Perfect Impurrfections

Sprung

Chapter 20

                Upon arriving at the county lock up for processing Crystal used her one phone call to contact Anna.  She asked her to call the restaurant and have a message delivered to her date that she would not be able to make it.  She left it up to Anna whether to tell him the reason or not.  The officer that was waiting patiently to take her statement looked at Crystal with a raised eyebrow.  She was sure when he had allowed her to make the phone call that he thought she was calling a lawyer.  If she had been guilty of anything she might have.  She was hoping that the law didn't fail her, and she would be released with her clean record intact.  What she didn't know is if that would be that night or if she would have to wait in lock up until they had investigated the case.  She just wished that if she were stuck cooling her heels in lock up for a few days that she wouldn't end up losing her job.  Handing the phone back over to the officer she waited for him to begin.  The officer took his time replacing the phone to its cradle gathering his thoughts while doing so.

                "How long have you known Mr. Alexander?"

                "I'm sorry who?"

                "Tony Alexander, a.k.a. Hammer."  Crystal just stared at the officer with a look of absolute confusion.  Sighing in annoyance he tried again.

                "The driver of the vehicle you were in."

                "Oh!  Not long really.  He works for the cab company that I called to order a ride for my date tonight.  I only met him when he picked me up, I think it was two hours ago."  The officer stopped his typing to look Crystal over.  He wasn't sure whether to believe her or not.  He took down the name of the cab company anyway deciding he would look into it after he was done questioning her.

                As Crystal continued to answer the officer's inquiries, the fact that she was on the hunt for her future husband came up.  As did the series of mishaps that have followed her through her search for mister right.  The officer sat quietly typing away in disbelief at each accounting that tumbled from her lips.  He usually started off questioning his suspects like any other police officer.  Eventually he would get them to start rambling off on seemingly unimportant topics.  From there he just had to sit back and wait until they accidentally let out pertinent information that they themselves didn't realize they had let slip.  When he fell into that same pattern with Crystal, he had no idea the shit storm of information that was headed his way. 

                By the time Crystal had finished telling him everything right up to when she got arrested, they had gained quite the crowd of people.  None of them were hoovering right over the two of them, but several other officers were meandering close by listening in to her wild tale.  Half were completely disbelieving that she was telling the truth with the other half holding back laughter from spilling out.  At one point even the officer taking Crystal's statement had stopped typing to gape at her and she had to tap her finger near his keyboard to remind him what he was doing.  Once she was done Crystal looked her statement, several pages long, over and signed her name.  The officer guided her down to lock up where she would remain until either her council showed, or he could verify that she truly was as unlucky as her statement showed her to be.  For the first couple of hours it wasn't so bad.  She was alone in her own cell and it was relatively quiet.  That only lasted for so long, however.  About a dozen hookers had been picked up for prostitution and brought in.  Crystal watched in wide eyed fascination as they were each paraded past her cell to be placed in lock up further down.  Horror clouded her mind though as the last three were placed into the cell right along with Crystal.

                She watched the women cause a ruckus yelling obscenities and propositioning the officers that were unfortunate enough to be left to watch over the prisoners.  Crystal sat meekly on one of the plain uncomfortable cots witnessing the performance these women were giving.  She sat unnoticed by any of them for almost a good half hour.  Once the women started getting bored with the lack of attention from the officers they moved away from the bars and further into the cell.  It ended up putting them closer to Crystal's proximity allowing them to notice they weren't the only ones in the cell.  The blonde, the red head, and the brunette all made their way over to Crystal's cot.  She would have laughed at what sounded like the start of a really bad joke but the predatory look in their eyes stopped her from doing so.  The blonde, who appeared to be the ringleader of the trio, sat herself down uncomfortably close to Crystal.  The woman gave her a nasty smile as she looked her over.