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pretty much the whole place.”
    “And by ‘they all’ you mean . . . ?”
    “The bride, the groom, the best man, and three bridesmaids.”
    The entire wedding party, except Michaela’s teenaged brothers, who were too young to go out to a bar after the rehearsal dinner. By three bridesmaids, Chris meant the maid of honor and the two others. I didn’t correct him.
    “Were they drunk?”
    “Not when they arrived. A couple of the bridesmaids were a little silly, but I’ve seen people come in a whole lot worse. The bride wasn’t drinking—she had seltzer and lime—and the groom nursed one beer the whole time he was there.”
    Made sense, the happy couple would have wanted to be bright-eyed for the big day.
    “And Ray Wilson?”
    “I’d have sworn he was stone cold sober when he came in, but I must be losing my eye, because after a couple drinks, he was completely gone. And you know the drinks at Crowley’s.”
    Over-priced and watered-down, especially for tourists. And more watered-down later in the evening. “So what happened?”
    “The best man and the bridesmaids all got pretty happy. There was a lot of dancing, initially as a group, but later with some of the other customers.”
    “Many local people there?”
    “Aside from the employees? Just a few.” Crowley’s is mostly too expensive for the natives. “Any of my people?”
    “ Your people?” Chris grinned, but he knew what I meant. “I don’t think so.”
    But then, he paused. I sensed there was something he wasn’t telling. “What? Who?”
    “Sarah came in about 10:30.”
    “Sarah Halsey?”
    “She works for you.”
    “Yeah. I’m just surprised. A schoolteacher with a kid at home—”
    “She’s not allowed to blow off a little steam?”
    “Sure, I guess.” I indicated he should go on.
    “The groom left after about half an hour.”
    “Wait. Tony left?” It seemed odd for the groom to leave his own party so quickly. “Why?”
    Chris shrugged his shoulders. “No idea. I didn’t think about it at the time. Anyway, not too long after that, the best man started drinking heavily, getting handsy with the women on the dance floor, stumbling. At a little before one, the bride and bridesmaids wanted to leave. The bride told Wilson to go back to his hotel and go to bed. He refused. She was pretty mad. They were both yelling. So I stepped in and told her I’d take care of him.”
    “And?”
    “The ladies left. It was almost closing and the place had really emptied out, so I left the bartender to close up, put the best man in my cab, and drove him to the Lighthouse.”
    The Lighthouse Inn was a large hotel about five minutes from Crowley’s. It was called the Lighthouse because, rumor had it, from one of its thirty-eight rooms, if you leaned as far over the balcony as was humanly possible, you could see Dinkums Light. Ray and a number of the wedding guests were staying there.
    “Did you walk him inside?”
    “Nope. Now I wish I had. I wish I’d tucked him into bed, to tell you the truth. I thought he could make it on his own. Last I saw him, he was stumbling out of my cab toward the lobby.” Chris rubbed a hand over the stubble on his chin. The chin with the dimple. “That’s all I got.”
    He glanced over my head at the big clock over the threshold between Gus’s dining room and the counter area. I’ve always felt the clock was Gus’s way of saying, “You’ve finished eating. Now get the hell out of here.”
    “Can’t keep the cops waiting.” Chris stood and I did, too. I wanted to go with him to the police station, but figured that wouldn’t look good, what with him being the last to see Ray and me finding the body. I wanted to give him a hug, but we’d never actually touched. So I walked him to the front door and wished him good luck.
     
    “Earth to Julia.”
    I realized I was standing in the front room of Gus’s, my mind a million miles away, while Gus refilled the saltshakers and the catsup bottles and got ready for