Silent Witness

by Lindsay McKenna

  Michelson glared at him. “I wouldn’t know, Mr. Cochrane.”

  “Oh, I reckon you do know,” Cochrane murmured. He saw beads of sweat popping on Michelson’s furrowed brow. The aviator sat so rigidly in the chair it seemed he might snap from the strain. Let him. Michelson had done a fair amount of abuse to Ann Hawkins at Ares, according to her interview. It was a matter of getting solid evidence to nail him.

  Michelson had a lot to sweat about. It was one thing to screw up your own career. It was another to soil your father’s and grandfather’s exemplary careers. That was an unforgivable sin to commit in a military dynasty family.

  “Look,” Michelson pleaded, lifting his hands and opening them. “Boys will be boys, Mr. Cochrane.”

  “Really?” Ellen goaded, holding the man’s startled gaze. “Boys aren’t boys when they start assaulting women, or violate their oath of professional conduct, Lieutenant. This is the post-Tailhook Navy, in case you had forgotten.” Her words were biting but she didn’t care. Michelson pushed her buttons!

  “Well, this was a private affair, not a military function, er…I mean, we’re military men,” Michelson mumbled. “We risk our lives every day, Agent Tanner. Landing on a carrier is like flying a death wish.”

  Ellen frowned. “Your bravado is lost on me, Lieutenant. You chose this line of work.” Damn his arrogance and belittling of women. Ellen would have none of it. She glanced over at Jim, who was trying to suppress a smile.

  Michelson gave his lawyer a panicked look. He gulped and sat back, his hands clenched on the arms of the chair.

  Cochrane knew he had to get Ellen off the aviator’s back for the moment. “Are you telling me you were never in the Leopard Radar Corporation suite any time during the Ares Conference?” Cochrane allowed a good bit of sarcasm to enter his voice. He knew Michelson had a hot temper and an equally short trigger on anything that needled him. He was one of the more arrogant jocks at Giddings, and Cochrane had to take advantage of that fact to squeeze an ounce of truth out of this lying bastard.

  Nostrils flaring, Michelson rapped out, “No, I was never at that goddamn suite! Okay?” Sweat trickled down the sides of his face.

  “Reckon it’s not okay.” Cochrane pointed to the laptop. “According to one photo, plus an eyewitness account, you were seen with Lieutenant Bassett going into the Leopard Radar suite on—” he looked more closely at the screen “—1700 on Friday, May 15th.” Looking up, he said, “Is that incorrect?”

  “Whoever told you that is lying!” Michelson snarled.

  “Really?” Jim slowly rubbed his jaw. “I don’t know, Lieutenant. This person was an eyewitness and was real close to the situation.”

  Michelson’s jaw clenched. His eyes became slitted. “I was never at that suite.”

  “My client is faithful to his recollection,” Baden said silkily. “What he’s saying is that he does not recall visiting the suite in question. These activities took place two and half months ago and at a very busy, crowded conference.”

  Michelson eagerly nodded in agreement.

  “That’s kinda interesting,” Cochrane drawled. “This witness says Lieutenants Michelson and Bassett were present when a female Naval officer was forced down on her knees to drink from the dildo penis drink dispenser in front of a Leopard mural. What about that incident, Mr. Michelson? Anything to add?”

  His face flushed, Michelson sat there for a long moment. “I do not recall.”

  “Is that your answer? That you do not recall the incident in the Leopard Radar Corporation suite or that you do not recall ever being in the suite at the time in question?”

  “I do not recall visiting the suite in question.”

  “Was Lieutenant Bassett with you at any of the seminars at Ares?”

  “Hell, yes! We attended every seminar together.”

  “How about after the sat-com talk?” Jim saw Michelson’s face go a darker red.

  “I went to my room.”

  “You were seen leaving the seminar with Lieutenant Bassett and you went to the third-floor patio, and later to the Leopard Radar Corporation suite.”

  Clenching his teeth, Michelson said softly, “I went to my room. I wasn’t feeling good.”

  “Really?” Cochrane let the silence build as he held Michelson’s outraged glare. If the pilot could have leaped across the table, grabbed him by his collar and punched him out, he’d have done so. However, since this was an official interview, he knew that course of action was foolhardy.

  “What was your room number, Lieutenant?”

  “I was in room 1562.”

  “I again ask you, Lieutenant, where did you go after the sat-com talk?”

  “Excuse me,” Baden interjected. “May I have a private consultation with my client?”

  Cochrane hesitated but knew he couldn’t deny any client-attorney interface. “Reckon you can step outside into the passageway if you’d like,” he invited with equal smoothness.

  Both men went out and shut the door behind them. Jim glanced at Ellen, whose outrage was evident. Fortunately, the door and bulkheads weren’t very thick, and he could hear every word spoken by Baden. Somehow, this made them feel a lot better.

  “Goddammit, Lieutenant. Either tell the truth or say you don’t recall. You’re not good enough to make these things up on the spot. That legal beagle in there will burn your ass for false testimony if you get confused. Got that?”

  “Yeah,” Michelson snarled, “I got it.”

  Ellen put her hand over her mouth and Jim could see laughter dancing in her eyes. He would have gladly shared in her amusement, but they weren’t done yet. He carefully arranged his face when the door opened and the two men returned. He tried to seem occupied with the laptop while they took their seats again, then he looked up.

  Cochrane tapped his pencil slowly once, twice, three times on the table. All the while, he stared unblinking at Michelson. When he spoke, his voice was hard and uncompromising. “We have a witness who says Lieutenants Michelson and Bassett literally dragged the witness into the Leopard Radar Corporation suite from the third-floor patio area immediately following the sat-com talk.”

  Michelson’s eyes bulged and he held himself taut, almost at attention.

  Cochrane could tell the man realized that Ann Hawkins had fingered him. The officer went from a plum color to a pasty white, and then back to an angry red. Michelson struggled, his sharpened gaze dropping to his hands, which were clenched tightly in his lap. A rivulet of sweat ran down his jaw.

  “If you’re referring to Lieutenant Hawkins, I’d forgotten all about that.” Michelson scowled, looked to the right and then to the left as he seemed to ponder how much to tell. “We were met by Lieutenant Hawkins. She grabbed us by the arms and asked us to go with her to some of the defense contractor suites. Even though she was insistent, we declined. I went to my room and left her at the doorway of one of the squadron suites. I don’t remember which one.”

  Cochrane controlled his disgust. “So, you are able to place Lieutenant Hawkins and Lieutenant Bassett, arm in arm, at the doorway of one of the suites. It may or may not have been the Leopard Radar suite, at approximately 1900 on May 15th?”

  Michelson’s eyes grew wide with fear, as if he was realizing the gravity of his admission. He’d just placed his best friend at the Leopard Radar suite with Lieutenant Hawkins. Michelson made a croaking sound of terror and turned swiftly to his attorney. The last thing the man wanted to do was identify a fellow aviator.

  Baden glared at Michelson and then looked over at Cochrane. “My client stated he didn’t recall the name of the suite in question. He then left the parties and went to his hotel room.”

  “I told you, I went to my room,” Michelson repeated, wiping sweat off his brow.

  Jim didn’t speak for a good long minute. He fingered Michelson’s personnel file and studied it intently. “You’re married, with two children.” He looked up at the tight-jawed aviator. “Third wife? Right?”

  “Yes.”


  “It’s tough being a Navy aviator,” Cochrane said with a sympathetic sigh. “You’re gone a lot, the family suffers, the wife gets lonely and has to handle everything by herself.”

  “What’s this leading up to?” Baden demanded tightly.

  With a shrug, Cochrane smiled. “Three wives in eight years makes Lieutenant Michelson look a little rocky in the responsibility department, don’t you think?”

  “What the hell!” Michelson exclaimed. “My personal life is my own, not part of this damn investigation!”

  “It becomes part of the investigation when a photo shows you and a prostitute, Penny Anderson, going to your room on Saturday evening, Lieutenant.”

  Michelson gurgled and choked.

  “My client’s private life is not up for examination,” Baden warned darkly.

  “It’s not his private life we’re discussing,” Jim retorted. “We’re attempting to take the lieutenant’s statement on his activities at the Ares Conference. With identification of the people in these photos or eyewitness accounts, Mr. Baden, all I have to do is type in Lieutenant Michelson’s name and any report that concerns him comes up at my fingertips. Which is what I’m going to do right now.” He lifted his hands and rested his fingertips on the keyboard, taking his time to type in the officer’s name.

  “While he’s doing that,” Ellen said softly, “I’d like to ask Lieutenant Michelson if he ever saw Lieutenant Susan Kane at the conference.”

  Michelson wiped his brow, dividing his attention between Cochrane’s printer and Ellen. “I—don’t know. I don’t remember.”

  Ellen smiled gently. “She was at the same seminar at the end of the day as you were, Lieutenant.”

  “It was a crowded room, Agent Tanner. I don’t remember seeing her.”

  “Oh?” Ellen rolled the pen between her thumb and forefinger, studying it for a long moment, letting Michelson squirm. “That’s odd, because an eyewitness placed you with her shortly after the seminar broke up for the day. She was also on the list of people to attend that sat-com talk.”

  “I don’t recall.”

  “I see….” Ellen glanced at Cochrane, who was still busy punching in information. Michelson was sweating heavily, and she could see dark splotches appearing beneath each arm of his flight suit. “What did you think of Susan Kane?”

  Michelson gave her a startled look. “Pardon?”

  “What was your personal opinion of Lieutenant Kane?”

  “She was an excellent instructor here at the station and a good pilot.”

  “Is that all?”

  He scowled. “What else is there to say?”

  “Well, how did you feel about her personally?”

  “I don’t have a personal opinion of her.”

  Ellen could see the man was lying so decided to probe further. “Why not?”

  “I just don’t.”

  “Did you get along with her here at Top Gun?”

  “She did her job and I did mine.”

  “Did she ever go over to the O Club with you after work?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  Michelson struggled. “Kane wasn’t one of us, Agent Tanner.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’d think it was obvious what it means,” he retorted.

  “Humor me, Lieutenant. I’m a civilian. Can you be more precise?”

  “Kane was a woman. She wasn’t one of us.”

  “Oh? She was an aviator and an instructor just like you.”

  “You don’t get it. It isn’t politically correct to say in today’s environment, but no woman will ever be a part of a fighter squadron.” His voice lowered to a snarl. “I don’t care if she wears gold wings or not.”

  Ellen raised her brows slightly. “How do you feel about women in general being Naval aviators, Lieutenant?” She felt her temper rising. Gripping the pen in her fingers, she barely kept the anger out of her tone.

  “Again, I know this isn’t PC, and this is my personal opinion. I don’t believe women should be taking a combat billet. To be perfectly frank, I’d rather see them in my bed than taking my jet away from me. You can get killed flying a combat aircraft. Only men should die in a war, not women.”

  Ellen nodded and tapped the pen deliberately on the notepad. “According to this fourth report, you were in the Leopard Radar Corporation suite on Saturday, May 16th, around 2200 when they had a stripper come in and dance for the boys. She accuses you of groping and pinching her while she tried to dance. Then you allegedly hauled her down on the deck and forced her on her back with at least a hundred other civilians and a few aviators yelling and screaming at you to screw her in front of everyone.”

  “I want to know who the hell is accusing me of those kinds of things!”

  Jim interceded. “I reckon the names will stay with us until we decide whether or not there are reasonable grounds for a court-martial, Lieutenant. At that point, your attorney will be sent the names because we’d call them to testify.”

  Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Michelson gave his lawyer a pleading look.

  Baden stirred. “Really, Lieutenant Cochrane, this is all hearsay. As for these prostitutes, well, who’s going to take their word over that of a fine young Naval officer? As I stated earlier, they are not very credible witnesses and I think you know that.”

  “The security guard is credible,” Cochrane snapped, pointing to the reports. “And his record of Mr. Michelson escorting Ms. Penny Anderson from the hotel are facts.”

  Baden smiled sourly. “My client stated he went to his room. If he was propositioned by a prostitute on the way to his room, he did not accept her offer, nor does he recall anything later in the evening in question. Does the security officer mention my client by name or merely the lady in question?”

  Cochrane smiled slightly, all the while holding Michelson’s wild-eyed gaze. The pilot was in a full sweat. He squirmed in the chair, barely able to maintain eye contact. “They’re lies,” he charged angrily.

  “Would you like to change your story about either Friday or Saturday evening, Lieutenant Michelson?” Cochrane asked.

  “I have nothing to say.”

  Baden leaned forward, his expression intense. “Lieutenant Cochrane, if you have evidence…”

  Jim shifted his gaze to the sweating officer. “Lieutenant, we have eyewitness accounts and photos to back up everything we’ve asked you about in this interview. I hope you understand the Navy term ‘deep shit.’”

  The interview was terminated after Michelson continued not to recall anything. That was fine, because Jim had the photo proof that said otherwise. And for once, he felt confident he could eventually help Susan Kane rest in peace.

  “WELL?” Ellen said wearily as they wrapped up their interviews. “What’s our score so far?” They’d questioned three pilots that morning, and though it was barely noon she was ready to call it a day.

  Cochrane put the laptop back in its black nylon case. “Pilots zip, us zip. No one threw himself on his sword and confessed.”

  “With all the information we had on Michelson I thought he was going to break.”

  “I was hoping he would, but he didn’t. He’s like a tough old boar—hard to kill even with a shot directly to the head.”

  Ellen stood and made sure they left nothing of consequence behind. “Michelson’s more like a cat, if you ask me. He used up eight of his nine lives today, and he’s still going. Even with an eyewitness, he has the gall to lie. He’s supposed to be a Navy officer.”

  “Michelson is not going to hurt his father, who is an admiral. He’ll lie to protect his family tree and the military dynasty he sprang from. What’s truth got to do with it?” Cochrane hefted the computer by the strap and placed it over his shoulder, then picked up his bulging briefcase. “Just because you’re a Navy officer doesn’t mean you’re an officer and a gentleman,” he told her as they walked down the passageway.

  Ellen gazed longingly at the afternoon
sunlight slanting through the open windows. In the distance, she heard jets taking off. “Fraternity?”

  “Yeah, it’s called the Brotherhood. They don’t rat on one another, regardless of what their rank is.”

  “Even if they’ve done something wrong?” she asked, glad to leave Ops behind and feel the warmth of the sun. A breeze lifted several strands of her hair.

  “Sure, it’s believed ‘the system’ can fix itself from within.”

  “Obviously that isn’t true. What kind of role models do they think they are if they’ll lie, cheat or stonewall to protect one of their members who’s guilty of something?”

  “Reckon that’s part of their lesson. Officers aren’t gods, nor are they automatically good role models. There might have been twenty or so military men involved in the extreme behavior at Ares. Most of the attendees were unidentified civilians. Those twenty bad apples are hardly representative of Navy officers in general.” Cochrane stopped at the car and unlocked it.

  “Doesn’t it sadden you?” Ellen asked, sliding into the passenger seat.

  Cochrane got in and buckled up. “The men in my family were all in the Navy, and I was taught to be proud of that fact.” He put the key into the ignition. “Hell of a lapse between idealism and reality, isn’t it?”

  As they drove away, Ellen shook her head. “Michelson was lying through his teeth. It was so obvious. And Baden sat there like his client wasn’t guilty at all.”

  “That’s his job—to defend his client against all accusations. I’m sure Michelson hasn’t told Baden everything,” Jim said.

  “You think so?”

  “Yeah.”

  Ellen gazed at the tall, stately palms lining the avenue. Giddings was a large, sprawling station very close to the freeway. “I thought you were supposed to tell your attorney everything.”

  Chuckling, Cochrane said, “Well, in a naval aviator’s world and realm, blood is thicker than water. Baden may be his attorney, but he’s not part of the air community. In fact, Baden may not want to know all the details, so he can’t be responsible if Michelson is lying.”

  “This whole legal system is sick,” she muttered as she looked out the window.