Who's sorry now?

middle. This was a wonderful idea. Who thought it up?”
    ”Robert Brewster. It was going to be named for him for all his efforts,” Howard told her, ”but at the last minute he decided it should be named after the man who needed the job of sorter.”
    ”How generous of Mr. Brewster. I’ve always thought well of him and now I think even more what a fine young man he is.”
    A few minutes later, Robert poked his head out the door and said, ”Mrs. Gasset, I forgot to get you a stamp to endorse the checks.”
    She smiled. ”I already bought a stamp and two ink pads. Oh, and my sister Bernadette has volunteered to do the bookkeeping and fill out the tax forms. She’s so grateful that I can be home in the evening to feed the children and put them to bed. She hates having to read them all stories before they go to sleep. I’ve already put a dollar into the bank in Cold Spring. Bernadette will also deposit the money.”
    Robert sighed with relief, and felt a bit guilty about secretly thinking badly of Bernadette.
    Most of the last bags of mail on the floor had already been picked through by the people who had bought boxes. But Mrs. Gasset wanted to take the rest back and file the unclaimed mail in the right box if someone had purchased a box and forgotten to look through the mailbags that arrived earlier on Saturday.
    ”You’ve already had a very long day,” Chief Walker said. ”Just leave the bag in the back, lock up, and do it sometime tomorrow. There aren’t deliveries on Sunday and you can get some rest.”
    ”That’s an excellent idea. I’ll take you up on it. But first I need to shop for something to make for dinner. Something really good. Pork chops, stuffing, gravy, and mashed potatoes. And the carrots the kids won’t eat, but Bernadette can give them to her rabbits later.”
    Chief Walker said, ”I’ll wait for you while you go to the greengrocer and the butcher. You shouldn’t be walking home with all that money and the checks. And I’ll drive your sister to the bank.”
    ”You don’t intend to do this all the time, do you?”
    ”Only when it’s a lot of money.”
    He waited for her outside the butcher’s shop with the small locked steel box under the passenger seat until she’d done her shopping and drove her home.
     

CHAPTER TWENTY
     
    AFTER HOWARD DROPPED OFF MRS. GASSET and headed back to Grace and Favor, a random thought came to his mind. It had to do with the color red, but wasn’t what he’d dreamed about. The person, whom he now knew was a man, took the paint can back to Harry’s work area behind their house. He didn’t return the paintbrush. He’d probably just pitched the brush into someone else’s trash.
    The point was, why did he return the paint can?
    He was obviously a sour, unpleasant person to keep harassing Mr. Kurtz. So why bring the paint can back to Harry and Jim’s house? Did he have a weird streak of honor? It was okay to paint a swastika on the window of a man who had narrowly missed being arrested by the Nazis? Setting the fires wasn’t just arson. It was two cases of attempted murder. But stealing a can of paint wasn’t right. Or moral. What kind of bizarre personality was Howard dealing with and trying to find?
    He’d never come across someone with such skewed motives. Except maybe Arnold Wood. But he was an exception. All his motives were simply selfish and mostly vulgar as well. And he only came to town for meetings of the town council. Otherwise, nobody ever saw him.
    After dinner, Howard found Lily reading by the open window in the library.
    ”Answer a question for me, would you?”
    She put her book aside and said, ”Gladly.”
    ”If you wanted to paint a red swastika on a person’s window, wouldn’t you go buy the paint and the brush in some town where nobody knew you? And why would you throw away the brush, much less bring the paint can back to where you found it?”
    Lily smiled. ”First, I’d never have reason to paint a swastika anywhere, but if I needed to, you’re right. I’d buy the supplies with cash where nobody knew me. As for the brush, it was probably dried up and just buried in someone’s trash. And I certainly would have sealed up the can and disposed of it as well.”
    ”That’s exactly what I’d have done in theory, too,” Walker said. ”So how did the swastika painter even find the paint in Harry’s backyard, and why on earth return it?” ”Let me think on that for a while,” Lily said, frowning. ”There