CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Jessie would have loved to cut Webb out entirely.
But the truth was, now that CBI had taken over the case, he was the one who could shut her out. So, she reluctantly led him to the HSS research department, where she wanted to follow up on a hunch.
Karen had suggested that Jason Mannix might have been having an affair with Sarah Winters.
But Jessie wondered if there could be more to it than that.
After she’d learned that Mannix’s phone and car were at Winters’s house on Tuesday night, she’d started to look over Winters’s social media presence.
That’s what she’d been focused on when Webb had walked into the bullpen.
And what she found didn’t make sense, at least not if Mannix was having an affair.
There were a ton of photos of him on Sarah Winters’s socials: at restaurants, bars, farmers markets, and even a few that looked like they were from a trip to Tijuana. He didn’t appear to be trying to hide their time together, which seemed odd.
With a “wife” back in L.A., shouldn’t he have been more cautious about his face being plastered on dozens of photos with another woman? That is, unless trying to keep them off social media would cause more trouble than it avoided, which might dovetail with a theory that Jessie was noodling with.
They stepped into the research department, which was filled with the sound of soft but relentless clicking as both Jamil and Beth typed away, eyes fixed on their screens.
“Hey guys,” she said, getting their attention, “this is Special Agent Webb with the state Bureau of Investigation. They are taking over the Lauren Mitchell case and he’s on point. So, any information you have for me needs to go to him too.”
“What about Detective Bray?” Jamil wanted to know.
“She’s not on the team anymore,” Webb told him. “For now it’s just me, Ms. Hunt, and I guess, the two of you.”
Jessie didn’t appreciate the man’s smirk. At first glance he seemed like a standard issue agent. Likely in his late twenties, he had the obligatory navy suit, the short cropped black hair and typical “fit but not overly pumped up” physique.
But his manner was off-putting. He always seemed to be frowning or sneering. His gray eyes darted around like tiny pinballs, and his brusque demeanor wasn’t winning him any fans.
“Did Detective Bray do something wrong?” Beth asked.
“No,” Webb told her dismissively before asking, “Where are we at on whatever you’re researching?”
“Actually, I had a request before we get into that,” Jessie interrupted, hoping to prevent any objections from them by redirecting their attention.
“This may sound weird. I was going over Sarah Winters’s socials but it got overwhelming.
So I was hoping you could filter through them a little bit to home in on her relationship status.
Specifically, can you check for anything that suggests that she and Jason Mannix might have been married? ”
“What?” all three people in the room asked at once.
“It’s just a hunch,” she told them, “But reviewing her photos with him, they don’t give off the energy of secret lovers. They seem like a couple.”
“You think he was a bigamist?” Jamil asked, already pulling up what she suspected was the San Diego County records database.
“Actually, he wouldn’t be,” Beth corrected as she quickly navigated to Sarah’s Facebook page. “We know that he and Lauren weren’t really married. So maybe Sarah was the real wife.”
“Or maybe neither was,” Jessie noted, finally sharing what she’d been contemplating for several minutes now.
“So, you think he might have had sham marriages with both of these women?” Webb asked, seemingly dumbfounded by the idea.
“It could explain a lot of this confusing behavior: juggling two ‘wives,’ travelling constantly, making rash decisions and outright lying to us.”
“I’ll keep looking,” Jamil told them, “But so far, I’m coming up empty for a marriage certificate. That’s already a red flag. If they were one, it would be easy to find.”
“Another red flag,” Beth said, raising her hand. “I’m already finding photos from what looks like a backyard wedding at what I think is Sarah Winter’s house. She’s in a white dress. He’s in a tux. There look to be about two dozen people there. The photos are dated from about eighteen months ago.”
“So Mannix was fake married to Sarah Winters for a year and a half?” Webb confirmed. “How long was he with Lauren Mitchell?”
“Almost four years,” Jessie told him.
“I can’t wait to get this guy in an interrogation room,” Webb said, rubbing his hands together excitedly.
Something about the way he said it made Jessie nervous. She didn’t know this man or his interview style. But gleeful anticipation was never the right attitude to have when questioning a witness or suspect. It led to overconfidence and often, mistakes.
But this wasn’t officially her case anymore. Webb was allowing her to participate. He could change his mind at any time.
She had a bad feeling about this.