By ten o’clock I was ready to shut down the store for the night. I grudgingly gave change to a last-minute trucker passing through who needed a pack of smokes, then followed him to the glass doors to lock up behind him, when I spotted the familiar brown car pulling into the parking lot. Seconds later, two county sheriffs in an unmarked patrol car followed it in. I waited until Rannington had parked directly in front of me.

“Bill.”

He slid out from under the steering wheel, a very dark and disturbed look on his face. Car doors slammed almost in unison as four more men emerged from their vehicles. One other gentleman was definitely green around the gills. They came inside the store, and I locked the doors behind them to give us some privacy. Just to be sure, I turned around the sign on the door so it read Closed.

Rannington wasted no time getting to the point. “Bill, you said Emory Hunley ate breakfast here every morning for the past twenty years?”

“Ever since I was eight years old. Why? What’s going on?”

One of the other men spoke up and introduced himself. “I’m Agent Wallace with the FBI.” He flashed a wallet and a badge at me. “You said you last saw Mr. Hunley yesterday morning?”

“Yes, sir. Same as always.”

“What time was this?”

I pondered for a moment. He was here; that’s what I usually took note of. “I can’t exactly say. He would show up anytime between seven and nine in the morning.” I tried again to picture him in my mind, but twenty-odd years of mental images just flowed all together into one big hazy fog. “I’m sorry, but I can’t put an exact time on it.”

“Do you remember what he ate?” Bill inquired.

What he ate? I chuckled. “You tell me and we’ll both know,” I smiled.

“Why’s that?” Agent Wallace asked, wholly serious.

“Because the man’s been eating the same thing for the past twenty plus years. A quart of milk, two pieces of toast, and whatever filler he brought with him that he had wrapped in wax paper.”

Bill cocked his head. “Filler? What do you mean, filler?”