44 Cranberry Point
Page 42

"Now, Corrie..."
"Don't talk to me as if I'm a child."
"Then stop overreacting. It's just a postcard and if you read it again you'll see it isn't threatening."
Corrie picked up the card they'd received that day and read it aloud. "The past has a way of catching up with the present." She leveled her gaze on Roy. "That sounds ominous to me."
Roy shook his head. "Not necessarily."
"I hope you're taking this seriously." Restless now, Corrie started to pace.
Roy didn't want to upset her any more than she already was—but, in fact, he hadn't taken the threat seriously. Not really. Until this morning. One postcard he could dismiss, but two? The earlier message had been something vague about regrets. Sure he had regrets. Every police officer did. It came with the territory.
"Think!" Corrie insisted. "This must have to do with one of your old cases. So you should review your old cases and narrow it down to someone capable of.. .this."
Roy shook his head again. "I was on the force for more than twenty years and handled thousands of cases. Do I have regrets about any of them? Damn straight I do, but I always did what I believed to be right."
Corrie refused to let it go. "Could it be someone who was released from prison recently?"
"I don't have a clue." Over time he'd helped put quite a few men behind bars. A whole lot of suspects weren't particularly grateful for his detection skills.
"What about threats? Did anyone threaten you while you were on the force?"
There'd been some; convicted felons often looked for someone else to blame for their bad luck. He was a convenient target, but no one case stood out in his mind.
"Forget it," Roy urged, snatching up a pen, pretending to get to work.
"I can't," Corrie murmured, but she returned to the outer office.
Roy could tell how shaken she was. He wanted to reassure her but didn't know how. He'd wasted time mulling over the first postcard and hadn't come up with anything. If some nutcase wanted to mail him a message on the back of a postcard every few weeks, what could he do about it? Apparently, whoever was doing this derived a bizarre sense of satisfaction from it. In Roy's opinion, his mystery correspondent didn't seem intent on causing him harm.
After a few minutes, he went to check on Corrie, using the excuse of refreshing his coffee. He found her kneeling in front of the filing cabinet, sorting through old police files. He'd always kept a personal notebook about every major case he'd worked, as well as newspaper articles and other information. Corrie, an inveterate organizer, had made files for each year. She had two or three on the floor beside her.
"What are you doing?" he asked as he poured coffee into his mug.
"Checking out our old Cedar Cove cases, plus some of your notes from the Seattle PD."
Roy sipped his coffee and turned to take a look at one of the names. "Parker," he read slowly.
"Harry Parker," Corrie reminded him. "Three years ago. He befriended a neighbor, and was supposedly helping the old man with yardwork and such."
It sounded familiar.
"The old man's daughter, who lived back east, said she suspected Harry of stealing her father blind and asked us to look into it. The woman had good instincts."
"I remember." Roy said. Harry was currently serving time at the men's prison in Shelton for forging checks and theft.
"As I recall, Harry swore you tricked him into a confession."
"I didn't have anything to do with his statement to the sheriff," Roy countered.
"Nevertheless, Harry blamed you."
Roy doubted it was Harry who'd mailed him those two postcards. He suspected this went back to his days in the Seattle Police Department.
"It's none of our Cedar Cove cases," he said.
"What makes you so sure?" his wife demanded.
"I just am. Whoever this is, whatever it's about, it goes way back." The tone of this latest card said as much. Something from his past was about to hit him square between the eyes.
They spent the morning looking through old files and journals, some cases going as far back as twenty years. He ended up with a short list of people to check out, but didn't feel hopeful. This afternoon he planned to make a few phone calls.
Corrie went out to lunch with Peggy Beldon and came back in lighter spirits. While they were at the mall they'd run into a sale of some sort. Roy had stopped counting all the money she'd supposedly saved them by shopping at sales. Interestingly, she found it logical to spend money in order to save it.
"Peggy said something interesting at lunch," Corrie said as she stepped into Roy's office. "Bob thought someone was following him again a little while ago."
This was news to Roy. "He never mentioned it to me."
"That's because after a few blocks, the car went past him. Bob turned around and followed the other car for a short distance, but in retrospect he doesn't think he was being followed, after all."
"I guess that's why he didn't tell me about it."
"Do you remember the night Bob phoned you in a panic because he was convinced he was being followed?" Corrie asked casually.
"Sure. He drove over to the sheriff's office."
"While we were at lunch, I realized something else. Something I'd completely forgotten until Peggy mentioned it."
"What's that?"
Corrie leaned against the doorjamb. "Bob's car was in the repair shop that week."
"That's right," Roy whispered slowly. He was beginning to connect the dots.
"In other words, Bob was driving our car that night and not his own."
Roy nodded. That possibility had never occurred to him and he suddenly felt a little foolish. Once again, Corrie had proved herself a natural detective. "In other words, whoever was following Bob might've been looking for me."
"Do you still think those postcards don't mean anything?" Corrie whispered.
Forty-Five
Grace was meeting Olivia for lunch midweek. So much had happened in both their lives and Grace wanted—no, needed—time with her friend. She was dying to talk about Cliff and the way he'd come to sit with her during Charlotte and Ben's wedding. The ceremony lingered in her mind; she'd been moved by its simple beauty and by the love Charlotte and Ben so obviously shared. Tears had blurred Grace's eyes, but she wasn't the only one who'd reacted emotionally. When she'd been able to look up, she saw that several other people were wiping tears from their cheeks. Even Cliff seemed touched by the vows Charlotte and Ben had written, vows that acknowledged love for their dead spouses and love for each other. Currently the newly weds were off to Victoria, British Columbia, for a short honeymoon.
Naturally Will had been there for both the ceremony and the reception, as had Stan. Grace had avoided them as much as possible, but she was more concerned about Will. However, Cliff seemed to understand how difficult the reception would be for her, and had remained close to her side. Several times Grace had noticed Will heading in her direction, but he stopped when he saw that Cliff was nearby. Grace assumed he'd return to his wife after this, which was just as well.
Grace valued Cliff's protectiveness at the wedding and, even more, the way he'd helped her with Maryellen. His calm presence had kept her focused as they comforted Maryellen and waited for the Aid Car. Afterward he stayed with Katie until Grace could come home.
Maryellen had been released from the hospital the next day. Jon had insisted on taking her and Katie home. Grace sensed that things weren't right between them. Now wasn't the time to pry, though, not when they were grieving over their loss. Still, Grace had every intention of finding out what had gone wrong in her daughter's marriage.
The miscarriage had devastated both Maryellen and Jon, but they were young and there'd be other children. Yet she knew it was difficult to think rationally after such a painful loss, and in her own way Grace grieved for her grandchild.
Grace was looking forward to her visit with Olivia, who'd just had a new grandchild—her third. When Olivia phoned that morning to confirm lunch, she'd jubilantly announced that James and Selina had a baby boy, born early on September eighth. Mother and son were doing fine, and James was one proud papa. They'd named the baby Adam Jordan. Three-year-old Isabella was said to be excited about becoming an older sister.
Grace had good news of her own, most of which had to do with Cliff, of course.
Before he left her on Saturday night, he'd made a point of letting her know he'd be in town on Wednesday and would come to the library. She was pleased and so relieved that they were resuming their relationship and that he was willing to give her another chance.
Just after noon, when Loretta returned from lunch, Grace retrieved her purse and small lunch bag. She decided to wait for Olivia by the totem pole outside the library. They each had a limited lunch break, and Grace didn't want Olivia to waste time looking for her in the library.
They'd already planned to bring their own lunches and eat in the waterfront park. With the refinancing of the house, Grace's tight budget was even tighter. In an indirect way, repaying Dan's loan had been a financial help, however; Grace had gotten a much lower rate of interest and arranged to pay off the house in half the time that'd been left on the original mortgage. She had to keep a close watch on her spending, but she'd manage. The fact was, she'd done a fairly good job of it ever since Dan's disappearance.
Grace loved Cedar Cove's waterfront. She looked out over the marina and across the cove to the Bremerton shipyard. She could see the massive aircraft carrier George Washington in the distance and remembered the joy of the wives and families when it finally returned from the Persian Gulf.
"Grace." A man's voice interrupted her musings.
A sense of dread struck her and she turned slowly to discover Will Jefferson. She'd assumed he'd left town by now, assumed she wouldn't see him again, assumed everything had already been said.
"I had to see you one last time before I went home." His eyes pleaded with her.
Grace peered down the hill, hoping to see Olivia. No such luck. She was trapped with Will, and although this was usually a crowded area, there was no one nearby right now.
"I can't believe you no longer care about me," he said in a voice that throbbed with sincerity.
Grace refused to meet his gaze. So far she'd been polite, but that hadn't worked. "Believe it," she said sharply. "You're married. I don't mean to be rude, but I don't want anything more to do with you. I thought I made that clear."
"Okay, fine. I'll divorce Georgia if that's the only way I can have you."
Grace shook her head. She wanted to yell at him to stop harrassing her, to go home to his wife, but the polite little girl she'd been wouldn't let her. Where was Olivia? Grace scanned the street, desperate to find her friend. What could possibly be taking her so long?
"Grace, listen to me." Will sounded hurt and confused. Then, as if overcome with emotion, he gripped her by the shoulders, forcing her to look at him.
"Leave me alone," she cried, jerking herself free.
"I can't! I love you."
Sure he did. Grace might have been a fool once, but she wasn't going to play that role twice, especially with the same man.