AN: Language warning, there's a bit of cursing in this chapter.
Chapter 4 – An Uneasy Encounter
The Haven city park was chilly as Nathan and Audrey climbed out of the Ford. There were only a handful of people around. An older man sat alone at a picnic table, scribbling in a notebook. A young woman was keeping an eye on three kids racing around the playset. Near the other side of the lawn were two teenagers, sitting on a park bench and apparently glued together at the lips.
"That's him there," Nathan said, pointing across to where a man was bending over a flowerbed.
"A gardener?" Audrey asked. "We're worried about confronting a gardener?"
"Trust me, when you meet him you'll understand," Nathan said and set off across the park. Audrey had to half-jog to catch up with his long strides. When they were only a few yards away, Nathan called, "Hey Jimmy."
The man straightened up and looked back at them, and then made a loud irritated noise. "Ah hell, Wournos, whaddya want this time?" he snapped, folding his arms, one of them in a thick cast, across his chest. As they reached him he drew himself up to his full height, but facing off with someone as tall as Nathan, it didn't do much good.
"Jimmy, this is my partner, Agent Parker," Nathan said without any indication of noticing the hostility in Jimmy Daley's voice.
"Well you can recruit yourself as many pretty skirts as you want, it ain't gonna make me wanna talk to you any more than I already don't," Jimmy spat.
"Be nice," Audrey said, smirking. "We're just here to ask a couple questions." Jimmy didn't respond except to raise a challenging eyebrow that she took as permission to continue. "You recently filed a health insurance claim?"
"That's your business how?" Jimmy retorted.
Nathan grunted. "Just answer the question."
"Not 'til I know why you all give a damn 'bout my health," Jimmy said stubbornly. "I got my rights, you know."
"How about because the insurance agent that denied your claim was killed yesterday and you have motive that gives us enough probable cause to drag your ass down to the station," Audrey said coolly. "That sounds like a good enough reason to answer our questions?"
Jimmy looked sour but he nodded. "Alright, just say what you want and lemme get back to my life then."
"You don't seem surprised to hear that Mr. Halter is dead," Audrey noted idly.
"Yeah well, guy had it comin', didn't he, way he was," Jimmy said indifferently. "I knew someone would've offed him 'ventually. Wasn't me though, since you're gonna ask."
"You didn't like him," Audrey said.
Jimmy snorted. "Not many did. The man was an arrogant bastard, going 'round and telling people their insurance won't cover things. He came to me last week to tell me that they won't pay my doctor bills for my busted arm 'cause it was a work-related injury. Said it ain't their area."
"When was the last time you saw Mr. Halter?" Nathan asked. Audrey wasn't paying attention anymore, having spotted something in the nearby wheelbarrow and she started towards it.
"Woulda been Thursday, I guess," Jimmy said, watching her suspiciously. "What you think you're doing there? Stay outta my things." Audrey reached for the wheelbarrow but Jimmy lunged toward her, brandishing a hand rake in her face threateningly. "I said stay out!"
Nathan drew his gun pointedly. "Put the rake down," he demanded.
"Tell your Barbie doll to keep her hands to herself then," Jimmy said angrily, but he dropped the rake into the wheelbarrow.
"What'd you see, Parker?" Nathan asked.
Audrey nudged aside a few loose tools to be able to read the label on the bag near the bottom, and then she looked up at Nathan grimly. "Sand." Immediately Nathan walked over to peer in at the bag of white sand beneath the gardening tools.
"I'm a landscaper," Jimmy said. "Course I got sand. Use it 'round the trees, keeps the ground moist and like." Audrey looked around and saw that there was definitely sand covering the dirt around the bases of most of the trees, but she still didn't feel comfortable with the discovery.
"It's the same colour as the stuff we found," Nathan said, holstering his gun again. "Jimmy, we're going to have to take a sample of this."
"Hell no you ain't stealing my sand!" the gardener argued. "What you need it for anyway? Halter brained with a bag of sand, was he?"
Ignoring him, Nathan dug another evidence bag out of his pocket and scooped a small handful of the sand into it. As Jimmy glared daggers at him, Audrey asked, "Was there anything strange about Halter the last time you saw him?"
"Never wasn't strange," Jimmy growled. "Am I sad the guy died? Absolutely not. Deserved it if you ask me. But like I said, I wasn't the one to kill him."
"Maybe not on purpose," Audrey goaded. "Maybe you didn't mean to do it. But maybe when he told you you'd have to front all those bills yourself, maybe you got a little worked up. Agitated. Did it make you mad, Jimmy?" The gardener looked annoyed, frowning at her with his jaw clenched. Nathan made a warning noise from behind her but she ignored him. "Pissed you off, didn't it? That some snooty little guy in a business suit told you that your accident just wasn't worth his time. Did you lose your temper with him? Rough him up a bit? Show him who the bigger man was? You can tell us, we don't care. Arresting you isn't worth our time either."
Jimmy had gone red in the face and took a step closer to her. Nathan was immediately right behind her, making her feel a bit claustrophobic being stuck between the two men. "You listen to me here, Barbie," Jimmy ground out through his teeth. "I ain't done nothing wrong. I ain't no killer. And I really don't need some hoity-toity government cop princess coming down here and interrupting me at work and accusing me of whacking off scummy insurance agents. So I suggest you get the hell outta my face and let me alone."
Audrey and Jimmy glared at each other for a minute, and then Audrey smiled. "Alright, I think that's all our questions. Thanks for your time, Mr. Daley," she said. She slipped out from between the men and started back across the park. It only took Nathan a few seconds to catch up with her.
"Parker, are you trying to get yourself killed?" he asked incredulously. "You have got to stop provoking potential murderers. One of these times you're going to piss off the right person and then where will you be?"
"I'm fine," Audrey pointed out. "I'm not a walking sandbox here, so I think we can scratch Troubled off that guy's character list. Or at least Haven Troubled. He's clearly just a tad troubled in other ways."
"Well I'm still sending this sand into the lab to see if it's a match," Nathan said, giving up on the argument for now. "Just because he didn't telepathically load you with sand doesn't mean he didn't get it into Halter some other way."
As they entered his truck, Audrey glanced across at Nathan and grinned. "You know, I don't get what you were saying," she said casually. "I thought Jimmy was rather charming. Very sweet guy, really." Nathan smirked wryly in response.
Audrey suddenly frowned, rubbing a hand against her stomach. "Parker, you okay?" he asked carefully, trying not to panic and let his imagination get away from him envisioning all kinds of horrifying things that could happen in a place like Haven.
"Yeah," she said, waving away the hand he'd put on her shoulder. "I really should've had more than just that muffin this morning. Think we've got time for a lunch break?"
Nathan glanced at his watch, seeing it was well past the time they would normally have taken their break. "I could do lunch," he agreed. "Really, anything to get away from interrogating possible sand murderers." Audrey laughed appreciatively and she seemed to be completely fine again. Still, as Nathan drove them to the diner, he kept a worried eye on his partner.
After all, this was Haven and she was Audrey Parker. He could never be too careful.
. . . . .
Audrey could feel Nathan watching her from across the table. She tried to ignore it as she enjoyed her sandwich, but it was a bit unnerving, especially considering how often it had been happening lately. He always tried to hide it, but she would catch him staring at her in the office or in the truck when he was driving them to calls. Not to mention his strange sudden attraction to hovering around her while trying to act, unconvincingly, like he wasn't doing anything. There was definitely something up with her partner, and she was determined to get to the bottom of it.
Taking a sip of her iced tea, Audrey looked up at him. Nathan's gaze slipped down to the pancakes he had been robotically eating. "Okay, talk, mister," she said, setting down her glass and folding her arms on her chest.
"So what do you think about our suspect list so far?" Nathan asked, glancing over at the manila folder on the tabletop. "Personally I'm putting my money on Jim, if anyone."
"That's not what I meant," Audrey said flatly. "Nathan, what's wrong?"
"Audrey," Nathan said, startling her with the use of her first name. He reserved that for more serious conversations. "Not now."
She leaned back in the vinyl seat, examining his face. The rings beneath his eyes had been growing steadily darker over the last couple weeks, but his gaze was pointed and pleading. Chewing on her bottom lip for a moment, Audrey nodded. "Okay. Later," she agreed, emphasizing the last word so he'd know she wasn't going to just let it go. "I don't know, I still think Marion is more likely than Jim. For him it would be personal revenge. She'd have done it to protect someone she cares about. That just seems more likely to me."
"Well with that logic it could very well have been Calvin Demarcio too," Nathan pointed out. "To save his mother."
"He's like eighty years old," Audrey said with a shrug. "So unless this turns out to be a Trouble, I highly doubt he has the energy to do something like that. And anyway, he seemed to like Halter. Kept talking about how Halter had helped them out so much. If he was going to go after anyone, I doubt it would be the one person on his side."
"And to make it all more fun, we don't even have any proof that this was murder, or that it was even one of these three," Nathan said and rubbed his upper lip like he was prone to doing under stress. "It could be completely unrelated. We don't know who did it or what did it or even if there was anything done by anything at all. We could just be chasing smoke here."
Audrey surveyed him curiously. "And that makes this different from any other case how?"
Nathan stabbed at his pancakes with his fork and then gave a grudging nod. "I suppose that's true," he agreed. "So were we going to visit our last, full-coverage-denial suspect next?"
"Unless Mr. Paws tries to rob the craft store again," Audrey replied, finally drawing a smile out of Nathan. No sooner had she said it then the radio on Nathan's belt began crackling.
"Nate, honey," the elderly dispatcher said, "you'd best get yourself down to the Bucket. Jed and Lou are at it again."
Nathan sighed and lifted the radio. "Thanks Laverne. We'll be there in a bit."
"So what's the story on Jed and Lou?" Audrey asked with a smirk.
"Old war buddies that have known each other since they were kids. Every couple weeks they get together for drinks and then spend the afternoon yelling and cussing at each other for everything and anything imaginable." He didn't look hurried as he cut another bite from his pancakes. At Audrey's raised eyebrows he continued, "They're harmless, just loud. Nothing worth wasting good pancakes over. We can deal with them when we finish lunch."
Audrey picked up her sandwich with a wry smirk. "Gotta love being a small town cop."