‘He was perfectly willing to credit the possibility Bill’s explantation it was the logic which troubled him. “But you said you were scared. Why would George’s ghost want to scare you, Bill? Bill put a hand to his mouth and wiped it. The hand was trembling slightly. “H-He’s probably muh-muh-mad at m-m-me. For g-getting him kih-khilled. It was my fuh-fuh-fault. I s-sent him out with the buh-buh-buh --” He was incapable of getting the words out, so he rocked his hand in the air instead. Richie nodded to show he understood what Bill meant ... but not to indicate agreement. “ I don’t think so,” he said. “If you stabbed him in the back or shot him, that would be different. Or even if you, like, gave him a loaded gun that belonged to your dad to play with and he shot himself with it. Bit it wasn’t a gun, it was just a boat. You didn’t want to hurt him; in fact” -- Richie raised one finger and waggled it at Bill in a lawyerly way --- “you just wanted the kid to have a little fun, right?” Bill thought back -- thought desperately hard. What Richie has just said had made him feel better about George’s death for the first time in months, but there was a part of him which insisted with quiet firmness that he was not supposed to feel better. Of course it was your fault, that part insisted; not entirely, maybe, but at least partly.’
RICHIE TOZIER IS SO IMPORTANT TO BILL DENBROUGH.