“That’s no reason,” I said.
“No, ma’am. It’s no reason.” His chin was wobbling. “It’s the reason I had. I told my nephew to clear it fast, and I did not tell him to look in anything. A footlocker, I said, put it out. I never opened it. I did not think.”
“And the note?”
He closed his eyes.
“I saw it Tuesday afternoon,” he said. “On the sign. I thought it was somebody wanting money. Or somebody wanting to chew me out. I did not want to hear it from a stranger. I tore it down and put it in my pocket.”
“I read it last night, when Duane Pietrowski called me and told me whose it was. Four lines. A man had been trying to give it back to you since Monday.”
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He held out the blanket.
“I build kitchens for a living,” he said. “Sixteen years before I had the building. Last night I could not sleep. I went down to the shop at nine o’clock and I built this.”
Ken took the bundle from him, because my hands would not.
I folded back the blanket.
It was red oak, with mitered corners and a clear glass front and a hinged back for hanging. It was made to hold a folded flag. There was a brass plate set into the bottom rail, not engraved yet, with a blank space waiting.
“I did not know what to put on the plate,” Craig said. “I figured you would.”
“The flag’s already found its wall,” I said at last. “The post is giving it one.”
“Then give it to the post,” Craig said, and he laughed once, a wet, awful laugh. “I’ll make the plate myself. Whatever you want it to say.”
“There’s something else,” Craig said. He took an envelope from his coat. “Eighteen hundred. It’s all I could pull this week. It’s for the post’s flag and honor guard fund. And I’m paying Irv Feldman back his eighty-five, and my nephew is not going to be working for me anymore.”
He turned to go, and he stopped, because Duane Pietrowski was standing between him and the door with his arms folded.
“One more thing, Craig,” Duane said. “You come to the service on Saturday. You stand in the back, and you take your hat off. And on Monday you rewrite that lease.”
“Section fourteen,” Craig said. “Thirty days. I’ll do it Monday.”