foreach-if-statment w/ Linq conditional giving unexpected results

This is a part of a Tic-Tac-Toe game. the checkmate method returns a string that will be used by another fucntion (not shown here) to make a tic-tack-toe move.

Here is the board, the player has two pieces lined up on the top row

public static char[] board = { '+', '+', 'E',
                                'A', 'S', 'D',
                                'Z', 'X', 'C' };





private static string checkmate()
{



    List<char[]> dalist = new List<char[]> {

    new char[3] { board[3], board[4], board[5] },
    new char[3] { board[0], board[4], board[8] },
    new char[3] { board[2], board[4], board[6] },
    new char[3] { board[1], board[4], board[7] },

    new char[3] { board[0], board[1], board[2] },
    new char[3] { board[6], board[7], board[8] },
    new char[3] { board[0], board[3], board[6] },
    new char[3] { board[2], board[5], board[8] }
};

The method returns a single letter as a string that corresponds to a move on the board.

The method analyses the board by creating a list of the 8 possible winning patterns in tic-tack-toe, and testing them against what is already on the board

the logic four components that are worked in order as if-else conditionals in the foreach-loop. For the current the method, it should return 'E' and breakout of the loop at the first if condition . Instead the program goes through the whole loop and returns that final else statement? Why is it not identifying the match of the first if-condition?

The loop should loop through each of the 8 list item until there is a match.

1) checkmate which will return the winning move if there is one available

2) if there is not a checkmate move this move will check if opponent has a checkmate move and block the path

3)link two If there is not a checkmate to win or to block this will place a second piece to link in a winning path

4) Place initial randomly on one of the four corners or middle for first two rounds

foreach (var item in dalist)
   {
      if (item.Where(x => x == '+').Count() == 2)
      return new string(item.Where(x => x != '+').ToArray());


     else if (item.Where(x => x == '-').Count() == 2)
     return new string(item.Where(x => x != '-').ToArray());

     else if (item.Where(x => x == '+').Count() == 1)
     return item.Where(x => x != '+').First().ToString();

     else
     {
     Random random = new Random();
     int rList = random.Next(0, 3);
     int rPosition = random.Next(0, 2);
     return dalist.ElementAt(rList).GetValue(rPosition).ToString();
      }

                }
    return "AA";      


}