I was about halfway through the park when I heard Toby calling my name. I sped up.
“Riley! Hey, Riley, wait up!” For a natural-born baller, Toby was pretty damn slow.
“I’ve got to get back to work. What is it?” I hated to be rude to anyone, but Toby made it easy.
“I trust you’re rushing back to the office to update the Times online with this latest development?”
“Something like that.” I had way more information gathering to do before I wrote an update, but there was no sense in telling Toby that.
“Mayor Lancett would be most grateful if y’all could quickly report the news that the Davenport killer has been apprehended.”
I stopped walking. “You don’t seriously believe that Tabitha killed Arthur Davenport, do you?”
“She said she did.” Toby didn’t care one bit about what was true or what wasn’t, as long as the scandal was put to bed.
“Well, I don’t believe it for a minute.” I started to walk toward the office at a pace I was certain he couldn’t keep up with for long.
“You have a duty to report the news of Tuttle Corner,” he said, chasing me as fast as his stubby legs would allow. “The mayor will be very disappointed if you don’t!”
CHAPTER 16
I went back to the office, grabbed the Davenport file, and was about to Google Libby Nichols’s phone number when I noticed I had a new voicemail from a number I didn’t recognize.
Hey, Riley, it’s David Davenport. I heard about Tabitha’s confession and I’m shocked. Going to try to get by the sheriff’s office to convince Carl Haight that there’s about as much chance of Tabitha having killed my father as the man on the moon. I’m going to tell Carl about that new information I found, too. I don’t know if it’s relevant, but Dad had been involved with a biotech company called Invigor8—spelled with the number eight at the end. They hired him as a consultant on a new biologic they’re developing. He left the study suddenly and I just thought it might be worth looking into what exactly happened. I have access to some of his files and I’m going to look through them. I’ll let you know what I find out. All right, this is officially the world’s longest voicemail—but I won’t be available for a few hours so I wanted you to know. Anyway, thanks. And don’t forget to send me—
I pressed End before he could finish that sentence. I was still holding my phone when it rang and I nearly jumped out of my chair. “Hey,” I said, without even looking at who it was. I assumed it was David calling me back.
A woman’s tentative voice came across the line. “Is this Riley Ellison?”
I sat up straighter. “It is.”
“And are you the one writing Arthur Davenport’s obituary?”
“Yes . . .”
“Okay, good.” The woman exhaled audibly. “My name is Susan Pettis and I was a patient of Dr. Davenport’s and I’m just torn up about him been killed.” She pronounced it kilt.
“What can I do for you, Ms. Pettis?”
“Susan, please, um, I’d been a patient of his on about seventeen years.” The way she spoke in halted clips told me she was working her way up to something. “My regular doctor over in Henrico sent me over to see Dr. Davenport because I was too tired for a forty-six-year-old woman. Couldn’t hardly walk down the street without needing to sit down. Anyway, Dr. Davenport really listened to me. He didn’t make me feel like I was a complainer or nothing, he believed me and did all kind of tests. Found out I had three arteries blocked up like clogged drains. He had to go in and Roto-Rooter them out, ’course they don’t call it that over there in the hospital,” she added with a nervous laugh.
“He took good care of you then,” I said.
“Saved my life. Told me those arteries were over ninety percent blocked from all the years of cheeseburgers and french fries. He said if he wouldn’t have gone in and cleared ’em out, I’da been dead inside of a month. I credit that man with my life.”
I was quiet as I jotted down this information. “What would you like people to know about Arthur Davenport, Susan? I assume that’s why you called.”
“Yeah,” she said, and then hesitated before speaking again. “I just feel so bad about what happened to him, and I wanted to make sure that it got into the paper that he was a fine and decent man, a smart man, who listened to people.” She paused and I sensed something else was coming. “And anyway, there’s one other thing. I told the sheriff, but he didn’t sound too interested.”
“Yes?”
“Last Wednesday, I came into town—had to get the mower fixed and Tuttle has the closest shop,” she explained. “I saw Dr. Davenport standing on the corner of Plantation and Somerset Drive around 3 p.m. He was talking, or what looked to me like arguing, with another man. The man’s arms were flailing and he was red in the face. And then the other man pushed Dr. Davenport with two hands right in the chest.”
“Do you know who the man was?”
“Never seen him before.”
“Can you describe him?”
“Let’s see, he was white, tall, and bald. And he was probably in his middle forties, if I had to guess.”
I wrote all of this down. “Was he wearing a uniform or anything distinctive?”
“No—he just looked like a regular guy. After I saw him push Dr. Davenport, I pulled my car over in that direction—you know, to see if the doc needed help or anything. I told you, I owe that man my life. But when I got close enough to see, Dr. Davenport had started walking back toward the street in the other
