I had a similar situation where the county's fingerprint machine was down, and ironically, they said only they could do it as well. I later found out up here they are the only ones with the electronic machine and everyone else if they had any ability, it was on paper and would take months to process if at all. It did take a month, and they seemed honest, but hey, I was starting to get an odd impression as well, like perhaps they are out to get CPL holders. I got a phone call, they said they would call, never believed it, but they did call and say it was okay to come down and from there it went extremely fast.
Sometimes things do just happen. Of course, just because you are paranoid doesn't mean they aren't really out to get you.