“Interesting.”
“Marlo, I think the story is starting to unravel on her own end. She is talking too much and she is contradicting herself. People are starting to notice.”
I looked out my office window at the parking lot and the small strip of grass beyond it and the flagpole with the ensign moving slightly in the wind.
“Corwin, let it unravel. Do not help it. Do not slow it down. Just let it happen. She’s going to do this to herself.”
“Yes.”
We hung up.
I sat at my desk for a moment, looking at nothing in particular. And I realized that, for the first time in my adult life, I was watching my sister lose control of a narrative she had spent decades building.
Saturday came, and I did not drive to Rowan Oak.
I drove to Richmond instead, to Corwin and Teodoro’s small brick house on a tree-lined street in the Fan District, and I spent the weekend in their guest room with a stack of books, a cat named Perl who had decided I was acceptable, and no phone service by choice.
I had turned off notifications for everyone except Captain Bramwell and Lieutenant Commander Per.
Teodoro made shrimp and grits on Saturday night, and the three of us sat at their small kitchen table with a bottle of wine and did not talk about Delphine for the first two hours.
We talked about a book Corwin was reading, about a case he was consulting on, about a trip they were planning to Portugal in the fall.
It was the most peaceful evening I had experienced in weeks.
Around 10:00, Corwin’s phone started buzzing. He looked at it, sighed, and put it face down on the table.
“The meeting is over,” he informed us.
“How was it?”
“According to Pru, who texted me the whole time, it was a disaster. Aunt Maragold opened by asking everyone to sign a letter formally cutting you off from the family. Uncle Tavish refused. Two of our cousins refused. Pru refused. Delphine got hysterical when she realized people were not automatically taking her side, and she started screaming at Aunt Maragold that no one loved her. Aunt Maragold told her to sit down and stop making a scene. Delphine left. Bram left after her. Aunt Maragold spent the rest of the meeting complaining about you both.”
Teodoro raised his eyebrows.
“Both of you?”
“Apparently, we are both selfish, both disrespectful, and both responsible for the family’s decline.”
“It’s not a good weekend to be a Prescott.”
I sipped my wine.
“It is not the first weekend. It has not been a good weekend to be a Prescott.”
Corwin laughed. Teodoro laughed.
Perl the cat purred in my lap, and I let myself feel something close to contentment for a moment.
The following Monday, June 9th, I was back in my office at 0700.
There was an envelope on my desk from base legal. I opened it.
Inside was a copy of a formal cease-and-desist letter that had been sent to a local news outlet on Friday afternoon by Roland Vestri, Delphine’s attorney, demanding that they retract the article about her detention.
Attached was a note from Per explaining that the outlet had refused, that they had in fact reached out to Base Public Affairs for comment, and that the base had provided the short factual statement we had discussed.
The updated article, which had been published Sunday evening, now included the fact that Delphine was under federal investigation for destruction of federal property and that a formal charge was being considered.
Per had also included a printout of the reader comments.
I skimmed them.
The tone had shifted significantly.
The initial article had generated sympathetic comments toward Delphine. The updated article had generated a very different response.
People were angry. People were asking why a woman would throw a naval officer’s bag off a pier and then claim to be the victim. People were pointing out that if there was surveillance footage, it should be released.
I did not want the surveillance footage released.
It would be Delphine’s ultimate humiliation. And however much she had earned it, I was not the kind of person who took pleasure in that particular flavor of destruction.
I sent Per a short email asking him to confirm that the footage would not be publicly distributed unless legally required, and he responded within 10 minutes to confirm.
At 0900, I had a scheduled meeting with Rosalind Vega about the corrosion report.
She arrived on time with her tablet and two coffees, one of which she placed on my desk without comment.
“Rosalind.”
“Commander.”
“I did not order coffee.”
“I know. I brought you one anyway. You have had a week.”
I looked at her. She looked back at me with the flat, unreadable expression of a former Marine gunnery sergeant, which was what she had been before she retired and became a defense contractor.
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Now, let’s talk about the mooring cleats on Pier 12, north side.”
We worked for 2 hours.
Rosalind was one of the best in her field, and working with her was always focused and productive.
When we finished, she closed her tablet and looked at me for a moment.
“Commander, permission to speak freely.”
“Granted.”
“Everybody on this base knows what happened. I mean everybody. And I want you to know that not a single person I have talked to thinks anything about you except that you handled it the exact right way. If your sister was hoping to damage your reputation, she failed. The only reputation she damaged is her own.”
I nodded slowly.
“Thank you, Rosalind.”
“There is one more thing. Master Chief Kettleman told me to tell you that the whole Master Chief’s mess is offering to buy you a new bag. Something nice. Italian leather. They took up a collection.”
I laughed. Actually laughed, for the first time in a week.
“Tell Master Chief Kettleman that is very kind, and I will accept a bag, but only if it costs less than $100 and comes from the exchange. I do not want to be the commander who let the enlisted mess buy her expensive gifts.”
“Understood, ma’am.”
She left.
I sat at my desk with my second coffee, warm now, and I thought about how strange it was that, in the middle of the worst family situation of my life, I was surrounded by people who actually saw me.
Really saw me.
Not the version of me Delphine had constructed. Not the version my aunt had refused to look at, but the actual person I had built myself into over 19 years of work.
At 11:15, Per came to my office in person. He was carrying a file folder, and his expression was serious.
“Commander, I wanted to update you directly. The U.S. Attorney’s Office has decided to move forward with charges.”
I set my coffee down.
“What charges?”
“Destruction of federal property, one count. Trespassing on a military installation during a secured operation, one count. They have declined to pursue the classified-material mishandling charge because they cannot prove she knew what was in the bag. But the other two are moving forward. She will be formally charged this week.”
“What is she facing?”
“Realistically, if she pleads out, probation and restitution. If she goes to trial and loses, potentially some jail time, though for a first offense with no prior record, I would be surprised if she got more than a few months. The financial penalty will be significant regardless. The tablet alone was worth about $14,000, and the destroyed documents will be assessed separately.”
“$14,000?”
“Yes, ma’am. And the government will pursue full restitution.”
I sat back in my chair.
Delphine did not have $14,000.
Bram made a decent living as a middle manager at an insurance company, but they were not wealthy people. They had a mortgage, two kids, car payments.
$14,000 in restitution plus legal fees was going to hurt them badly.
“Ma’am?”
“Is there any version of this where the restitution is reduced or waived?”
He looked at me for a long moment.
“Commander, I want to be careful how I answer that. Are you asking as her sister, or are you asking as the victim of a federal offense?”
“I am asking as a person who does not want her sister’s children to lose their house.”
Per nodded slowly.
“The restitution amount is set by the government based on actual loss. It is not something you can waive. However, if you were to submit a victim impact statement that included your perspective on appropriate consequences, the court would take that into account when determining her overall sentence. Restitution would still be owed, but the additional penalties, probation length, fines might be adjusted.”
“I see.”
“Commander, may I speak candidly?”
“Please.”
“Your sister needs consequences. Not because you want to punish her, but because she has spent her whole life not experiencing them. If you soften this too much, she will interpret it as another rescue, and she will continue to behave the way she has behaved. If you let it run its natural course, this will be the first time in her life that someone has held her fully accountable. That might be the best thing that ever happens to her.”
I looked at him for a long time.
“Lieutenant Commander Per, you are very insightful for a man your age.”
“I had three older sisters, ma’am.”
I laughed.
He smiled.
He left the folder on my desk and walked out.
I sat with what he had said for a long time.
Delphine was formally charged on Wednesday, June 11th.
The charging documents were filed in the Eastern District of Virginia Federal Court, and by that evening, the updated news article had spread beyond the small local outlet into the regional news ecosystem.
