IC - 2- Day 2 - Dame Marie Sunday - Everyone

[Mephistophilis]

Pierre and Fabrice are up early to head down to Pointe Pierre to prepare the boat to pick George Benson up from Cap Matelot.

Florence is already awake, spending a restless few hours worrying about Marise and the events of last night. Unable to get back to sleep with the roosters crowing she creeps into the room where Marise is sleeping along with the little ones and she examines the golden hairclip. In the blackness, tinged with the slightest red glow of dawn, it doesn't seem so extraordinary, just a bad depiction of a sea creature. She pulls it out and tosses it into the patch of vegetable waste out the back window, it slowly sinks into the filth.

OOC,You can recover Insight by destroying mythos objects but not until your Insight is at 5

Tired and with a nagging headache, Florence returns later to wake Marise and finds her lying on her side, awake and staring blankly at the wall. She is no more forthcoming about what happened last night.

Florence busies herself getting the children up and breakfasted. Marise hardly eats anything, listlessly spooning the cornmeal around the bowl. Ginette starts to tease her older sister about the fuss in the night but when she sees Marise's lethargic demeanour she thinks better of it. Young Rosalie remains her usual, irrepressible self, tearing around the confines of the small house.

Not able to trust Marise in charge of the younger ones, Florence walks a few doors down and reluctantly wakes her sister Lusette, asking her to watch the children.

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Waking in the one room shack he shares with his father, Laurent stretches and looks out at the sun rising over the blue waters of the Caribbean. Despite his late night he's slept well and feels rested. After checking his feet for chigres, nasty little insects that lay eggs under the nails, he breakfasts and hurries over to the Lavigne house. He intends to meet with Florence Lavigne, mother to his close friend Pierre. He's not entirely sure what Florence intends to do about last night's events but he wants to help his friend's family and if that helps Pierre's pretty sister Marise, well all the better.

-----

By the time Laurent arrives it is still fairly early in the morning, but the freshness of the dawn is already giving way to the heat and the humidity of a St Joe day. A few roosters still crow here and there, but nowhere near as many as at dawn.

[SunlessNick]

Florence is expecting Laurent, and makes some extra breakfast - she lets the girls know he's coming, hoping that it will get some sign of animation from Marise (but not much hope).

She doesn't really know what to do about last night either. What she can think of is searching beach near where Etienne found Marise, to see if anything more is visible in the daylight - or going to the Azagon to speak with Lindo again - or going to the Anse Douse, since both of them seemed to be going there. She could try to find someone from the Voudun procession, but she doesn't know what they could have to do with this:

OOC,Roll to recognise any of them or to know if they were stangers to the town 3, and 4 if a second die is available for being a resident; not risking any more insight over it.

[Mr. Handy]

"Merci beaucoup!" says Laurent when he arrives and sees the food. He tells Florence and her family what he knows about George Benson.

[SunlessNick]

"He lends his boat out sometimes? Let us see if anyone was borrowing it last night. No, let us see if someone has been borrowing it often."

[Mr. Handy]

"Good idea," says Laurent.

[SunlessNick]

Florence is wearing red today, perhaps with a desire for a ferocity. She head's for Benson's Dame Marie office.

[Mr. Handy]

Laurent accompanies her, wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt.

[Mephistophilis]

Talking about last night's ceremony, neither Florence nor Laurent can recall seeing any Vodou priests they knew, no houngans or mambos, but they aren't completely au fait with the Hounfor part of town and all the people and goings on there. But they're both sure they recognised people from Dame Marie in the crowd, these were definitely locals.

Laurent mentions that he did see one person he knew, Pierre Labas, standing under a sacred malou tree, drumming on his guitar.

Pierre is often seen about town, with his guitar and little dog. Laurent likes him because he often plays American songs, usually the blues but jazz as well. Florence knows him well from the Sharktooth Bar. He's of indeterminate age, maybe his sixties, but probably the oldest person in Dame Marie and the source of a lot of rumours and folklore. People say he's from the original village, the only surviving resident. They say it was a hurricane, washed away the village and everyone in it. That’s what they say.

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Benson's office is on the ground floor of a house on the main street down towards the waterfront. When Laurent and Florence arrive it seems to be shut. A woman leans over the balcony above and shouts, 'Try the door.' When Laurent turns the door handle it doesn't seem to be locked.

Stepping inside the cramped office they can see a few chairs, a bureau scattered with papers and with a telephone on top, a rare sight in Dame Marie. On the walls are tacked various charts of the north coast of St. Joe.

[SunlessNick]

While waiting for the woman to come down, Florence looks at the maps to see what points are prominently marked (she presumes she won't have time to make anything of the papers, even if they happen to be in Creole in the first place).

[Mr. Handy]

Laurent, who does know some English, looks at the papers without touching them.

[Mephistophilis]

The charts have various markings and notations, the most obvious, at least to Florence's eye, are various areas of sea circled around the old buccaneer island of Ile du Vent just off the coast. Further areas are circled between Ile du Vent and the disputed island of St Albin to the west, where the US maintains a lighthouse. She isn't able to decipher the labels scrawled beside the circles.

The papers themselves are scattered across Benson's desk. Laurent can't make anything of them, they seem to be hand written summaries of fishing catches, assessments of what areas of the sea give the highest yields, and requests to St Joe City to fund more fishing equipment among other things. He does notice, just poking out from under another letter, a thick cream coloured notelet, with something written in a neat feminine hand quite different to Benson's scrawl.

Before he can look any closer the lady from the balcony emerges from the stairs. She's a cheerful woman in her fifties, moving unhurriedly and a bit stiffly. 'Bonjou, I'm afraid m'sié Benson isn't here right now, if you can find something to write on you could leave him a message.'

Glancing at the photo on Benson's desk would be enough to confirm that this St Joe commère is not Benson's wife, probably his landlady. But Laurent already knows that, this isn't Alice Benson.

The photo shows a young white man, ruddy faced, chisel jawed, handsome like the American film stars. He's wearing a helmet and padding that Laurent recognises as American football gear. The man is clearly a young George Benson. And beside him the pale teenage girl is his now wife Alice, even in black and white he can see the large dark green eyes, wide mouth, and full lips. She's beautiful, as Laurent knows, because she teaches English part-time at the École Dame Marie.

[Mr. Handy]

"We came to pick him up in our boat, Madame," says Laurent.

[SunlessNick]

"And I was curious about his own boat," Florence adds. "I understand he sometimes allows its use by guests?"

[Mephistophilis]

The woman looks puzzled, 'Dezole, mwen pa konprann, m'sie Benson already left this morning, taking his boat to Cap Matelot, some politician from St Joe City is taking it out for a pleasure cruise this weekend. He said one of the fishermen will pick him up from there.'

She sees the confusion in their faces, You see, George doesn't own the boat, it's owned by the government, they bought it for him to do his job, with the fishermen. And all that was available at the time was that big cruiser, so the politicians want to have their fun with it, with Ti Maman, hah, a suitable name I think, with all the girlfriends who get taken out on it.'

[Mr. Handy]

"We're the ones who are going to pick him up from Cap Matelot," says Laurent.

[SunlessNick]

"Was anyone aboard it last night?" Florence asks. (if the woman wants to know why she's asking, she'll say she saw someone messing around with the fishing boats, and since M'sieur Benton's is so much grander feared the same thing might have happened with it).

[Mephistophilis]

'Well you should get going if you don't want him to have to wait around for hours in Cap Matelot!'

She looks at them suspiciously, 'I expect the Ti Maman was tied up in Pointe Pierre last night, like it always is...who did you say you were again? Kijan ou rele?'

OOC,Do you want to be going with Fabrice and Pierre to pick up Benson or is that just a ruse to pump the lady for information?

[SunlessNick]

She looks at them suspiciously, 'I expect the Ti Maman was tied up in Pointe Pierre last night, like it always is...who did you say you were again? Kijan ou rele?'

"Florence Lavigne," Florence answers before wondering if it might have been better to give a false one. But she has no real reason to suspect anything sinister of the woman, so she adds, "Fabrice Lavigne is my husband. Something happened by the water last night. I was hoping, if there had been someone aboard, they might have seen something."

OOC,Florence would rather follow up one of the other possibilities and ask Fabrice and Pierre about Benson later. However Laurent has already said he's going, and she doesn't want to make a liar out of him, so if he'd prefer to go, she won't ask him to remain with her.

[Mr. Handy]

"And I'm Laurent," says Laurent. "I'm a friend of their children. I've come along to help."

[Mephistophilis]

Mollified by their apparent readiness to give their names the woman loosens up. 'Lavigne, yes, I think that's who George said was picking him up. I don't think there was anyone on the boat last night. Look, you do need to get going. George set off hours ago and I doubt your boat has the speed of his cruiser, even with those new outboard motors of his.'