“You’re the one getting the ranchers all riled up about alien spaceships mutilating their cattle.”
Stotter was about Maggie’s height, thick-chested, bald-headed with violet-colored eyes and a well-manicured silver beard that made him look more like a history professor than a UFO nut.
“I saw something in the forest last night that I think you two might be interested in hearing about.”
“You were there last night?” Maggie was interested now.
“I tried to come up through the back entrance. A bright beam of light stopped me about halfway up.”
“You mean you stopped to watch the lights?” Donny didn’t sound convinced.
“No, I said it stopped me. Literally. Shut down my car’s entire electrical system.”
CHAPTER 36
Wesley Stotter knew they would be skeptical. Most law enforcement officials dismissed whatever he had to say, but what if something he saw could help their investigation? So he stuck to the facts as he told State Patrolman Fergussen and Agent O’Dell about his drive up into the forest last night.
“What are you doing out here in the Sandhills?” Fergussen wanted to know. “I thought your radio show was based in Denver.”
Stotter couldn’t help but be impressed that the man actually knew a little something about him.
“Chasing lights in the sky.”
He watched the two investigators exchange a glance.
“I’ve been examining cattle mutilations for years now,” he explained. “You’ve had a string of them recently. Seven, to be exact, within twenty-three days.”
Fergussen crossed his arms and shook his head, but now Agent O’Dell seemed interested.
“You think the lights have something to do with it?” she asked.
“When you’ve looked at dozens of cattle mutilations you can’t deny the similarities. Seeing lights in the night sky before or after is common.”
“And that leads you to believe alien spacecrafts are involved?”
He studied her for a moment, not sure if she was playing with him or genuinely interested. Up until this point Fergussen had asked all the questions while O’Dell busied herself with a salad she had piled high from the hospital’s cafeteria.
They had found a table in the corner where no one could hear them. Fergussen had picked up a sandwich. Stotter grabbed a doughnut and coffee. O’Dell was the only one devouring her food. Stotter was a bit surprised at her appetite. He knew they had just come from viewing the autopsies of the dead boys.
“Not necessarily alien,” he finally admitted.
“That’s right,” Fergussen said. “You’ve got the ranchers all up in arms believing some conspiracy with black ops helicopters is responsible for killing their cattle.”
“The government’s been secretly testing bovine parts for years, although I doubt they’d ever admit it. Back in the ’80s they snatched up thyroid glands, paying meat-processing plants and butchers top dollar. Nobody knew what the hell they were doing with them nor did anyone care.
“Then all of a sudden Uncle Sam was done and the processing plants were flooded with bovine thyroid glands. So what did they do with them? They ground them up with hamburger until tens of thousands got sick with something called thyrotoxicosis.”
O’Dell stopped with her fork in midair and asked Fergussen, “Is that true?”
Fergussen stared at him without answering.
Stotter realized he needed to be careful. He couldn’t go off on tangents like he did on his radio show. Most people didn’t want to hear this stuff. It was one of the reasons the government got away with what it did.
“Consider the parts that are consistently taken in almost every single cattle mutilation,” Stotter tried again. “Jaws are stripped to the bone. Reproductive organs, tongues, digestive tracks, all removed. The blood completely drained. Think about it. The jaw has saliva glands. The digestive track absorbs and collects traces of chemicals or toxins. Even the ears act as a filter. If you were doing tests on animals and didn’t want anyone to know, you’d remove all the bodily fluids and all the pieces that might hold clues that could give you away.”
“So they use a helicopter to snatch a cow up out of a herd,” Fergussen said, arms still crossed and Stotter could see he didn’t believe him. “Where exactly do they perform all these tests? In the air?”
“Have you ever heard of a mobile slaughter unit?” He could see Fergussen had. O’Dell shook her head. “The USDA provides these state-of-the-art butcher shops on wheels. They’re part of a farm initiative, an outreach program for rural areas.”
“Yeah, what about it?”
“I’ve seen the mobile slaughter units in the same areas that have had cattle mutilations.”
“Coincidence,” Fergussen said, only now he grew impatient, sitting up, ready to cut this short. “So which is it, Stotter? Government conspiracy or alien spaceship?”
“What makes you think it has to be one or the other?”
“I’ve had enough,” Fergussen said but looked over at O’Dell.