Chapter 6 – Accidental Death by Homicide
Nathan looked up from his desk as he heard approaching footsteps, fully prepared to comment on the fact that Audrey was the late one that morning. And then he actually saw her. "What the hell happened to you?" he asked.
"Thanks," Audrey grumbled. Her ponytail was dishevelled, her eyes were heavily shadowed, and the tip of her nose looked red. She slumped down into her chair, nursing a steaming cup. "I caught a cold, thanks to that stupid storm yesterday."
"You know the department offers sick leave," Nathan said with a raised eyebrow. He'd wondered if he might be coming down with his own cold. He couldn't feel any of it, but he'd definitely noticed that his sense of smell seemed dulled when he'd woken up.
"I'll be fine," Audrey said. "What's our agenda?"
"So far, we're fine," Nathan said, still looking at her uncertainly. "Nothing new has come in yet."
"Good, so just more digging on the Halter case," Audrey said. She looked like she was going to say more but abruptly turned and coughed into the crook of her elbow. When she'd stopped, she took a deep swallow of her tea before speaking. "We should do some research, on Halter and those four clients. See if we can find any similar deaths linked to them."
"You think that Halter was part of a targeted group?" Nathan asked curiously.
"Or that he could have done this to himself on accident," Audrey supplied. "It wouldn't be the first time we've seen a Troubled person's affliction come back on them."
Nathan surveyed her thoughtfully. "Where do you come up with all of these ideas?" he asked, torn between awe and amusement. It never ceased to surprise him just how easily his partner could tap into the mystery of the Troubles and make sense of it all.
Audrey grimaced at her tea. "I couldn't sleep last night. I had a lot of time to think." She dissolved into coughing again, making Nathan frown sympathetically.
"Parker, you sure you don't wanna take the day off?" he ventured, already knowing the answer.
"It's just a head cold," she replied dismissively, and just a hint defensively. "I'll be fine."
Nathan nodded, stretching out his legs beneath the desk. "Alright then. I'll check the old case files, you check the newspaper archives?" After making a noise of consent, Audrey turned her focus to her computer, leaving Nathan to wander into the file room and pick up two boxes. Back at his desk, he began the arduous task of scouring the stacks of files for anything that could possibly relate.
The office was quiet except for the tapping of keys, the rustling of paper, and Audrey's sporadic coughing fits. So they both jumped in surprise when the radio flared into life. "Sugar, you there?"
Ignoring Audrey's quiet laughter, Nathan grabbed the radio. "Go ahead, Laverne."
"We got an incident down on Cleary, number thirty-four," the radio said. "Some guy found his friend dead."
"Copy that," Nathan said and stood up with a sigh, clipping his radio on his belt. "Because one corpse a week isn't enough around here."
"Why'd she use the radio?" Audrey asked in amusement. "She's like two rooms away."
Nathan shrugged. "I don't know. I'm starting to think she is surgically attached to her desk. I don't know if I've ever seen her leave the office before."
They exchanged brief smiles and then headed out of the office, being certain to call hellos to the elderly dispatcher as they passed her office. In the truck, Audrey leaned against the window, sniffling, as Nathan steered them in the direction of Cleary Street. He was watching her apprehensively, wondering if there was any way to convince her that she should go home and rest that wouldn't result in her pulling her piece on him. Probably not.
Thirty-four Cleary Street was a standard little duplex building. The side-by-side houses were identical, with tan walls and white windows and bright red front doors. Except that the drive of one side was filled with patrol cars and an ambulance. There was yellow tape stretched across the open doorway, and curious neighbours were wandering around the ring of cars.
Audrey blazed a way through the yard and Nathan followed a few steps behind. They slipped beneath the tape line and both of them stopped short when they saw the crime scene. There was a young woman lying in a heap of limbs at the bottom of the staircase, a pool of dark blood around the body.
"What've we got here, Joe?" Nathan asked the EMT crouched next to the body.
"Her name's Angelina Waters, thirty-one," the older man said calmly, his voice loaded with a heavy New English accent. "Broken neck and cracked skull. Looks like she took a nasty tumble down these stairs."
"Fell or pushed?" Audrey asked.
Joe looked up at them and gave a pale smile. "That's what you two are here for." When neither of them responded, he nodded in the direction of the living room doorway. "The guy that found her is in there with Officer Seddal. He says he just found her like this. The rest of it's all up to you guys."
"Thanks, Jack," Audrey said, kneeling down beside the body as she pulled on a pair of latex gloves. Nathan and Joe exchanged short glances, but the EMT just shrugged, shook his head, and walked off with an amused expression. Smirking a little himself, Nathan crouched down beside his partner.
"See anything peculiar?" he asked while his eyes panned for any signs of foul play. There were no visible signs of bruising to suggest she'd been forced, no marks on her hands to suggest a struggle.
"Nothing really," Audrey said, gingerly touching the girl's head. "It looks pretty standard. I just –" She drew her hand back, squinting at the blood on her fingertips.
"What is it, Parker?" he asked, watching her roll her thumb and forefinger together with a frown.
Audrey looked up at him grimly. "That blood from inside her head, it feels – gritty."
"Gritty," Nathan echoed and then comprehension set in. "Like sand?"
"Hey Jake," Audrey said to the EMT as he passed by again. "Let's have this body sent down to the morgue for an autopsy, would you?"
"Will do, Agent Parker," Joe said, gesturing to an EMT outside the door to come help him.
"Thanks, Joe," Nathan said pointedly and grinned at the frustrated look that flashed across Audrey's face. "So there might be a connection between this girl and Halter. But how? Hit by a car, fall down the stairs. It doesn't make any sense; these deaths don't have anything in common."
"Both deaths made to look like accidents," Audrey said in that slow, thoughtful voice she used when putting the pieces together in the way only she could. Although it sounded admittedly more nasal today than usual thanks to her cold.
Nathan nodded. "That's possible, I suppose," he agreed. "But what's the connection? There has to be some link between them. People don't just kill random people for no reason."
"Let's ask her friend then," Audrey said and stood up. "See if he knows anything." She peeled off her gloves and they walked through the doorway into the next room. Officer Seddal was standing in the open area in the middle of the living room, and next to him was a man in his late-twenties who looked thoroughly distraught. He was pale, shaking, and looked like he was on the verge of being sick. Nathan and Audrey hovered inside the door until Seddal approached them.
"Guy's Will Moore," Officer Seddal reported to them. "Friend and co-worker of the vic. Says when she didn't come into work he came over on his lunch to check on her. Found her like this and called up. I'm not getting a whole lot more from him than that."
"Alright, Alan –"
"Bob," Nathan corrected with a smirk.
"We'll take it from here," Audrey finished, ignoring her partner's humour. Seddal nodded and walked out of the room. "Damn it, I'm even worse with these names when I'm sick," she muttered and shook her head. Then she approached the man and said, "Will, right?"
"Yeah," he answered in a hollow sort of voice. "Do you think Angie was murdered?"
"We don't know yet," Audrey said diplomatically. "Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt her?"
"Nah, she was real sweet to everyone," Will said earnestly. "People thought maybe it was just for the job, but she was just like that all the time. She was just – an angel."
"And you worked together?" Nathan clarified. "Where was that?"
"Up at the hospital, the Haven Regional," Will explained. "We're both nurses up there."
"And how long had you been sleeping together?" Audrey asked abruptly.
"We – what?" Will sputtered. "Angie and I, we weren't – just –" He met Audrey's pointed stare and his shoulders slumped in defeat. "A couple months. But it's not what you're gonna think, there's no crazy jealous lover fight thing. I loved her, we were in love. We were just quiet about it because they don't really approve of workplace romance. We've both been trying to find somewhere else to work so we could be together. And I didn't kill her. I wouldn't, ever. I love her."
"Okay, okay," Audrey said, trying to calm him. "We understand. So you came over when she didn't show for work today, right?"
"Yeah, I got worried about her. She's never missed work without calling in before," he said, wringing his hands. "I figured she was just really sick, she wasn't feeling so good yesterday. She was kinda distracted, I guess, like she couldn't focus. And she kept rubbing her ears, said they'd been bothering her. It looked like maybe she was getting a sinus infection or something to me. I thought maybe she'd just taken too much cold medicine and was sleeping it off or something, but then I found her and –" His voice broke off and he shuddered, looking ill again.
Audrey nodded. "Alright, just one more question for now. Did Ms. Waters know Jeffery Halter?"
"Halter," Will echoed in confusion, apparently thinking hard. "I know that name. He's the insurance guy, right? I've only seen him a couple times but you hear about him a lot up at the hospital. He does the insurance for pretty much everyone in Haven. I guess Angie would've known him or at least known about him. Why? You think he did this?"
"No, we don't," Audrey said with the smallest curl in her lips. "Thanks for your time, Mr. Moore. We'll get back to you if we have any more questions." The man nodded weakly and Nathan followed Audrey back into the hall again. The moment they were out of earshot of the living room, she spun on him. "Was it just me or did that sound oddly familiar?"
"Alright so whoever got to Halter got to this girl too," Nathan concluded. "So there's some connection between them. These things never just get random people, there's always a plan. Except we have no idea who or how or why any of this happened."
"We have to figure out what the link is," Audrey said determinedly. "If we know what it is the two of them had in common, then we'll have a better idea of who could've done it."
"So we'll start with the house," Nathan finished. At least in the middle of all this madness, they still had routine. "See if we can find anything here to link her to Halter."
"We should start upstairs, that where the bedroom and bathroom are," Audrey said. "It's also the last place she was before this happened. We'll be more likely to find something useful up there." They moved to the stairs, where the EMTs had already lifted off the dead girl's body and were setting about cleaning up the rest of the scene. The stairs were narrow and halfway up Nathan had to bow his head to get under the low hanging ceiling.
The top floor of the duplex was set up like a studio apartment, with just the one wide open room that doubled as both a bedroom and a study. There was a doorway on the far end that connected to a tiny bathroom. Unlike Halter's house, this room looked like a tornado has recently torn through it. The blankets were a tangled heap beside the bed and everything that had once been on the desk was now scattered across the floor.
"Wow, not exactly a neat freak, was she?" Audrey asked, nudging aside a stack of upended books with her toe.
"This place looks like it was ransacked," Nathan agreed, lifting up the blankets and looking through them, checking to see if anything was wrapped in them. Nothing was. "Maybe someone was looking for something. Think maybe something was stolen? Like something might have been taken from Halter's briefcase?"
"It looks possible," she said, sifting curiously through the things that lay around the tipped-over desk chair. "So then what, they kill the robbery vics so they can't report them?"
"Or because they tried to stop it," Nathan offered. "Maybe loading them with sand was a defensive thing. When the other person fought back, the Troubled robber got stressed and this is what happened."
"And then the accidental deaths are just to cover," Audrey finished. She paused to cough roughly into her arm, before continuing, "It could work, but then where are the mistakes? A panicked person covering their tracks wouldn't be thinking clearly. They'd leave traces or make something too obvious. These all look just like they're supposed to. If these were planned, it was done by someone calm and collected. It just doesn't make sense."
"Never does," Nathan chipped in with an amused smirk.
They lapsed into quiet again as they went back to scouring the room, only speaking up when they might have found something useful, or on the one occasion when Audrey caught her finger on a corner and let out a gasped curse that was followed by another bout of coughing. Nathan was just about to comment on the obvious pointlessness of their search when he looked up and realized Audrey wasn't in the room.
"Parker?" he called out and then heard her footsteps in the adjoined bathroom. He walked over to the doorway just in time to see her turn around, an orange bottle clutched in her hand.
"Nathan, I think I found our connection," she said and held the bottle to him. Taking it curiously, he twisted the prescription bottle to read the label. Amoxicillin.
"The ear infection medicine," he remembered from Halter's file.
"Keep reading," she said with a tense nod. Nathan's eyes went back to the label and he felt a bit of dread when he realized what she meant.
Prescribed by Dr. Kelly Marlow.