Who's sorry now?

Kessler has increased his supply. And Kessler’s carvings are getting better and better.
    ”Who killed Mr. McBride? And why didn’t you tell me about this?”
    ”Howard doesn’t know who did it yet. And I didn’t tell you because I thought everybody in town knew about McBride’s death. Jack Summer mentioned his death in his last newspaper. I thought you always read it.”
    ”We’re both supposed to since we inherited the Voorburg Times, but I’ve come to trust him. Why hasn’t Howard mentioned this? After all, he lives here,” Lily said.
    ”His job isn’t the subject of dinner talk, Lily. And we don’t own the police department. It’s just like you don’t mention Mr. Kessler’s carvings.”
    ”How was Mr. McBride killed?”
    ”Strangled. In that little shed the Harbinger boys fitted up for him to sleep in. Dr. Polhemus swore it was a piano wire. I’m glad to say he was proved wrong. It was a long strand of wire that jewelers use to cut off rings when they can no longer go back over a knuckle.”
    Lily turned pale. ”I’m sorry I asked. Sorry, too, that I didn’t know. Did he have a family?”
    ”Yes, a mother who bought cemetery plots for both herself and her only son. Howard told me this.”
    ”I suppose that’s a good thing. Did we inherit cemetery plots? Our mother and father are buried in one. Did they buy two for us?”
    ”Golly, Lily, how would I know? Or want to know?”
    ”Who’s going to take the job of sorting the mail?” Lily asked.
    ”Unfortunately, it’s me. But just if and when the sorting area is built. I don’t want to spend my life doing this. And I don’t really need to.”
    ”Wouldn’t you be paid something?”
    ”I would. That’s why I don’t want the job,” Robert explained.
    ”Are you crazy?”
    ”Lily, we’re okay financially. We made a lot of money on those awful people who stayed here when their kingpin was murdered. Then there are those fake books. Lots of people need a job worse than we do.”
    ”But it’s what Great-uncle Horatio specified that we had to do. Earn our own living,” Lily objected. ”Great-uncle Horatio has been dead for years.”
    ”But Mr. Prinney isn’t,” Lily said. ”And he’s responsible for making sure we earn our own living.”
    Robert opened his mouth to speak, then changed his mind. What he’d been about to say was that Lily was merely sitting around reading while he was busy trying to get enough signers on the petition to create a place to sort mail.
    He knew this wasn’t fair. Lily worked with Mr. Prinney most of the time sorting out matters of the estate. Collecting rents on properties that could pay them. They often gave some of the companies and farms the estate owned permission to miss a payment or two in order to keep going. She more than paid her way. If he had to do what Lily did, he’d go insane with boredom.
    ”I’m off to see if I can get a few more signatures. I thought I’d hang out at Mabel’s cafe.”
    It turned out to be an even better idea than Robert anticipated. He got there at four-thirty and stayed until eight, when Mabel’s closed. He sat at a table at the front of the shop and explained what the petition was about. He collected twenty-two more signatures, including one from one of the nasty women who had been interfering with the mail. Apparently, she herself was illiterate and only commented on what the other two told her. She signed with an X and Robert had to ask her name and put it down, saying it was her mark.
    Her friends, if they found out, would be furious.
    Tomorrow he’d consult privately with the town treasurer to see if the town council would meet and let him explain what had happened that caused him to circulate this petition.
    Around the same time Robert was entering Mabel’s, petition in hand with several pens, in case one ran out of ink, Howard was taking a phone call.
    It was the fingerprint expert. He sounded as if he were delivering a present. ”Easy as pie, Chief. The same thumb that was on the window is also on the trash barrel. Now we have the whole set of prints on file. Every single finger.”
    Howard wished he could be as thrilled as his informant. But he made a good pretense of being excited by the information. Both the swastika and the attempt to burn down the building were done overnight. Did that mean the person was local? Did he (or she) know where everything in Voorburg was? Would a stranger know where to find a can of red paint? Or a trash can full