Dark spots

The house of stitches (pt.2)

Mister Hossman,

I'm very sorry for the unprofessional way I am writing this letter, but I have to let you know me and my company are immediatelly cancelling the operations at the site of the, like you called it, "House of stitches".

The numerous amount of work related accidents had us already a bit shaken, but due to reasons I will not write you neither me or my workers will approach the building anymore. I will visit your office this Saturday and tell you these reasons in person. After this, I would appreciate it if you would not contact me, my company or any of my workers anymore.

That was it. No name, no adress, no authograph, no date, no company name...nothing. But in such a small letter was exactly what I needed to know : there has been activity at that house. This mister Hossman appearantly wanted something with this house. But who was he? From what the letter said and since it was in the archives of the mayor's office it was very likely this man was a previous mayor. Exiting the archives I found the mayor sitting at his desk. I asked him about who Hoffman was. This is what he told me.

Jeffrey Hossman was a very popular mayor who did a lot for the town. It was a rather big suprise that he went out of office after a fairly short time. Even bigger was the suprise that, although he officially left office in 1971, it was revealed that another man, Mark Summers, a man known for his love of politics, was appointed in office in late 1970, without anyone knowing about it. Not even summers's own family.

People obviously asked why and how this happened without any open elections or even a word from Hossman, but Summers stated that Hossman told him to keep everything quiet and that the town just had to accept it. Following this, Summers pulled out a document where Hossman had signed over his position to him. Of course, just accepting that was not going to happen. hundreds of people went over to the house of Hossman to ask what was going on. After several rings on the doorbell Hossman still didn't open. They banged on the door, slapped against windows and all yelled for an explaination for this weird action of him. Still, no answer.

The people who once loved Hossman became more and more agitated with him. They knew he was home. His car was still parked in front of his house. The lights were on. There was no way he wasn't home. One man, who was more pissed off then the rest of the crowd, gave the door a humongous kick and it slammed open. The public was met with a sight that they would never forget. Hossman was home. He had been home for a long time judging from the foul smell he emmited. The clothes he once wore layed in a dirty pile under his hanging corpse. It was Obvious he had been dead for weeks. The mayor told me that the shock of his suicide was so big that nobody ever complained about Summers anymore.

Clenched in what remained of his left hand was a stained piece of paper. Someone who was brave enough to withstand the sight, the smell and the feeling of Hossman's corpse was able to grasp it out of his hand. It red:

For John Abbot

For Mark Evermore

For Joey Frazer

For Pete Mitchens

For Gary Sprouter

For Barney West

Only one of those names rang a bell. Pete Mitchens was a construction worker, who was declared missing after he never returned home from work. Filling in this report was not easy, since his wife didn't know where his assignment was, prior to his dissapearance. He said that his boss ordered everyone to "shut up about it". Contacting the company he worked for was the only way they could know where he dissapeared, but it had been disbanded a few days after his dissapearance and the man who ran the place was nowhere to be found. The only lead they had was a friend and co-worker of Pete, Sam Grapple, who said he was sick when Pete's assignment was going on. And thus, without any clues, Mitchens still remains missing, although it's obvious he will never be found.

The story the major told me left me quite flabbergasted. He asked me from what document I red mayor Hossman's name. I showed him the letter. He red it. He red it again. He red it probably five or six times. He kept mouthing the word "operations". He looked at me with a frown and told me he had no idea what this letter was about.

But I did.  This letter and what the mayor said about Hossman. It could all be traced back to the house of stitches. Mayor Hoffman obviously wanted something to happen with that house. He hired a construction team to carry this out, but they pulled out because of unknown reasons. Whatever these reasons were, it caused Hossman to give up his position to Summers and to later end his own life.

But what does his suicide note mean? What happened to the construction team? And the most important question :

Was Sam Grapple really sick? Or did he know what happened to his friend?