Doom Weapon by Ed Gorman Page B

over to him. He had an unexpectedly strong handshake. “I appreciate your time, Mr. Axminster.”
    “I hope I was helpful. I mean without divulging anything. I mean if you should ever have a conversation with Mr. Swarthout I hope you’ll—”
    “I’ll tell him you refused to cooperate in any way.”
    “But that I was pleasant about it. Mr. Swarthout has a fit when his employees aren’t polite.”
    “I’ll bet Swarthout’s unpleasant to his employees, though, isn’t he?”
    His face burned with all the anger he’d stored up for his boss. “Please don’t put me on the spot.”
    “You weren’t helpful in any way and you were one of the most polite gentlemen I’ve ever dealt with.”
    “I’d appreciate it if you’d say exactly that.”
    “That’s exactly what I’ll say. Thanks, Mr. Axminster.”
     
    One place I’ve learned to stop by when I’m tracking somebody is the library. Not that the people I’m after are usually book readers but people on the run have need of different kinds of information and in most towns that means the libraries.
    That’s only one of the reasons I stop, of course. As much as I have great need of getting out of Washington after only a week or two there, I like to find out what’s going on back in D.C. And libraries usually have the best collection of newspapers and magazines.
    The size of the library in Junction City surprised me. It had the floor space and selection you’d expect in a much larger town. It was also busy for a weekday.
    The librarian was a handsome woman of fifty-something, her gray hair done in a bun and her red dress possessing a touch of the regal. She had a smile like a beacon.
    “Good morning, may I help you with something?”
    “Yes, I’d appreciate that. You’ve got a real nice library here.”
    “Well, thank you. A wealthy farmer was thoughtful enough to remember us in his will. I taught him how to read and I guess he never forgot it.”
    I discreetly showed her my badge. I didn’t want to attract any attention.
    “My, federal. That’s something we don’t see much of around here.”
    “I’m actually looking for another federal man.”
    “You must mean Mr. Grieves.” She had a wry, intelligent smile. “He took a liking to one of the young women who works here—a widow—and he sent her flowers every day for five days. That’s something else we don’t see much of around here. We’ll be talking about that for years, I imagine.” She was obviously amused by Grieves’s grand gesture. “But Martha—who is very pretty, by the way—is no young naïf. She knows a professional ladies’ man when she sees one.”
    “So she never went anywhere with him?”
    “Wouldn’t even let him walk her home. Her husband was something like that, a nice man but an eye forthe ladies he couldn’t control. Poor Martha suffered through their whole marriage because of that. So when Mr. Grieves tried courting her—he brought back too many unpleasant memories. So she shared the flowers with the churches around town. I doubt Mr. Grieves would’ve liked that if he’d known about it.”
    “Did he spend much time here, aside from trying to court Martha?”
    “No, not really. He looked through magazines sometimes but that was about all. And he only did that because he was waiting for Martha to be free.”
    Grieves had become a legend in this town. But not all legends are good by any means.
    “Was he always alone?”
    She thought about this. “He always came in alone as I recall. But once I did see him talk for a few minutes to this little, nervous man who came in quite frequently. We never did get his name. Now, he was really a reader. The time Mr. Grieves talked to him, though, it didn’t look like they saw eye to eye much. They had words of some kind. They kept their voices down but it was obvious that they were disagreeing about something.”
    “You said this little man came in frequently?”
    “Yes. He’d always go right over to the newspaper