Is That a Clunky Red Herring?

I think there's something i call the clunky red herring, which aggravates me a little bit. A whole chapter might be dedicated to misdirection and then it turns out yoeo ogo somewhere else is ruled out. The example i can think of is a mayor of easttow hich as pretty good s res on whatever. But when it's revealed later that he'd helped her out because she was absolutely impoverished in an an abusive situation at home, it made no sense. I mean, annoyed me because that was a really cuggy example. And so i am someone who is obsessed with mystery plots. If you can write something that big, of gan to