Notice Me, Rue

Rue

I dropped the mountain of crime-related documents that I reviewed on Chief Gregor Montana’s desk, giving him a slight heart attack. Then, I sat on a nearby sofa and sighed heavily.

“I’m bored!” I lamented. “Don’t we have any new cases, Chief?”

He gave me a side eye. “Be grateful that we don’t have any murder or rape cases in our plates right now. It’s a good thing that all we have these past few months are minor theft and house burgling cases.”

“Yes, it’s a good thing, but, come on, where’s the excitement? All I did was review documents these past few months! The last interesting case that we had was a serial killer case, and that’s like– three months ago, and we weren’t even able to solve it!”

“Stop acting like a kid–”

The old man’s words were cut off when the door of his office suddenly swung open, and a tall, young man in a white, medical coat entered. It’s Evan Barlowe, the head of the forensic department in our agency, Bay Area Law Enforcement Agency.

“Forgive me for entering without knocking. I wasn’t aware that you have company,” Evan said before putting the documents he’s holding on the chief’s desk in a gentle manner.

“It’s okay. Rue and I are just having a little chit-chat,” Chief Montana assured his nephew before checking the documents that Evan brought.

Chief Montana married Evan’s aunt, Eliza, making him his uncle.

Evan raised an eyebrow. “Is that so? What were you two discussing to make Rue pout this much?”

I didn’t even realize that I’m pouting until he pointed it out. However, instead of answering him, I just grumbled even more.

Chief Montana laughed a little. “Rue is just acting like a kid because there’s no new case for him to investigate.”

“But having no cases means that there’s only low criminal activity in our jurisdiction, which is the Bay Area, right? It’s a good thing.”

Chief Montana threw a glance at me. “That’s what I was trying to tell him.”

“I just want to do something, okay?” I cried. “I can’t be stuck reviewing documents forever.”

Evan turned his body towards me. “If you really want to do something, why don’t you try doing something else while waiting for a case to come up?”

“Like what?”

“Don’t you have any hobbies?”

I started swinging my upper body while thinking of an answer. Then, I said, “I want to try pottery…”

“Pottery?” Chief Montana uttered with surprise.

My brows furrowed. “Why do you sound so surprised, Chief?”

He shrugged. “Nothing. You just don’t look like the artistic type.”

I rolled my eyes at him. I know that he’s judging me.

“If you want to try pottery, I know a place,” Evan suddenly uttered.

Then, he handed me a card for Earth Pottery, a well-known studio here in the Bay Area for its affordable classes.

“I didn’t know that you do pottery,” I commented while still looking at the card.

“What? I don’t look artistic?” He said with a grin.

“Yes,” I replied with a straight face before sliding the card in the pocket of my black coat.

Chief Montana laughed at my response. Then, he pointed at Evan with his hand and said, “My nephew may not look like the artistic type, but he’s been doing pottery for years now. He’s good at it.”

“Sure,” I responded nonchalantly.

“Evan already gave you something to do, Rue. Get out of here. Go to that studio or something,” Chief Montana said while shooing me away.

I stood up in an instant and scoffed. “Fine. Whatever. I’m sure that it’ll be better there than being stuck here doing documents.”

“You will sign up for our 2-hour weekly sessions for beginners for 8 weeks, is that right?” the receptionist in the lobby of Earth Pottery asked.

“Yes, that’s right,” I replied with a sour voice as I tapped my fingers on the front desk.

She probably noticed that I’m already impatient, so she didn’t ask any more questions and just proceeded on signing me up.

I’ve been standing here for 10 minutes and she already asked me a lot of questions, so, yes, my patience is running thin. I just want to try pottery. I just want to finish signing this shit up. Why do I have to suffer like this?

I already memorized that there are 4 cameras, 6 impressionist paintings, 2 indoor plants, a smart TV with a size of 65” here in the reception.

“If you’re paying with a card, just swipe here,” she said with a forced smile while pointing at the card reader.

I quickly took my silver card and swiped it on the machine to pay the bill.

“Thank you for availing our classes! Here’s your ID! Your first session will be on Saturday. See you!”

“Finally…” I uttered under my breath before grabbing the ID from her hands and putting it in the pocket of my pants.

After completing my registration, I hurriedly exited Earth Pottery to smoke a cigarette outside the building.

I’ve been stressed by the lack of interesting cases lately, so I deserve this stick of cig. The sun is already down, so the light coming from different shops that are still open mixed with the noise coming from the people walking around the area are emitting a cozy atmosphere that is perfect for smoking to relax.

But before I could even smoke half of the cigarette, I suddenly received a call from Chief Montana, so I tossed it on the ground to answer the chief’s call.

“Where are you, kid?” Chief Montana asked from the other side of the line.

“I’m outside of Earth Pottery right now. I was smoking,” I replied. “Why? What’s up?”

“Congratulations! You have a case.”

My heart jumped at the news. I’m so excited that I started stuttering, “W-what kind of case?”

“It’s a murder case.”

And I even got more excited when I heard the word “murder”. Unable to contain my excitement, I started pacing back and forth.

“As soon as possible, go to the address that I’ll send you. I don’t think that this is going to be a simple case of murder. I’m sure that you’ll enjoy investigating this one, Detective Rue Vargaz.”

With a big smile on my face, I said, “Don’t worry. I’ll be there as soon as possible.”