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Audrey comes through the doors with a purpose, and that purpose is not of someone here to drink and have fun. Sure enough she has some kind of picture that she’s showing around. It has to be the old guy who died in the lobster boat.
She’s getting more and more frustrated, but then, people are either ignoring her because they’re too distracted by the fact that it’s opening night, or they just genuinely don’t know or give a shit.
“People of The Grey Gull!” she shouts, “if any of you can tell me anything about this guy you drink free!”
Ordinarily I might be pissed because I bet she’s not figuring on putting it on her non-existent-as-yet-tab given we literally just opened, but I like to keep an ear to the ground about these things, “For a month!” just as I thought still no takers, though it does get a whoop from a few people.
“Your work here is done.” I tell her going over with a drink from a nearby tray that a wait staffer is dispensing about, “So, what are you drinking?”
“I’m not.” She says.
“Audrey, it’s my grand reopening party. Have a drink.”
“I really can’t.” She says.
I wag the drink in front of her face.
“Okay, just one.” She takes it from me and takes a small sip, “Hm. That’s good.”
I nod like I made it, “It is Friday night.” I point out.
“Yes, and this is really good.” she nods to the rest of the room, “I really need to canvass the crowd.”
“Would you actually relax if I told you no one here knows your dead guy?”
She gives me a disbelieving look, “How would you know?”
“People like to talk. I like to listen.”
“What are you even talking about?”
“Officer Agent Parker you need to clock out now.” Man, is she drunk off three sips? How is what I said confusing? And she has to be the first police officer in histor—well, second, who is that much of a lightweight. I guess she and Nathan are perfect for each other.
“Well, coming from a man who never worked a day in his life that doesn’t mean much.”
Wow. What the fuck does she think I do, then? Because it doesn’t sound like she means ‘because I enjoy what I do it’s not work.’ She should try hauling shit around a boat, and remode—you know what? Not even worth that.
“That’s not how friends talk to each other.” I chide her instead, “and I feel like at this point we’re—we’re friends.” They’ve certainly asked me for enough favors, “and as your friend I worry about you. You don’t know how to turn it off. It would be a shame if you woke up one day and realized you forgot to live your life.”
She gives that I’m tolerating your nonsense sigh, “Yeah? Well, if I keep eating this unhealthy,” she waves one of the appetizer pieces she snagged off a tray, “I’m not gonna have a life to forget about.”
Challenge accepted, “You quit working for just one night and I will cook you a healthy delicious dinner.”
“That is so sweet, but uh…”
“Next Friday night. Here.”
“You plan something in advance?”
How does she even think crime works? So much planning and back up planning and counterplanning. I shake my head at her as she’s telling me it’s not going to happen. I’m going flake out.
“I bet you cancel before I do.” I reply, squarely.
“Not a chance.”
Ah, yes. Your honor is at stake now, “I can hear the phone call now ‘Oh, sorry, Duke. I can’t make it. The future of mankind depends on me’.”
She rolls her eyes at me and walks to the bar where Nora’s wiping out some fresh glasses and completely proves my point by starting to interview her about Johnny Ancient. I meander about for a while watching the crowd for both upper and lower case Trouble. Audrey is giving Nora a business card, definitely not off the clock. She looks like she might be leaving so I go over to her.
“The future of mankind is safe, Audrey.” I tell her.
She rolls her eyes at me.
Joe Campbell seems to think that the corner seat he’s in is Makeout Point. He’s there with a brunette who has to be a tourist. I’ve never seen her before and that’s what he tends to go for anyway. I’m about to kick them out when they seem to have enough of the high school level PDA and zip off. What I see of the girl I’m kinda surprised Joe was able to pull her, but he could have learned a trick or two over the years.
Monday rolls around and Joe Campbell is dead. At least according to Nathan and Audrey he’s aged to death in a matter of days which is what happened to Johnny Ancient too. Audrey is close talking to me. Nathan is hanging back which – I expect him to do, honestly, at this point.
“He was at The Gull though.” Audrey says.
“Yeah.” I nod, “but I don’t put trackers on my customers.”
“Was he with anyone?” Nathan puts in, terse.
I nod, again, “Practically at 4th base with some brunette tourist.”
Nathan arches an eyebrow at me. I shake my head. Yeah, this is gonna take a whole lot.
“You don’t know who she was?” Nathan asks.
“Why does everyone think I know all the girls in town?”
Nathan’s eyebrow might disappear entirely up into his hairline never to be seen again. I wait for the ‘and boys’ but he doesn’t say anything.
“Duke.” No matter how many times I hear that name being used to address me it still gives me fuzzies even if it’s coming from someone’s mouth in a scolding tone.
I turn to Audrey, “Her hair was long, slightly curly,” I measure against my back, “She was wearing a white and purple sundress. She was either tan or Hispanic. I didn’t see much of her face given it was pretty much welded to Joe’s the whole time.”
Audrey is clearly taking mental notes, “Is Nora working today?”
I nod.
Nathan starts towards the door but hangs back waiting for Audrey.
“We still on for Friday?” I ask her.
“Ye-yes.”
Nathan looks concerned and stalks inside. Audrey says and gives me a look of ‘you did that on purpose’ and maybe it was a bit petty, but he’s going to get over things one way or another.
Friday hits and in the morning she’s still coming, but when I call to double check later that night and let her know the menu there’s that noise of ‘oh crap’ and her starting to make excuses.
“It’s okay, Audrey. It just means I win the bet.” I point out.
She sounds distressed at least, but I can’t tell if that’s because she realizes she’s too much of a work horse or just because she lost. I’m kinda sorry I got proved right. It would have been interesting to find out what made her tick. Know thy frenemy and all that. It has been a while since I’ve been threatened with my own personal coast guard though. I’m not sure if Carolina and Simon would be disappointed or thrilled, not that I should really give a shit what they’d feel. At least I didn’t follow in Carolina’s footsteps a huge way. She was always getting caught for her shit.
Well, that just means some of the staff get tiger shrimp to take home tonight.
Oh? Who is that? She has wavy chestnut hair and pouty lips, bright brown eyes and a sparkling smile. I sound like a sap right now.
“Am I late for dinner?” she asks.
May as well, “Right on time.”
She smiles wider and moves closer. She smells like jasmine and bergamot. There’s not much conversation, and soon we’re going to—
--tastes like mango and pineapple somehow—
--tiger shrimp from one skewer to each other’s mouths and small kisses between each—
- --drinks not an--
--we’re running back to the-- --clothes shed everywhere--
---which is closer? Who cares about beds and--
There’s a woman partly on top of me who looks familiar but I can’t place her at the moment. She’s look at me as though she’s frustrated and annoyed. We’re mostly undressed. Everything is fuzzy and flickery. Did I get roofied? Her expression though. Oh, shit—did I not warn her?
Then it clears up. This is the woman who was with Joe. I get out from under her and drag her towards the nearest cargo closet. She’s upset. I don’t care. She may well have killed two men and just tried to kill me. I close her in the tiny room and then briefly open it to toss her clothes in after. She bangs on the door and yells but the words are all incoherent nonsense.
I find my own underwear and pants and call Audrey while I’m getting dressed again.
“Yes?” she says. I can near noise in the background which is very likely The Gull, “What’s up?”
“I believe I found your succu—whatever.”
“What? Where?”
“Let’s just say she’s locked down for the night. Come to the Cape?”
Nathan pulls the Bronco up to the harbor and they come aboard. I lead them inside where just a month or so ago we were talking about Geoff’s death. Now there’s a woman screaming incoherently in a cupboard. My how times have changed.
I open the door to the closet with a flourish and let her out. At least she’s put her clothes back on. Instantly Nathan is moving across towards her. I’m figuring it’s to handcuff her but at the same time I’m leery. And they’re kissing. Audrey and I pull them apart and she gets put back in the closet. Nathan is moving towards the door. I lean on it and silently dare him to challenge me. A few moment’s later he’s shaking his head in a way I recognize and asking what happened.
“You resisted her though—how?” Audrey asks.
“First off don’t sound so surprised, but I didn’t. Not at first. We were feeding each other shrimp, tasting each other’s tonsils, and then we came back here, but then her hold broke, because I guess I didn’t—”
“—have what she was looking for?” Nathan finishes.
I shoot him a glare.
“What?” Audrey asks.
“I’m trans.” I explain, “I appreciate the fact she tried to siren me though. Makes a guy feel good.” I preen. I know I do. I mean, it does, “but I’m guessing what she does require more than a strap on.”
I think I broke Audrey's brain for a moment.
“We need to take her to the station.” Nathan says.
“Yeah. No.” Audrey replies, “You need to stay far away from her. I’m going to call Rachel I think she’s on tonight...unless Duke?”
“You mean Rebecca?” Nathan and I say in unison.
She blushes and cringes a little. I don’t answer her. She looks at me. I look back. She looks again.
“Hey. I already did your job and caught her. I will bill you a storage fee.”
She sighs and gets on the phone with the station. It’s going to take Rebecca a bit to get over to us as she’s in the middle of a dispute between too fishermen, but she’s close by.
Nathan elects to go to her and trade places rather than wait for her, “Less time with the—lady imprisoned here and all.” And he awkwardly shuffles out.
Audrey watches and then turns back to me, “Is this because I stood you up?” she asks.
I pour myself a celebratory glass of whiskey.
“What not going with you to drop off our lady of the demon snatch?” I snort, “That was a bet. That’s all. Don’t flatter yourself.”
She looks like she’s going to say something and then doesn’t, instead I get, “So the thing between you and Nathan is it—because of what you just were talking about? I wouldn’t expect him to be so bigoted.”
“It’s not that.” I tell her, “No, that. It’s complicated.”
“Uncomplicate it.”
I turn back to her from the bar area and simply say, “No.”
She blinks at me as I take another drink from the glass.
“It’s not your business.” I tell her.
“He’s my partner—”
“Okay?” I take a sip, “What does that have to do with anything? It’s not about you. It’s between us and we’ll either sort it,” I take a larger swig, “or we won’t.”
“Clearly it’s huge. It screws with a lot of things.”
I sigh, but I’m not budging on this. Clearly Nathan hasn’t told her squat so he doesn’t want her to or isn’t ready for her to know, “Makes you guys coming and demanding shit of me awkward, you mean?”
She looks away.
“Yeah, there, there it is.”
“I thought you liked helping.”
I shake my head but it’s more disbelief than disagreement, “Not minding helping out occasionally is one thing, but when you walk onto my boat and demand things or try to blackmail me with empty legal threats that’s another thing entirely.”
She frowns, “When did--?”
“Really? Right when you first got here. Jonas Lester. You and Nathan left me to hang in the police department when you had nothing to hold me on, and then you acted like you’d ‘kept me out of jail’ to leverage me watching Nathan—who had just tried to choke me to death!”
She sighs, “I…”
“Yeah. That’s what I thought. We’re not even going to talk about the bullshit threats of giving me my own personal coast guard shadow.”
“You just did.”
“Did I?” I drain the last of the whiskey glass and rinse it out in the sink.
“You talked about billing us for services rendered after Ray McBreen’s Trouble was resolved.”
“I did. Didn’t I? I mean at this point you’re getting quite a tab, and while I was partly joking I was also partly pissed because Nathan tried to kill me and you didn’t even check to make sure I was alright. You were mostly concerned about Nathan. How is that for a member of law enforcement, hm?”
“I tazed him.” She says.
“The bruises round my throat have barely healed.” I point out, “It was like childhood all over again.” That was probably a bit harsh. Probably. I didn’t entirely realize how pissed off I was about all of this. There’s no way she could have.
“Nathan said you could press charges.”
“I’m not going to fuck his career up like that. He wasn’t in control of himself.” I shake my head, “Did Ray press charges on Lucassi for almost cutting his head open?”
“No.” She sighs, “I...I’m sorry. I’m not always good with social interactions. I don’t—I’ve been told I have a problem of being too job focused.”
“Oh?” I ask, “Have you?”
She laughs a little then, “Yes. I have. By someone who said he was my friend.”
“I believe that someone said that because they were covering for being a little insulted that you suggested they’d never worked a day in their life and were also trying to prove a point about you working too much.” I shrug, “I mean what do I know? Most of my friends have either abandoned town and country, hate me or are dead.” or they don’t recognize me which may be the better of those options. When the fuck is Rebecca going to get here?
“Would you consider me a friend? I mean you seem kind of pissed. A lot pissed.”
“I am a lot pissed.” I put out there, “I mean, there’s been a lot of shit, and you flux between acting like you want to be nice and acting like you’re trying to take advantage of my good and charming nature, and that’s not going to fly. I can be a friend, Audrey. I can. I’m just not going to put up with this bullshit, and friends call each other out when they’re being dicks.”
Rebecca arrives shortly which is good because the tension is high and Audrey can’t drink given she’s actually on duty, and I am not going to risk actually getting drunk and going off further. She’s got enough to chew on. Though there’s the possibility of her going back sulkily to Nathan to find out what’s gone on between the two of us, except it sounds like she already has, so I doubt an attempt to get after him a second or third time will get anywhere either. I wonder if he and I can ever find a neutral place for talking things through. It needs to be done, but then we’re both stubborn bastards. If Julia were still here she’d bang our heads together.
The messed up of it all is that the woman, who is apparently called Helena, is actually Beatty Mitchell, somehow and she has two kids who are Joe and the other guy who is Phil … something’s. She had them in three days, the poor woman. So, if I’d actually had the equipment I would also be dead and a father. Which…I remember talks about kids with M&M when I was younger. They occasionally had foster kids for a couple of weeks or so, how they’d had me in the beginning, and they all had equally shitty back stories. Granted I know I wouldn’t cause any of those things to a potential child; but my way of life isn’t conducive, which is a good chunk of what lead to the whole mess in high school between Nate and I.
Though according to Wade a Crocker has to be in Haven. Not that I’ve associated with that man in a long time, but I’m still a Crocker by blood as Wade pointed out and his rantings and ravings about the Troubles brought a chill in the back of my mind, which was pretty well cemented after Nathan went bonkers and tried to kill me.
I should toast to a calmer life but that's not going to happen while the Troubles are running rampant through town.