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Chapter 2, Scene 2 Act , Scene 2 • 06/18/2014
Challenges
The Receptionist
Le Fruit de la Rose
While not of the legendary quality of the Hotel de Soto, Le Fruit de la Rose is a pleasant alternative. It sports a popular restaurant next to its lobby and fine service despite its location in a less reputable part of town. As if to cement this fact, you pass a group of unfortunates loitering outside on your way in to the lobby.
Gideon Carter (youmforrester) moved • 06/18/2014
The Receptionist
Cocksure
| mforrester won control of the story by completing this challenge with a weak outcome. |
Gideon stopped in the lobby of the Hotel de Soto before leaving. “These places always have stationary available,” he said. “Comes in handy.”
He addressed an envelope to Atticus Wambles at Le Fruit de la Rose and then paused while looking at the hotel stationary. “Maybe it’s time to stir things up,” he said after some thought. He wrote:
Mr. Wambles,
I would like to speak with you regarding a matter of mutual financial interest. Please contact me in care of my hotel.
Mr. Caiden Garrod, Room 316, Hotel de Soto
“There. That should pique his interest. And in the meantime we’ll have had a chance to talk to him. If this all works out.”
Gideon’s Chevrolet AA sputtered a few times before he got it started. He flushed as Doctor Milton raised an eyebrow at his difficulties. “She’s just a bit temperamental,” he said. “Now when we get there, I’ll give the envelope to the desk clerk and we can take note of the room number on the mail slot. It couldn’t be simpler. We’ll have a chat with him and if he’s takes an interest in the letter when he gets it … well, maybe he’ll manage to turn up Mr. Garrod.”
It all would have worked out beautifully had the mail slots been directly behind the clerk as Gideon expected. As it turned out, the mail slots were perpendicular to the desk and he had to do a quick stutter step to the side and lean in to see the slot into which the letter was deposited. He got the number but the desk clerk gave him an odd look. He didn’t dare look at Doctor Milton’s reaction.
The narrator continued the scene • 06/18/2014
Challenges
Atticus Wambles
Room #213. After a brief delay, a man opens the door, responding to your knock. He matches the photo of Atticus Wambles that Rathbone had given you.
“Hello…can I help you?” He asks, a slight tremble in his voice.
Barbara Milton (youkgbeatnik) moved • 06/19/2014
Atticus Wambles
Unwieldy
“Mr. Atticus Wambles? I’m Doc–” she begins, glancing at Gideon for too long. “Mrs. Rose Reed. Yes. My friend and I were hoping to ask you a couple of simple questions.”
She opens her purse with a clak! and begins to pull out a folder with her collected paperwork, but the papers slip out from the bottom and scatter across the floor.
“Damn it. Just–just a moment,” she sputters and kneels, collecting the papers into a pile. Barbara glances up at Gideon and nods her head toward Wambles. Take over.
Gideon Carter (youmforrester) moved • 06/20/2014
Atticus Wambles
Streetwise
“You’re very fortunate, Mr. Wambles. We found you before someone else did. Let’s step inside and close the door.”
Gideon steps a little closer and flips open his wallet to display his private investigator’s license. Wambles involuntarily steps back letting them into the room. “Gideon Carter, insurance investigator. I’m working for Lloyd’s and I understand you may have a claim to a rather substantial estate. The sooner we can clear this up, the happier Mrs. Reed and I will be. If we can just ask you some questions about your relationship to the late Reverend March? It won’t take long.”
Gideon flips open his battered notebook and pulls out a well-chewed pencil. “Make yourself comfortable, Mr. Wambles.”
The narrator continued the scene • 06/20/2014
Atticus invites the both of you in, giving you chairs while he seats himself on the bed, but not before peeking into the hallway and securely locking the door behind him. A cold sweat coats his face.
“L-Lloyd’s? Are you here about Mr. Garrod then? I haven’t been able to reach him in over a week now…?”
Gideon Carter (youmforrester) moved • 06/20/2014
“Mr. Garrod is off the case. They’ve called me in to clean up the mess. Mrs. Reed is my very capable assistant. Now, I have some of the notes that Mr. Garrod assembled before he was unable to continue but I may have to ask you some questions that you already answered. My apologies for that but you understand the need to be thorough.”
For the first time in this case, Gideon feels comfortable. He is doing what he did best without having to reflect on his minister father or worry about another detective who went crazy. Doctor Milton had even deferred to him without an argument.
“Let’s begin at the beginning. Tell us about your relationship with Reverend March and what brings you here to Savannah.”
The narrator continued the scene • 06/21/2014
“Well…” Atticus Wambles is a man lacking in confidence, perhaps his will weakened by distress and paranoia caused by his few weeks in town now, avoiding the Marches while simultaneously trying to seek out evidence against them, but he has conviction in his belief, a firm cause to stand behind. As he begins talking he relaxes a bit, and you can sense he has much to say.
You learn that he was born in Gibson, Indiana, and that he is not a man that is hard up for money; he owns a lucrative shipping business up north. And yet, no wealth could ever ease the sting of what his father did in abandoning his mother, an incident from childhood that still haunts him to this day. His entire adult life, he has employed a national news clipping service to look for mentions of his disappeared father. Much to his surprise, they found a hit three weeks ago…though only for two out of three names.
Atticus claims that Dashell Mann March, the murdered pastor, was originally named Dashell Mann May. The portrait printed of March standing at the pulpit is identical to his childhood memories, and Wambles is convinced he has finally found his quarry in death. The scorned son doesn’t need the money from the March estate and has no special hatred for the other members of the family, but he is determined to get revenge for what March/May did to his mother all those years ago. He plans to bankrupt the corrupt and fraudulent church that he suspects March of founding solely to hide his former crimes.
Gideon Carter (youmforrester) moved • 06/25/2014
“Well now, Mr. Wambles, that’s a very interesting development. Very interesting, indeed. We do have a few more questions, if you don’t mind. This March or May,” Gideon pauses for a moment.
“March or May. Mrs. Reed, remind me to ask you about those names. Now, can you tell us about anyone to whom he might have been married? Was there a Mrs. May? And do you have any pictures? Anything with the name Dashell May on it?”
The narrator continued the scene • 06/26/2014
“Why of course, Mr. Carter, for…” He pauses, disgust on his face. “Mrs. May was my mother, though I’d prefer we don’t use that name for her. Bertha. Her name was Bertha Wambles. I don’t have any pictures. He took all traces of that stuff with him when he left.” Atticus begins talking about his childhood, his earliest memories of Dashell.
“I was born in 1902. Gibson was a small coal-mining town in which my mother lived. She had been previously married, but her first husband died in a tunnel collapse a few months after their wedding. I suppose it was a hard time for her after that. I know she met Dashell May around then…he was a foreman at the mine. They married quickly. He took care of her financially after that…and then I was born shortly thereafter.
God, that marriage was loveless from as early as I can remember. My father, Dashell, maintained this facade, an attitude of approachability and humour around the boys at the mine, at work, but as soon as he got home he became…cold. Distant. He would ramble about nonsensical historical and quasi-academic subjects to me and Mother, and then grow furious when we didn’t understand or weren’t interested.
Mother gave birth to two more kids after that…my sisters, technically.” Atticus shivers, uncomfortable. “They had…some sort of mental imbalance. They never laughed, never cried. The barely spoke to anyone save themselves, and they hated…so much hate. They hated me, but they seemed to hate Dashell even more. Their own father. I suppose I hated him too.”
Barbara Milton (youkgbeatnik) moved • 06/27/2014
Barbara blinks. Mrs. Reed. That’s her. She nods to Carter in response to his comment, if a little late.
After Atticus finishes, she clears her throat.
“Mr. Wambles,” she says with a smile. “May I call you Atticus?” I was just wondering. You said you only managed to locate your father three weeks ago. Here in Georgia.” She pauses for a moment, then it comes out as a rush of words. “What I mean to say is, we’ve been flooded with information about this matter and it seems that you have a restraining order out for you, against the Marches, issued in Indiana. Can you explain that?”
She smiles again, a bit of red touching her cheeks. “It’s just unusual, that’s all. If we can clear it up, that’d be all the quicker we can help you move things along.”
The narrator continued the scene • 06/28/2014
“A restraining order? Mrs. Reed, I never even seen the Marches until I came here three weeks ago! This dead pastor…March…the whole reason I’m here is because I suspect…no, I’m sure that he’s my runaway father, with a changed name.”
“He ran away. He ran away after he beat my mother to near death when I was ten. She never really recovered. When I was fifteen, she killed herself. And I’ve been looking for him ever since, that’s why I had the news clipping service out for him. “
A spark of memory jumps to you, a rumour you had heard or read somewhere some time ago. Gibson, Indiana - now a dead town, after some accident set the coal mine ablaze some years ago. It still burns now, the abandoned town barely more than a smoldering crater.
Gideon Carter (youmforrester) moved • 07/01/2014
Gideon thinks back to his conversation with the lawyer. The family relationships here are complicated and he feels like he’s still trying to find one end of the knot.
“Mr. Wambles, do you have any connection to Missouri? Or know anything about a Virginia May? Or it might be Virginia Maia. That a name that ever came up?”
The narrator continued the scene • 07/04/2014
“Missouri…? No. I don’t know a Virginia. Should I?”
Gideon Carter (youmforrester) moved • 07/05/2014
“No, no. There are always a lot of questions in these sorts of things. Most of them amount to nothing. Very sorry for having to take up so much of your valuable time. Now let me ask about Gibson. Dashell May was a foreman at the coal mine. Was he a native of Gibson? Anything you can tell us about his parents, siblings, other relatives? Maybe his friends? Did you stay in Gibson after the marriage?”
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