01 / 13 / 11 - Jean-Paul, Marie (NPC), Remy
The house is old, bearing signs of living for generations. Untouched by flood and, if broken by storm, now restored, it sits quiet in the midst of its neighborhood, light spilling golden pale from the lantern-style lamp that lights the house number and illumines the narrow strip of the porch. The knocker is in the form of an ancient brass lion's head. One of the windows is open onto the street and a quiet, low strain of jazz music escapes into the cool air.
Jean-Paul knocks with the brisk, authoritarian air of a government man in a cheap suit. He carries a gun holstered beneath the jacket, although its load is decidedly non-lethal -- or maybe that is a misleading way to put it. Anyway. He knocks.
Remy is a well-scrubbed and earnest looking outrider to Jean-Paul, clad in a similar sort of suit, and with a similar sort of gun holstered to disrupt the unremarkable lines of his suit jacket around one armpit. Hair neatly parted and slicked back, eyes contact-clad, he carries an official looking attache case with him as well. It may contain papers, or it may contain sandwiches.
It is a moment before anyone answers the door. Finally, someone does: the blonde who wore white and pushed the wheelchair at Jackson Square, although this time the slight, fine-boned young woman is /differently/ monochromatic, in a blue sweater and blue slacks. Apparently she only dresses in one color at a time. "Oui, messieurs?" she says, looking between them with uptwitched eyebrows. "{How may I help you?}"
Jean-Paul tips his head at the outpouring of French, and for a moment, he hesitates before answering. When he does, his words are English: "Hi, miss. Is your grandmother in? We need to speak with Marie." He has a badge. It is official.
Remy, playing silent backup for the moment, nontheless produces his badge as well. The motion is paired with an earnest nod.
The young woman widens her eyes, blinking honest startlement as she looks between them. "Uhh," she says, a syllable of fractured dignity. "Uhm, just a second." She pinches her fingertips together in the air, and then closes the door on them.
Jean-Paul tips his head at Remy along the side of the house. Unlikely as it is that a little old lady might sneak out a back window, he still suggests: "Want to keep an eye out?"
"I'll keep both of 'em out," Remy confirms, with an accent that, while remaining Southern, has had all traces of local Yat scrubbed from it, just in case of eavesdroppers. It seems to be a more blue-collar version of Adam, for those keeping score at home. With another little nod, he heads off along the side yard with eyes alert for both potential avenues of escape (Of little old lady class and -their- class too.) and potential signs of booby traps.
There are a few sounds that escape from the open window, but they mostly seem to indicate a flaily young woman presented with a totally new and bizarre situation and no idea how to deal with it. If there are booby traps, they are not immediately apparent. Only a couple of minutes pass. Then the door opens again, the young blonde standing before it with her cheeks flushed bright pink and her hair looking considerably more mussed. "Sure. Uhm." She hesitates, even as she pulls the door open and starts to gesture them inside. "Grandmere asks that visitors take their shoes off," she says with a kind of embarrassed helplessness. "I don't know if police -- take their shoes off. If you do, please do?"
Jean-Paul waits until Remy circles around and rejoins him -- and then he takes his shoes off. "Of course," he says. He is nothing if not polite. Then he gestures an 'after you'.
A hand gesture signals an all clear, and while Remy pauses a moment at the request, eyebrows twitching, he's soon beinding and unlacing a pair of cheap-but-professional dress shoes, broken in as part of his official FBI suit, to stand in sock feet just inside the door. His socks are maroon.
The blonde looks tremendously relieved. "Thank you so much," she says sincerely, and then turns to lead them through the house. The tiled entryway gives way to a carpeted hallway whose carpeting is very pale, perhaps the reason for the interdict on shoes. Framed photographs line the hallway, a series of different personable young women, a few obviously familial shots. And then from there into a living room with chintzy chairs. A small stereo system leaks quiet atmospheric jazz instrumentals into the air, overheated by the glow of the fireplace, though a cool whisper of the winter sneaks in through the partly open window.
The old woman sits in one of the chintz chairs, staring into the fire without looking up. Gone is the lustrous black wig. Instead, only a few thin wisps of white hair curl across her dark head, her skin all coppery-brown and wrinkled. There is no family resemblance between her and the young blonde who addresses her as Grandmere, that is for certain. Vielle Marie sits, and watches the flames, and listens to her music. One hand curls across the silver serpent head of her long black stick, its narrow end pressed into the soft carpet underfoot. She gives no sign of noticing that anybody has come in.
Jean-Paul nods brief thanks to the young woman, and then turns to position himself where he can see them both, the young and the old. Call him paranoid, maybe, but his back is solid to a wall, and not any window. (He's paranoid.) "You have overplayed your hand, ma'am," he says as opener, ball passed to Remy.
Remy, meanwhile, claims a standing-space where he can keep near an exit and keep an eye on the windows without turning too much away from Vielle Marie. He holds the attache case firmly before him, like some beacon of Truth and Justice. "Julian Boudreaux was admitted to hospital last night," he picks up the ball neatly, his tone firm and his gaze steadily level. "Arsenic poisoning. There's an easy way and a hard way to go from here, ma'am. For the sake of your family, think about which one you'd like."
The young blonde behind the two men gives a little squeaky gasp, covering her mouth with both hands.
Marie taps her stick once against the floor of her family home. There is a scent in the air like cinnamon and spices, like something warm and delicious slowly coming into being in the heart of an oven. (These aren't causally related.) Her eyebrows twitch up. "Well, young man," she says, with a kind of brittle irony and bland humor mingled together in the ancient rasp of her voice. "Which is which?"
"Your crimes are known, and the Baron has you in his sights," Jean-Paul says with a bland note of not-apology to be the bearer of this sad news.
"Easy would be for you to turn State's Evidence, ma'am," Remy answers, sturdy and solid like a young man taking refuge in procedure when faced with someone's grandma ought to be. "The Baron, as head of a crime syndicate, is someone we'd like to see brought down, for obvious reasons. Turn State's Evidence, give us a clear and honest account of your involvement in these affairs and we'll do our best to shield you from the Baron while we're bringing him in, -and- your family and community doesn't get torn apart by seeing you facing at the very least accessory charges."
Marie taps the stick once more against the carpet. Her eyes narrow, beadily, on the flicker and dance of the flames. For a long, long moment, she does not speak. The blonde creeps a few paces closer, peering towards her as though checking to make sure the old woman hasn't fallen asleep or gone into a Loa-ridden fortune-telling trance. Finally Marie does make a sound, and it is a low, crackling laugh. "From the Baron," she repeats, incredulously.
With an open-palmed gesture, Jean-Paul indicates the blonde. "If this continues to escalate, it will draw in those around you. End it, now. Because it will only get worse."
"-You- might not have cause to fear him, ma'am," Remy answers, off Jean-Paul's gesture at the granddaughter. "But can you say the same for the sort of people he could bring to bear against your loved ones? The FBI isn't in the business of breaking up families. Not if we have other options."
Marie presses the spoke of her cane into the floor and slowly, with a crackle of bone and creak of muscle, slowly rises to her feet. She thunks her cane against the floor as she turns to face them, tiny and fierce with disdain writ clear in her dark eyes. She says firmly, "I will have none of this. I need no protection from the likes of /him/."
Jean-Paul meets her disdain with a flash of irritation smothered under a stubborn-jawed tension. "For Christ's sake, there are better ways to bring him down than /murder/. Without your evidence, it will take us longer to bring him in; without your confession, you /will/ see your family and community destroyed by this case and by its prosecution."
"I do believe you want what's best for your family, ma'am," Remy answers, all solid -concern- now. "We've got to do our jobs. But you're the one who's determining what path we take to do them. Will you help us, and help your family?"
"My family can help themselves, else I ain't raised 'em right," Marie says, looking beadily at them. Her nostrils flare. "So you young gov'mint boys have come to hunt yo'selves a witch, now, have you?" She looks imperious, glaring at Remy and Jean-Paul in turn. "Oh, you might could bring an old woman down. No doubt there. She's old, she's slow. Maybe all her marbles not what they used to be." Her breath escapes in a winded, wheezy cackle. "But it will end in ashes for you. I bet you both too damn young to fear a curse."
"No." Jean-Paul's voice is without any leavening of mood. Flat and stark, he says, "We came to stop a murderer." It's a good line, but he has nothing to follow it up with once it is said.
"There's helping themselves, and then there's the shame of having their own grandmother in jail, facing trial. Havin' the nows boys up in every corner of your business -- there's no way we could keep it off the radar, ma'am, not an arrest in a case like this." Remy lacks the sheer physical presence to be a properly apple-pie-eating side of beef, but there's a little of the quality in his eyes and in his stance as he appears to completely ignore the threats of curses. "Miss," he wonders, turning to look to the granddaughter as he questions her. "Tell me. Wouldn't -you- rather have your grandmama with you?"
The slight blonde folds her arms tight over her chest, looking anxious. She looks toward Marie, and then toward the men, and then warily toward Marie again. "'Course I don't want Grandmere to go to jail, but-- but."
"I ain't goin' to jail," Marie says with plain certainty in her voice, despite all evidence to the contrary. She lifts her stick, wavering on her feet as she robs herself of its support, and points it at them. "There ain't gonna be no trial. There ain't no end for a witch but burnin'."
"You're not a witch." A twist of contempt in his voice, Jean-Paul says, "You're a sick old woman." The intonation suggests something more than a cold. "You are a danger and your vengeance is short-sighted. Do you want him brought down, really and truly, because I have seen /no/ sign of that from you. All I see is the arrogant foolishness of someone who's pride has grown beyond their reason."
Remy, apparently being the Good Fed, shifts uncomfortably at that. "She has her beliefs..." he says, with a little uncertain trailing off as befits someone raised with a very different set of them that's trying to be Accepting and Accomodating of the Diversity of America. He turns his attention back to Marie, though. "We're not burning anyone, ma'am. But so far the only reasons you've given for not helping us seem to be ones you're making up yourself."
Any chill of her own, any disdain, any of that imperious force that sneered across her features flashes away in a blaze of hot rage. The old woman stares venom at Jean-Paul, her face contorting in some bizarre rictus of an expression. "I don't /need/ your help!" she cries. "You don't know nothin' 'bout pride! You don't know nothin' 'bout what I believe! Nor 'bout what I am!" The staff twists in her hands, pointing back toward the fireplace. She shouts out a word, screaming to some snakey spirit as she presses her thumb hard into the back of the serpent's silver head. The staff's end shoots a ball bearing on a crack of air, louder than it is threatening, except for the way it shatters into the glass that shields the roaring fire beind it from the rest of the room, spilling sparks and embers across the soft carpet amongst the shards.
An oath that is not at all proper for a nice young Fed escapes from Remy, as he darts back for the doorway on autonomic auto-pilot before he catches himself with a hand on the doorframe. "Ma'am!" he snaps. "Control yourself, or we'll have to call EMS!"
Responses wired all wrong, Jean-Paul darts toward rather than away from the voodoo lady and her stupid stick. Jealous of her style, he reaches to take it from her before she can do any other tricks with it. He leaves the dire threats to Remy.
The fire catches, ignites, beginning to eat into that pale carpet and to spread in a slow but inexorable outward. Marie, about to crow something at the top of her voice, probably like that they don't know anything about BURNING either -- instead gives an undignified squawk as she finds the prop of her stick abruptly taken from her; her grip is not really all that strong and it is easy to divest her of it. There she stands wavering and shocked, like she is about to tip over and fall at any second. Where she did not look frightened at the prospect of prison, or trial, or the Baron, or any of that -- now fear shows in her face, in the blanch of her features as she teeters on the brittle spindles of her legs.
"Oh Jesus," says Remy, as the fire doesn't stay where the fire ought to. "Miss! If you got a fire extinguisher in the house, get it -now-." With that, he gives a quick dart forward to scan the room, looking for a blanket or throw with a heavy enough weave to be used for smothering. (The fire, not the old lady.)
Don't worry, voodoo lady. Jean-Paul won't let you fall into the fire. Stupid stick in his left, he reaches to scoop and toss /her/ over his shoulder in a totally undignified heft. He ambles away from the blaze. Maybe he gets bitten and clawed more, IDK.
There's a lot of old stuff in the room, but most of it looks dry enough that it would probably make better kindling than smotherer. The blonde gives a little peep, and is pulling her cell phone from her blue trouser pocket even as she scurries out into the hall to fetch the fire extinguisher.
The old woman lets out a strangled cry as she finds herself so handled, trembling and quivering in place, and kicks only once or twice, doing more to stir the colorful gauze of her skirt than to accomplish anything to bestir her from her, uh, rescuer. Then, with this last assault on her dignity apparently the breaking point, she breaks into a single, crack-voiced, wheezy sob. Just one.
With a swear, Remy ends up whipping off the cheap but thick cloth of his Fed Suit, the gun and its holster out and open as he swings it about and stomps on it to try and keep the fire from advancing. Highly unprofessional swearing continues, although he retains the wit to keep it English, interrupted only by a "-Tell- me you don't need a hand with her?" to suggest that Jean-Paul and his old lady troubles have registered at all. FIRE BAD.
Jean-Paul feels real bad about that, gramma. Let's go outside. He doesn't need a phone to summon fire and police: he has a comm. With a wave of two hands to Remy as he passes, he calls for reinforcements of the local sort, and sets his new lady friend down in the cool evening air. He keeps the stick.
Outside in the cooler air, the old woman still trembles. Finally, she reaches with a lean for the railing by her own front step. She folds herself down into a seat thereon, and leans her forehead against her own arm, shivering and quaking at his feet. She hisses something low and French under her breath, a profanity of sacrilege rather than of filth.
Happily, the carpet hasn't been soaked in gasoline or brandy or anything. Although the creep of the fire threatens, Remy largely holds it in check by his efforts, at least until the slight blonde scurries back into the room under the unwieldy burden of the fire extinguisher, which she fumbles awkwardly with. "Duck!" she shouts, right before Remy gets sprayed all over with flame-retardant chemicals if he doesn't dodge fast enough. The white stuff gets just about everywhere. Her aim is not great.
The way that stuff spreads, even Remy's AMAZING PARKOUR REFLEXES don't spare him from looking like he's just been given a popcorn ceiling treatment. (Also, old lady living rooms are not ideal locations for parkour anyways, so he just dodges conventionally.) Still... no fire is good fire, and he lifts a hand to rake against his hair before hunching slightly forward with a bend to his knees and shaking out his jacket turned burlap sack. It is not really in a state that can be taken to a tailor for repairs. Breathing hard, adrenaline singing, he turns to the slight blonde and nonetheless manages to give her a crook of a smile, stippled with foam as it is, and a "Quick work, miss. Now... we should be getting outside, yeah?"
If they have nothing else in common, at least Jean-Paul and Marie share a preference in profanity. He waits. At least if Marie goes running, he can probably catch her again.
The blonde makes a noise partway between agreement and -- well, just kind of a squeaky hiccup. She drops the fire extinguisher. It thunks heavily. It's a good thing it doesn't fall on anybody's feet. She puts her face in her hands. "Hell," she says. "Grandmere-- /really/--?"
Marie does not seem like she is going anywhere. She sits slumped on her front step. Eventually, as the cry of the sirens first begins to tickle at the distant edges of hearing, she crackles out lowly in her wheezy voice, "Well'p. Guess I was wrong."
"For what it's worth, miss," says Remy, stepping over to offer her his arm for an escort out to less smoke and CO2 filled spaces, "She likely gave the poison to other folks who did the work. If she can be made to cooperate with us... well, I'm not really wanting to put anyone's grandmama in prison, and I doubt anyone else on the case is either."
Jean-Paul says nothing. It is a pointed nothing.
The blonde accepts Remy's escort with a kind of wariness in her look as her hands fall away from her face. "Hell," she says again, and falls quiet as he escorts her out.
Marie leaves her admission of wrongness to hang there in the cool winter air, and waits.
Remy is likewise quiet, merely escorting the blonde out to the front to join Jean-Paul and his silent old lady. His rather ruined suit jacket is still folded neatly over one arm as he settles down to a seat on the steps.
Reaching a new low, Jean-Paul beats up old ladies and makes them cry.