A deep blush colored her cheeks. “Arthur was one of my oldest friends,” she said. “He was funny and charming and brilliant and irreverent, and we had a terribly strong bond.” She paused, and a sad ghost of a smile crossed her face. “At one point, I think I’d hoped that we’d reconnect, but as the years passed it became clear that he didn’t think of me that way.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to something like that so I said nothing, and waited for her to continue. Eventually she did.
“Until the night before my wedding,” she said, her soft voice taking on a harder edge. “He came to me, told me he loved me, begged me not to marry Theo—said everything I’d always wanted to hear . . .” Her eyes were locked on one of the figurines on her desk. “I’m not sure if it was how he really felt, or if he was just saying that because he didn’t want to lose me to another man. But either way, it made me angry. I’m afraid I didn’t handle it well.”
“What do you mean?”
“I threatened to kill him.” She must have read the impact on my face because she followed quickly with, “I wouldn’t have hurt him, obviously, but I was so angry at him for what he’d done, what he was trying to do . . . I’d finally found happiness with Theo after all those years. Arthur had his family, his children, and I didn’t have any of those things. And there he was trying to ruin my chance for love. It was cruel, and I guess I snapped. I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and told him if he ever set foot in my home again, I’d make sure it was the last step he ever took.”
I tried to control my shock. Shaylene Lancett seemed like the least likely person in the world to threaten someone with a knife. “When was that?” I asked.
“About two years ago.”
“Does the sheriff know about this?”
“Not exactly,” she said carefully. “I was hoping to avoid becoming involved in the investigation. What with the scandal this town has just been through, and this deal on the horizon with Roy G. Biv. And, of course, you have to believe I didn’t have anything to do with Arthur’s death.”
My silence indicated that I didn’t necessarily believe any such thing.
“I was having dinner with Theo and Darryl and Betsy Norbitt at the Shack on Monday night. We were there from six o’clock till after nine-thirty. Call Louis and check if you want.”
I made a note of her alibi. I would most definitely check it out. “I’m going to have to tell Carl about this,” I said.
“That’s fine,” she sighed. “But just know that the anger I had toward Arthur burned out a long time ago.” She looked at me with a pleading in her eyes. “Please don’t judge me too harshly. It’s just a very complicated thing. You spend your whole life loving a man who doesn’t love you back—at least not the way you need him to—and just when you’re ready to move on, he comes back and messes everything up.”
Boy, did I understand that. “I’m not judging you, I’m just trying to”—I almost slipped and said figure out who killed Arthur—“write an accurate portrayal of who Arthur Davenport was.”
At that, she perked up and talked for a while about all the things she had loved about him. His wicked sense of humor, his love of basketball and Christmas music, and how dedicated he was to his work. I took notes and listened as she wound her way through memory lane.
“Thank you for talking with me, Riley,” she said after she’d run out of stories. “I’ve been carrying around all this guilt ever since he died, and it feels good to just talk about the man I knew for over forty years.”
“Guilt?”
She nodded. “We hadn’t spoken beyond social pleasantries in over two years. After I did what I did,” she looked down, “Arthur stayed away like I asked. According to mutual friends, that’s also when he started drinking more and took up with some unsavory companions.” She said the word like it tasted bad in her mouth. “A small part of me wondered if he actually was sincere when he’d come to me. What if he really did love me and wanted us to be together? And my violent rejection set him on a path to self-destruction that ultimately ended with him being . . .” She took a deep breath to clear the emotion from her voice. “I just want it all to be over.”
“But surely you want to see whoever is responsible for this to be brought to justice?”
“Of course,” she said, quickly. “I also know that it’s time to close the books on this one for the good of the community.”
And there it was. For the good of the community. Thanks to Holman and me, Tuttle Corner had just made headlines for drug-dealing taco trucks and homicidal officials; having another high-profile murder case not even three months later didn’t exactly reflect well on us as a community. That explained why she was pushing Carl so hard to make an arrest. It all made sense now. The reason Mayor Lancett was trying so hard to close the books on Arthur’s murder wasn’t because of her guilt—although I believe she did feel badly about what happened between them—but because she was trying to woo Roy G. Biv Industries to the county. A mayor who brought jobs to town was far more likely to get reelected than one who let the town become embroiled in crime and corruption.
I decided to call her out. “Is this about Roy G. Biv?”
“It would be a huge boon to our economy,” Mayor Lancett said deftly, avoiding the question. “But nothing is set in stone. They’re looking at a couple of possible site locations. But Tuttle County would be a great fit because we have the
