My Full Confession

The Summoning Of A Stranger

It was a quiet neighborhood that Greg lived in, due entirely to the fact that it was hardly a neighborhood at all. His household was one of only two houses in the radius of five miles, yet the universe still had a way of making sure that he lived next to the biggest old grump in the land. He didn't know much of his neighbor, or at least he didn't for the first ten years he lived there. The man mostly kept to himself, save for when he might call down to the house on the landline and yell old complaints through the phone about Greg's unruly children. Well of course they weren't nearly as much of delinquents as that crazy Mr. Watson liked to imagine, and yet there had been times when the man would threaten to call the police. These were all just minor offenses, just kids being kids. Greg hadn't been up to the house, that little house on the hill, save for one occasion when he tried to go knocking, so as to apologize for his boys putting a firecracker in Mr. Watson's mailbox. He hadn't been there to watch the event, however his children had made sure to tell him the exact reaction of the old man, how he had nearly fallen over in freight. That was, of course, the onetime Greg was worried they might be sent to juvie. Considering how reclusive his neighbor was, it was a very surprising event to have found a letter dropped in his mailbox, a letter with the return address of Mr. Watson. Well of course, as soon as Greg discovered the letter he marched up the driveway to interrogate his boys, for their neighbor never communicated unless to complain. Certainly Graham or Gavin had done something to irritate him, perhaps they had thrown a baseball through his window, or engraved their initials on the back of his ominous black car, one which looked like it had been through hell and back for the last sixty years of its life. Now of course Greg had never properly seen the vehicle up close, for it never seemed to be driven, and yet from the very few instances he saw it leaving the house he could've sworn he recognized bullet holes shot through the back of it. Greg was a cop, so of course he should pick up little details like this. Yet neither of his boys took credit, despite their both owning some pretty lethal BB guns. And so perhaps that man had an interesting past, one which might persuade him to live his life as a proper recluse for the rest of his life.
"Boys, where are you hiding?" Greg called out just as soon as he arrived in the house, going through the rest of the mail while pocketing old Mr. Watson's letter, to read later.
"You have to find us." Said a tiny voice from somewhere off in the kitchen, one which would certainly give away their hiding spot. All the same, Greg wasn't much in the mood for games. He was more concerned about the reasoning behind this letter, and why their neighbor would be filing a complaint. Certainly he was the reason, or at least his offspring were, considering they were the only ones around who would want to do harm to that innocent old man.
"Were either of you terrorizing Mr. Watson?" Greg called out in irritation, throwing a handful of bills down on the table to deal with later. Along with some rolled up magazines for Molly and a thank you card from the Stamfords for a pleasant evening, the mail was a very disappointingly financial. Sometimes Greg wished that taxes had never been invented, so preventing a frown from ever coming to his face as he checked his mailbox.
"No." peeped the voice again.
"Where are we daddy? You'll never guess!" taunted a second, more confident voice.
"I'm not playing games today, boys. I've got a letter from Mr. Watson, and you know what that means." Greg mumbled warningly.
"It means that he's made up a crime for us, just to give himself something to complain about." muttered one of the boys.
"He's out to get us, daddy. He wants us to go to prison." whispered the other, more fearfully than his brother. The boys were only a year apart, Graham being the oldest at six, and Gavin following closely behind at five. Together they really liked to get themselves into trouble, and yet they were well behaved when they ought to be. Greg raised them right, or rather he had let his wife do that, and he just gave input when he thought he had the power to. In the end they were Molly's creations, save for the rebellious gene that they had inherited from their father.
"He doesn't want to send you to prison; he just wants to be left alone." Greg complained.
"That's weird." One of the boys commented.
"Why do you think he's all alone?" the other wondered.
"He's old, that's how old people generally live. All of their friends and family are dead, so they just wait until it's their turn to follow." Greg admitted, allowing himself to frown for a moment at such a horrible morbid thought.
"He should just hurry up." one of them commented.
"Hey! Now come on, we shouldn't hate Mr. Watson just because we don't understand him. Perhaps he would rather live alone. Perhaps he's just tired." Greg suggested, shaking his head and sinking down into one of the kitchen chairs so as to read the letter. He allowed himself a glance into the kitchen, just so as to investigate his sons' whereabouts. Their clever hiding spot wasn't nearly as clever as they had imagined.
"Get off the fridge." Greg groaned, shaking his head when he saw their little limbs dangling dangerously from the top of the fridge. "And be careful!"
"He found us." Gavin murmured, his head popping out into Greg's range of vision.
"He's a detective, of course he did." Graham muttered with some disappointment, clambering down onto the ground before helping his brother, in the process dragging all of the magnets off of the fridge so that they fell to the tile floor with a loud clatter. Greg ignored them, shaking his head and focusing instead on the letter. It was a small envelope; light blue in color and addressed in the neatest of penmanship. Such handwriting always alluded to an intellectual past, or at least an upbringing focused around education. And so Mr. Watson must have been raised in a good household, that much could at least be assumed. The letter was addressed to Greg, without an address. It must have been hand delivered, which was surprising considering Greg didn't know Mr. Watson could hobble down so far. Their mailboxes were almost a quarter mile apart; certainly such a journey would take that old man a good hour and a half to complete? Greg opened the letter carefully, finding that it wasn't sealed very securely, and pulled out a nice piece of paper, folded into a small square so as to fit properly into the envelope. Inside was the same penmanship, scrawled into a short note.
Mr. Lestrade,
I would like to talk to you tomorrow at four o'clock, if your schedule allows it. Please come to the front door, I will be waiting for you there. Ring the bell. If you cannot make it, please let me know as soon as you can.
Mr. Watson
Greg frowned, having expected something a little bit more confrontational than that. Perhaps something of a warning note, or a copy of the complaint he had filed to the police department. But no, that note sounded almost kindly, something almost human. Was he trying to mend the bond between the two households? Or rather was he preparing to confront Greg face to face, was he intending on interrogating him about his unruly children...did he have any cops on the premises? Greg shuttered to imagine that, for while he held something of an important position in the department he knew that his children would be given no special treatment. More than once had they terrorized the members of the police force, whenever Molly would leave them in Greg's care for the day the boys would go about playing pranks on the members of the force, giving them quite a difficult time, and stealing their food. Now if there's anything you should never do to a police officer, it's most certainly going to be in the area of food.