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Wato was quite certain Sherlock was not the sort of detective who personally went on stakeouts, if she could help it. It wasn’t that Sherlock was unwilling to participate in the legwork of case-solving, just that stakeouts in specific seemed to Wato like the sort of thing Sherlock would say were for Shibata to do, in order to make him useful in at least some way.
And yet, here they were on a warm Wednesday evening, sitting on a blanket in a dark corner of a park. Presently Wato was witnessing the other reason she would think Sherlock wasn’t one for stakeouts; she was having very hard time staying still. In the span of ten minutes she had been picking on a loose thread on the edge of their blanket for so long the blanket was starting to unravel, built a tiny pyramid out of pebbles, and was now weaving blades of grass into some kind of rope.
“Why are we doing this again?” Wato asked.
“Didn’t Mrs. Hatano tell you?” Sherlock asked, focused on her weaving. “A friend of hers who lives near here told her there has been a suspicious man loitering around here every Wednesday night for the past three weeks. She’s too scared to walk her dog now, apparently.”
In fact Mrs. Hatano had not told Wato anything, she had just pushed a basket of food to her arms and told her to go meet Sherlock at the park. Wato looked around. The only suspicious thing she could see was a squirrel who was staring at them accusingly.
“Do you do this sort of thing often?” Wato asked, mostly just to have something to say. The weather was pleasant, the air was fragrant with the scent of some nearby flowers, the park was dark and quiet, and somehow sitting in silence here felt more awkward than it ever did at 221b.
“No,” Sherlock said. “Well, there was this one time. An illegal gambling den in the woods.”
“So, what happened?”
“I was about to win my third poker game when Inspector Reimon dragged me out.”
“Right,” Wato said. “I guess the worst I have to drag you out of here is a tree or… what are you doing?”
Sherlock tied the grass rope deftly into a bracelet around Wato’s wrist. Wato watched in stunned silence. Sherlock crossed her arms and looked away.
“Ah. Callosciurus erythraeus,” she said. “It shouldn’t be here.”
“What?” Wato asked.
“The squirrel.” Sherlock pointed at the tree.
Wato had no idea how they had gone from an unexpected bracelet to an unexpected squirrel in less than five seconds, but she decided to not ask. She took a few breaths to steady herself, and arranged her sleeve neatly over the grass bracelet to protect it from being scraped off.
“Do you want some tea?” she asked. “There’s some in the thermos.” She pulled the food basket in front of her and opened the lid.
“There’s also… oh.” She stopped and stared at the tiny note at the top of the basket. It read ‘have a great time’. With a bunch of hearts drawn around the words. Wato blushed. Mrs. Hatano was certainly teasing her.
“What’s that?” Sherlock asked.
“Nothing,” Wato said. She crumbled the note in her palm. “Empty paper. Must have fallen in by mistake.”
“It didn’t look empty.”
“It’s a shopping list. Nothing important.” Wato pushed the paper into the pocket of her coat. “So, the tea? Do you want some or… SHERLOCK!”
Sherlock tried to pry the piece of paper out of her pocket.
“Is it a shopping list or empty paper? You’re acting suspicious!”
“It’s… nothing! Why do you… Ah!”
Somehow Wato had ended up on the ground on her back with Sherlock pinning her down. Fortunately at least her coat was now crumpled underneath her, so that her pocket was out of Sherlock’s reach. She tried to avoid looking Sherlock in the eye.
“Could you… get off me?” Wato said weakly. She bit her lip. Why did her voice sound like she was asking for something else entirely?
Sherlock leaned a little closer.
“Our suspicious guy is over there,” she whispered.
That was not quite what Wato wanted to hear at a moment like that. Feeling somewhat disappointed, she turned her head to look.
“What is he doing?”
The man was wringing his hands, looking around nervously. After he seemed to be sure no one could see him, he took out some kind of wrapped package that had been hidden inside a tree.
Sherlock jumped up and ran towards the man. When Wato caught up to them, Sherlock was holding him by the collar of his coat and inspecting the package.
“Please don’t tell my wife!”
Sherlock let go of the man who slumped to the ground. Sherlock held out the package for Wato to see.
“It’s just cigarettes,” she said.
“I just need one smoke! I can’t take it! Please don’t tell my wife!” the man wailed.
“Have you been coming here every Wednesday to just smoke?” Wato asked. The man nodded.
“My wife will kill me if she finds out!”
“See? Marriage.” Sherlock smirked.
Wato took the cigarettes from Sherlock and handed them back to the man.
“Mister, we don’t even know your wife,” Wato said. “But you have been scaring the residents of this area with your behavior. Please stop this. And you really should quit smoking! Those things are bad for you.”
The sobbing man walked away cradling the cigarettes.
“I guess that’s that then,” Wato said. She straightened up her crumpled coat. “Shall we go home?”
“We still have something to do,” Sherlock said.
“What’s that?”
“Instructions from Mrs. Hatano.” Sherlock held up the crumbled note. Wato clasped her hands over her pocket.
“When did you…”
Sherlock smiled like a very satisfied cat. She spun around and began to walk back towards their blanket.
“Now, where were we? Tea? Or was it something… else?”