“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 4 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, and Master Chief Kettleman pretended he had not heard, and we finished the morning inspection at exactly 11:52, which was 6 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 2 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, and 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
And I thought about how tired I was of letting her write that story.
“Then let’s document the truth,” I answered.
The formal statement took 2 hours.
Special Agent Ashford asked careful questions in a small, windowless room in the NCIS building, and I answered every one of them in the same measured tone I used for after-action reports.
I described the morning chronologically, from my arrival at Pier 12 through Delphine’s approach, her exact words as best I could remember them, the moment she grabbed the bag, and the moment it hit the water.
I named every witness I could identify. I described my prior relationship with Delphine in factual terms without editorializing, going back to our childhood in Rowan Oak and forward through our mother’s funeral in 2023.
Ashford asked about the harassment claim she had made.
I told him the truth, which was that I had not spoken to Delphine in 20 months, that I had not sent her any messages, that I had not contacted any member of her family, and that I could produce phone records to prove all of it.
He nodded and made a note.
He asked about the claim that I had deliberately scheduled the inspection to interfere with her catering event.
I told him that waterfront readiness inspections were scheduled 6 weeks in advance through a coordinated process involving multiple commands, that the schedule was documented, that I had no knowledge of any catering event on any pier that day, and that I could produce every email in the scheduling chain going back to April.
He asked about the claim that I had a history of using my rank to intimidate her.
I sat with that one for a moment.
“Agent Ashford, I have never used my rank in her presence in any context. She has never seen me in uniform except at our mother’s funeral, and I wore dress blues then because my mother had specifically requested it in her final wishes. Delphine did not know I was a commander until this morning. She has consistently referred to me as being in the Navy in the same tone she would use to describe someone working at a gas station.”
Ashford’s mouth twitched slightly. He made another note.
When we finished, he thanked me, told me the investigation would move quickly, and mentioned that Delphine had been released pending charges and had been escorted off the base by security.
She would not be permitted to return without prior authorization from base command.
I drove home to my apartment in Virginia Beach in the late-afternoon traffic. And for the entire 30-minute drive, I thought about how strange it felt to have finally said all of that out loud to someone with the authority to do something about it.
My apartment was small and quiet. Two bedrooms, one for me and one that functioned as an office and library, on the third floor of a building overlooking a small courtyard with a fountain.
I had lived there for 4 years. It contained no photographs of my family other than one of Corwin and Teodoro on their wedding day and one of my mother from before I had joined the Navy.
Delphine had never been inside.
I called Corwin as soon as I put my keys down. He picked up on the second ring.
“Marlo.”
“Hi.”
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m home.”
He exhaled. I heard him close a door on his end. Probably the door to his home office.
“Tell me everything.”
I told him everything.
Corwin listened without interrupting, which was one of the many reasons I loved him. And when I finished, he was quiet for a long time.
“She’s telling everyone you attacked her,” he finally offered.
“I know.”
