A Score & A Decade

Chapter 7

"Mr Harrison Church?" Zoe asked tentatively, peeking into the interview room where a man was seated. 

"Yes, come inside, come inside," The man beckoned to her, turning in his seat and waving his hand in a welcoming gesture, "You're Ms Zoe Simmons?" he inquired.

Walking toward a wooden chair that lay opposite him, separated by a table, she carefully pulled the chair back and sat down. 

"Yes, sir."

"Now, that young Hank fellow said that you wanted to meet me, Ms Simmons?" Harrison Church asked.  

Former Lieutenant Harrison Church was a very white-faced man with neatly combed white hair on the sides and back of his head. He was impossibly fat and sat hunched in his chair looking at her with squinted, pale eyes. He wore his uniform along with various badges decorating his chest. He must have been, what, 70 years?

"I did...I mean, I do Mr Church." She fumbled, slightly intimidated by him. Or maybe it was those squinted eyes of his.

"To ask me about my cases no doubt." the man boasted, with a ripple of laughter.

"Yes sir, correct," She said, pausing. 

Then, "It's the Roselle Rodney case. I've decided to reopen the case and have been investigating it for a few weeks. So, I hoped I could maybe get some valuable information from you..." She said, a little nervously. The man was scary, his demeanour scared her and she hesitated to mention the one case he hadn't been able to solve. But he was the one who had led the case and hence she had no choice.

"Now you've gone and named that one! The one case that I wasn't able to solve!" Church bellowed, piqued.

"I'm...sorry?" She wasn't sure what to say, so she settled on an apology.

He waved his hand impatiently, "Pah! Alright then, whaddya want to know?" he asked, his mood now completely put off.

"Well, I have a few questions - "

"I'm sure you do."

"Um, yes. Well, the first and the most major one - Whom did you suspect?"

The man's face changed altogether. He looked at Zoe triumphantly as though he was expecting this question, "Good question, but tell me detective, whom do you suspect right now?"

She wanted to correct him and tell him that she wasn't a detective. Not exactly. But she was too scared, so she decided to answer his question instead.

"The Parks," she replied.

"Good, good, good. You're on the right track. Or the wrong one I suppose because I suspected too and I hit a dead end! A clean dead-end, I tell you. Those 'new neighbours' nonsense? I didn't believe it for a second. They were there the day the kid disappeared and gone two days after she was? They were suspicious, very suspicious. In fact, they weren't even questioned!" He said, vexed.

"Wait, what?!" Zoe exclaimed, looking up from her notes.

"Yes, yes. That Diana Park, she moved outta that house and was never heard from again. William Park very conveniently happened to travel to Mexico at that same time when we were there. They've always been suspicious. If they did kidnap the child, they must've done it artfully, because it's been 30 years. But they did one shoddy job of covering up their tracks. A shoddy job indeed!" he said, laughing a bit.

"Alright, okay. Next question Mr Church. What did the Parks look like? I've been searching for pictures everywhere, but I haven't found one picture of them. I wanted to ask Mrs Rodney, but I believed that her description might be clouded with grief as her daughter went missing shortly after." Zoe said, looking at Church with interest. She had been wanting to know what the Parks looked like for so long. She had looked everywhere but hadn't found one picture of them.

"Ah, I thought you might ask that question. It took almost a month for us to get the pictures and I figured you wouldn't be able to get their pictures as they practically disappeared off the face of the earth, so I came prepared," He said, and shuffling a bit in his seat, he pulled out an envelope, "In this envelope is a picture of Diana Park and a picture of William Park." he said, handing the envelope to her. 

"When you asked Mrs Rodney for her account of everything that had happened, what did she tell you?" Zoe asked. She had to confirm that Louise wasn't lying, though Zoe highly suspected that she was telling the truth. Harrison Church told Zoe the same story that Louise had told her. 

So Louise wasn't lying after all. Good.

"Well, I think that's it, for now, Mr Church. Thank you for your time." She said, as politely as she could muster, and stood up. As she was about to walk out, a voice called out her name.

Turning back, she saw Harrison Church staring at her inquisitively. 

"Yes, Mr Church?" she asked.

He stared at her for a moment more, and then, "Good day...Zoe"