Chapter 2 - WHAT DELPHINE TOLD NCIS
Special Agent Ashford was very polite when he asked Delphine to step over to the pier office with him.
And Delphine was very much not polite when she refused.
She told him she did not have to speak to anyone, that she had rights, that her sister was overreacting, and that if he touched her, she would sue the entire United States government.
Ashford listened with the patient, blank expression of a man who had heard every version of this speech a thousand times.
When she finished, he simply repeated his request.
This time, two uniformed masters-at-arms had appeared behind him.
Delphine’s protests dropped in volume by about 50%.
I did not watch her go.
I had an inspection to run and a piece of equipment to recover, and letting Delphine occupy any more of my attention than she already had would have been a professional failure on my part.
I picked up my clipboard, walked back over to Master Chief Kettleman and Rosalind Vega, and asked Rosalind if she could pull up the digital backup of the corrosion assessment on her tablet so we could continue without the physical binder.
Rosalind, who was a former enlisted Marine and did not fluster easily, nodded once and pulled her tablet out of her own bag.
“I have everything from the pre-inspection brief backed up to the secure cloud, ma’am. We can keep moving.”
“Thank you.”
Master Chief Kettleman, who had been in the Navy for 26 years and had seen a great many things, was doing his best to keep his face professional.
I could see the corner of his mouth twitching.
“Master Chief.”
“Ma’am?”
“Something amusing?”
“No, ma’am. Absolutely not, ma’am.”
“Good. Let’s continue with the mooring assessment.”
We continued.
The dive recovery team arrived within 40 minutes, which was actually impressive response time, and by 10:30, they had located my bag in about 18 feet of water and brought it up in a mesh recovery net.
The leather was ruined.
The tablet was almost certainly ruined, though the security team would need to physically destroy it regardless of whether it powered on.
The paper documents were pulped.
I signed the recovery form, initialed the chain-of-custody log, and made a mental note that I would be spending most of my evening writing an incident report.
Around 11:15, my phone rang.
It was Captain Odel Bramwell, my direct commanding officer, and I already knew what she was calling about because news of a woman throwing a naval commander’s bag off a pier in front of 11 sailors travels through Naval Station Norfolk at approximately the speed of light.
“Marlo.”
“Ma’am.”
“Tell me what happened on Pier 12 this morning.”
I told her concisely, factually, without emotion.
I did not mention that Delphine was my sister until the very end.
And when I did, there was a pause on the other end of the line that lasted about four seconds.
“Your sister?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Your biological sister?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Another pause.
“Marlo, I need you to come to my office at 1400. Bring the incident report and any communications you’ve had with this individual over the past year. NCIS is going to want a formal statement, and legal is going to want to walk you through your options.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And Marlo.”
“Ma’am?”
“I’m sorry. I know this is complicated.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
I hung up.
Rosalind pretended she had not heard.
Master Chief Kettleman pretended he had not heard.
And we finished the morning inspection at exactly 11:52, which was six minutes ahead of schedule despite everything.
I ate lunch alone in my office at Building C200.
A tuna sandwich from the base commissary, a bottle of water, and the beginning of a headache pressing behind my right eye.
I opened my laptop and began writing the incident report while the details were still fresh.
About halfway through the second paragraph, my phone buzzed with a text message from my brother, Corwin.
Corwin was two years younger than me and four years younger than Delphine, and he was the only person in our family who had ever made an effort to stay in real contact with me.
He lived in Richmond with his husband, who worked as a public defender, and he had the kind of temperament that made him extremely good at both his job and at being the peacekeeper between his warring sisters.
His text read:
“Delphine just called me hysterical. Says you had her arrested. Please tell me what actually happened.”
I stared at the message for a long time.
Then I typed back:
“She threw my work bag off Pier 12 into the Elizabeth River. It contained federal equipment. She was detained by NCIS, not arrested by me. I’ll call you tonight.”
The three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Then:
“Marlo. Oh my God. Is she in serious trouble?”
I typed:
“Yes.”
The three dots appeared for a very long time and then disappeared without a message.
I put the phone face down on my desk and went back to the incident report.
At 1400, I was in Captain Bramwell’s office.
She was a small woman with silver hair cut very short and the kind of eyes that missed absolutely nothing.
She had a manila folder open on her desk that I recognized as my personnel file.
Sitting in the chair beside her desk was a Navy JAG officer I had not met before, a lieutenant commander named Ojan Per.
Standing behind her was Special Agent Ashford.
“Commander Prescott, please sit down.”
I sat.
“Lieutenant Commander Per is here to advise you on the legal aspects of this situation. Special Agent Ashford is here to take your formal statement. I am here because you work for me and because I want to make sure that whatever happens next, it happens the right way.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Per leaned forward.
He was a young officer, probably early 30s, and he had the bright, alert expression of a lawyer who is actually interested in his case.
“Commander, I want to walk you through what your sister is currently facing so you understand the landscape. Miss Prescott, is it, or is she married?”
“Delphine Ashwell. Her married name is Ashwell.”
“Ms. Ashwell is currently being questioned regarding several potential federal offenses. The most serious is destruction of federal property, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years and a substantial fine.”
He continued.
“However, because the bag contained a secure tablet with classified material, there is also a potential charge related to mishandling of classified information. Though that one is complicated because she did not know what was in the bag.”
“She didn’t know.”
“Correct. Intent matters for that charge. It does not matter for destruction of federal property. She threw it. She knew it was yours. She knew you were in uniform. The prosecution has a very straightforward case if they choose to bring one.”
“If they choose to bring one.”
Per nodded slowly.
“Commander, in cases like this, the victim’s preferences carry significant weight. Not because they should legally, but because prosecutors are practical.”
He paused.
“If you tell NCIS and the U.S. Attorney that you want to pursue this to the fullest extent, they will. If you tell them you want to handle it privately, they may consider that.”
“This is your decision to make, but I want you to make it with clear information.”
I looked at Captain Bramwell.
Her face was completely neutral.
Then I looked at Special Agent Ashford.
“Agent Ashford.”
“Ma’am.”
“Setting aside my preference, what does your investigation actually require?”
“Ma’am, we require your formal statement regardless of your preference. Your sister has made several statements during questioning that we will need to verify against your account.”
He continued.
“Beyond that, the decision to refer for prosecution is not solely yours. She committed the act in front of federal law enforcement. However, your input will be considered.”
I nodded slowly.
“What has she been saying?”
Ashford glanced at Captain Bramwell, who gave a small nod.
“Ma’am, your sister is currently telling us that you have been harassing her for years, that you deliberately scheduled this inspection to interfere with her catering event, that you have a history of using your rank to intimidate her, and that she was acting in what she perceived to be self-defense against a pattern of behavior.”
I sat very still.
“None of that is true.”
“We are aware, ma’am. However, she is stating it emphatically, and she has stated that she intends to contact media outlets to share her version of events.”
Per cleared his throat.
“Commander, this is where the situation becomes strategic.”
He leaned forward.
“If your sister goes to the media with a fabricated narrative before the facts are established, it becomes significantly harder to control the story.”
“Your name, your rank, your record—all of that becomes public property.”
“My professional recommendation is that we get ahead of it.”
“How?”
“By fully documenting the truth immediately and having NCIS complete their investigation quickly so that, when and if she speaks to media, the facts are already on the record and easily verified.”
I thought about my mother.
I thought about Corwin.
I thought about the version of me that Delphine had been constructing for people my entire life.
May you like
And I thought about how tired I was of letting her write that story.
“Then let’s document the truth,” I answered.
