Chapter 11
They moved his interview before mine. I knew because I heard the chairs scrape in the passageway outside the berthing office, the same narrow space where I'd waited three days before. The paint was the same flat gray. The pipes ran overhead, sweating in the cool air.
Petty Officer Reyes was the one who'd shouted. That was his name. I'd only known him as the voice that cut through the wind that morning. Now he sat two doors down with the investigating officer, and the door was shut, and I was told to wait.
I sat on the metal bench and stared at the scuff on my boot. My uniform had been returned, washed, folded wrong. The collar insignia was still pinned in place. I kept my hands flat on my knees so they wouldn't shake.
The chief who'd been assigned to watch me leaned against the bulkhead. He didn't talk. That was the rule now — no coaching, no leading. Just wait.
When the door opened, Reyes came out. He looked at me once. His eyes were tired. He didn't nod. He didn't shake his head. He just walked past to the head at the end of the passageway, his shoulder brushing the pipe as he went.
The investigating officer appeared in the doorway. Lieutenant Commander Park. She held a thin manila folder and a pen.
"Petty Officer," she said to me. "You're next."
Her office was small. A bolted-down desk, two chairs, a porthole that had been painted over. The air smelled like coffee and cleaner. She gestured for me to sit.
She didn't start with the water. She started with the rail.
"Walk me through the sequence again," she said. "From the time you were on deck near the dome structure."
I told her. The overcast light. The sound of the wind against the railings. How I'd been near the starboard side checking the tie-down by the dome when I heard raised voices. How I'd turned and seen the senior chief at the rail, his hands on my upper arms. How I'd pulled back. How the edge had come too fast.
She listened without interrupting, pen moving in small, even strokes.
"And the rope," she said.
"It was already there," I said. "Thick. Twisted. Hanging straight down beside the hull. I grabbed it because it was the only thing there."
She wrote that down exactly.
Then she slid a second sheet across the desk. It was Reyes's statement. Typed. Initialed at the bottom.
She turned it so I could read.
He had written that he was on the upper deck by the dome, doing a comms check, when he heard me say something and then heard the scuffle. He wrote that he ran to the rail and shouted, "Hey, hey, stop! Stop! What's going on here?" He wrote that the senior chief answered, "She was trying to escape."
Park tapped the second paragraph with her pen.
"Read this part out loud," she said.
I read it. "'At no time did I see the Petty Officer attempt to climb or jump the rail on her own. I saw a struggle at the rail. Two persons in contact. I saw her go over during that struggle.'"
My breath caught. I looked up.
Park's face didn't change. "He was asked to amend that sentence," she said. "He declined."
She let the silence sit. The pipe overhead ticked as the ship moved.
"He also adds," she said, and turned the page, "that after you went over, the senior figure at the rail did not immediately throw a line or call man overboard. He states you were in the water, visible from the rail, for an estimated thirty to forty-five seconds before any flotation was deployed. He describes a hazy view from the waterline, a silhouette behind cables, not moving."
That was exactly what I'd seen from below. The foggy light. The dark shape at the rail behind the horizontal cables. Not reaching. Just standing.
"He confirms the rope was already streamed," Park said. "Not thrown after."
I nodded. My throat was dry. "That's what happened."
Park closed the folder for a moment. "Your accounts align," she said. "On sequence. On contact at the rail. On the delay. On the rope already being there. Neither of you makes a conclusion about intent beyond what you saw."
She looked at me directly for the first time.
"Do you understand what that means?" she asked.
"It means we're not alone on the facts," I said.
"It means the facts are two against one," she said. "But rank is not a vote."
She stood and walked to the painted-over porthole, resting her hand on the frame. The ship's engine thrummed through the deck.
"Reyes will be reassigned to shore duty pending review," she said, her back to me. "For his protection. And yours. This no longer stays at the ship level."
I felt a cold weight lift and then settle again, different.
"So what happens now?" I asked.
Park turned back. "Now it goes higher. Outside this hull. Outside this chain." She picked up the folder. "You both hold your course. That's the hard part."
May you like
She opened the door. The passageway was empty except for the chief still at his post. From somewhere above, I could hear boots on deck, the ordinary work of the ship continuing over our heads, as if nothing had changed.
I stepped out into the gray light from the overheads, and for the first time in three days, I wasn't the only pair of eyes that had seen it.
