In The Bleak Midwinter: A Special Agent Constance Mandalay Novel (25 page)

No. It probably wasn’t the sheriff. The
reality was that not everyone had social skills. The clod next to
her was probably completely oblivious to his
faux pas
, and
she was just letting the grumpiness and paranoia override her
brain.

She finished sipping and lowered the mug back
to the counter, then swiveled the stool a few inches while
carefully repositioning herself to the left side of the seat. She
finally stole a quick glance at the man, and as she had surmised,
he was not Sheriff Carmichael. However, his face was vaguely
familiar. She just couldn’t immediately place where she had seen
it.

He looked to be approximately the same age as
the sheriff, maybe a few years older, but it was hard to tell. He
was gaunt, clean-shaven and had angular features. Wire rimmed
glasses sat on the bridge of his nose. His hair was trimmed short
in an outdated style that reminded her of pictures she had seen of
her father when he was a boy. It was predominantly gray, although
dark brown strands were still visible throughout.

The man was tastefully attired in a dark,
heavy topcoat over a starched white shirt, tie, and what appeared
to be a charcoal gray suit. As far as appearances went, he looked
harmless enough. However, looks aren’t everything, and she knew
it.

After several heartbeats, he said quietly,
“Good morning, Special Agent Mandalay.”

Constance hated surprises. In fact, they were
one of the very reasons she hated sitting with her back to the
door.

C
HAPTER
18

CONSTANCE
didn’t recognize his
voice.

It actually sounded deeper than she would
have expected based on her quick glance at him, but not unnaturally
so. In a very real sense it came across as calm and soothing,
carrying with it the underlying strength and even tone of a
practiced orator. However, while the words were clearly audible to
her, he was keeping his volume low. It was apparent that he wasn’t
interested in being overheard by anyone else in the
establishment.

She forced herself not to outwardly react.
His address made it plain that he knew exactly who she was, which
put her at a disadvantage. Of course, this was a small town, and
word traveled fast, especially where it concerned her. She’d
already witnessed the grapevine in action more than once.

She turned her gaze back in his direction,
this time allowing it to linger. She noticed immediately that he
wasn’t looking at her. Instead, his attention seemed fully occupied
by his own hands. His eyes remained fixed on the counter in front
of him where he was carefully sorting the blue, yellow, and pink
artificial sweetener packets that were nestled in a rectangular
plastic container.

Never breaking his focus on the compulsive
task he added, “It’s particularly cold out there today, isn’t
it?”

Obviously he was intent on starting a
conversation with her. Playing along for the moment, without
missing a beat she replied. “Yes, sir, it is.”

“Unfortunate that Arthur is such a miser when
it comes to the motel,” he continued, voice still low. “In this
weather I’m sure that was an unpleasant walk for you.”

A hot flush of alarm washed over Constance.
She was willing to accept that he might know her name and recognize
her on sight based on town gossip. However, that last comment was a
different story entirely. While it could simply be an assumption
based on the motel owner’s reputation, it had been delivered with
too much confidence and familiarity for her liking.

Holding her ground, keeping her voice steady
and matching his volume, she decided to do a bit of fishing. “Who
told you I walked?”

“Nobody, Special Agent,” he replied; then
with a matter-of-fact shrug added, “I’ve been watching you ever
since you arrived in town.”

When she dropped her line in the water, she
hadn’t really expected to get a strike that hard or that quickly.
As signs go, she wasn’t sure whether to consider that one good or
bad.

Feigning nonchalance, she slipped her coat
from her lap and laid it across the stool to her left, freeing up
her legs in the event she needed to move quickly.

Slowly, she pivoted the rotating seat a
little more, angling her knees toward him and bringing her sidearm
farther away. She had no idea what was going on here, but she knew
for sure she didn’t like what his admission 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 pastor before.

“Great…”
She thought to herself.
“Here I am in small town hell on Christmas Eve with Sheriff
Sherlock, haunted houses, a cheap motel, no sleep, weird emails,
and now an OCD preacher who’s stalking me. What did I do this year
that was so bad?”

Out of curiosity she decided to press him on
his last comment. “Well, since you seem to have an inside scoop on
my thoughts, then why don’t you tell me what it is that I’m
imagining.”

“As I said, not here,” he replied. “What we
need to discuss is too sensitive.”

“I don’t see how saving my soul is all that
sensitive, Pastor. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“I, however, have certain information…”

“Information…” Constance repeated the word,
allowing the final syllable to linger and eventually become a
question in its own right.

“Yes, information,” was all he said.

“Information about what?”

“Why you are here.”

She regarded him carefully for a moment, then
dropped her voice another notch. “Are you telling me that you have
information about the murders I’m investigating?”

For the first time since their conversation
began, he raised his head. He cast a somewhat furtive look to the
side, glanced quickly toward her, then returned his gaze to the
coffee mug. “Yes. In a manner of speaking.”