Bill offered to push Georgie on the swings in the park after church. When it was time for lunch they went home past Stan's house, thinking that he might be in his yard. Instead, they found the Uris' driveway empty and the front of their house covered in crudely spray-painted swastikas.
"Somebody drew all over Stan's house," Georgie remarked.
"Yeah, it l-l-l-looks like he's n-n-not home. S-so l-let's just g-g-o."
"Is Stan going to be in time out for drawing on the house?"
"I d-don't think S-Stan did that."
"What letter is that?"
"It's n-not a l-l-l-letter Georgie. L-l-lets just g-go home."
Georgie could tell that his brother was getting upset, and didn't press the matter. Bill carried him home piggy-back to save time, and scarfed down a sandwich before calling Richie and Eddie and telling them to meet him at Stan's. He grabbed a bucket and three sponges from the garage, and filled it with water from the Uris' lawn faucet.
Richie and Eddie managed to arrive at exactly the same time.
"What the fuck?" Richie muttered.
"C-cc-come on. If we h-hurry w-w-w-w-e can get this cc-cc-cleaned up before they c-c-c-come home."
The paint turned out to be dried on, and difficult to get off with water that quickly grew cold in the chilly March air. The swastikas gradually faded under the boys' ministrations, but remained stubbornly visible, and the sponges were beginning to wear away. Bill blinked back tears, and almost felt like giving up, but somehow Richie's muttered curses motivated him to keep going.
"Fuckinggoddamncuntfuckassvaginaprickfuckshit…"
Bill got the first swastika to the point where he was pretty sure you would only notice it if you were specifically looking for it, paused briefly to remove his coat, and started on the next one. Eddie skipped over Richie and him to take the one on Bill's left.
They hadn't gotten very far into it when the Urises drove up to the house, followed by a police car. Chief Bowers got out and surveyed the boys' handiwork.
"Well, it looks like the Hardy Boys over here have done a fine job of contaminating the crime scene, so there's no use trying to collect evidence. If you see anything else suspicious, please call my office."
He got back in the car and left three shamefaced boys staring at the ground.
"We didn't mean to mess with the crime scene," Richie explained apologetically.
"I th-th-ought maybe you'd g-g-gone somewhere and we could fix it before you got b-b-b-back."
"We'll probably have to repaint it, but thank you for helping. It was very kind of you." Mrs. Uris looked scared in a way that grown-ups weren't supposed to be. "Why don't you boys go on home, I think we can take it from here. Stanley, come inside."
The three boys each trudged back to their respective houses. Mr. Denbrough was waiting in the driveway for Bill.
"Bill, you know you're supposed to ask before taking stuff from the garage," he admonished gently.
"It w-w-as an emergency."
"George said someone drew letters on the Uris' house?"
"They weren't l-l-l-l-l-l-l…It wasn't something Georgie should have seen."
Zach knew who the Urises were, so it wasn't difficult for him to piece together what Bill was talking about.
"In that case I guess it was an emergency, but still ask next time. Is Stan okay?"
"I d-d-d-on't know."
Meanwhile, Richie Tozier went straight home, snapped at his sister over something extremely trivial, and spent the rest of the afternoon in bed looking at a comic book without really reading it. His father came up as it was getting on towards dinner time.
"Rabbi Uris called. He said someone vandalized their house and you and Bill and Eddie tried to help clean it up."
"They painted swastikas all over it."
"And you know what that means?"
"Yeah. I didn't mean to mess up the crime scene."
"What?"
"Chief Bowers got mad at us. He said we messed up the evidence so they couldn't catch the person who did it. But I bet it was his son Henry."
"Why do you think it was Henry?"
"The second row was taller than we could reach – so it had to be someone taller than us, but not quite as tall as a grown-up, and Bowers says stuff to Stan."
"What kind of stuff?"
"About, like, gas chambers and stuff."
"Oh." Wentworth remembered the taunts Richie was talking about, jokes that to his everlasting shame he had pretended to laugh at, and that in the naivete of an ex-flower child he had expected his children not to understand. "Well, you're not in trouble for trying to help clean it up."
"Uh-huh."
"Your mother and Mrs. Goldfarb are making dinner for the Urises. Why don't you ride with them to drop it off."
The car ride over to the Urises was deathly silent. Mrs. Goldfarb, a kindly older women who occasionally babysat for Richie and Annette and referred to them both as "mein Leibchen" stared straight ahead, her face a grim scowl reflected back in the rearview mirror of the Toziers' station wagon. Mrs. Tozier focused intently on the road ahead, and even Richie was cowed into silence by the gravity of the situation.
There was a small cluster of gawkers and a photographer from the Derry Telegraph standing on the sidewalk outside the Uris' house. Maggie shot them a dirty look and quickly ushered Richie inside. The Urises were in their living room with people from their temple. Stan was sitting off to the side tugging on his ear. He did that often when he was nervous or upset, and Mr. Uris usually reprimanded him whenever he saw, but tonight he either didn't notice or didn't want to make a fuss over it.
"Hi Stan."
"Hi, Richie. Thanks for helping clean up."
"Sure thing. Hey, you want to hear my Eddie Murphy voice?"
Stanley glanced over at the adults. "Not right now, Richie."
Mrs. Tozier collected Richie after a few minutes, and they dropped Mrs. Goldfarb off at her house. Instead of going home, they drove into town.
"Where are we going?"
"We're going to church to light a votive for the Urises."
They reached the church just before Father McClanahan was going to lock up for the night. Mrs. Tozier briefly explained what had happened, and then helped Richie light a candle and place it gently on the rack in front of the bye-altar. They both knelt before the altar rail. Maggie prayed for the Urises to be comforted by the divine presence in accordance with their tradition, for the perpetrator of this crime to see the error of their ways and be brought to true repentance, and for a spirit of tolerance and mutual respect to descend on the citizens of Derry generally. Richie prayed for whoever did it to be afflicted with boils, and was delighted the next week when Henry Bowers suffered a spectacular outbreak of acne.
