Disclaimer: Not mine, not gonna be, not profiting. Just having a little fun, officer.
Author's Note: Huh. Apparently I want to write more than one of these. So it's a series: vignettes around the theme "When you only have four senses, you make the most of them." This one is early-to-mid-Season 1. Many thanks to everyone who favorited or reviewed "Pancakes"—it was a very nice welcome after being away from fanfic for so long.
Shampoo
Since he had begun to pay more attention to his sense of smell, Nathan Wournos had noticed that people rarely changed their brand of shampoo. Tall as he was, this information was right there under his nose. It wasn't long before he could identify the favorite brands of all the members of the Haven Police Department.
Of course, in a building mostly full of men, that wasn't a stretch: Old Spice, various versions of Axe, some Head and Shoulders. He began to look forward to encounters with the department's few female employees and visits with witnesses, just to get a larger sample.
For a while he became obsessed with identifying every new scent. Though it wasn't something you could just go up to people and ask about. For a few months, he bought a different shampoo each time his own ran out, just to see how it smelled. It was slow work, given how long it took to use up a bottle.
The experiment had ended with his last new purchase, when Sally Ellis leaned over the cash register and whispered, "Isn't that one working out for you either, dear? You know, Sam would be happy to talk with you about any…problems. He's back in the pharmacy now."
He supposed that he could have continued by switching from Ellis Drugs to the new CVS in Camden, but he believed that a local cop should support local businesses.
Audrey Parker changed her brand of shampoo every few days.
That was strange. Why would a woman who seemed to care so little about how she looked care so much about what she put on her hair?
By then he had begun to pay attention to how the same shampoo could smell different on different people; so, same Head and Shoulders, but sweatier on Stan, more acid on the Chief. He had discovered that there was a whole literature from the perfume industry on how individual body chemistry affected fragrance. That was sort of comforting, to confirm that the laws of human chemistry still worked for most people, even in Haven.
Audrey made a pretty good case study for that. With all of her brand changes, he thought he was beginning to know what Audrey herself always brought to the mix. A hint of honey. And something with more bite, almost but not quite like a pine woods, or maybe the winter sea.
He bet Sally Ellis never asked Audrey if she wanted to talk about her hair problems.
Another thing: How did she manage to use up so much shampoo so quickly? Her hair wasn't that long. Did she rotate them? He found himself imagining Audrey dripping under the shower, contemplating the half-filled bottles lined up on the edges all around her. Then felt guilty that he'd thought about any such thing.
This week she was using Herbal Essence. And when he leaned down over her shoulder to share a view of the same monitor during a case, the thyme undertone that had a little end-of-season sourness with Karen Miller in Traffic expanded, through Audrey, into the thick, sweet tang of midsummer growth on a sun-warmed hill.
o o o
"Crap!" said Audrey Parker, futiley shaking the small green bottle over her wet palm. Only a couple of drops plopped out. Guess she'd be skipping the hairwash this morning.
Now that it looked like she'd be staying in Haven indefinitely, she really had to stop buying these travel sizes and get a regular bottle of shampoo.
- end -
