[12] Roach Town

[12]

Zone awoke to a beautiful day. There was even a woodpecker sound coming from outside. The sun was shining. He felt much better than a couple hours ago, after getting terribly molested by the gang of grandmas. He stood up and stretched. Walked over to the window looking over the street and opened it. He could see over the town square. The obelisk. The gazebo. The gas station. The library. He found it all very quaint. Especially the woodpecker. That sound to him was what he thought of when he thought of places like Rochester, Vermont. A town surrounded by trees and mountains. It was all very peaceful. So peaceful, in fact, that he forgot for a moment what he was even doing there. He was hungry. He thought he might want to drink some coffee. Maybe even read a newspaper. He tried to find where the woodpecker was. He looked and looked, but he couldn't find it. He pulled his boots on and walked downstairs. Zone found himself alone in the Park House. He walked into the kitchen and looked around. There was a coffee pot full of coffee even. The thing was on even. The coffee he poured into a mug he found steamed even. He opened the fridge and found a glass bottle of milk. He poured a little milk into the steaming coffee. He looked down at the table. There was a newspaper. What luck! He thought about making something to eat, but he was in no hurry. He took the newspaper and mug of coffee out onto porched that wrapped around the Park House. He sat down in a wooden rocking chair. Smelled the air. Pine and something else, lilacs? He had no idea. It was a flower smell though. The woodpecker continued to peck at some tree somewhere off in the distance. Zone sighed. But it was a good sigh. A relaxed sigh. He couldn't remember the last time he had sighed with pleasure. It caught him off-guard enough that he wondered if he had ever sighed in pleasure. He wondered, briefly. He didn't know. Or at least he had no specific memory of such a thing happening. Usually his sighs were from exasperation or anxiety. This sigh filled his soul with something good, like a set of nice jugs flapping in the breeze while he was getting a ride from a pert little redhead. This made him laugh. The thought. Maybe that was the last time he sighed with pleasure? Oh, Tina. The girl could ride a cock. But Zone had to remind himself that you don't usually sigh during such a thing. Maybe moan, but a sigh kind of needs to define something undefinable, where as, with sex, the thing was already defined. He took a sip of coffee. Blowing on the steam first. He set the coffee on the floor boards. Rocked a little. Looked down at the paper he was holding. The Rochester Herald. There was an article on the farmers market that took place the week before. In the town square. There was a picture. A picture of a middle aged man and a child who were selling baked goods. The man seemed happy, but the kid seemed annoyed. The picture was colored. The shirts they were wearing were pink. They had chef's hats on. Aprons. The article didn't say much. Just that the farmers market was in full swing. And the picture was proof somehow. Zone turned the page. He was hoping to find some information about the town and maybe about any current events that may connect the murdered woman to anything, really. But he found neither of those things. Not really. There were ads for local business and the such, but nothing stood out to Zone that clarified anything. This newspaper could describe about any small town in a five hundred mile radius. He turned back to the cover. Found out that it was printed weekly. Then he looked at the author names for the articles written. It was the same woman. A certain Constance Sergeant. Zone felt like he had heard that name before, Sergeant, but he wasn't sure. Maybe he had read it somewhere? But then he remembered and felt like an idiot. The toothpick coward, his last name was Sergeant. He wondered if there was any connection. He bent over, put the newspaper down, took the coffee mug with him when he sat back up. He sat there rocking, sipping coffee, listening to the woodpecker. Watching the town go about it's business. The gas station was busy. There was a window selling something called creemees. Or at least that was what the sign read. Creemees! In big black letters. A couple of bikers wearing leathers, neither young, nor lithe, stood there next to their motorcycles licking on what looked like a foot of ice-cream on cones. A twist cone. What appeared to be chocolate and vanilla swirled. Zone got slightly jealous. He decided to go get one later, when it got hot. That would be nice, he decided. Zone was feeling great. He felt well rested and healthy. The cure was kicking in. He thought that maybe he would dry out for a while. Actually take the cure. Why not? What was the harm in a little sobriety? He wondered. Lord knows he could use it. In his 39 nine years on the face of this rotating hell-hole called earth, he had spent maybe 10 days absolutely sober since he turned maybe 22. Whenever it was that he became disillusioned with the police force and had taken a different tack. Jaded and alone. The ire of his colleagues. Although, let us not put too much meaning into that moment. Things like that don't happen all at once, but Zone couldn't remember the last time he had spent a week sober. It was probably the last time he sighed with pleasure instead of exasperation or anxiety.

Zone sat there rocking. Looking at the world with optimistic leanings. Jealous of the foot of ice-cream the elderly bikers were licking like some sort of sugary and delicious ding-dong. The coffee started moving through his body. Something he was thinking he should deal with pretty soon. He thought that he would maybe even take a shower after such business had transpired. Zone loved a good shower, but sometimes things got in the way, but now that he was having a new lease on life, maybe he would take the time necessary to get back in touch with decent hygiene. Why not? Now is as good a time as ever, right? Sadly he did not get the chance to reset his old and habitual predilections because at that moment a certain Constance Sergeant of the Rochester Herold was parking her car around the corner. She was turning the car off and grabbing a very long and very skinny booklet that was sitting on the seat of her car. She was closing the driver's side door. She was walking up the steps of Park House. She was knocking on the front door. She was trying to think. There was nobody around. Did she need to actually knock? Or was this the kind of place you could just walk into? She tried to remember her journalism school etiquette class. Did a nursing home fall under the "Public Housing" statute, like a hospital? Or did it fall under the "Private Housing" statute, like an apartment building? Either way, if the door was unlocked, she could go inside, she decided. It is unknown if that was true, but since there was nobody around, she decided there was no point in going inside. She tried the door knob anyway. It turned. She was about to go inside when she heard what sounded like a gorilla rolling around in a cement mixer say:

"Your looking for?" Constance shut the door and walked around the corner of the building and came directly upon Zone sitting in the wooden rocking chair sipping his coffee. Constance got suddenly very confused. Zone was neither elderly, nor was he nurse-looking, in fact, he looked kind of like a bum that decided to squat the place. His pale, skinny face. His chipped tooth. His protruding Adam's apple. He was long and lanky. But also fluid. Like a vulture. His hair was slightly messy and greasy. But somehow slicked back. Very dark, almost black. His lips were moving but he wasn't saying anything. His eyes were gaping black holes. Now, Zone was a handsome fellow, that is for sure, but he did not have the sexual charm like Gagger, however, when caught un-awares, Zone took on a thing that can only be described as striking. He was like nothing you had ever seen before. Like a boiling pot of water somehow on fire. He didn't make sense, visually, but he was mesmerizing in a way. Because he had so many contrary things happening that even the dullest among us would find him interesting. And Constance, who was very capable of not being dull, took Zone in unadulterated. She was shocked. She had a sudden and sharp feeling right where one of her legs met the other leg that she had. She blushed. Zone noticed. He smiled. His lips were crooked and his broken tooth made him seem very innocent. Even vulnerable. Constance said:

"Oh, hey! Um, do you, uh, are you, what are you doing here?" Zone, always the wit in any season, marbled:

"I suppose I could ask you the same thing." This did nothing to move the situation forward. Constance had to start again. She said:

"Hey, um, is anyone here?" Zone said:

"Just me." Constance wasn't flustered anymore. In fact, she was now annoyed with Zone. Typical Zone. Taking a good opportunity and blowing it the second it comes around. Constance said:

"And you are?" Zone, noticing that he fucked up tried to save himself but instead just made things worse. He said:

"I should ask you the same thing." Constance looked around. She wondered if someone was messing with her. If this was some sort of prank. She didn't see any hidden cameras or anything. A woman was walking a dog across the street. She kind of wanted to yell:

"Hey! You know this guy? What the hell is he doing here giving me shit?!" Constance didn't yell out to the woman with the dog. A person she knew. A Mrs Lundgren who lived down the street. She waved instead. Mrs Lundgren yelled over:

"Nice day we're having!" The dog started taking a shit, so Mrs Lundgren got distracted. "That's a good boy, Hercules. Let it out. Who's a good boy? You are! That's who." Constance took a thing out of her pocket. She was wearing cotton slacks and a flowery button-up blouse/shirt. She was also wearing the same kind of boots that Zone was wearing. She looked like she might be in her 30's but maybe she was younger. Zone, being the pervert that he is, noticed every little detail about her. The diamond bracelet she was wearing, that seemed out of place. The decent haircut she had. That she must have gone to somewhere far away to get. Even her perfume was not the smell of manure. It was something closer to the lilacs? that Zone had been smelling. She had the air of someone who lived around here, or grew up around here, these parts, as it were, but something had happened along the way that changed something. Zone found her clean and refreshing. Which, had Constance known about the thoughts going through Zone's mind, she would have kicked him in the balls that very second and maybe even slapped him in the face. But Constance was used to such abuse. Even if it came from a non-typical weirdo rocking on a wooden rocking chair on the porch of a retirement home. Constance pulled her credentials out of her cotton slacks and handed the business card to Zone. He took it and looked at it. Constance waited, annoyed, while he read it. He handed it back. They sat in silence for a second. She assumed he would have some questions. When he didn't, she said:

"I hear-tell there are some detectives in town, do you know how I can reach them? The State Police said that they were staying here. At Park House. I assume you are..." Constance assumed that Zone was some sort of junky that was having a week of treatment. She wasn't far off, but she wasn't right either. Zone said:

"I'm Zone." Constance sighed. Not a good sigh, like the one Zone had let out, but like the other ones that Zone usually sighed himself. She said:

"Okay, Zone, can you tell me how to get in touch with these people?" Constance assumed that Zone was this weirdo's street name or something. Zone knew this and decided it was funny. At first this interaction was entertaining to him, but it was suddenly dawning on him that this woman, this Constance Sergeant, the one from the newspaper, the Rochester Herald, was here for a reason other than covering the lunch menu at the Park House. He became serious. Constance was looking for information. Zone's cop instincts kicked in. There was nothing worse than the papers getting involved in something that was working itself out. Even if Zone had no clue what was happening, it was his duty to keep a lid on things until at least something was clear. And, Zone, one of the good ones, knew that leaked information could mess up an active investigation. Even if he believed that transparency was a good thing. The newspapers were not usually the way to go about airing out dirty laundry. Because the second the press got involved, things became political. Which helped nobody. Zone decided to keep his mouth shut. He said:

"I don't know. Come back later, I guess." Constance sighed again. She said:

"You don't know anything? Nothing about some officers from the NYPD coming to town? Maybe another thing that happened around here?" Zone knew all about it. In fact, he had all of the information. He was starting to wonder what Constance knew. Because she must have known something. She knew about the detectives from the State Police, that was something. The wording of her question suggested she knew about the murder. Or at least there were rumors going around about the murder. Zone immediately thought of Union Dan and Gary Alone. But also the Constable Bondo. Maybe even the hippy hearse driver. Zone said:

"Is there something I should worry about?" Constance was now very frustrated with Zone. Whether he was a junky on the cure or just some asshole drinking coffee on the front porch, he was obviously not telling her what she wanted to know. She said:

"Do you live here, or what? I am a little confused. I feel like you would know if a couple detectives came to town and moved in, you know what I mean?" Zone didn't fall for her proselytizing. It was none of her business what Zone knew. He marbled:

"I don't keep the books here, sis. What do I look like? A guest book?" Constance said:

"Are you drunk? You sound drunk. Where is everybody anyway?" Zone ignored her. He was now as annoyed with Constance as Constance was annoyed with Zone. He was having such a good morning. This interaction undid all of his good feelings about taking the cure. Zone kind of wanted to go over to the bar and see if they were open for a hair of the dog thing. Even if Zone didn't feel hungover. Zone bent over and picked up the newspaper. He stood up. He was two heads taller than Constance. She backed up. Getting that feeling again where one of her legs met the other leg. Zone said:

"Come back later, I don't know what to tell you." Zone walked by Constance. She kind of wanted to follow him inside and see what happened, but she didn't. She stood there on the porch. Looking around. Mrs Lundgren was now walking onto her front lawn. Hercules pulling on the leash. Constance walked back to her car. Feeling stupid. It dawned on her as she was walking that Zone was the detective she was looking for. She felt very stupid. She knew she would have to go back and talk to him again. Her journalism skills had failed her. She couldn't get past the thing that she was seeing and instead of looking deeper, she had ignored the fact that everything she needed to know was directly in front of her. She stood next to her car as Zone, inside, was walking up the stairs to take a shower and some other things. Constance smacked her thin and long notepad on the hood of her car. Then she muttered to herself:

"Fucking hell."