Zephaniah Osborn (he prefers Zeth) is Woodson Falls’ assessor. Residents do all they can to avoid the often surly man. Despite his disagreeable manner with the public, he’s good at what he does, which accounts for his thirty-year tenure in town government.
Standing at barely five-foot-three, Zeth looks almost compressed, his belly hanging over jeans, his jowls reaching down to the open collar of his light blue shirt. Incessant cigar smoking has stained Zeth’s teeth yellow in contrast to his pallid skin. The drooping dark bags under his brown eyes lend a sleepy air to the quiet man who speaks in grunts when he deigns to respond to a question from a resident.
Zeth mastered the art of assessing properties following his retirement from a career in the US Navy. He took a job as an assistant to the assessor in a large Connecticut city. Once certified, he applied for the open assessor’s position in Woodson Falls and was hired. Widowed for the past eight years. Zeth has no children and no close family relationships. He lives alone, but can be seen fishing off one of the islands in the middle of Woodson Lake.