The Bad Break

by Jill Orr

  “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 natural resources they’re after.”

  “And what resources are those?” Other than an overeager mayor, I thought.

  “Indigo, mostly.”

  “Indigo?”

  “Why do you look so surprised? Their focus is on all natural dyes and indigo is by far the most common plant used in textile colorants.”

  A light bulb went on in my head. “And indigo grows in the same soil as tobacco.”

  “Yes, exactly,” Shaylene said. “That’s one of the reasons Tuttle County is so attractive to them.”

  I’d heard more about tobacco farms and indigo plants in the past two days than in all my previous twenty-four years on the planet. “Shaylene,” I said, a new thought occurring to me, “this may seem like an odd question, but did Arthur have anything to do with this possible deal with Roy G. Biv?”

  She shook her head. “No. Why?”

  “No reason, I was just wondering.” For a moment I thought perhaps this was all connected somehow to Arthur’s death, but that was probably just wishful thinking. That would definitely be too easy. The bottom line was that even after finding out that the mayor did in fact threaten to kill Arthur, and finding out why she was putting pressure on Carl to close the case, we weren’t any closer to finding out who killed Arthur Davenport. I felt deflated.

  “The only local people involved are some farmers the company contacted to see if they’d be interested in becoming indigo producers, should the company end up relocating here.”

  I held my breath and asked one last Hail Mary of a question. “And which families are those?”

  “One of them is the Luetkemeyers—they own Luke’s Farm,” she said. “And the other one I’ve never met. A family by the name of Krisanski.”

  Touchdown.

  CHAPTER 37

  It was past 10 a.m. when I arrived at the Times office. So much had happened since the incident at Rosalee’s that it took me a minute to figure out what she was talking about when Kay asked if I was okay as soon as I walked in the door.

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Were you hurt?”

  I shook my head. “Just a little scared.” I had a few marks on my forehead and left elbow from flying debris, but thankfully the window had been made from tempered glass, so it shattered into small granular pieces instead of sharp fragments. It could have been a lot worse.

  Kay eyed me with suspicion, yet spoke in an uncharacteristically gentle voice, “Are you sure?”

  “Would I have been able to get interviews from four eyewitnesses and three emergency personnel workers if I wasn’t?” I pulled out my notebook and flashed a triumphant smile.

  Kay laughed. “I’m glad you’re okay. Have the story uploaded as soon as you can. This is front-page material, Riley. Good work.” She turned to walk back to her office.

  “Kay?”

  She gave me a half turn. “Yeah?”

  “Um, there’s more. Can we talk in your office?”

  I told her what I’d learned about Roy G. Biv Industries and the possible move to Tuttle County and how I believed it was behind Mayor
Lancett’s intense interest in the murder case. For the time being, I left out the stuff about her personal relationship with Arthur. At the moment, the murder investigation was still stupid Spencer’s story; let him chase his own leads.

  “Wow,” Kay said when I’d finished talking. “This is big. Think you can have a story on it by tomorrow?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Just about everyone in the office came by my desk at some point to ask what had happened at Rosalee’s, if I was okay, and if anyone had any leads on who might have done it. I shared the little information I’d learned from talking to the emergency responders on the scene: no serious injuries (thank goodness) and no leads. But I hoped the latter would change as the police continued their interviews with witnesses. There’d been at least a handful of people on the street and in the park when the car drove by and hurled the hammer into the café. Surely somebody saw something.

  I had some more interviews to get before I could finish the story about the attack at Rosalee’s, specifically one with Sheriff Haight. I texted him and he agreed to let me come by the station in an hour.

  With the mayor’s comments fresh in my head, I also wanted to talk to Lauren McCarty and ask more questions about her family’s farm. I knew it was still in operation based on what Tabitha found, and now it seems that someone from the family had also been in touch with Roy G. Biv—the question was, did Lauren know that?

  I decided to interview her in person this time, hoping that the face-to-face conversation might yield more information. So I drove over to Smythe & Breidenbach, the accounting firm in town where Lauren McCarty worked.

  “Can I help you?” a woman asked as I walked in the glass-front office. I checked her nameplate by the reception desk—Lauren.

  “Hi Lauren. I’m Riley Ellison, from the Times. We spoke on the phone yesterday?”

  She reached out to shake my hand, while shooting a quick glance over her left shoulder. “Hey. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m working on another story, this one to do with farming, and I came across a plot of land that is registered to your father, Charles Krisanski. I remember you telling me that he passed away a couple of years ago . . .” I purposely left the statement open-ended, hoping Lauren would fill in the blanks for me.

  “Yeah, that’s our family farm, the one I was telling you about. I guess the deed was never updated after Daddy died.”

  “Your family still owns the farm then?”

  “Yes, it’s been in our family for years. There’s no banknote on it, so technically we own it, but like I said yesterday, it’s pretty much just dormant land now. After Daddy died, Mom didn’t have the energy to take it over, and John and I had no interest—so we just let all the crops go to seed. We’re just hoping someone comes along and makes us an offer on it.”

  I knew this wasn’t true. What I didn’t know was if Lauren knew it wasn’t true.

  “Have you been by the farm lately?”

  “No, why?”

  “I have reason to believe that someone is using your family’s land, Lauren. My associate drove out there yesterday and saw rows of healthy crops, fresh tire tracks, irrigation systems running. It looked like a fully functioning farm.”

  “What?” She looked gobsmacked.

  “So you don’t know anything about this?”

  She shook her head slowly, her brow deeply furrowed. “No, I mean, I can’t imagine . . .”

  “Has anyone been in touch with you about buying or leasing the land?”

  Again, she shook her head. She was clearly thrown off by this information. “No, no one has even mentioned it to me since Mom died.”

  She was so obviously surprised by this information that I had no reason to doubt her. Plus, I couldn’t think of a reason someone would lie about farming their own land. It’s not like that’s a crime. “Could I talk to your brother? Maybe he knows something?”

  “Sure,” she said, just as the phone rang. She scribbled down his phone number on a Post-it note and handed it to me as she answered the phone. “Smythe and Breidenbach, how may I help you?”

  I mouthed a silent thank you and left the office. I had about thirty minutes till I was due at the sheriff’s office, so I ran by Tuttle General to check on Tabitha. On my way over, I left a message for Lauren’s brother, John, asking him to call me back. As I pulled into the visitor lot at the hospital, I saw that Jay had texted me.

  R u okay? We need to talk. Can I come by later?

  I felt a lump in my throat. I wanted nothing more than to talk to Jay, to let him comfort me after the scare this morning, but I knew I had to be strong. It was obvious he didn’t feel about me the way I felt about him, plus we clearly wanted different things. I ignored the text, chucked my phone into my purse, and walked inside the hospital.

  I headed straight for Tabitha’s room. Before I got there, however, I found Thad sitting in the waiting area just outside the third-floor elevators. He was in the same clothes he’d been wearing the night before and looked like he hadn’t slept. In front of him was an empty cup of coffee and an untouched muffin.

  “Hey,” I said as I walked up.

  He looked at me through bleary, red-rimmed eyes. Thad looked as worn out and tired as I’d ever seen a person. His father had been murdered, he’d been held in jail for days, and then his brother and his fiancée were both hospitalized. That kind of stress would wear out anybody.

  “They’ve got her in surgery now. Doc said they should be out soon.”

  I nodded. “How’s David?”

  “He’s being released today. He’s still weak, but Dr. Cavell thinks he’s past the worst of it.” Thad ran a hand through his hair as he leaned back against the blue vinyl seat. “I’m worried about him going home alone though, so he’s going to come stay at the house with me.”

  The last thing I wanted to do was add to his stress, but I felt like he needed to know about the threat I’d received, since he and Tabitha knew almost everything I did about Arthur’s death. I told him all about it as gently as I could and made sure he knew Carl had the note and was looking into Brandon Laytner’s alibi for the night of his father’s murder.

  “God, I’m so sorry, Riley.” He shook his head. “I wish I knew what to say . . .”

  I felt for him. He’d been through so much in the past few days, and despite everyone’s best efforts, we were no closer to figuring out who was behind it all.

  “I’m just glad the prosecutor dropped the charges.”

  “Me too—but I won’t feel like any of us are safe until we find who killed Dad and tried to kill David. I’m thinking of hiring protection for us out at the estate.”

  “Not a bad idea,” I said, wishing I had the resources to hire some protection of my own.

  CHAPTER 38

  I walked into the sheriff’s office a few minutes later than expected. The place was buzzing with the kind of frenetic energy brought on by stress, fear, and shared purpose. In Tuttle Corner, an attack on one of us was an attack on all of us, and finding out who threw that hammer was now the priority of everyone in the office.

  Gail had the phone crooked between her ear and shoulder and was typing something into her archaic desktop computer at the same time. When I walked in, she nodded her head toward Carl’s office as a way to let me know I was free to go on back.

  I walked to the back of the large rectangular room and saw through the window that Jay was in with Carl. My mouth went dry as I mentally calculated if there was any way I could turn and run out of there without being seen.

  “Riley,” Carl called to me from his desk. Damn. He looked at his watch. “Give me a minute to finish up with Jay.”

  Jay looked at me but said nothing, his face completely unreadable. He was a consummate professional and I knew he wouldn’t try to talk to me about personal issues here. I stepped back out of the office, pulling the door closed behind me.

  My heart thumped against my chest wall. Was this going to happen every time I ran into him? I was go
ing to have to find a way to make peace with the fact that we were over, that he wasn’t the man I thought he was.

  I pulled out my phone and pretended to be busy while I waited. A couple of short minutes later, Carl’s door opened and Jay walked out alone. He paused in front of me.

  “We need to talk,” he said in a low voice as his eyes looked over my head, scanning the room.

  “I don’t think there’s anything left to say.”

  “There is, trust me,” he said. “Things like—”

  “Like how a person could be so cruel?” I said in a shouty-whisper.

  “Riley—”

  “Riley, come on in,” Carl called from behind his desk.

  “I have to go,” I said, not even looking at Jay as I walked past him into the sheriff’s office. I heard him exhale loudly as I did, but I was right about his professionalism preventing him from causing a scene.

  I took a deep breath as I sat down in a chair opposite Carl’s desk.

  “Trouble in paradise?”

  I gave him a look that said Drop it. Thankfully, he did. We spent the next ten minutes on my questions about the incident at Rosalee’s and the status of the investigation. The hammer had been sent to the lab for prints, and they had a few descriptions from witnesses that they were trying to match. After I had enough information for the article, I screwed up my courage and asked him the one question I wanted to know the answer to more than any other: “Do you think this could have anything to do with me?”

  “Riley,” Carl said, his face softening, “you were sitting in that restaurant next to a man who has angered a number of dangerous criminals over the course of his career. There’s a far greater likelihood that hammer was meant for him than for you.”

  I let out the breath I’d been holding in, unsure of whether that made me feel better or worse. Either someone was trying to hurt me, or someone was trying to hurt Jay.

  “By the way,” Carl said, “I sent Butter over to talk to Brandon Laytner.” He pulled out a sheet of paper and read from it. “He told Butter that on the night of the murder he’d been home alone. No alibi. Same thing for early this morning. Butter said he got real belligerent when he asked him about that. He said, ‘Where the hell do you think I was at 2 a.m.?’”