The Soothville Murders.

Chapter 1: In Soothville Baptist Church

Chapter 1: In Soothville Baptist Church.

It was the third of December. The snow had created a thin, white carpet outside detective Ruby's house. It was depressing, looking out the window on the first snow after the summer. Alan Ruby could find something negative in almost anything. The weather, the job, his romantic life... It all seemed so empty. He was tired of filling out reports and forms hour after hour in his quiet office. Ever since his partner was killed by accident by a road worker, his job hadn't been quite the same. His evil boss, sergeant Gina West, would never let him out in the field again. Not in his condition. 

Whenever Alan Ruby could, he would dream himself back to the summer he was seventeen years old. That year had been the best of his life. He met his future fiancée (and later ex-wife) and he found out that he wanted to become a police detective. It was also the year Alan Ruby started believing in God. Detective Ruby blamed God for taking away his companion. But he had to live on. Continue his daily routines. After having a cup of tea and reading the papers, Ruby took the bus to Marristown Police House, where he met at the office of Frank Baker. 

Frank Baker was the closest thing Alan had to a friend after his partner, Geoffrey Harris, died. Baker was a wheelchair-bound man in his fourties, ex-detective and now known as "the head of the Lab". Ruby had taken a liking to Baker after being removed from the field himself. Frank was pretty down himself too, but together, they found they made a good team and it removed a little bit of the depression for both of them. Frank Baker endt up in a wheelchair after he was shot in the spine during a gunfight with a gang he had been investigating for months. His lack of walking made him more of a strategist, counselling young detectives how to work on a case. 

"Morning, Alan," he mumbled when the detective entered his office. "How are you?"

"Do you need to ask?" Ruby muttered. 

"Thought that would be the answer," smiled Baker. "But I will ease your mood. We've got a case!"

"OK. Do you want me to get Gérard or Moore to do it?"

"No, Alan. You and I are going to do it. Gina asked us specifically to head to Soothville Baptist Church and solve a murder. Apparently, she want's someone experience to take the case. And she told me it was time to get you back in the field, even if it meant I had to go too. I would not let that chance pass for anything in the world!" 

Alan Ruby expressed something that looked like a smile. It actually took him a few seconds before he found back to his old, pessimistic self. 

"Who's driving?" he asked. The two fourty-years old looked at each other. Ruby didn't have a lisence, and Baker couldn't drive a car with his wheelchair. They had to chose somebody else to drive them. 

The detectives, Alan Ruby and Frank Baker, decided they would let Peyton Chamberlain drive them. Peyton Chamberlain was unlike the two other, a young and inexperienced detective, working for the precinct for only two years. She was in her mid-twenties, quite small and had dark brown hair. Her eyes were small and they reminded one of cat's eyes. Her whole appearance did. She was a humanoid cat. 

Alan Ruby liked detective Chamberlain. He had worked with her on only one case before, the "Black Arrow"-case. Black Arrow was criminal gang reigning some of the southern streets in Marristown. Since she had just joined the police in the city, she could easily infiltrate the gang, going undercover. This was a major breakthrough for Alan Ruby, who had worked the case for years, and with her help, he could arrest every large member of the gang. 

Driving from Marristown police house to Soothville Baptist Church took twenty minutes. Peyton was driving a black SUV and she drove quite fast. Peyton was a lively girl, and still more mature than most of her age. Alan thought that she was trying to impress him with her driving skills, but she wasn't really. She was focusing on the fact that a murder had been committed in a baptist's church, and she, as a baptist, couldn't accept the fact that someone she maybe knew, was dead. She knew it could affect her in the case, but she chose not to tell anybody. She was only going to drive the car anyways. She wasn't the detective on the case.