LINCOLN PARK—In a coolly calculated manner that many are calling sociopathic, if not grounds for immediate arrest, a woman entering the Lincoln Park Trader Joe’s Monday evening shopped for groceries without her heartbeat rising above 85 bpm.
“Should I call someone?” fellow shopper Linda Calruse, 45, remembered asking herself as she saw the woman, Dana Masters, 29, casually browsing the tea selection while customers frantically tried to maintain six feet of distance around her. “She’s not breaking a rule, technically, but she looks too calm to be allowed in here. I mean, her shoulders aren’t hunched at all!”
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Other patrons of the Trader Joe’s reported that Masters grabbed a bag of tortilla chips from the narrow snack and nut aisle, then returned to the aisle several more times to idly browse through the selection of canned soups. When asked by an employee if she needed help finding anything, Masters shook her head. “Just looking,” she replied, chillingly.
Calruse, who has limited grocery trips to once every two weeks and maps her shopping list around different areas of the store to minimize time spent inside, expressed a mixture of fear and anger at Masters. “Why is she so normal? What’s going on?”
Masters, when reached for comment, smiled a chilly sort of grin before retreating to the middle of her industrial-style apartment and waving her hand along to a Chopin etude, eyes half-closing with lizard-like placidity. She declined to comment for this article, choosing to spend her time instead making cryptic anagrams. Said Calruse, “We think we’re safe, but we’re not. She’s out there, biding her time. Waiting for her moment.”
