Conspiracies and Stuff: A Dreamland Junction Mystery by Kendra Ashe Page B

Stick up his Butt, Brad Moss.
    “This is Unit Twenty One. It looks like we have a 187 on Highway 375, about a mile north of the green hut.”
    “Ten four. Back up is on the way,” the dispatcher replied in that monotone emotionless voice that was their trademark.
    I didn’t live far from Highway 375, also known as the ET Highway. I’d been listening to the scanner long enough to know that a homicide had occurred and their reference to the green hut was really police code for the Alien Museum, which also wasn’t too far away.
    Due to our close proximity to the infamous Area 51, Dreamland Junction, and in fact, the entire Dreamland area was filled with ET themed tourist traps.
    It gave me a headache just thinking about it.
    I also believed it was all this alien crap that contributed to Spencer’s bat shit crazy belief that he was an alien abductee.
    Poor Spencer. But I supposed that if you lived around it long enough, it was bound to get to you sooner or later.
    I’d lived in Dreamland Junction since I was baby, and I hadn’t once seen a little green man or a UFO. Not that I didn’t think the government was up to no good at Area 51, I just had my doubts that what they were doing out there had anything to do with otherworldly craft, or extra terrestrial beings.
    But a homicide off the ET Highway was interesting.
    “Let’s go check it out,” I tossed the words over my shoulder as I was heading for my bedroom to get dressed.
    “Are you nuts?” he called after me. “Didn’t Moss tell you the next time you interfered in an investigation, he was going to lock you up?”
    “He wouldn’t dare. That’s a violation of my rights. There’s still something called freedom of the press in this country,” I pointed out.
    “I don’t know if a website called Black Files actually qualifies you as being a member of the press,” he grumbled.
    I couldn’t blame Spencer for being none to anxious to check out the crime scene. Going to jail wasn’t exactly the best way to spend a Sunday morning. I would say it might even be worse than getting abducted by aliens.
    * * *
    The crime scene was visible a mile away, thanks to all the flashing lights from police vehicles.
    Every so often there were accidents on the ET Highway, and there had even been a few people to actually disappear while driving on the highway, but I couldn’t remember any homicides. Not recently anyway.
    “What do you think happened?” I asked Spencer, who was sitting quietly in the passenger seat, a look of dread painted on his face.
    He lifted his shoulders in a half shrug. “I don’t know, but whatever it is … it looks serious.”
    “Well any homicide is serious.”
    Before he could answer, I pulled off to the side of the highway.
    “Here,” I said, tossing him my tiny pink video recorder. “You do the video recording. I’ll take pictures and run the digital voice recorder.”
    Spencer frowned. “You know they’re going to run us out of here.”
    I shrugged. “Probably, but we’ll never know what happened if we don’t check it out for ourselves. You know how they like to cover things up around here.”
    That was something that the both of us could agree on.
    I still remembered the day Mayor Payne went running through the strip mall, wearing nothing but his underwear and a tinfoil hat. They’d covered that one up good. The next day the Junction Gazette released a story claiming the mayor had suffered from fever induced delirium.
    I knew better.
    Mayor Payne contacted me the night before, begging for help. He claimed aliens were controlling his thoughts and were forcing him to divulge city government secrets.
    I spent half the night trying to convince him he was over reacting. Apparently, I hadn’t done that great a job.
    Spencer followed me, though reluctantly.
    There was a blue sedan parked off the side of the road about a hundred yards ahead. CSI had already arrived on the scene and were busy taking pictures of whoever was inside.
    I