For James
Sheriff Jones was nervously chewing on his pencil. He took another look at the crime scene photos and put them back into a cold case folder. He could not believe his very eyes.
He reclined in his armchair and closed his eyes. It was getting late and Linda was waiting home with her special Friday dinner.
Things were supposed to be different here and they were until last week, that is, when two mutilated corpses were found in his county on the side of a small back road. The bodies were covered with markings that looked like the crop circles from the last year's issue of the Roswell UFO Museum's Bulletin which he still received on each anniversary of the famous UFO crash.
As if this were not enough, the local news station aired a late night interview with five UFO abductees who seemed to have popped up like mushrooms after the rain as soon as the local paper run a story about the gruesome discovery.
Yes, things were supposed to be better here. Maybe they really were better, but right now he wasn't sure anymore. He took a sip of his Raven's Brew coffee and called his wife. She wasn't mad. Not anymore. She would bring him his dinner over to his office if that was OK with him. He could concentrate on his job while she could go to play bridge with her new friends.
They moved here from Roswell, NM about three years ago when his wife inherited a bookstore from her mother. And believe me, they were ready for a change. Roswell became uninhabitable. The crime rate quadrupled every six months or so and he did not feel like he wanted to lose his life in a gang fight. Besides, Linda's UFO bookstore went bankrupt short before they decided to move away. Who wold have thought? Of all places, Roswell was dying like a tree that was rotting from inside out.
Now that he looked back he could not recall a single mutilated human corpse or a single UFO abductee during his twenty years in Chaves County. Some ranchers found mutilated cow carcasses, but this crime could safely be blamed on the coyotes. The bodies that were found there on a side of the road usually had a bullet hole in them, and the only markings on them were the badly done tattoos. If aliens ever arrived in Roswell it was a long time ago and they must have forgotten about that place as soon as they crashed.
But here in Pennsylvania? UFO? And yet, the corpses did not look like anything he had ever seen. Worse even, three old unsolved murder cases indicated that this has happened here before. Two locals and one Jane Doe. The cases were never solved. There was not enough evidence to prove anything.
*
He needed to see the crime scene photos again. Something was not quite right. The bodies were missing most of their vital organs. In his opinion, there was nothing "alien" about this crime. Everything indicated that someone meticulously planned to deceive. They captured these people and harvested their organs in order to sell them on the black market. Any surviving victims would be dismissed as wackos. But behind the "hoax" was a horrendous crime that looked more like something he remembered from his honeymoon trip to Rio de Janeiro years ago than an alien abduction. Back then tourists were warned not to visit the beaches after dark. There were many kidnappings and the unfortunate victims, if they survived at all, woke up on the beach with a missing kidney.
He interviewed every single person who believed to be a victim of alien abduction in the area. All the abductees reported that they were driving late at night and were stopped on a small land road by an incredibly bright and blinding light. They were unable to see anything at all, but all of them heard a strange sound. Then the car door opened and someone or something grabbed them out of their vehicle and carried them over to a spacecraft. They all remembered being stripped naked by someone and then, placed face down on an ice cold surface. The last thing they could recall was an incredible pain they experienced somewhere in their bodies, but were unable to determine where exactly the pain was coming from. When they woke up they were lying in a ditch next to their own cars, naked, cold and full of unbearable pain. The worse thing was that no one has taken them seriously when they reported what had happened to them.
Sheriff Jones found out that all the alleged victims of alien abduction had some health issues. One was a diabetic, two others recently recovered from cancer, one was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and one was a chain smoking alcoholic. They definitely were unfit organ donors. No wonder they were damped back on the side of the road. But why were they left alive? Was it to mislead any investigation?
Yes! This was it. Stories of alien abductions and the mutilated corpses were like something out of the X-Files. Who would ever believe anything like that? Without sufficient evidence the case would be closed and whoever was doing this would move out of this area to harvest organs somewhere else. Such a cleverly devised plan! He had to contact Bob on Monday.
Bob was his buddy from the time they both served on the USS Saratoga off the north coast of Vietnam. When the war ended they both retired from the US Marine Corps. Bob landed a job with the FBI, while Sheriff Jones tried his luck in California politics before moving into law enforcement about twenty years ago.
Bob helped him solve drug-cartels' related cases back in New Mexico. He could lend him a hand one more time. If there were more cases like that in other parts of Pennsylvania or maybe even in other states, they would be able to catch the criminals before more harm is done. There must be a market for criminally obtained human organs, but without any help form Bob he alone could only tap in the dark.
*
It was getting late. Petrovsky, his young deputy, came in to report for the night duty. Everything seemed very quiet. There was only one minor accident on the Lincoln Highway, but that has been taken care of. Sheriff Jones could finally go home and get some sleep.
If it weren't so late he would have taken the scenic drive, but since it was already past 10 p.m. and he decided to take the short cut through the Twin Lakes Park. He turned on the radio. Randy Newman Twas singing his favorite song. He had to laugh. Randy Newman was responsible for the names of his two dogs. "Mr Short" was a Husky he got from a breeder in Roswell. "People" was a Jack Russell puppy that came from the shelter. Linda drove all the way to Philly to get this little guy.
Whistling happily on his way home Sheriff Jones almost forgot about the violent crimes he was supposed to solve when he suddenly saw an incredibly bright light and, unable to see anything before him, was forced to stop his car. "What the hell?!"
Before he even realized what was going on, two strong metal-clad arms dragged him out of his car. The blow to his head came the very moment he had his hand on the gun. Everything went dark. Somewhere far away he could still hear Randy Newman hitting the keys. Then nothing.
*
Hours if not days must have past since that unfortunate moment in the Twin Lakes Park. He opened his eyes and began screaming. It was cold and he could not see anything. The pain was unbearable. The bright light and voices around him almost drove him crazy. Someone touched his forehead. "Be quiet, Sheriff Jones" a woman's voice said. "All is well now, all is well. They found you in a ditch, but you are gonna be all right."
The next thing he felt was a sharp pain in his arm. Someone has given him an injection. What was this place? Where was Linda? But before he could say anything the world melted away, again...
By Dominique Allmon
Dominique Allmon©2013