he talked to Roger. He sees police tape all around the cottage on the north side of the property, which was where the maid of honor was staying by herself. The Chief is fairly certain that if they can find the girl’s phone, they’ll have the answers they’re looking for. The Chief has learned over the past decade that if you want to know the truth about a person, just look through his or her phone.
Shooter takes a seat and the Chief pulls his notebook out. He has only one question for Shooter. “So… where were you last night?”
“Last night?” Shooter says.
Just like that, the Chief knows a lie is coming. “Yes, last night,” the Chief says. “The groom told my sergeant that you were missing. Until you pulled up in the cab, we thought maybe you were dead as well. But, thankfully, we were mistaken. Where were you?”
“I’m sorry I caused you to worry,” Shooter says. “I was up at the Wauwinet.”
“The Wauwinet Inn?” the Chief says.
“The restaurant, actually. Topper’s? I’m friendly with the bartender there.”
“And what’s the bartender’s name?”
“Name?” Shooter says. “Oh. Gina.”
“The bartender at Topper’s is named Gina. And you spent last night with Gina?”
“Yes,” Shooter says.
“She lives up there?” the Chief asks. “At the Wauwinet?”
“Yes,” Shooter says. “Staff housing.”
“Had you planned to spend the night with Gina?” the Chief asks. “Because the groom seemed to think you’d spent the night in the cottage.”
“I hadn’t planned on it, no,” Shooter says. “It was just a booty call. It was late, she texted, I went up there.”
A booty call. The Chief thinks protectively of Chloe. He feels a hundred years old. “What time was that?”
“I’m really not sure,” Shooter says.
“You can check your phone,” the Chief says.
Shooter slips his phone out of the pocket of his Nantucket Reds shorts. He pushes some buttons and says, “I must have deleted the text.”
“You must have deleted the text,” the Chief says. “Tell me why you took your luggage. All of your luggage, from the looks of it.”
“Right,” Shooter says. His tone is cautious, and the Chief can practically see the shadowy interior of his mind where he’s groping around for something solid to hold on to. “I took my luggage because I thought I might just stay up at the Wauwinet with Gina.”
“But then this morning, quite early, I’d say, you showed back up here. So what happened?”
“I changed my mind,” Shooter says.
“You changed your mind,” the Chief says. He looks at Shooter Uxley. The kid is sweating, but then again, it’s hot, even in the shade. “Would you mind giving me this Gina’s cell phone number, please?”
“Her number?” Shooter says. “I’d rather not. I don’t want her to get involved in this if we can help it.”
“We can’t help it,” the Chief says. “Because Gina is your alibi.”
“My alibi?” Shooter says. “Why do I need an alibi?”
“We have an unattended death,” the Chief says. “And you were missing, then you showed back up. Now, maybe your story holds water. Maybe you did go up to the Wauwinet to hook up with Gina the bartender with all your luggage and maybe you did then decide you didn’t like Gina that much or that the staff housing wasn’t as nice as the Winburys’ guest cottage. That’s all feasible. But we have a twenty-nine-year-old woman dead, so I’m going to proceed with due diligence and check out your story. You can either give me the girl’s cell phone—which I know you have because you said she texted you late last night—or I’ll call the front desk of the Wauwinet and contact her that way.”
Shooter gets to his feet. “Call the Wauwinet,” he says. “I need to use the bathroom right now. My stomach is funny. I think it was the raw bar from last night.”
“Go ahead,” the Chief says. He’s not stupid. He knows that Shooter will go into the cottage to “use the bathroom,” but really he’ll text Gina the bartender and ask her to corroborate his story.
The Chief waits until Shooter disappears into the cottage, then he takes out his phone and calls Bob from Old Salt Taxi. Bob, who dropped Shooter off here this morning, has been a friend of the Chief’s for twenty-five years.
“Hey, Bob,” the Chief says. “It’s Ed Kapenash.”
“Ed,” Bob says. “Sorry I didn’t stop to chat this morning. You looked like you were busy. What’s going on? Word on the street is there was a murder.”
Word on the street. Already? Well, it is a small island. “I can’t get into it,” the Chief says. “But you remember the kid you dropped off? I need to know where you picked him up. Did you pick him up at the Wauwinet?”
“The Wauwinet?” Bob says. “No. That real handsome kid in the red shorts and the blazer? I picked him up down at the Steamship. He had a ticket for the six-thirty slow boat this morning but I guess he missed it. And so he asked me to take him back to Monomoy. He said he was staying there.”
“You’re sure you picked him up at the Steamship dock?” the Chief says. “And not at the Wauwinet?”
“Sure I’m sure,” Bob says. “I may not be getting any younger but I have yet to make a twelve-mile mistake. I picked that kid up on Steamboat Wharf. He told me he’d missed the six-thirty.”
“Okay, Bob, wonderful, thanks. I’ll talk to you.” The Chief hangs up and takes a second to think. Shooter had a ticket for the early boat? With the wedding scheduled for this afternoon? Something is going on. And he flat-out lied about the Wauwinet.
Why?
A text comes in on the Chief’s phone. It’s from the funeral director, Bostic, saying he’s on his way to collect the body—which is good news, considering the heat and the fragile state of everyone’s nerves. Bostic will get the body ready for transfer to the medical examiner on Cape Cod. The Chief checks the time. If everything goes perfectly, they may have a report on the cause of death by early afternoon.
The Chief waits another few minutes for Shooter to emerge. By now, he must know he’s been caught in a lie. The Chief strides across the shell driveway to the cottage that Shooter entered and knocks on the door. “Excuse me?” he says. “Mr. Uxley?”
No answer. He knocks harder. “Sir?”
The Chief tries the knob. The door is locked. He forces the door, which feels extreme, but he wants Shooter Uxley to know he can’t hide.
The cottage is empty. The Chief checks the little sitting room, the galley kitchen, the bedroom, and the bathroom—where the window is wide open.
Shooter Uxley is gone.