OCR Text |
Show 34. always wondered if they were compatible. Tonight the Highway Patrol office was closed, but Mike Butzow sat at the typewriter on the police side filling out some kind of form. Lenny Jones, the county deputy sheriff, was leafing through a Field and Stream at a table farther back. Mike recognized them both as they came in. "Hi there, Magleby," he went right on pecking at the keys, "you making a citizen's arrest on this boy?" "Me?" JD grinned. "I've seen you pushing thirty-five on Center Street in that yellow Volkswagen," he waggled a finger at JD as he swivelled to face them. "Your ticket's made out, you know. All's I have to do is put the right date on it." We'll be lucky to get a word in, Garth thought. "What can I do you for?" Mike lifted his heavy body out of the chair with some effort and came up to the counter. JD looked at Garth. Plainly, he didn't know how to start. Garth began for him. "JD and his sister just got back from the Gorge this afternoon, Mike. He was trying to get a picture of the elk herd they say is up there-Crawford promised to run it in the Times." "Oh, yeah?" Mike was looking interested. "Did you see any?" "Only three. No big herds." "But wait'11 you hear what they did see," Garth opened the way for JD. "Go ahead. You tell him." JD's face reddened. Clearly, he wasn't going to enjoy this. "Well," he began, "we saw something we couldn't identify. I guess it was a UFO. And we thought . . . Garth here, thought, that we oughta report it." "A UFO!" Officer Butzow levelled his eyes on JD. He wasn't smiling. "Lenny, you better come up and hear this." "It was Saturday night-or Sunday morning rather, maybe three or four o'clock," JD went on. "And we don't know how long it had been there, but the light woke up Stephanie and she started shaking me. In the lean-to, you know." Then JD made the full report, with occasional grunts and "what do you know's" coming from Mike and a steady background smirk from Lenny. Garth was relieved to see he'd left out the suggestion that he'd been |