Point of Departure Page 14

  Callie saw the anger on Remington’s face. He had more than once suggested she go to bed with him or suffer the consequences. And Marlene Johnson’s absolute disgust at this type of man was having quite an effect on the tribunal, judging from the looks on their faces.

  Callie’s heart picked up a beat, because she knew she would be called next. Ty had figured that her testimony would last until lunchtime. Then there would be a two-hour break and she would face the cross-examination of the three counsels for the rest of the day—and perhaps into tomorrow.

  Ty thanked Dr. Johnson and called Callie to the stand. He kept his expression carefully neutral as she limped up to the chair and placed her hand on the Bible carried forward by the yeoman. Callie was pale as she took the chair, but her hands appeared relaxed in the lap of her white, spotless uniform.

  “Lieutenant Donovan, please tell the board what happened a week ago at the O Club beginning at approximately 1900.”

  Swallowing hard, working to keep her voice calm and authoritative, Callie launched into the events. Luckily, she had a nearly photographic memory. What she couldn’t remember, she had jotted down on small index cards. Ty had stressed that she should remember as clearly as possible the actual words said by the pilots and herself.

  She felt sweat running from beneath her arms and trickling down the sides of her rib cage. When Ty moved to one side, she saw all three pilots glaring at her nonstop. Fear jagged through her, and for an instant, she lost her train of thought.

  “Yes, Lieutenant?”

  Ty’s unruffled voice cut through her terror. Callie went on, reciting the events that had taken place in the O Club itself, and then out in the parking lot. The strain was terrible, because not once did the pilots stop looking at her, accusation, disrespect and anger in their eyes. If not for Ty’s calming presence, his occasional question to prompt her memory, she was sure she couldn’t have gotten through the narration.

  By the time she got to the attack, her voice was quavering, and she couldn’t help it. She couldn’t keep the feelings or the terror at bay. Gripping the arms of the chair, she closed her eyes and saw the horrifying scene all over again. Slowly, carefully, she recounted everything. Everything. Her uniform was soaked with perspiration by the time she finished. Her heart was pounding hard in her chest, and she felt as if she might suffocate, needing badly to draw some fresh air into her lungs.

  The pilots now wore expressions of overt hatred on their faces and Callie gulped convulsively. She glanced up at the board and found no sign of emotion, much less compassion. A cold chill worked its way through her, and she sat in the chair, feeling like a butterfly pinned to a board to die.

  “I suggest,” Ty told the board, “that it’s fifteen minutes until lunch.”

  “We’re in recess until 1400,” the Commander said with a stroke of his gavel.

  The board rose and everyone leaped to attention, including Callie. She barely caught herself—her knees were so weak that if she hadn’t locked them, she’d have fallen on her nose. The commanders left the room first, followed by the pilots and their counsels. She saw Dr. Johnson get up and smile broadly at her. At the same moment, she felt Ty’s hand come to rest on the small of her back.

  “You were terrific,” he whispered proudly.

  “Wonderful!” Dr. Johnson agreed enthusiastically, coming up and hugging her effusively. “What a great witness you were! Not only were you clear and concise, but you conveyed just the right amount of emotion.”

  Callie sank against Ty momentarily. All she wanted was to be held. But that couldn’t be, and she knew it. They were in a military situation and fraternizing wasn’t allowed. She moved away from Ty, but gave him a silent look of thanks for being there.

  “I don’t know about the right amount of feeling,” Callie said, grateful for the doctor’s support. “I felt like my voice was shaking in my throat toward the end of the recall.”

  “Anyone who was attacked the way you were would have the very same feelings and emotions,” Dr. Johnson soothed. She patted Callie on the shoulder and looked at Ty. “Commander, will you need me this afternoon?”

  “Yes. Any one of those three counsels can call you back to the chair for questioning.”

  Callie walked between them as they left the warm, stuffy room that had so little natural light in it. “They’ll ask you questions, Dr. Johnson, and they’ll run their swords through me.”

  Ty said nothing, but he knew Callie wasn’t wrong. He’d been aware of the level of malevolence in the pilots’ faces during Callie’s recounting of the incident. Feeling helpless as never before, he knew there was very little he could do to protect her once the counsels started trying to pick her story apart and making her appear to be a fool, or worse, a liar.

  Chapter Ten

  “Lieutenant Donovan, what were you doing at the Officer’s Club that night at 1900?” Jason Lewis asked smoothly as he moved toward the chair where Callie sat. He straightened the sleeve of his gray, eight-hundred-dollar, Italian silk suit and gave her a brief, perfunctory smile before turning around and giving the board a deferential nod, acknowledging their power over the proceedings.

  Callie forced her emotions, her fear, into a place deep within herself. She knew that above all, Lewis was going to try to poke holes into the truth of what had happened—to make Remington look like the victim instead of the harasser. She looked up at the small, solid man. His bulldog-type face was complete with jowls. Obviously Lewis was getting wealthy practicing law in the civilian world, the extra flesh testament to the good life.

  “As I said in my opening remarks, I was getting a quick meal before heading over to the college to teach my photography class.”

  “Couldn’t you have gone to any junk-food drive-in just as easily?” he offered.

  Callie hated the way Lewis was smiling—as if he were about to stab her. “The O Club was the closest,” she said.

  “Or perhaps you knew that Commander Remington would be there?” he suggested, his voice silky.

  Surprised, Callie felt her mouth drop open. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Commander Remington always goes to the O Club after work to share a few beers with the boys, Lieutenant. Everyone knows that.”

  Callie saw where Lewis was trying to lead her, and she shrugged. “Mr. Lewis, I resent the fact that you’re trying to make it look as if I deliberately went to the O Club to see Commander Remington. Nothing could be further from the truth. I spend eight to twelve hours a day, five days a week with him, and I certainly don’t wish to extend it beyond that.”

  Raising his thin eyebrows, Lewis smiled deeply. “From what I understand, you’ve been chasing Commander Remington from the day you arrived here, Lieutenant Donovan.”

  Callie stared at the attorney and was about to retort when she heard Ty’s voice.

  “Mr. Lewis, I suggest you get away from innuendos and conjectures and stick to the facts about the night Lieutenant Donovan was attacked and assaulted by your client.”

  Lewis dropped his smile for just a moment, glaring in Ty’s direction. He glanced over his shoulder at the board, and Commander Newton nodded his agreement.

  “Of course,” he murmured smoothly, and smiled down at Callie, the seed successfully planted in the minds of the men on the board anyway. “What were you wearing to the O Club on the night in question—whatever your reason for being there?”

  Callie hated the implication from Lewis. “I wore a simple white blouse, a denim skirt and sandals.”

  “How provocative was the blouse, Lieutenant? How many buttons were unbuttoned? Did the blouse opening reveal the cleft of your breasts to anyone? Was it a transparent, see-through kind of material?”

  Callie gasped. Before she could answer, Ty was again standing up.

  “Mr. Lewis, I don’t really think you’re interested in what Lieutenant Donovan was wearing as much as in trying to establish in the board’s mind something else—to paint her as provocative or a tease. Will you please ask only one que
stion at a time and wait to hear my client’s answers?”

  Lewis rubbed his hands together and saw the board agree with Ballard. “Very well, Lieutenant, let’s go back to my original question. How provocative was the blouse you were wearing?”

  Angry, Callie said, “It was a plain white blouse, Mr. Lewis.”

  “Transparent in any way?”

  “Of course not! It was 100 percent cotton and completely opaque.”

  “Did it button down the front?”

  “Yes.”

  “How many buttons were buttoned?”

  “All of them,” Callie grated.

  “I see…. And the skirt, Lieutenant. How short was your skirt? You know, nowadays, miniskirts are in again.”

  Holding on to her disintegrating temper, Callie realized she had to stop rising to Lewis’s bait. His job was to stir her up, get her angry and make her look to the board like a hysterical woman. “My denim skirt, which, by the way, is opaque and not transparent, falls halfway down my calves. It’s called a ballet-length skirt, Mr. Lewis, showing only my ankles.”

  “I see.” He smiled. “And your sandals? Were they open-toed?”

  “What pair of sandals isn’t?” Callie shot back coolly.

  “Were your toenails painted?”

  At a loss, Callie stared at him. “Excuse me?”

  “Were your toenails painted? For instance, a bright red color?”

  “No.”

  “What about your fingernails?”

  “Mr. Lewis, I don’t wear any kind of makeup. Is that clear?”

  “Perfume?” He lifted his nose and inhaled. “I can certainly smell that tantalizing, come-hither perfume you’re wearing, Lieutenant. Did you wear perfume the night in question?”

  Callie chafed under Lewis’s implication that wearing any kind of nail polish, makeup or perfume would be signaling Remington that she was available for the kind of unwanted attention he gave her. That was what Lewis was trying to establish in the minds of the board. “I always wear a dab of perfume.”

  “Perfume is very much a sexual signal, you know, Lieutenant Donovan,” he said silkily, smiling at the row of commanders. “It’s like a subtle indicator to men—a nonverbal message that you’re interested in them.”

  “Objection!” Ty said, standing again. He nailed Lewis with a dark look. “I hope the board doesn’t buy into Mr. Lewis’s unqualified opinion about a woman wearing perfume. I will point out that Dr. Johnson can testify that harassers attack their targets regardless of what makeup or perfume the target is wearing. A woman should be allowed to dress any way she wants and not expect to be assaulted or harassed for it, any more than a man is for his choice of dress.”

  Callie silently applauded Ty’s riposte to Lewis. She saw the lawyer scowl for just a moment, then, just as quickly, saw him smile again.

  “Objection noted,” Commander Nelson said. “Mr. Lewis, proceed.”

  “Of course. Now, Lieutenant, isn’t it true that you asked for a table close to the open bar area, where you knew Commander Remington and his friends were drinking?”

  “Absolutely not. I had no idea he was in the club.”

  “And that when you sat down, you were constantly looking toward the bar, searching for Commander Remington among the crowds of pilots?”

  “No,” Callie exclaimed, her hands tightening in anger. Her heart was beginning a slow pounding. She could feel Lewis mentally stalking her, trying to make her look like something she had never been.

  “And that once you spotted Commander Remington, you kept smiling at him, giving him long, significant glances that made him think you wanted him to come over to your table and visit with you?”

  “Absolutely not! As a matter of fact, I was eating when I happened to glance up in that direction and saw a number of pilots pointing at me and talking about me. I suspected they were discussing the article that had come out in the previous Sunday’s newspaper. I did not realize Commander Remington was at the bar until he showed up at my table.” She glared at Lewis. “Unannounced and uninvited, I might add. I, in no way, wanted him near me in any sense of the word.”

  “Now, Lieutenant Donovan,” Lewis said expansively, gesturing toward the row of pilots staring at her, “I have four witnesses who swear you were not only batting your eyelashes at Commander Remington, giving him come-hither glances, but had actually raised your hand and gestured for him to come over to your table. All four pilots saw you blow him a kiss while he stood at the bar.”

  Outraged, Callie nearly leaped out of the chair. She gripped the armrest, her fingers digging into the wood. No! Terror gripped her as she realized that not only were the three pilots who’d sexually harassed her involved with such a blatant lie, but Lieutenant Clark, the pilot who had sat two tables away, was also going to lie to make her look as if she had asked for Remington’s advances.

  For long seconds Callie sat tensely, trying to control her shock and fury. Lewis stood there smiling, looking impeccably cool and collected. She sat back, terror deluging her in a new way. If the board believed the four pilots’ concocted story, she would be found to be to blame, and it would be her career that would suffer cruelly from those lies. Never had Callie dreamed that the pilots might lie to such an extent. But then, at Annapolis, she’d seen the upperclassmen close ranks on her in a similar manner. Why should she expect this to be different?

  “Mr. Lewis,” Callie rasped, her voice clear and carrying through the room with chilling authority, “I don’t care what made-up stories you’ve been fed by those three pilots, or by Lieutenant Clark. I at no time invited Commander Remington over to my table with a look or a gesture. I never even had eye contact with him.”

  “As a matter of fact,” Lewis boomed, “when Commander Remington came over to your table, and you made a suggestive comment about your legs being even prettier than his wife’s—”

  “That’s a lie! Commander Remington made a rude remark about my legs, Mr. Lewis. I tried to defuse his unwanted advance by saying that I was sure his wife had very nice legs, too.”

  “—And you told Commander Remington that you’d like him and his two friends to escort you to your car after you’d eaten. Now,” Lewis purred, looking at the board significantly, “I don’t exactly call that minding your own business, Lieutenant Donovan. I call that being a tease. I call that asking for it.”

  “Objection!” Ty thundered. He moved away from his chair and toward the center of the room, behind where Callie sat. “Mr. Lewis is conjecturing and putting words in the mouth of my client. He has again both asked the questions and answered them for her.”

  “Agreed,” the leader of the tribunal said. “Sit down, Commander Ballard.”

  Callie began to sweat in earnest now. She saw exactly how Lewis was going to paint her: she was a tease, she’d asked for Remington’s advances, and in the parking lot, when she’d decided not to ‘put out,’ she’d pushed them away.

  Rubbing his hands together, Lewis slowly turned to her. “The way you walked through the parking lot was provocative, Lieutenant.”

  “Mr. Lewis, a woman has a different walk than a man. I walked my usual walk. If you want to say it was provocative, then that’s your opinion.”

  “That’s my client’s opinion,” Lewis said. “You were really swaying your hips, Lieutenant.” He used his hands to show the amount of exaggerated movement. “It was very pronounced swaying, Lieutenant, and Commander Remington and his friends saw it for what it was.”

  “Really?” Callie demanded scathingly, glaring at the row of pilots. The lying bastards. “Why is it I’m the one who was attacked, humiliated and assaulted, and these officers and supposed gentlemen are crying foul over the way I walked?”

  Lewis frowned and took a step back. “That’s not the way they see it, Lieutenant.”

  “I can tell,” Callie snarled. “I didn’t ask for Commander Remington’s touches, nor did I ever agree to his innuendos about me, about my body. He made me terribly uncomfortable, and all I wanted
to do was escape from the O Club and get out of his line of fire.”

  “I see,” Lewis murmured. “Then would you like to tell the Board why it was you who reached out and touched Commander Remington’s neck, shoulder and arm with your hand?”

  Gasping, Callie sat there in shock. Remington, who had done that exact thing to her in the parking lot, was simply turning everything around to make it look as if she were the aggressor, not him. “He touched me! I never touched him except to push him and those two other officers away from me!”

  “Now, Lieutenant. The way I understand it, you not only caressed Commander Remington in a number of ways, but you placed his hand across your shoulders and pressed it to the side of your breast.”

  Callie sat very still, allowing the silence to fall over the room. She locked eyes with Remington, who was barely smiling, his green eyes glittering, and she felt hatred. Lewis was standing beside her, rocking heel to toe in his expensive black Italian leather shoes. The shattering reality of what was going to happen filled her with nausea. It would be four pilots’ words against her own.

  “Well?” Lewis goaded. “Answer the question, Lieutenant.”

  Jerking a look up at the lawyer, Callie whispered, “I never invited Remington’s touch. I did not put his arm around my shoulders. I never pressed his hand to the side of my breast.”

  “I suppose you’re going to tell me that you didn’t throw yourself bodily at Lieutenant Dale Oakley?”

  “No,” Callie said with gritted teeth. “When Commander Remington threw his arm around me and started to touch my breast, I pushed him away. In doing so, I fell off balance and slammed into Lieutenant Oakley. He then threw his arms around me and tried to kiss me. I yelled, ‘Stop,’ but he wouldn’t listen. So I pushed him away and fell back against my car.”