Chapter 3
The interview room was not a room at all. It was the XO's office with the chart table folded up, and they'd put a metal chair in the middle of it for me. My hair was still damp and pulled back, and the air conditioning made my skin feel tight with salt. The coveralls they'd given me were too big. I kept pushing the sleeves up.
A junior lieutenant sat across from me with a legal pad. He couldn't have been more than twenty-six. He had a fresh haircut and a pen that clicked every time he paused. He told me his name was LTJG Park and he was tasked with taking my preliminary statement. He said it like he had memorized it.
"Petty Officer Reyes, I need your account of what happened at approximately 0900 on deck, near the dome structure," he said. "In your own words."
I tried to keep my breathing even. My hands were on my knees. I could feel the chair cold through the coveralls.
"That morning I was on watch rotation," I said. "I was sent to check the lashing on the aft stowage by the dome. The piping there had been rattling all night. Chief told me to eyeball it and report if the bracket was loose."
Park wrote that down. He didn't look up.
"Continue," he said.
"I went to the rail. I leaned over to see the bracket under the overhang. That's when I heard shouting behind me. Then hands on my shoulders."
My voice caught there. I swallowed.
"I didn't climb the rail. I didn't go over. I was pulled."
Park clicked his pen. He flipped back a page in his notes.
"The deck log says you were trying to escape," he said. It wasn't a question. He read from a carbon copy. "'Subject observed at rail behaving erratically. Subject was trying to escape. Restraint required.'"
My chest went tight.
"That's not what happened," I said. "I was doing my job. Check the work chit. Chief Kowalski signed it at 0845."
Park finally looked at me. His eyes flicked to my hands, then back to the pad.
"Petty Officer, help me understand the discrepancy," he said, quieter now. "If you were trying to escape, you'd have a plan. You'd have gear. A flotation device. A time when no one was watching. You had none of that. You were in full uniform. Your boots were still laced. And the rope —"
He hesitated.
"The rope wasn't rigged for escape. It was a mooring line, still fastened vertically to the hull fitting. You were hanging from it, not lowering yourself on it. There's no knot, no harness. That doesn't track with an escape attempt."
I stared at him. For the first time since they'd pulled me out of the water, someone had said out loud what I knew to be true.
"Yes," I said. "Exactly. I grabbed it because it was there when I hit the water. I held on so I wouldn't go under the hull."
Park wrote that down word for word. His handwriting was small and careful.
He turned the pad so I could see his notes, then slid a typed statement across the table. It was one page. At the bottom was a line for my signature.
"This is the other account," he said. He didn't want to read it, I could tell. He cleared his throat. "Commander Hargrove's statement for the record says, quote, 'Hey, hey, stop! Stop! What's going on here? She was trying to escape.' He states you went over the rail voluntarily and he attempted to stop you."
The words landed exactly as I'd heard them on deck, but flattened on paper. Hearing them again in Park's careful voice made my stomach turn. He said them as a secondhand quote, not as his own words. He kept his eyes on the page while he said it.
"Is that accurate?" he asked.
"No," I said. My voice was louder than I meant it to be. "No. He was the one at the rail behind me. He was the one —" I stopped. The room was too small. I breathed in through my nose. "I was not trying to escape."
Park nodded once. He pulled the typed sheet back a fraction, like he wasn't sure I should touch it.
"There are now two conflicting accounts on record," he said. "Yours and the Commander's. I have to log both."
He clicked his pen closed.
"Until the preliminary inquiry is complete, you are ordered not to discuss this incident with any member of the crew. No discussion in berthing, mess, or on watch. Do you understand?"
I understood. It wasn't for the investigation. It was to keep the two stories from touching.
"Yes, sir," I said.
May you like
He stood. He left the legal pad on the table between us, my words on one page, Hargrove's on the other.
"Stay here until Master-at-Arms comes for you," he said, and opened the door just wide enough to slip out. The hallway air was gray and smelled like coffee and oil. The door clicked shut. I sat in the metal chair in the borrowed coveralls, looking at the two versions of the same morning, waiting to be taken back to the room where I wasn't allowed to speak.
