Chapter Sixty

While driving the decorated cookies to the lab at Chesco, Parrott reviewed the status of the case. He’d been dissatisfied with the pace of progress thus far. But now, with likely threats to Claire’s life in the mix, an urgent drumbeat throbbed in his temples. He needed to act.

There was so little information to go on about Tripp Anderson. No computer, no cellphone, no known friends, or enemies. The guy took privacy to an extreme—unless Tammie and/or Tucker Anderson had been hiding information. Parrott wished he could subpoena Anderson’s phone records, but with ample case law affirming the right to privacy, even for the dead, he wouldn’t have a prayer.

Officer Barton had already taken Claire’s golf cart to the crime lab. If that, or the cookies, revealed information about who had tried to harm Claire Whitman, this would constitute a major break, but why would the killer of Tripp Anderson have it in for Claire? These could be two unrelated cases, though Parrott didn’t think so. At any rate, it might take several days to get answers from the lab.

Meanwhile, Parrott could think of only two new avenues for probing the barn victim’s social life, the woman who sued him for palimony, and the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. Both might be pulling at straws, but he had to try.

Traffic was light on the highway this time of day. Parrott had cracked his windows to let the warm air whip across the top of his head in a cross-breeze. Somehow that helped him think.

The photo of Tripp Anderson with Wukitsch, Thornton, and Plummer replayed in Parrott’s mind like an old country song. Factoring out Plummer, whose music engineering kept him out of the country most of the time, Parrott fixated on the others. A world of difference separated Wukitsch from Thornton—one was an unprivileged drug-addict, the other a polished, wealthy businessman. If Wukitsch carried the torch for Claire’s granddaughter Bonnie, that might explain his going after Plummer, but not Anderson. After meeting Thornton in person, Parrott couldn’t picture the financial planner being caught dead with his hands or his luxurious suit dirty, but Thornton’s non-existent internet presence created a red flag.

Exiting the highway, Parrott followed a shiny, red Lamborghini that reminded him of Preston Phillips, the former treasury secretary and victim in Parrott’s first murder case. That case had been equally convoluted, but he had managed to piece things together, and he would do it again.

In some ways, Pennington reminded Parrott of Preston Phillips. Both men had wealth, power, and, apparently, sex appeal. There were differences, too. Phillips had been almost two decades younger when he died of unnatural causes. Pennington was not a victim, but Parrott could categorize him as a person of interest. Pennington’s support of Brock Thornton was suspicious. Did Brock Thornton have some hold over Pennington that would cause him to steer his closest friends and colleagues into investing with Thornton? How would that translate into killing a construction worker who also was engaged to Pennington’s biological daughter? If Pennington had learned that Tripp Anderson was breaking with Tammie, would he kill Anderson out of revenge? While this seemed far-fetched, Parrott knew of murders committed for less provocation.

Tying Pennington to a plot to disable Claire’s golf cart or to poison her with cookies was even less plausible. Pennington loved Claire, to quote Tammie, and his behavior and actions after the golf cart incident supported that. But what if the weekly meetings with Claire—or his duty to Tammie—had become an albatross. Poisoned cookies from an unknown stranger could be a convenient way to free himself of both obligations.

Parrott parked in the lot at Chesco and retrieved the bakery box of cookies from the trunk of his car. As he carried the potential evidence into the building, he paused his ruminations. One other suspect nagged at his attention like a torn cuticle. He would have to think about Herman Powell later.