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They were probably secure from ninety-nine percent of the population. But Jericho was betting Marco hadn’t had much trouble accessing them.
“Sheriff O’Neil doesn’t know about any of this yet,” Marco went on. “She took the by the book route to getting the footage. Understandable, since she didn’t want to screw up and allow Paulie to walk on a technicality. But she’ll have to let him walk. The footage proves he couldn’t be in two places at once, and he was nowhere near the scenes of the murders or the attack.”
This time, Jericho didn’t just groan. He added some cursing to it. “But Paulie knew Bodine,” he reminded Marco.
“He did indeed,” Marco verified. “Drinking buddies for the last decade or so. They met on a construction job, and when the job ended, they continued to hang out. They frequent a bar near Paulie’s place.”
“Is there anything to indicate Paulie could have hired Bodine to go after my aunt and us at Stronghold?” Rachel asked.
“None, and I’ve looked,” Marco assured her. “But I did find some social media posts with Bodine in some party pictures. None where he was front and center. He just happened to be in the shots.” He washed down his bacon loaded sandwich with the coffee Jericho handed him. “Manson was in one of the shots with Bodine, too.”
“Manson?” Jericho and Rachel said together. It was Rachel who continued. “As in together, together? The man is twenty years older than she is.”
Marco shrugged. “Hard to tell from the picture what’s going on between them.” Without putting down his sandwich, he took out his phone and brought up the picture. “This one was taken four weeks ago and posted by the host of the party, who doesn’t appear to be a player in any of this.”
“So, about a month after Manson’s mother was killed,” Jericho concluded.
Marco made a sound of agreement while Rachel and Jericho studied the picture. It had indeed been taken at a party. Not a fancy deal but a boozy-vibed one where it looked as if drugs might have been involved. Nearly everyone in the group picture of eight people had the tell-tale glassy eyes.
Including Bodine.
But not Manson.
She was slightly back from the others, and while she was holding a beer, she didn’t appear either drunk or stoned. Angry, though. Yeah, there was bitterness on her face that seemed to pop right off the picture.
Hell.
Was Manson the one behind the murders?
And had she used Bodine as a henchman?
“No financial hits on Paulie, Bodine or Manson to indicate there was some kind of gun-for-hire arrangement,” Marco volunteered, obviously anticipating what Jericho and Rachel had been about to ask. “But Manson dabbles some in selling drugs for a buddy of hers. Nothing major,” he added. “And nothing that can be proven with going by the book.”
Jericho considered that. The data that Marco assessed wasn’t admissible in court, but it could often be used as a jumping off point by giving them a direction to steer the investigation.
“So, maybe it was a cash deal,” Jericho concluded. “Cash that Manson got from drug deals to pay for a hitman.”
“It’s possible,” Marco admitted. “The supplier she deals for is a guy named Travis Barnwell. If Manson agreed to do more dealing, Travis definitely looks as if he could play hitman for her.”
Jericho added the dealer’s name in the search engine to request a full background.
“But something else might be playing into motive here,” Marco went on. “I got some buzz that Bodine could have had a thing for Marla. Not sure how deep that thing went, but maybe they had an affair. If so, Manson and Bodine could have teamed up to avenge Marla’s incarceration and death.”
This was good info. A solid investigative thread to tug. “I can ask Sheriff O’Neil to interview Manson again,” Jericho said. “And Bree can question Paulie about Marla’s possible affair with Bodine.”
Jericho checked the time. According to the latest update he’d gotten from Bree, Paulie’s lawyer was scheduled to arrive at ten, about two hours from now so Jericho would need to get Bree this new info before then.
“Is it possible Bodine was acting alone in the murders and the attack on Stronghold?” Rachel wanted to know.
“Possible,” Marco admitted. “But the profile program didn’t like him for this.”
“Profile program?” she asked, but then waved that off. “I’m guessing that’s one of the tools at Maverick Ops.”
“Jericho’s tool, actually,” Marco explained. “Jericho’s the one who did the investigation stuff in the military. So, when he joined Maverick Ops, he built the program to generate profiles using artificial intelligence. For the first year, we checked the results with human profilers, and the program is solid.”
“Not perfect though,” Jericho was quick to add. “I fed in Paulie, and the program liked him for this. But now that I know he has alibis, I can rerun it and see what pops.”
“Already reran in on the drive here,” Marco supplied, “and it didn’t dismiss Paulie as hiring or convincing someone to kill. It didn’t dismiss Manson either. In fact, the program liked her more than her dad.”
