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Page 250
When she moved close to his end of the counter, Calvin said, "I'm told you're something of the town historian."
"Only because I've been here longer than most everybody else."
He took a bite of meatloaf. "Then maybe you can help me."
"Give it a swing."
"BiOmega."
She straightened up. "Bio what?"
"BiOmega Laboratory. It was a small research place located on Franklin in the early seventies."
"Oh yeah . . . where they put up the Sherwood."
"That's right."
"So, what do you want to know?"
"Whatever you remember. The people who worked there probably came in here for lunch, you might have overheard something."
"Like what?"
"Like what kind of research they were doing. Names of folks who worked there. How long they were here . . . whatever."
She glared at him for a moment, removed his dishes and put them into a bin, then wiped off the counter. "You want dessert?"
"Just coffee."
"Milk or cream?"
"Neither . . . look, it was a research lab of some kind."
"If you say so." She poured a cup of coffee. "I remember it as just a quiet little building tucked in the trees."
"Is there anything you can tell me? Something you heard about what they were doing there?"
"Unh-uh. Not much noise outta them. They kept pretty much to themselves."
"But you remember them?"
She slid the sugar dispenser to him. "Why are you so interested in a place that's been gone twenty years?"
"It's too long a story," he said. "I'm just curious about the kind of research they conducted."
"How do I know you're not some kind of spy or other?"
Just then the man in the A's hat came out of the kitchen with an empty dish bin. Probably her husband, Calvin thought. He looked her age and was wearing a wedding band. "Whyn't you tell the man

 
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