"Well, I see like there's one person missing." Kevin frowned, looked at the list in his hand with some uncertainty, and then pointed to the only name on the list in Esposito's hand that had not been crossed out, and said, "Mike Weitz, have you talked to him?" ”

"Seems like one of the best men? No. Esposito leaned in and looked at it, shaking his head in certainty.

"Has anyone seen best man Mike Weitz?" Kevin turned back and asked in a loud voice to the other guests.

"Nope." The groom's brother, Keith Murphy, looked around suspiciously, as if he had just noticed that he was missing a groomsman.

"God, I remember." Laura Healy, one of the bridesmaids, exclaimed in surprise, "I saw him and Sophie very close together at the wedding rehearsal dinner last night. ”

"That's right, when we got together at the bar and chatted, we saw the two of them tired of being together." Chubby groom's uncle Teddy Murphy shrugged.

"He's not going to have an accident, is he?" The words of the groom's brother Keith Murphy caused the guests to discuss.

Kevin and Esposito glanced at each other, hurriedly stepped forward to ask the guests one by one again, and then hurriedly left, looking for hotel security to confirm the situation.

It wasn't long before the two of them returned again, and this time their faces were much more solemn, and they seemed to have discovered something.

"I've confirmed, no one has seen Mike since last night." Kevin said.

"We checked his room, the bed was neat, there was no sign of sleeping, the dress was still hanging in the closet, and according to the room card records queried by the hotel security, the last time he entered the room was at two o'clock in the morning." Esposito continued.

At two o'clock in the morning, about an hour before the earliest death of the bridesmaid Sophie, Jack and Cassel looked at each other and did not speak, it was the time for Detective Baker to give orders, "Is there anything unusual in his room?" ”

"No, his personal toiletries and backpack are in the room." Kevin shook his head.

Beckett thought for a moment and ordered, "Have the hotel security thoroughly inspect the vacant rooms and utility rooms." ”

"Do you think we might find a second body?" Cassel interjected.

"I'm more inclined to think that Mike might be the murderer, and he ran away after strangling Sophie." Beckett continued, "Issue an arrest notice and send Mike's picture to all airports, stations, and ferry terminals on all outlying islands." ”

Esposito lowered his head and began to make phone calls, following the orders of his female boss one by one, and the living treasure duo in normal working conditions was unexpectedly reliable.

"I'm going to ask if any of the guests took a photo or video of Mike and Sophie last night together." Kevin raised his foot to leave, but was dragged back by Cassel.

"Or we can find it ourselves." As he spoke, he pointed to the pile of digital cameras on the table, there were seven or eight of them, all of which must have been used during the wedding rehearsal last night.

There is not a lot of American wedding process in the usual sense, especially in the preparation stage, as a jack who has attended several weddings, it is also a bit experienced.

A wedding rehearsal dinner is probably the final step in the preparation phase, and the attendees are usually close family members, including the groomsmen and bridesmaids.

The process is roughly divided into two parts, and it can be seen literally that the rehearsal and the dinner, traditionally the groom's family pays for the dinner the day before the wedding, and the wedding fee on the day is generally paid by the bride's family.

Comparatively speaking, the rehearsal dinner will be more lively because it is a day earlier, the scale is smaller and the participants are more intimate, and the wedding day is more ceremonial and involves more relatives and friends.

So the detectives asked for a room in the hotel, squatted in the living room and flipped up the video footage of last night's rehearsal dinner, they couldn't find the video of the guests gathering at the bar after the banquet, and it seemed that most of them had drunk too much at that time.

However, at the dinner time, a video of the missing best man Mike's speech found some clues, in which the murdered bridesmaid Sophie left the table very abruptly after receiving a phone call.

As Beckett put it, "Does anyone think it's a little strange for Sophie to leave halfway?" ”

"Looks like she's going to meet the person who called her." Esposito was thoughtful.

"But whose is the problem?" She came all the way from Los Angeles, and probably knew everyone in the restaurant at the time. ”

"Didn't you get her phone call logs? Look up the number at this point in time. Jack reminded.

Kevin hurriedly rummaged through the information in his hand, "Uh, the call records show that it was from the hotel lobby." ”

Jack remembers that when he arrived, he noticed that the hotel lobby was monitored, so Kevin and Esposito went downstairs to check the surveillance, and the result went surprisingly well.

The bridesmaid Sophie was called by a street drug dealer named Boyd Gamble, whom Kevin recognized at a glance from the surveillance footage.

This guy mainly sells cocaine and marijuana, and once spent several years in prison for grabbing land and injuring people, and Kevin was the police detective in charge of his case back then.

In less than an hour, Kevin and Esposito completed the process from arrest to interrogation, but the outcome of the interrogation was somewhat unexpected.

Sophie didn't look for this street drug dealer to buy some "gadgets" for recreation, but a special drug, "FM2".

This thing is commonly known as "dating strong X medicine" or "cross", and the scientific name is "flonidazepam", which can make people quickly fall into deep sleep, but the question is, what is the use of Sophie asking for this thing by a woman?

While the duo made progress, Jack, Beckett, and Cassel, who remained in the hotel, were ready to talk to the bride and groom again, and so far, they were probably the ones who knew the deceased best.

The three of them walked side by side through the hallway, chatting about the clues at hand as they walked, and Beckett was still confused, "Why would a bridesmaid need 'FM2'?" ”

"If a woman wants to take advantage of a man, it's not a good idea to lose consciousness, and in general, just say no?" The old driver of Cassel smirked and stabbed Jack in the arm.

"You can also change into that full-style battle underwear and stockings." Jack agreed, and Beckett smirked.

Cassel stopped abruptly and greeted an aunt who was having a good conversation, "Aha, Sheila? ”

When he was watching the transcript before, Jack had some impressions of this aunt with a particularly rich expression when she spoke, and it should be the mother of the bride Kayla.

Sheila Bryan turned to see Rick Cassel, and the smile on her face instantly retracted, turning into a classic mean mother-in-law's face.

"Richard (Rick is Richard's nickname)? You seem to be seen in every catastrophic scenario. The bride's mother opened her mouth with a gun and a stick.

Cassel raised his chin slightly, glanced at the two people beside him, and raised his voice slightly, "Detective Beckett, Agent Tavol, officially introduce this is Sheila Bryan, the mother of the bride." ”

Then he turned his gaze to Sheila Brian, "It seems like you're a little sorry, it seems like I'm not homeless and I'm not teaching at some third-rate university in New Hampshire. ”

New Hampshire is the least existential and poorest state in North America in the early days of the founding of the United States.

Obviously, in the story of Kassel and Kayla back then, the character played by Sheila Bryan was not very positive.

Jack and Beckett glanced at each other, took a half step back at the same time with a tacit understanding, and began to observe the thirty years of Hedong and thirty years of Hexi, and the climax of not bullying the poor boy slapped in the face.

However, Sheila Bryan's rank seems to be far higher than that of Kassel, and his provocation is shattered with one sentence of understatement, "Everything will be judged by time." ”

(End of chapter)