Crawford entered the room a moment later, his disorientation clear from the way he started in the opposite direction from the witness chair. Olivia quickly rose and caught his arm, directing him to turn around, pointing out his seat. Crawford grasped the chair like a life raft and fell into it uneasily. It was immediately obvious to everyone how jittery he was, and Elliot prayed that the board would believe it was entirely due to his nervousness at the situation, and not at least partly due to the fact that he had a chain smoking habit that had been denied for too long.
The Bishop paced the room as gracefully as he could within the close quarters. No one in the room missed Crawford's awkward and purposeful avoidance of looking at Janine. Bishop Ramey smiled benevolently at the young man and spoke with almost reverential respect.
"Hello, Mr. Brown. Thank you for coming here today. I know this is difficult for you, but it's important for the board to hear from all sides of this issue. Do you remember me?"
For a moment, Crawford's face twisted at the question as though he were about to spit something across the room, and Elliot feared that he was about to say something disrespectful. But the tense moment passed, and Crawford relaxed again before he answered.
"Yes, sir. You're Bishop Ramey."
"And you know what all this is about?"
"Yes, sir."
The Bishop nodded and gestured towards the young man with open palms.
"Go ahead and say your peace, then."
Crawford shifted uncomfortably and cleared his throat. Elliot silently willed him to look up from the table and meet the eyes of the three person panel, but Crawford seemed incapable of looking at anything but the table or the floor.
"This woman that you're thinking about pardoning has ruined my life. I guess that's what I want you to understand. She's ruined a lot of people's lives. I had an A average my first semester of college. I was going to do an internship in Washington that summer. Then I went out with some friends one night, and I guess we got separated because the next thing I knew, I was in this room with no windows. They took my clothes. I was kept in a box so small, I couldn't move. She'd make us stay in those boxes for hours and days. She would keep us weak and awake for days with the drugs they injected into us. We'd hallucinate, too; horrible hallucinations, like nightmares that seemed real. Trapped in those boxes, feeling like my skin was going to jump off my body, I thought I'd go insane. They would tell us what was going to happen to us and then make us wait, wondering when it was going to come. Sometimes nothing would happen for days or weeks, but then they'd do it. First it was the beatings. Then they made you watch while they raped someone else. Then, one day it would be your turn."
Crawford slumped forward, the shame and anger creeping into his voice.
"I got to the point I just didn't want them to hurt me anymore, so I would try to, you know, be good. I would try to… please her." His voice cracked with the loathing he felt for himself. "Do you know what it's like to feel like your own body doesn't belong to you anymore? So I begged, like something not even human anymore, like a dog. I told them I'd do anything they wanted, just please don't hurt me anymore. It would just make her angrier, more disgusted with me. I'd get beaten worse for it."
Crawford stopped, and for the first time since entering the room, looked up at the panel with eyes shining like mirrors. Their faces were impassive, and this seemed to cause Crawford even more distress. He glanced around and found Elliot, who smiled and nodded encouragingly. In actuality, Elliot too was concerned by the panel's apparent lack of emotion. Now was not the time to let his consternation show, however, so he signaled that he thought Crawford was doing just fine. The witness took a deep breath.
"That's pretty much what I came here to say. If it's okay, I'd like to go home now. I don't like being around her."
Crawford indicated in Janine's general direction.
The Bishop stood and modestly raised his hand halfway.
"I understand this young man's eagerness to leave. He's obviously been through quite a time. I just wanted to ask a few questions first, with the panel's permission of course."
Louise nodded, never taking her eyes off of Bishop Ramey, and folded her hands under her chin in way that made her look not unlike a schoolgirl with a crush.
Tremors, either from nicotine deprivation or nerves or both, shook Crawford's body for a moment before he regained control. He swallowed hard in anticipation of the questioning.
"You had just successfully pledged a fraternity not long before your abduction, right?"
A fog rolled over Crawford's face, as though trying to recall something that had happened a hundred years ago. Finally, he answered in the affirmative.
The Bishop continued, "I never pledged a fraternity myself, but I'm interested in the ritual aspects of it, and I did some research. From what I understand, rushing that fraternity you joined in particular is pretty rough stuff. They make their pledges get naked and do unpleasant things to them. They get spanked with some hefty boards and even have to have intimate relations with, well, let's just say that there is experimentation with other species. You submit yourself to them. And there is also some partaking of alcohol, narcotics and other illicit drugs. That's what I read about your fraternity. Is all that true?"
"No, it's not." Crawford said.
Elliot appreciated the firm, terse way Crawford had denied the Bishop's allegations, but he could tell that the young man was beginning to lose his composure.
"So, my research is incorrect?"
"Yes, sir. It is." Crawford said.
"Excuse me, but what exactly are you getting at? How is this relevant?" Elliot asked, hoping to give Crawford a break from the Bishop's questioning.
Bishop Ramey shrugged amiably.
"I know that it wasn't a positive experience, what this boy went through. But honestly, was it really that much worse that what these kids do to each other in fraternities during rush week?"
Elliot started to rise out of his chair and cross the short space that separated him from the Bishop. What he would have done to the Bishop once he was within reach, Elliot himself didn't know, but Olivia's wiry grip on his arm kept him from finding out. Everyone redirected their attention to Crawford again, who was now himself standing up.
"Yeah, we got drunk sometimes. We smoked a bowl or two, I admit it. But they never beat me so bad I thought I was going to die. They never violated me. And they never held me down and forced things into me that made me bleed for days. No, she did that." Crawford pointed directly at Janine, his hand now shaking so badly it looked like a street sign caught in a hurricane.
"And I'm not going to stay here and let myself be violated all over again."
With that, Crawford slammed open the door and started out.
"Wait." Elliot said, and went after him; he wanted to put a comforting hand on Crawford's shoulder and talk to him, to reassure him he had done the right thing. But Crawford roughly jerked his arm out of Elliot's reach just as Elliot closed the distance between them, and then the young man was gone. There was silence for a long time in the hearing room before Louise finally spoke.
"Well, I think we're all certainly due for a lunch now. Let's meet back here in an hour." Louise said.
Outside, in the hallway, Elliot spoke to Olivia in hushed, distressed tones.
"Did you see the way the panel reacted to Crawford? It was like they were watching a movie. And were you watching Janine? She never budged. Her expression never changed. She's more disciplined. She's gotten better at keeping her feelings hidden."
Olivia considered this statement.
"My God. She was enjoying it, wasn't she? She got to revisit with one of her first victims and relive the good old days. I bet she was getting off on it. The only thing is, if she showed how much she liked what she was hearing, wouldn't that support her claim that she's crazy and needs professional help?"
"Maybe. It would make her pretty damn unsympathetic, too. I think the claim that she's crazy is self evident. The angle they're going for is to make her seem like she could get better. Like she's capable of being helped and cured, that someday she might learn to feel remorse."
Olivia knew that Crawford's testimony had brought back some terrible memories for her partner, and once again she felt helpless to do anything about it. Elliot rubbed the side of his face as though he were trying to remove a stain that would not come out, a gesture that reminded Olivia of a bad time when he was still recovering from his ordeal, and she had actually wondered if he would ever be himself again.
"How are you holding up?" She asked.
"I'll be okay."
"You want to go get some lunch?"
"I don't think I'll have an appetite for a long time." Elliot said.
