The situation seemed fairly straightforward. A young woman, infuriated that her ersatz boyfriend had chosen to marry someone else, went berserk at the man’s wedding. She’d destroyed some ten vehicles in the parking lot by ramming her car into all of them before attempting to flee the scene. A dozen patrol vehicles surrounded her. Red, white and blue lights strobed the darkness. Sleepy residents stood on their porches in bathrobes gawking while the woman was taken into custody in the middle of their quiet Baltimore neighborhood. Typical Saturday night in the Crab Cake Capital of the world.
Which was why Niles Gule and his partner, Mariella Cruz, wondered why they’d been called to the scene. They were, after all, members of the detective squad. Ordinarily, they handled major crimes like arson, burglary and murder. Drunken rages with a known perpetrator were handled by uniformed officers.
“So what’s the deal?” Cruz demanded of one of the cops who’d brought down the suspect. She glanced at the offending vehicle which was dinged up worse than the survivor of a demolition derby. No question it had been the culprit.
The officer huffed. Flicking a disgusted hand towards the car’s former driver, he said, “She claims she’s innocent. Says it was self-defense.”
Niles, being a vampire, possessed incredible night vision. Although the flashing from the numerous patrol vehicles stabbed his retinas, he could still see better than anyone else at the scene. Not only was the suspect’s car destroyed, but Niles could trace its path through the parking lot of the Lone Tree Oasis, a notorious watering hole in Woodberry.
“She was afraid of being attacked by a bunch of empty cars?” he asked.
The officer shrugged. With a jerk of his chin, he indicated they should ask the girl themselves.
Giving Cruz a cynical look, Niles approached the patrol car where the girl sat with her feet outside the open door. She didn’t look like the type to trash a parking lot. In fact, the tiny thing barely looked old enough to have a license.
Her name, the two detectives soon learned, was Jessica. She was twenty-three years old, blonde and petite, with gorgeous blue eyes and a chest that would have bought her entrance to any strip club in the world. Her delicate hands fretted with the woven leather tassels of the belt that held tight blue jeans low on her curvy hips. Two white teeth worried a luscious, pink lower lip.
Cruz had no patience for cute little women who used their appeal to get away with murder. She jerked her notepad out of her pocket, gave the girl a glare and started firing away.
“So how could this possibly be self-defense?” she demanded. “You hit a dozen cars in this lot deliberately.”
“No, I didn’t!” Jessica wailed in a tiny voice that fit her small and fragile appearance. “Honestly, I didn’t.” She turned her eyes pleadingly to Niles.
Knowing the games such women played with men, Cruz planted herself between her partner and the girl. “I’m not buying the innocence routine, Jessica.” Cruz consulted her phone. “You’ve got a rap sheet longer than Santa’s Christmas list. Aggravated assault with an automobile, felony mischief, destruction of property, leaving the scene of an accident, evading police. Destroying a parking lot is right up your alley.”
“It’s not!” Jessica sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “It was self-defense, I swear.”
Niles saw tears sparkling in Jessica’s eyes. Although he didn’t consider himself susceptible to a woman’s influence, he found something compelling in those blue depths.
Placing his hands on Cruz’s shoulder to forestall her next barbed question, he asked gently, “Tell us what happened, Jessica.”
The girl’s eyes sunk into his as if she could touch his soul. “My boyfriend, Scottie, and I broke up this morning. The bastard woke up, demanded breakfast, and after he’d eaten three eggs, some bacon and the last of my bagels, he said he didn’t want to see me anymore.” Jessica sniffed again. “Then he left.”
Cruz lifted a skeptical brow but said nothing when Niles gave a soft growl in his throat to stop her from saying something snide.
“Go on,” he urged.
Jessica drew a ragged breath. “Well, I cried almost all day. I mean, seriously. Who does that? Breaks up with you the morning after a night of sex. And after you make breakfast?” Her hands flopped against her knees. “I talked to one of my friends, Tiffany, who told me Scottie was a total skunk. The reason he’d dumped me because he was getting married today. To her.” Her eyes again stabbed Niles’. “Seriously! Who does that to a person?”
Niles lifted his shoulders. “A skunk?”
“Damned straight! So I decided I really needed a drink.” Jessica gestured at the Lone Tree Oasis glowing in the darkness. “I always come here. It’s my place.”
“It’s a dive,” Cruz growled. “One murder a month. Nightly brawls. The police get called out here three times a week!”
“Yeah, well, it’s always been my place.” Jessica shrugged in defeat. “I pick up a lot of guys here.”
“Like Scottie?” Cruz sniped.
That earned the Latina a vile glare.
Jessica went on. “I got here an hour ago. The place was packed. Cars everywhere. On the grass. Over flowing onto the street. Jam packed. Huh, I said. I wonder what’s going on? I rolled past the door to get a look inside to see if I could recognize anybody. The place was draped with ribbons and balloons. I thought, what the heck? Then it hit me. It was a wedding.”
“At this place?” Cruz piped.
Jessica nodded. “That’s when I realized I recognized everybody. All my friends. My best friend. And Scottie. It was his wedding!”
Cruz and Niles exchanged an incredulous look.
“I figured I should get out of there. But that’s when this ghost showed up.” Jessica held up her hand to stop the detectives from protesting. “Out of the darkness, this ghost wafts towards the door. Only it’s not a ghost, it’s Tiffany in her wedding gown and wiping cocaine off her nose. She sees me. She rushes me. Next thing I know, she’s pulled open my car door, unplugged my seatbelt and dragged me by the hair into the lot. She starts swinging.”
Jessica stopped to catch her breath. Cruz and Niles simply wait, mesmerized.
“I ain’t taking any of that,” she insisted. “I grab on and start ripping. Hair, corset, bra strap. Whatever. It was war. We went at it.” Jessica rubbed at some of the mud still clinging to her jacket. “Someone in the bar heard us yelling and saw us rolling around in a dirt-ball, gown falling apart, us punching each other. He yells, ‘Hey! There’s a fight in the parking lot! Looks like the bride!’. Next thing I know, everyone in the bar is stampeding to get out that one little door.”
Jessica nudged her nose towards the bar. “Lucky for me they got tangled up. I figured I better skedaddle before they broke through. So I ran for my car and got in it just before that mob reached me. They were totally drunk. Beating on the car. Yelling for blood. So I put the car in gear and hit it.” She whistled. “Man! Drunken red-necks went flying off my hood right and left. I couldn’t see. I slammed into a car. I threw it into reverse and backed up, hitting a bunch more cars and people. I was trying to avoid the people though. I hit a couple more cars making the turn out of there. I finally got free and slammed on the gas. I was almost free when the cops arrived.”
The words ended so abruptly, both Niles and Cruz almost fell forward, they’d been listening so closely.
Jessica peered up at them hopefully. “So you see, it really was self-defense.”
Cruz glanced at Niles. “Are you believing this?”
Niles’ exceptional eyesight allowed him to view the crowd of individuals milling around the front door of the Lone Tree Oasis. Beards, tattoos and wife beater shirts were the dress code for the wedding. High-brow all the way.
“Yep,” he said. “Much as I hate to admit it, I think she’s got a case.”
Niles comments: Poor Jessica was arrested for multiple assaults, attempted murder, destruction of property, and resisting arrest. Fortunately, her public defense attorney was a creative fellow. In the end, she pled to simple assault and time served. What happened to the happy couple remains a mystery. You just can’t make this stuff up.
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