[16] Roach Town

[16]

Zone was more than annoyed with Laserbeam Sunrise, although he didn't know why. He merely had a few questions for the guy. Mostly he just wanted to get some information about the State Police. But since the hippy hearse driver decided to pull a Houdini, Zone's cop instincts sprung into action. Where before he thought of the guy like some burned-out cruster coasting through life, living off the welfare of others, he now thought that he was hiding something. And that was very much true. Laserbeam Sunrise was very much hiding something from the two detectives. As he stood there with his hands up, smirking, looking like a stinker, Zone said:

"Get him, Gag!" Gagger was quick. Too quick for Laserbeam Sunrise. Before he could dodge, Gagger had his hands behind his back. Holding onto his wrists. The hippy squealed. He oinked:

"Unhand me, you goon! I know my rights!" Zone walked over to the ditch and went down. He rooted around for a while and came back with a large stick. He walked in front of Laserbeam Sunrise and stared directly in his eyes. He marbled:

"I'm gonna give you two chances to not regret doing two ditch-move, hippy-boy. Then I am going to learn you a lesson." The fear in the hippy's eyes was palpable. He was certain that Zone was serious. Zone was not serious in anyway. He knew it, Gagger knew it, only Laserbeam Sunrise didn't know it. But the threat alone turned the hippy into a sack of jelly. He started crying. Gagger made a face like he was watching a toddlers hot dog get eaten by a stray dog. Zone said:

"Snap him out of it, Gag!" Gagger shook the hippy from behind. He yelled in his ear: "Snap out of it, baby-boy! Get a grip, man!" Zone had to look to the side to hide his laughing face. The hippy being shaken like that was too much. He was as limp as a boiled French fry, and just as pasty and glistening. Zone turned back to him and scowled. The hippy's mouth quivered. He was trying very hard not to sob anymore. His lips were pouty and he was taking quick and labored breaths. Zone sounded like he was chewing on seven pieces of bubble gum. He marbled:

"Unload it now, or I will unload it for you." The hippy got suddenly very confused. He had heard "Unlow dint-tow or ill unlow tit tor ooh." He looked side to side. Hoping to catch the missing meaning by catching the words at different angles in his ears. He didn't say anything. Zone used different words. He said:

"Man, just tell us what you know." This somehow creeped into the hippy's cranium. He was trying to think, but now Gagger was sucking on a candy just behind his ear. It smelled like butterscotch. The hippy could hear Gagger moving the thing around in his mouth. The clacking on his teeth. The sound was both disgusting and distracting. Gagger shook him again. Zone had to look away again. When he composed himself he turned back. He lifted the big stick into the air, like he was about to baseball bat the guys guts into an inside the park home run. The hippy finally spilled his guts. He wasn't willing to spill his guts the other way. No amount of violence was worth what little information he had. Captain Sergeant could deal with his own shit on his own time. Even if he was family. Laserbeam Sunrise said:

"Okay! Okay! I'll tell you what I know! Just don't beat me up! My looks are my money maker!" This statement amused Zone.

He said: "But you drive bodies around for a living."

The hippy said: "Yeah, when there is a body. How often does that happen? Like never, my brother. I got the farmers market on Saturdays, mister. Nobody is going to buy my pieces if I am wearing black eyes."

Zone said: "Oh, you do the market too? Does anyone not do the market?"

Laserbeam Sunrise said: "Bonny doesn't, she's lucky, she has that job at the Park House. And Lindsay and Patrick are cops, like you know, so they don't need to. Even Constance has a job working for the paper. The rest of us, we have to make a living somehow."

Zone said: "Hmmm, who's Patrick?"

The hippy said: "Captain Sergeant."

Zone was catching onto what Laserbeam Sunrise was really saying. He said: "Oh, shit, you're a Sergeant too." This statement turned the hippy insufferable.

He said: "Ding, ding, ding! We got a winner, chicken dinner!" Zone almost knocked a doubler with the hippy's kidneys out of principle. Instead he took a different tack.

He said: "So your name aint Laserbeam Sunrise I suppose?"

Laserbeam Sunrise said: "Good work, Einstein, you cracked the case." Zone took a swing with the large stick. Gagger managed to get the hippy out of the way just in time.

Gagger yelled: "Zone!" Zone's eyes got bright. He stretched his curved neck. A popping noise could be heard.

He said: "Whoops. My bad." The hippy tried to get free of Gagger. Gagger held him tighter. The hippy was about to start crying again.

Zone said: "Oh, great. Her come the waterworks."

The hippy said: "You can't do this to me! I have my rights! I'm gonna scream if you don't let me go!" Zone didn't seem convinced.

He said: "Scream as loud as you want, who is here to hear you? That crow over there?" Just then a Saab came up the road. Gagger did a maneuver that made it look like he was just giving the hippy a nice little hug. Zone put the stick down like he was using as a walking stick. The elderly driver was blaring Joni Mitchell. She took one look at everyone and rolled the windows up. She turned and kind of peeled out. Shooting tiny rocks behind the car. Laserbeam Sunrise started screaming. To no avail. The car kept driving. Gagger shifted again. Shaking the hippy. Zone had to hide his face. It was like seeing a pasty Jell-O mold rag doll. A pasty Jell-O mold rag doll with a wet ponytail. Balding and angry. Yet overwhelmed.

Zone said: "C'mon man, just spill it. We aint got all day. What did you find out at the morgue? I know you know something. Captain Sergeant wouldn't let you bring the body in for some reason, that's a start. Did something else happen? Do you know who the body is? Let me guess? She's your cousin?" The look on the hippy's face. The "How the hell do you know that?" expression.

Zone said: "Jesus-fucking, what the hell? How many Sergeants live in this town?" The hippy was now starting to get scared. It was one thing for the detectives to know that his cousin had had him wait to bring the body in so that his other cousin wouldn't know about it, yet, but now, this idea that the body itself had been identified by these flatlanders? And that he, meaning the cousin of the Captain Sergeant and the Officer Lindsay, he was the one that spilled the beans, he was going to get into some big trouble. He was thankful that his other cousin, Constance Sergeant, the reporter from the Rochester Harald wasn't around. And like all things ironic in this very eventful morning for the hippy hearse driver, Laserbeam Sunrise Sergeant, his cousin Reporter Constance came driving up the road at that exact moment. She pulled in behind the Park House van, which was parked behind the hearse, which was stuck in the ditch because the hippy Laserbeam Sunrise had panicked and tried to make a break for it.

The hippy hearse driver let out a very loud sigh of relief when he saw his cousin. Zone threw the large branch back into the ditch. Gagger let Laserbeam Sunrise go. He ran over to the hearse. Jumped in. Tried and tried to get unstuck. Zone and Gagger ignored this. He wasn't going anywhere. The reporter walked over. Carrying a long, thin notepad. She brought with her the smell of lilacs. The same perfume from this morning. A shot of electricity went through Zone. Straight to his secret regions. Gagger got the same jolt, but in a different way. His electricity bounced right off of the reporter and shot right back to his heart. She wanted nothing to do with him. Meaning Gagger. And that kind of denial very much hurt his feelings. He sucked on his sucking candy, rejected. Even if he wasn't really sure why he felt rejected. It wasn't like the reporter told him to get lost. She just wasn't lured into his vibrant personality, as it was. She could take him or leave him. And this just made him try harder. He tried to do a cool pose as a way to lure her back. She didn't want anything to do with it though. She was more interested in Zone and the hippy hearse driver and what kind of intrigue that had come to town on this very beautiful and mild July day.

Zone kept close tabs on the reporter as she approached. He was still under the impression that she had gone home to rub one out before going back to work. He was looking for clues. And he found them. Whether they were real or not, he found them. Her outfit was mis-arranged now. She was not nearly as neat as she was before. There was something disheveled about her. He couldn't tell, but her hands seem dirty. And her hair seemed mussed on the back. She smelled like lilacs, but the lilacs had some other hint of something as well. Like the smell of a freshly killed antelope carcass or something. Something almost animal. Wind-swept and dusty. But sharp and sagebrush-like. Plus she seemed more relaxed than before. And there was something embarrassed about her that Zone decided was not because she had caught him whacking off, but more like, she was embarrassed that she had gone home and rubbed her bean a few times to get the taste of Zone's pear flavored cum out of her mouth. Zone was projecting for certain, but he wasn't wrong. She had, in fact, gone home and rubbed a couple out. And she was glad about it. And as much as she was in denial of the meaning of the thing, she was, indeed, attracted to Zone. Despite her desire to not be attracted to such a weirdo. However, she was not embarrassed about it. She was just mostly exhausted because the morning had been a long one.

After meeting Zone she had gone home to rub a couple out. Exactly like Zone had predicted. Just pulling her pants down and going to town on top of her bedspread. Then she pulled her pants up. Went straight back to work. Going to the offices. Never washing her hands. She called around Middlebury and Burlington. Got a little bit of information. That yes, there had been a murder. And yes, it happened in Rochester. But the information dried up after that. She went back to the Park House. Looking for Detective Zone. Cousin Bonny told her the detectives had left in the Park House van, going who knows where. This had led to them having a cup of coffee and talking about the town. About their families. About old beefs and what not. Which upset Constance pretty good. Because she didn't want to have the conversation. But Bonny really did. Because her father was thinking about selling the farm and moving to Florida and Constance's father, Bonny's uncle was being left out of the conversation, which was upsetting, and there was about twenty years of old beefs that needed to be dealt with, but now was not the time, but when was a good time? Bonny had asked. And they got into it a little too much, and Constance stormed out and decided to go to the bar/restaurant in town to have lunch. Which led to her sitting at the bar, eating a hamburger, and Siobhan egging her on. The next thing she knew she was drinking a glass of wine and pouring her heart out to Siobhan's giant tits and her English accent. And the next thing she knew, Constance was sitting in her car crying, wondering what she was doing with her life. Then she remembered that she was hot on the tail of a murder that happened in Rochester, so she collected herself and started driving the back roads between Rochester and Hancock, hoping to find the Park House van. And then when she found it, her cousin John, who started going by the name Laserbeam Sunrise in the 90's after spending a year following the Grateful Dead, he was being molested by the two goon detectives from the City, one of them holding a giant branch and the other holding her cousin in wrestling move. By the time she got to this point she was broken and done. And to make things worse, she was finding herself attracted to the detective named Zone, and, at the same time, she was fending off the other disgusting detective that was called Gagger, who thought that because he was a very tall and handsome man deserved to have his way with any available woman that came into his sight.

She walked up to the two detectives with a very annoyed and confused heart. She knew there had been a murder in Rochester. That was all. She could see her hippy cousin trying to drive himself out of the ditch. That Zone had ditched the large branch. That Gagger was sucking on some sort of candy. Posing like some dumb, cool, hip, dude. Hoping to get her attention. She walked up to them holding her long, thin pad. She had no intention of writing anything down, but she wanted to be professional. Hoping the prop would give her some sort of distance from the goons. Zone made an endearing face. Like he was glad to see her. That didn't help. Gagger might as well have been curling iron. Lifting weights or something. He was too pathetic to even look at. She walked up to them. Kind of bent over to get a look at her hippy cousin burning rubber on dirt and grass. His head sticking out of the window. Confused as to why he wasn't getting anywhere.

She said: "Roughing up a suspect, nice. You got dogs at home you beat?" Zone took this ironically.

He said: "Oh, he's not a suspect. He just knows some stuff he aint telling us."

She said: "So you threaten him with violence?"

He said: "It's not so much a threat as it is a suggestion."

She said: "Are you serious?"

He said: "No, I am not serious. That dude, your cousin, mind you, he resisted arrest."

She said: "Okay, first, what the hell does it matter if he is my cousin? And two, so what? You assholes don't have dominion here, and you know it. What? Is this some sort of citizens arrest or something?" Zone knew she was right. He got all sheepish all of the sudden. His moral compass was turning back on. What he and Gagger had done was wrong, and as funny as it was, it was the wrong thing to do and he knew it. Gagger knew it too. Zone was feeling ashamed.

He said: "I know, but still. I just had some questions for the guy is all." Reporter Constance sighed. She knew her cousin well. She knew that he was probably really stressed out at the moment.

She said: "Let me guess, he cried?" Zone made his top lip puff up a little bit. He was feeling regret now.

He said: "Yeah, a little." The reporter blew air out of her nose.

She said: "C'mon, we have to go help him get out."

They walked over to the hearse. Reporter Constance went to the window and spoke in hushed tones to her cousin. He got out of the hearse. He walked a few steps away. He was shaking and his eyes were darting back and forth between the two detectives. Zone and Gagger scurried down into the ditch. The Reporter got into the driver's seat and shut the door. The two detectives put a foot on the bumper and stood up. Zone yelled: "Okay! Go!" The two detectives bounced on the rear of the hearse. This allowed the front right wheel to get traction. The hearse took off like a shot. Throwing the detectives into the ditch. Gagger swallowed the sucking candy. Zone bonked his elbow on a rock. The hearse came to a stop twenty feet down the road. The Reporter got out. Leaving the thing running. Laserbeam Sunrise looked over at the detectives, rolling around in the ditch, trying to get up again. He ran over to the hearse and got in. He slammed the door shut and took off. The Reporter watched him drive away. Then she walked over to the two detectives. The were crawling out of the ditch now. Zone was holding his elbow. Gagger was doing a thing with his mouth. The sucking candy was stuck. He was trying to cough, but at the same time he was trying to look cool doing it. Hoping that the Reporter would think he was good-looking. He couldn't get it out though. Zone slapped him on the back. This dislodged the sucking candy. Gagger's eyes bulged and then he shook his head. Zone winced from the pain that action caused his elbow. He grabbed his elbow. He looked down. He pulled his hand away. There was blood. He made a couple fists with his hand. Trying to work the pain out. The Reporter took pity on the two detectives. She tried to help them out of the ditch. But they were too large. Too beastly, and bulging. In the end they climbed out by grabbing onto hanks of grass. They got onto the road again and looked down where the hearse had sped off. Then they looked at the Reporter.

She said: "Well, there goes your witness." Zone was moving his elbow back and forth.

He said: "I thought you said he was a suspect?"

She said: "I thought you said that? Your elbow alright? You're bleeding."

He said: "He doesn't know shit." Zone moved his arm back and forth again. He continued: "I'm fine, thanks. Hard rocks, here in Vermont, I'm used to bricks and concrete, uh-huh." Zone thought that was a joke, but it was instead confusing. The Reporter tried to understand, she walked over and took his elbow in her hand. Looking at the wound.

She said: "You get hit by bricks and concrete all the time? The City sounds awful." Her touch was electric. The warmth and tenderness. Zone couldn't take it, so he pulled his elbow away.

He said: "Oh, no! I'm just saying that when I fall on the ground in the City I don't bleed like this." This didn't help the confusion. Not that the Reporter was confused, but she imagined the detective falling down on the ground all the time. Probably drunk or something.

She said: "You fall down a lot?" Gagger picked up on the confusion. He gave up trying to woo the Reporter. He got convinced by the way she looked at Zone when she was trying to help them out of the ditch. He could act normal agian. He was glad, even if his ego was bruised. He wanted happiness for Zone, even at his own expense.

He said: "He is just saying the rocks are hard here. Like really hard. The concrete in the City is soft." This didn't actually help, but it did divert the conversation. Even if it took a second.

The Reporter said: "What? You got soft concrete down there? Like dusty basement stuff?" Zone took this opportunity to take the conversation back.

He said: "FYI, your cousin said your cousin was the body in the greenhouse. Have you learned about that?" The Reporter was shocked. She opened her mouth for a moment and didn't close it until she spoke. Zone looked at her teeth. She didn't have a single cavity on the lower part that he could see. This made him feel like a pervert. He looked away.

She said: "No! What? Who?" Zone didn't know.

He said: "I don't know. But your cousin said he knew it and Captain Sergeant knew it, and Officer Lindsay knows it." The Reporter was trying to figure this out. She had about one million cousins floating around. Nobody had mentioned that one was murdered. Or even missing. Her mind went straight to the Granville Sergeants. The ones that were just down the hill here. Those cousins were the wild ones. The ones that did the things that were not the best. But then again the Hancock Sergeants and the Rochester Sergeants weren't far behind. There were too many to count at this point. Instead of making every one of them a victim she deflected.

She said: "Oh, so you are talking to me now? What happened to your wall of silence?"

Zone said: "Wall of silence? You mean, not giving information to random people I meet on porches when I am minding my own business?" Gagger got uncomfortable while this conversation was happening. It seemed like foreplay. He walked over to the Park House van and lit a cigarette. Zone watched him walk away. Zone looked back at the Reporter.

She said: "Yeah, I don't know, I suppose, but you seem open to talking now, I guess. I just think it is a little weird, is all."

Zone said: "Yeah, I guess. You aren't wrong though. We don't have dominion, as you put it. Something stinks around here, and I want to get to the bottom of it. I think your cousins are not on the level, toots." The Reporter really didn't like Detective Zone calling her "Toots," but she let it slide. Her stomach hurt because of the idea that a cousin of hers had been murdered. She wondered who it was. Her mind kept going to the same place. Her aunt Dell, with the pottery club and the troubled kid she had raised. She thought back to high school and what it felt like growing up around here. About how people left town, but always came back broken because shit was hard out there, and then there was nothing here for them either. How everything was pure inertia. For whatever reason she knew it was Misty. Who had gone down to the City to make it big and instead changed her name to Cinnamon. Then came back to town to regain some sort of normalcy. But had been met with nothing but anger and indifference. Constance remembered seeing her at the grocery store. Looking blonde and tired. Saying she might try California next, if she could make a couple dollars to get on the road. And the only option was the hardware store or the grocery store. And neither of them would employ her because she was damaged goods. And she was on the verge of tears. And Constance, the Reporter wanted to offer her a job at the newspaper, but there was no job to offer. So she instead gave her a hug and told her good luck. All this thinking went through the Reporters head as she stood there in front of Detective Zone. She had a sudden urgency to get back in her car and drive over to the pottery club to talk to Dell. Misty's mom. Her cousin.

She said: "I need to talk to Dell." Zone thought she was joking.

He said: "The farmer in the dell?" The Reporter had moved on. The joke didn't register. She turned around and walked back to her car. Zone was confused. He followed her. Got in the Park House van. Gagger threw his smoke on the ground. Ran around the front to get in the van. Zone did a twelve point turn to go the other direction. The Reporter had turned around like nothing. She was long gone. Zone floored it. Trying to catch up. Gagger opened the glove box to get another sucking candy. Butterscotch. He offered one to Zone. Zone took it. He put the whole candy, wrapper and all, in his mouth, and sucked the thing out. He was hyper-focused on catching up with Constance, the Reporter. Zone tried to hand the wrapper to Gagger. Gagger shook his head. Zone looked over. Then he looked down at the wrapper. Then he looked up. He nearly drove them into a ditch. He turned at the last minute. He rolled the wrapper into his fist. This hurt his elbow. But he didn't let that distract him. He flicked the thing at Gagger's head. It hit his eye. Gagger threw his hand up. Trying to deflect the thing.

He yelled: "What the hell?!" Zone stared at the road. Trying to catch up with the Reporter.

He yelled back: "What the hell, indeed!" Gagger lost interest in giving Zone shit because the way he was driving was making him nervous. He put his seatbelt on and held onto the dashboard. Suddenly things were very wild.