implied. However, it now appeared that her heretofore inexplicable paranoia might well be justified. Unfortunately, she would have to take solace in that fact later.
For the moment, she didn’t think he was going to do anything right here in the middle of the diner, even if he was intent on harming her in some way. However, you could never really predict what a crazy person might do. Stalking a federal agent and then openly confessing that fact to the agent in question didn’t strike her as the actions of someone with all of their screws securely tightened. Besides, like Ben was fond of saying, “Better safe than dead.”
“Watching me…” Constance repeated, following the words with a measured breath. “Mind if I ask why?”
“I have my reasons.”
“I see. And, you obviously know that I work for the FBI.”
“Of course.”
She clucked her tongue then offered up a legal factoid, “So, do you also know that per Missouri revised statute five sixty-five point two twenty-five, everything you’ve just said gives me probable cause to arrest you for the crime of stalking?”
The man chuckled lightly. He appeared to be genuinely amused by the comment. “I’m not stalking you, Special Agent,” he told her.
“You and the law obviously have different definitions then, Mister…?” She let the honorific hang in the air between them.
“My name isn’t important,” he replied.
“You aren’t helping your case any,” she told him.
“I’ve simply been waiting for an opportunity to speak with you.”
“Well,” she said after a handful of empty seconds ticked by. “I’m pretty sure that’s what we are doing right now, but I have to be honest-I’m not terribly inclined to continue.”
“I hope that you will reconsider and listen to what I have to say.”
This peculiar old man was starting to wear on her already raw nerves, but she really didn’t want to create a scene here in the diner unless she had no choice. As long as he was keeping his hands to himself and not making any sudden moves, she figured she would play along. Maybe in a few more moves she could suss out his end game and know whether to arrest him or call the nearest mental hospital to see if they had an escapee.
After a short pause she responded. “Give me a reason to. I really don’t care for the cloak and dagger approach, so let’s start with a name.”
“All right then,” he replied. He gave a slight nod but still didn’t look up from the perfectly organized sweetener packets. “Call me Ed.”
She turned the name over inside her brain. It rang a bell, but the note was a little off key, so she couldn’t yet name the tune. “Okay, Ed,” she replied. “That’s a little better. Now, obviously you have my undivided attention-for the moment. I’d say now is your chance to talk.”
“Not here,” he said.
“Funny,” she replied. “Why did I have a strange feeling you were going to say that?”
“I was hoping that we could have a discussion somewhere more private,” he offered, ignoring her observation.
Constance took a sip of her coffee but kept her eyes on him over the rim of her cup. After placing it back on the counter she said, “And when you say private, is there someplace specific you have in mind?”
“We could go back to your room at the Greenleaf. My car is right outside.”
Constance raised an eyebrow and snorted involuntarily as she fought to stifle a sharp chuckle. There were “holster sniffers” everywhere, so why not here? She’d had plenty of men-and even a few women-with rampant law enforcement fetishes try to pick her up over the years, but she had to admit this was a new and different approach. She took a moment to process what he had just said, but no matter how she looked at it, the question that came to her lips was the same. Finally, keeping her voice low she asked, “I’m sorry, but are you propositioning me?”
“Not in the way you assume,” he replied, voice even and devoid of any real emotion. The words were simply a statement of fact.
She continued to roll his name around in her head, assuming for the moment that he wasn’t lying. There was something about it that was bothering her. She usually had excellent recall, but maybe her spell of clear headedness had come to an end, and the exhaustion was taking over again.
She watched him in silence, pondering the information that lay somewhere just beyond her grasp. He, however, still hadn’t looked up at her. His eyes remained focused on the sweetener packets. He had long since completed sorting them, but he would still occasionally reach out and adjust one, then another. Apparently they weren’t exactly right in his estimation, which told her he definitely had more than just a mild touch of OCD.
Obsessive…
Obsession…
Fixation…
Fetish…
The words collided with his name as they tumbled through her thoughts. The resulting clash sparked a connection and the memory was recalled.
She cocked her head to the side and said, “You own the hardware store, right?”
“No, Special Agent, I do not,” he replied.
The answer wasn’t what she had expected to hear. Adding up the stalking, the name he’d given, the OCD, and his veiled proposition, she had concluded he was Ed Ruble, the hardware store owner with the shoe fetish Sheriff Carmichael had warned her about.
While Constance was still pondering the blind alley she’d just followed, Stella appeared on the opposite side of the counter and placed a short cranberry juice and glass of water in front of her.
“Sorry about the wait,” the waitress apologized. With a bit more cheer than she’d displayed earlier she turned to the man next to Constance and said, “Good Morning, Pastor Reese. Your usual?”
He replied, “Good morning, Stella. Yes. Thank you.”
“Be right back,” she told him.
Stella hurried to the other end of the counter, then returned with a fresh mug of java for the pastor. She shot him a quick smile, even though he never really looked up, and then she was off again to attend to other patrons.
Once she was out of earshot, Constance said, “Pastor Reese… Well…at least now I know your real name.”
“Ed is my real name,” he returned.
“Your whole real name then,” she told him. “Listen, I don’t know what your game is here, but I’m not playing. And, just so we’re on the same page, I don’t make a habit of taking strange men to my motel room.”
“I assure you, Special Agent Mandalay, I don’t have a game, as you put it. All I want to do is talk.”
“But apparently you do have some kind of proposition for me.”
“Yes. For us both.”
“Well, Pastor, if you’re looking to save my soul, I’ve already heard the sales pitch, so you’re wasting your time.”
“Yes. I am hoping to save your soul,” the Pastor replied. “But not in the sense you might imagine.”
He carefully plucked a yellow packet from the freshly arranged cube, then holding the edge pinched between his thumb and forefinger, flicked it three times with the index finger of his other hand. After that, he meticulously folded a crease in the top edge. Constance watched in silence as he proceeded to tear the packet along the crease with the same painstaking precision, then carefully poured the contents into his coffee. After laying the empty packet aside, he picked up his spoon and stirred the brew first three times clockwise, then three times counterclockwise. After that, he tapped the spoon a trio of times on the edge of the mug, and then balanced it with practiced ease across the rim, perfectly perpendicular to the handle. Sitting back, he folded his hands in front of himself on the counter and simply stared at it.
Constance’s brain was on a roll and decided to take another shot at connect-the-dots. As she watched the pastor, she flashed back to the day she arrived in town when she and Carmichael had sat in almost this exact spot, talking about Merrie Callahan’s 1975 abduction case. There had been a lone patron at the far end of the counter that day, contemplating a coffee cup with his hands folded in front of him. Now she knew where she had seen the
