Cranberry Point (Cedar Cove #4)(88)

He watched her read the short, cryptic message and saw that she was as mystified as he was.

"When did this arrive?"

He couldn't recall exactly. "A few weeks ago."

"Why didn't you say anything?" she cried, throwing down the postcard. "I'm your wife. I have a right to know."

Roy shrugged halfheartedly. "What was the point? Why should you worry because someone's getting their kicks mailing me silly postcards?"

"You're being threatened and you don't feel it's important to let me know?" She raised her voice. "I'm not only your wife, I'm your business partner!"

"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."