[Horror/Monster Hunters] American Small Town Mystery

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by Kymage

Local Doctor and maybe a local attorney- someone has to do the deeds and wills. Also someone has to represent the local power structure in various pleadings. If there is a local bank, whoever runs the bank (President or branch manager)

Good point.

There isn't a local doctor and the nearest hospital is more than 30 miles away, but the local Physician Assistant makes housecalls for those who can't get to her. She's named Victoria Grover and would be pretty young at the time the game is set (she started as a PA in 1982, so has been in business for six years).

There's a nurse practisioner who lives nearby as well, Paula Carson Charette. She currently works in North Maine Medical Center, but I'm sure she has an arrangment with the school, at least.

I should check on a local bank.

I've got one lawyer already, but he's a successful lawyer who's practised in Portland, Maine and is now enjoying playing big fish at home, where he's a County Comissioner. Might want an actual working lawyer in St. Francis.

[Icelander]

How crazy is it to take a canoe or kayak out on the Allagash River in winter?

Is it even theoretically possible for the Allagash to freeze over near where it meets the St. John river? Or have a mostly passable route over racing shards of ice from an island to land*, during a legendary frost and blizzard, at least?

*Not in the sense that a PC could actually travel there, but that something maybe could.

[SionEwig]

Originally Posted by Icelander

He's here. Also teaches and has another, non-school job as a child psychologist*. I'm sure the real O'Connel has been slandered fouly by the eager way the fictional one is embracing the thrill of the FBI investigating the childhoof of one of his old students, who has been revealed as a famous serial killer, no less!

*True in the real Allagash in 1996, so I decided that the same man was there, in his 40s instead of his 60s.

Might also be the principal of the school and for that size probably is.

I've introduced one member, who is a local businessman. How many are there on local school boards?

Variable depending on the state and local area. In this case I'd go with 5-7 as being realistic (one of whom is the chairman), and they would probably be elected. Note that the superintendent of the district is very probably not on the school board. School Boards are ... often strange, especially rural and small town ones. They can effectively wield more power and influence than the local council.

At the time, the Maine School District 10 only serves Allagash and there are only some 60 students between age 6-14 in total. It can only exist because of hefty state rural subsidies to the school district.

Typical.

There's a Catholic church in St. Francis, 10 miles from what technically counts as Main Street in Allagash (which is mostly wilderness that someone called a township). Should there be another in Allagash, serving some 450 souls that live within 130 square miles?

Are there other denominations there?

I don't really know the area, but there probably would not be another RC parish in Allagash. As to other denominations, I would have at least one other, probably one of the mainstream protestant denomination and then something else.

[Icelander]

Two out of three PCs are extremely out of place in Aroostook County, Maine. One of them, Frank Corelli, is actually pretty typical of the East Coast tourists who come to Maine to hike and hunt, in that he's an outdoor enthusiast who went hunting every deer season growing up in New Jersey and has been working in Massachusetts the past five years, usually taking his vacation in the form of some nature hike or hunting trip.

The PCs are taking Dr. Samuel Chen, a professor of psychology at NYU and a part-time behavioural analyst for the FBI, to Aroostook County to do a day or two of pointless dot-the-i type interviews to provide material for whatever lead investigator in BSU ends up writing a book about a serial killer they caught up in New York and the press dubbed the 'Werewolf of the Village'. The PCs are increasingly coming to believe that Dr. Chen is planning such a book of his own.

Victor Jude Dufresne, the suspect in the nineteen homicides that fall under the purview of the serial killer task force that comprises the FBI, US Marshals, NYSP, NJSP, ISP, MSP, NYPD, JCPD, PAPD, CPD and BPD, is already in NYPD custody. Dufresne has told various investigators about five different lies about his childhood and family, not to mention friends and acquintances. He's coyly averred that there might be other murders and alleges that he knows about murders committed by a third party. Mostly, though, he seems to be lying. The PCs still have to check it out, because in a high-profile murder trial, statements made to investigators that are not followed up might be seized on by press and make someone look bad.

There is also a decent chance that the Dufresne had an accomplice for one or more of the murders that have been linked to him, which means that unearthing more background might actually have a useful investigative function. The odds are heavily against any such accomplice having a connection with a place that the suspect seems to have left six years ago and never returned to, of course, especially as there are several much more likely avenues of investigation in New York or Chicago, where he attended college. But the PCs are not assigned to those avenues of investigation, they are handling the scut work out in the boonies.

Making the local law do it is problematic, mainly because the suspect's father, Abel Dufresne, is the Lieutenant of the Aroostook County Sheriff's Office that is in charge of the area where the people that the PCs need to interview live. As part of a division of responsibility agreement with the Maine State Police, Lt. Dufresne is the most senior lawman anywhere west of Eagle Lake, at least until Canada. And some of the cryptic, self-contradictory statements that the younger Dufresne has been regaling investigators with might be interpreted as suggestions that Lt. Abel Dufresne is complicit and/or guilty of serious crimes.

The PCs are:

Supervisory Special Agent Frank Corelli (age 45)
Tall, spare, silent and dignified. Dominates any room with sheer presence.
B. 5th of March, 1943, Camden, New Jersey.
Frank is old-fashioned, even quaint, in his music, fashion sense and values. He was working himself through college in his home state of New Jersey to earn a teaching degree when Vietnam started heating up. He enlisted in the USMC in 1964 and was sent to OCS midway through his first tour. He did two more tours and ended his war at the rank of Captain in 1971. He also finished his teaching degree and added a second major, of Chemistry, after he got home. After graduating, Corelli joined the FBI, as many of his fellow veterans did. As a Special Agent of the FBI, Corelli has worked in his home state, as well as Minneapolis, New York and Boston, before his current, less than favourable posting to the resident agency in Houlton, Maine at the end of 1988. There are a lot of stories about Frank Corelli in the Bureau, favourable, even heroic ones among the old school who miss the Hoover years, but much less charitable ones among the new guard and politically sensitive prosecutors, some of whom consider him a knuckle-dragging, reactionary dinosaur.
Good with his hands, self-reliant, careful, thoughtful and sensible. Very sure of himself. Doesn't shout or glare, but still manages to be intimidating when necessary. Actually a very good judge of character and even, though he hides it quite well, empathatic at heart.

Special Agent Rene Ledoux (age 34)
Handsome Cajun man with a runner's build and rougish charm. Loud dress sense.
B. 4h of July, 1954, in Thibodaux, Louisiana.
Joined the Army too late to be deployed before the Vietnam War officially ended. High military aptitude test scores and an ear for languages somehow got him a posting to Special Forces, where he managed to spend two years in Southeast Asia even though the Vietnam War was over. Also spent some time on Okinawa during his four-year enlistment. Returned to civilian life to attend Lafayette, graduating with a musicology degree (with minors in modern language and criminology). Joined the FBI in 1981. Spent 1986-1988 working undercover in Miami, where he picked up a taste for white suits, loud shirts and, allegedly, cocaine. No misconduct proven, no official investigation resulted, but a posting to the New England Division resulted. Upon showing up there early Monday morning, was presented with fleet car and a short-term assignment before being assigned a permanent duty within the division, i.e. picking up an academic working for the FBI at Bangor airport and drive him to meet other agents in Houlton.
Good interviewer, more for his charm than any exceptional ability to read witnesses. Amateur cartographer and hiker. Speaks at least four languages and several more dialects. Superb dancer. Keen student of foreign cultures, their cuisine, music, dance and martial arts. Enjoyed exotic foreign military postings and undercover assignments as FBI agent. Is not sure he'll enjoy working in an office.

Special Agent Maria Lucia de la Guerre y Estevez (age 23)
Pretty, perky Valley Girl who tries to dress and act tough, 'street' and 'cool', but is hampered by it being the 80s and her getting her fashion and lifestyle ideas from MTV and never seeing anyone 'street' except from a chauffeured car.
B. 14th of November, 1965, Beverly Hills, California.
Born to a mother from one of the original Spanish families of pre-Mexican California and a successful father who built a minor electronics company into a highly-lucrative government contractor that makes guidance chips for missiles, Maria excelled in every subject and extra-currical activity throughout her youth, but never really had time for friends or leisure. She was a baby ballerina, star gymnast, black-belt akidoka, gifted violin player, math prodigy, and every parents' dream until she went to Stanford (at 16). While she did graduate with awe-inspiring grades as a Master of Computer Science there, she also started her late-onset, quasi-teenage rebellion, albeit one by a Type A personality who doesn't really get rebellion. Instead of experimenting with alcohol, drugs and her sexuality, like normal college students, she decided to join the FBI and interned as a programmer and technician there in the summers while taking her degree.
She's now a new graduate of Quantico, eager to prove herself worthy of being an FBI agent in the field. Despite acing both the academic and physical parts of the curriculum, her new partner, Frank Corelli, clearly does not believe that a Yuppie Valley Girl Daddy's Little Princess, someone who seems to think bad people are people who weren't hugged enough, can actually police anything.

[Tuk the Weekah]

Originally Posted by Icelander

How crazy is it to take a canoe or kayak out on the Allagash River in winter?

Is it even theoretically possible for the Allagash to freeze over near where it meets the St. John river? Or have a mostly passable route over racing shards of ice from an island to land*, during a legendary frost and blizzard, at least?

*Not in the sense that a PC could actually travel there, but that something maybe could.

Here's an interesting resource for you. Apparently a late February thaw is not unusual for the rivers, but they might have some ice floes to deal with while kayaking. Not something the average beginner would try, I'd guess, but something that would probably be tempting to an experienced kayaker. Should give you lots of good colour as well. Please note: the next report is due 17 March, so I've saved the March 3 report as a Pages document, in case today's disappears. Let me know if you need it.

[adm]

Sorry I didn't get to the Law Enforcement question sooner.

Sheriffs are an elected office, often rife with cronyism. The local Sheriff could be anything from a corrupt individual who will cover up a murder for enough money/favors; to an idealist who believes that the Law must be enforced fairly.

Local Law enforcement rarely requires any real training or gets much pay, and is often a nepotism job.

The best case scenario is for either Sheriff or local Police Chief being someone who retired out of a bigger city and took the job to keep himself busy.

Note that pretty much all of the above will ignore the low level wrong doings of those people that are important, i.e. speeding, illegal parking, etc.

Churches;

I live on the edge of the Bible Belt, there are more churches here than there likely are in Maine. I live eight miles from the nearest town, and have 3 Baptist and one Methodist church within two miles of my house. That I know of. Since rural churches tend to scattered around close enough for people who have to milk the cows to get to church and home on foot or by wagon (Cars did not become an every family has one item until roughly 1960. In the 1980's is when the first significant loss of rural churches started, as the older congregants passed away.), there are likely several scattered through the area you are using.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by adm

Sorry I didn't get to the Law Enforcement question sooner.

Sheriffs are an elected office, often rife with cronyism. The local Sheriff could be anything from a corrupt individual who will cover up a murder for enough money/favors; to an idealist who believes that the Law must be enforced fairly.

Local Law enforcement rarely requires any real training or gets much pay, and is often a nepotism job.

The best case scenario is for either Sheriff or local Police Chief being someone who retired out of a bigger city and took the job to keep himself busy.

Note that pretty much all of the above will ignore the low level wrong doings of those people that are important, i.e. speeding, illegal parking, etc.

The thing is, the local County Sheriff's Office is located in Houlton, Aroostook County, Maine, about 2.5-3 hours drive away from the adventure area* and over four hours drive from the furthest points in Aroostook County which the Sheriff is responsible for.

I've assumed that a senior Deputy Sheriff or Sheriff's Deputy who lived nearby was responsible for that part of the county, with several part-time deputies available locally. I've also postulated county-owned facilities and parking for when the Sheriff and more deputies have to drive over on some case.

I made the local deputy a Lieutenant in rank, as it appears that County Sheriff's Offices in Maine use a number of ranks, including at least Deputy, Sergeant, Lieutenant, Captain, Chief Deputy and Sheriff.

All except the Sheriff appear to be technically and legally 'Deputy Sheriffs' (seems to be preferred in Maine over Sheriff's Deputy), but I don't know whether they are properly addressed by their rank or by the title Deputy Sheriff.

Edit: Turns out that the Aroostook County Sheriff's Office is small enough so that there is no need for the higher ranks there. Today, it comprises a Sheriff, a Chief Deputy, two patrol sergeants and six patrol officers. There are also about three part-time deputies for each full time deputy, but I guess most of them are just called out for emergencies and many of the rest just work during the height of hunting/tourism seasons.

As my game is set in 1988 and Abel Dufresne is a fictional NPC who is noted as having been offered the post of Chief Deputy, but refusing to move to Houlton, I'm fine with him holding the rank of Lieutenant, even if that does not exist in the modern, real Aroostook County Sheriff's Office. That means he will outrank State Police patrol sergeants when they come int 'his' domain, which is fine, as the Lieutenant in charge of F Troop of the Maine State Police also has enormous respect for Lt. Dufresne.

*Which is concentrated in the 'town' of Allagash, Aroostook County, Maine (131.42 square miles with less than 500 inhabitants), but with parts of the adventure being set in the unincorporated section of the town named Dickey, out in the unorganised territory of Northwest Aroostook, in the neighbouring towns of St. Francis and Saint John Plantation and with maybe the occasional run up to Fort Kent to visit a store with a wider selection, an actual restaurant or anything else that can be found in the 'big' town.

[adm]

Typically they would be commonly referred to as "Deputy", "Deputy Sheriff" would be the more formal term.

Something else, if faced with something out of the ordinary, the State Highway Patrol would be on call, if they don't simply step in and take over. Generally the Highway Patrol in the U.S. tends to be reasonably well trained and professional.

[Kymage]

Originally Posted by Icelander

Good point.

I've got one lawyer already, but he's a successful lawyer who's practised in Portland, Maine and is now enjoying playing big fish at home, where he's a County Comissioner. Might want an actual working lawyer in St. Francis.

The joke when I got out of law school was to look to open your practice in a small town which only had one lawyer. If it already had two, check to see if one of the two was thinking of retired in the next couple of years or had really bad health. It took two lawyers to have a law suit.

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by adm

Typically they would be commonly referred to as "Deputy", "Deputy Sheriff" would be the more formal term.

Is it insulting to call someone with the rank of Sergeant or Lieutenant simply 'Deputy'?

On one hand, they are formally 'Deputy Sheriffs', regardless of rank within the Sheriff's Office, but on the other, losing the distinction between senior deputies and junior ones in the term of address might be impolite.

I figure that lower-ranking deputies probably use the title, i.e. 'Sgt. Kelly, can I knock off early today?' or 'Lt. Dufresne, you better come look at this', but I was wondering what their neighbours used when referring to them in a professional capacity.

Do the neighbours address Lt. Dufresne as 'Deputy Sheriff Dufresne', 'Deputy Dufresne' or 'Lt. Dufresne' when they are calling him on a professional matter related to his position as a Lieutenant in the Aroostook County Sheriff's Office?

Since the actual Aroostook County Sheriff is an elected man whose constituents mostly live several hours drive from this part of the county, he is probably not all that inclined to drive three hours to visit a very sleepy and content area where only 5% of the voters live. Especially as the crime rate is minimal and Lt. Dufresne and his six part-time deputies can able handly any hunting accidents, lost hikers and occasional domestic crisis.

I'm tempted to have the locals refer to Lt. Dufresne as 'Sheriff Dufresne', as he functions for all intents and purposes as an undersheriff of his wide, but sparsely populated domain.

Originally Posted by adm

Something else, if faced with something out of the ordinary, the State Highway Patrol would be on call, if they don't simply step in and take over. Generally the Highway Patrol in the U.S. tends to be reasonably well trained and professional.

The Maine State Police has a 20 men Troop that covers the almost seven thousand square miles of Aroostook County.

Like the Sheriff's Office, they are based in Houlton, three hours from the adventure area. I don't know how often they patrol in the adventure area, but I would be surprised if they came there often other than by direct request for assistance from the Sheriff's Office.

They provide air support and K-9 units to assist in searches for missing hikers, in the form of a Cessna or two, and they have a crime lab and investigators if necessary. In 1988, there are also a few troopers with military surplus equipment, relevant experience and some extra training who can be sent in as the Maine State Police Tactical Team, but since they live all over Maine, gathering them in one place would take some time.

Edit: The Maine Game Wardens of Division E, headquartered in Ashland, Maine, are not only the closest law enforcement personnel to the adventure area, they are also the most numerous.