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can wait,” Mike said. “I’ve got nothing but time.”
    The cop pursed his lips like he wanted to spit and held Mike’s gaze.
    Mike looked down. Calling through the screen door was comfortable enough. It held the impression of a barrier. But now he felt sure this policeman would gladly push it open onto his face.
    The cop shook his head and muttered, “Sheesh.”
    An old man in overalls piped up. “Come back later,” he said.
    Mike scrutinized the four of them. The younger police officer and the fourth man, a middle-aged fellow in a collared golf shirt tucked into khakis, seemed embarrassed to be there. Mike remembered he didn’t want to be there himself.
    â€œWhatever you say,” he said, and he left.
    Â 
    Inside the Dickey home, the four men resumed their conversation. Still seated in his green upholstered easy chair, Pops spent most of it listening. So did Sam Petrie, slumped in a wooden dinner chair, looking scolded and worn. The bulk of the exchange took place between the captain and Dr. Lewis Driscoll, a local veterinarian.
    â€œSo, tell me, Doc,” Graham began, “what leads you to believe aliens were involved in the death of Mr. Dickey’s cow?”
    â€œWell, let me tell you. That cut was so even, so perfect. No ragged edges. Nothin’. And it looked a little burnt. The cut was small. Real small. And too small to remove the organs through it.”
    â€œHow do you know the organs are missing?”
    â€œI examined it.”
    â€œYou cut it open?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œI see.” Graham was dumbfounded. He was certain an alien hadn’t killed Pops Dickey’s cow, but he couldn’t explain how organs were missing when the wound to the animal was too small to have been their exit point. There would be no way to further examine the animal, though, now that Driscoll had widened the original puncture.
    Doc Driscoll continued, “The amount of blood was unusual as well. There was an uncommonly small amount of blood inside the animal, like it had been drained. But there was hardly any blood on the ground.”
    â€œSoaked it up.”
    â€œI don’t think so, Mr. Lattimer. The ground’s practically frozen. It couldn’t soak it up. If anything, it would’ve frozen it.”
    â€œMaybe animals, then. Maybe raccoons or something drank it up.”
    â€œMaybe, but animals don’t usually come out after blood. They may come out for the internals, you know, but not for blood. They’d get into Mr. Dickey’s trash before they’d get into animal remains.”
    Driscoll began a rather compelling argument, explaining to those in the Dickeys’ living room how he had started out interested in UFOs as a hobby but eventually became a serious researcher. He’d read all the books and articles, seen convincing film footage, and even attended a few seminars on the subject when they came to Houston. He was a believer.
    An hour later, the two police officers walked to their cars together.
    Petrie spoke. “What do you think, Cap?”
    Lattimer stopped. “I think that man’s fruity.”
    And that was that.
    Â 
    The sun idled into the horizon, putting itself to sleep, casting a kaleidoscope of ambers and oranges and violets onto the lower evening sky, the fireworks of day’s end.
    Mike sat in a flimsy lawn chair on the roof of his parents’ house, admiring the view. He was spending more and more time at his old homestead, finding the familiarity comforting when he could take his mind off of Molly. He sipped sweet iced tea from a plastic Houston Astros cup his dad had gotten at a home game with a five-dollar soda. It had been an interesting day. A day complete with first-day-of-school jitters (at age thirty-six, no less!) and mad dashes for a story on aliens from outer space. He chuckled. He pictured the headline: E.T. KILLS A COW. He chuckled again and poured some tea down his throat.