My Friend Anna

by Rachel DeLoache Williams

  Rapt and repulsed as I was by Anna and her nightmarish world, there was another issue I needed to confront. The situation with American Express was ongoing. Filing the disputes had been only the first step. Because the phone number was unfamiliar, I ignored a call from Amex one afternoon. I learned from a voice mail that they required some additional information regarding the claim on my personal card. (Because two cards were used, there were also two case numbers and the claims had to be processed separately.) After a round of phone tag, I spoke with a representative who had a few questions. Was my credit card stolen? No, I answered. Was it lost? No, again. Was I there at La Mamounia in person? Of course the answer was yes.

  But how could my story fit into one-word answers? The nuance of the drama required a long-winded explanation, and I gave it. Just like before, when I first filed my claim, I started out calm and by the end of the phone call I was in the midst of a full-blown panic attack.

  As a person, the representative sounded sincerely sympathetic and wishing to help. As a corporate cog, however, the representative seemed obliged to focus on ticks in a box. For Amex’s purposes, the term “fraudulent” applied only when charges were made to a lost or stolen credit card. It was as black-and-white as that, and mine was a tale doused in gray. While this did not mean that my claim was rejected, it did mean that it had reached the wrong team. The Fraud Squad would redirect my case to the Customer Service Team. The Customer Service Team would then contact La Mamounia before circling back to me. Which meant more waiting. The looming threat of the unpaid balance filled me with a constant undercurrent of dread. I carried on trailing Anna.

  Chapter 16

  Eclipse

  * * *

  On the following Sunday, August 20, I drove a rental car with Grandma Marilyn and Noah to my aunt and uncle’s house in Cape Cod for a brief vacation. My sister, Jennie, and her boyfriend would take a ferry out to join us on Monday. None of them knew anything about my situation with Anna, and I had no immediate plan to tell them. This was primarily because I wanted to avoid my predicament becoming the dominant topic of conversation during our visit. If I told them, they would have so many questions, and I didn’t have it in me to patiently respond—the stress made me way too fragile, prone to anger, defensiveness, and fits of crying. Conversely, were they not to ask questions, I would feel self-conscious and annoyed by everyone tiptoeing around. No, I couldn’t do it. I was too tired and too grumpy. I just wanted things to be normal. I needed a break.

  Our first night on the Cape, Noah decided to sleep in a hammock on the back porch. My grandmother slept upstairs, so I was alone on the first floor. Lying awake in my bed, I logged into my Amex account on my cell phone. I checked my personal account first and then my corporate account, and that’s when I saw a line that made my heart drop: “VALID CHARGE—PREVIOUS CREDIT REVERSED $16,770.45.”

  It was a quarter past midnight, but I was suddenly wide-awake. I pulled back my covers to stand up. Pacing in the darkness, I called American Express. It was too stressful to wait until morning. I spoke to a representative and, through tears, told my story yet again. The representative reopened my case. When I hung up the phone, I looked out at the porch to see if Noah was sleeping. His eyes were closed, but I noticed that a window was open. I wondered if he had been able to hear.

  The following morning, my sister and her boyfriend arrived, and at half past two that afternoon we assembled to witness the eclipse. From an aerial view, Cape Cod is shaped like an arm curling to flex its bicep. Midway between its “fist” (Provincetown) and “elbow” (Chatham) is Wellfleet, where my family gathered on the wooden roof deck of my aunt and uncle’s house, perched on a bluff overlooking salt marshes and the bay.

  It was a welcome distraction for me. We didn’t have the special glasses you needed to look directly at the sun, so instead Grandma Marilyn showed us a trick using two sheets of paper. She punched a pinhole into one and held it above the other, so that light passed through the puncture to form a bright spot on the surface below. As the moon crossed in front of the sun, its shadow eclipsed the circle of light on the paper. Visually, the effect of her tool wasn’t that impressive, but it was a joy to see how much pleasure Grandma Marilyn got from making and using it. The solar experience was unifying, like flying a kite. For a few minutes, dusk fell in the middle of the day and we humans were reminded of our tiny place in the universe.

  On Tuesday, I received an email from the DA’s office. Without revealing any details, it let me know that the investigation into Anna was moving forward. I was introduced to Officer Michael McCaffrey, who was working with Assistant District Attorney McCaw and had been copied on the email. Officer McCaffrey replied a few minutes later. “Hello Ma’am,” his email began. He gave me his phone number and said I should feel free to contact him whenever I had a moment. The footer of his email identified him as a police officer in the NYPD’s Financial Crimes Task Force. Although it was after six o’clock, I called him right away. Looking for privacy, I first sat on the roof deck, but then I came down and, barefoot, walked in circles around the yard. I told Officer McCaffrey as much as I knew. Now and then, he chimed in with a question.

  After the call, I emailed him a zip file of my Operation Clarity folder, along with my notes on how I met Anna and the beginning of our “friendship.” Then I forwarded a couple of relevant videos via text message. It was reassuring to open such an instant and accessible line of communication with someone whom I associated with safety. I told Officer McCaffrey that I was available and glad to remain involved in whatever capacity would be most useful. I imagined it would be just a matter of time before Anna was apprehended.

  Returning to New York was unexpectedly destabilizing. Out of necessity, I had built up an emotional callus that allowed me to function in the midst of extreme stress. I hadn’t noticed my callus before the trip to Cape Cod, but when I got home, rested but raw, I was abruptly struck by its absence.

  We came back on a Sunday night. The next morning, as usual, I began my day by checking Anna’s social media for anything new, which there hadn’t been for weeks. My heart leapt. There were two new posts on her InstaStory. The first had been posted eleven hours prior: a close-up of thirsty-looking banana palm leaves in front of a red tiled roof. Anna wasn’t in New York. The picture was too tropical, too green, too sunny.

  The next post was from ten hours prior: thick red and white stripes filled the frame. Was it a pool chair? A painted wall? At the right edge of the image, I recognized Anna’s foot and a sliver of her calf. Her toenails were painted blood red, and she was wearing sandals I hadn’t seen before: rattan with a strip of circles, maybe seashells, that ran from her toes to her ankle. It was the week before Anna was scheduled to appear in a Manhattan court to face three counts of misdemeanor theft of services, and I felt certain that she was on the West Coast. I took screenshots of both images and texted them to Officer McCaffrey. And just to be sure everyone was aware, I also emailed them to the District Attorney’s Office.

  Seeing the posts from Anna was enough to shake my foundation, but what really knocked me down was the news from American Express just an hour later. I saw the email in my in-box: “An important message is ready for you to view in the American Express Secure Message Center.” I logged in immediately. The message pertained to my personal card: “During our investigation, we contacted the merchant on your behalf and requested them to either provide an explanation or issue a credit for the charge in question. In response to our inquiry, the merchant has provided copy of signed charge receipts along with itemization which we have included for your reference . . . Therefore, the amount under review [$36,010.09] has been reapplied to your account, and will reflect on an upcoming statement.”

  White-hot terror. The attached receipt was the “preauthorization” slip I had signed when the La Mamounia staffers told me it was for a temporary hold. I called Amex while I walked down the West Side Highway toward my office. Again, I spoke to a series of representatives, and again I u
nraveled. By the time I got to Battery Park City, I was hyperventilating. I watched goldfish in the Lily Pond of Rockefeller Park as I struggled to slow down my breathing. After hearing my story (yet again), Amex agreed to refile my dispute. They were sympathetic and attentive; it was just that their boxes were square and my story was round.

  That evening, at home in bed, I ended the day just as I had begun it, with a look at Anna’s social media. On Instagram, she was at it again. In only the hour before I checked, she had posted a suggestive photograph of her bare legs, extended and crossed as she lay on a couch, with black fabric draped around her thighs. I scanned for any details that could be used to identify her location: the pattern on the couch, the style of the lamp, olive-green shapes on the white curtains.

  While I was looking at my phone, Anna posted again. This time it was a self-portrait of her reflection in a full-length mirror. She was leaning against a doorway, wearing a black leotard with long sleeves and no pants. The photo was cropped so that it appeared off-center. The camera flash obscured most of her face. Only her right eye was visible.

  Knowing that Anna and I were online at the same time made me feel strangely exposed, as though we were connected and she might somehow feel my presence. Likewise, it felt as though I should be granted special insight into her—what she was doing, who she was with, and where she was.

  I sent screenshots to the District Attorney’s Office, as usual. Any new piece of information that reached me—an Instagram post, for instance—carried with it a certain energy. When it got to me, I held on to it long enough to interpret what I could, then by passing it along, I did my part to keep the current moving.

  * * *

  Tuesday, August 29, was a rainy day in Manhattan. It was the week before Labor Day, one of the last days of summer. Thankfully, it was quiet in the Vanity Fair office, so no one noticed when I slipped out for a two p.m. meeting at the District Attorney’s Office.

  Anna was the target of a grand jury investigation. In preparation for the hearing, ADA McCaw, who was prosecuting the case, wanted to ask me some questions in person. She asked that I bring a few items to the appointment, in particular an itemization of charges relevant to Marrakech. I was prepared.

  The meeting was brief. I answered the queries and left my documents behind for review. The prosecutor was still deciding whether or not I would testify—if I did, it would take place the very next afternoon. She would let me know by tomorrow morning at the latest. With that, I walked home to await news.

  Later that afternoon, when I was going through my miscellaneous papers from Morocco, I rediscovered the zippy pouch in which I’d kept every receipt. Nestled among them, I found an unrelated boarding pass. It was from Anna’s flight to New York on February 18, when she dropped back into my life. “Anna Sorokin” flew business class on Air Berlin from Düsseldorf to JFK. Düsseldorf is a forty-five-minute drive from Cologne. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but seeing the ticket on this day of all days felt like the closing of a circle.

  As usual, I passed the new bit of information along to the District Attorney’s Office. In a separate email, four minutes later, I received word that they would like me to testify.

  That evening, a compulsory scan of Anna’s social media revealed a posting spree. A bevy of new photos had appeared on her Instagram page. The first three were all the same: nondescript palm trees against a blue sky. Then there was the banana palm tree, again, against a red tiled roof. But one new photo caught my eye: Nature morte, read the caption. It was an image of Anna’s foot resting in a small bowl with decorative leaves and a plum, among a collection of items on a wooden coffee table. Just beyond Anna’s toes, an amber-hued candle was lit. And resting at the base of the candle was a chorded, forest-green tassel set in brass. I recognized it.

  I did a quick Google Images search, just to be sure: “Chateau Marmont room key.”

  That was it. I knew it from past visits to the hotel for photo shoots. And the candle was the hotel’s signature Alessandra candle, honey-amber with frosted glass. The rest fell quickly into place as I re-examined Anna’s other recent posts: the lamp and curtains matched an image of the hotel’s garden cottage; the thick red and white stripes were on a wall next to the pool. I had no way to know whether she was still there, but Anna’s photos had been taken in Los Angeles. I arrived at the District Attorney’s Office the next day at noon to be prepped before my testimony. When I got to the sixth floor, I sat down on a wooden bench to wait for McCaw. There were others waiting, too. Each of us was wearing a guest pass provided by the security guard downstairs. I glanced at the sticker on the man sitting next to me—and I recognized his name. Although we’d never met before, he was someone I’d heard Anna talk about. I had given his name to the ADA.

  It was possible the prosecutor had found him independently, but I couldn’t be sure. I had hoped that providing information to the investigative team would be useful, of course, but without their feedback I couldn’t really tell if it was. Now, seeing this man here, I experienced a private feeling of affirmation. I was on target and my efforts were coming to fruition.

  After a short lunch break, the other witnesses and I followed the prosecutor from the DA’s office to another municipal building nearby. Inside, we were shown to a fluorescent-lit waiting room. It was Office Space meets Sunday school with a side of Law & Order. The room was lined with rows of battered and repurposed church pews facing a partial wall, on which hung two photographs: one of the Manhattan skyline at night with two vertical columns of light representing the Twin Towers, in remembrance of the September 11, 2001, attacks, and the other of the 9/11 Memorial fountains. Two houseplants poked up over the top of the wall: one was upright but slanting funny, and the other hung down between the two photos. There was nothing else to look at in the dull, utilitarian space.

  Grand jury proceedings are held in private—no judge, no Anna, no opposing council—just a jury, the prosecutor (ADA McCaw), a court reporter, and one witness at a time. We had no indication of the timing or order in which we would testify. Periodically, McCaw would appear to call a name. A small group of us sat waiting for hours without speaking. At last, I broke the silence. Without divulging the specific nature of our testimony, we spoke lightly about the one thing we had in common: Anna.

  I was one of the the last witnesses to testify. When it was my turn, I awkwardly lowered my tote bag to the floor, resting it against the wall, before turning to face the roomful of Manhattan grand jurors, nearly two dozen faces dotting curved tiers of seating that reminded me of a college classroom. There was a small table at the front of the room, and I sat behind it. The court reporter sat to my left, and ADA McCaw stood at a podium to my right, next to a projector. The foreperson, a young woman about my age, sat in the center of the back row and asked something along the lines of, “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?” I did.

  ADA McCaw began her questioning. “Good afternoon . . . Can you please state your name and county of residence for the record?”

  “Rachel DeLoache Williams, New York County.”

  “Are you acquainted with someone by the name of Anna Delvey?”

  “I am.”

  “How do you know Anna Delvey?”

  “She was my friend.”

  I returned to the church pews after my testimony, which had taken longer than anyone else’s. A couple of other witnesses were still there, waiting to be formally adjourned. I cast them a sympathetic glance, mindful that I had kept them waiting. McCaw let us know that it was the last day of the hearing, so we sat outside while the jurors cast their votes. They filed out in front of us when they were done. The experience was anticlimactic because we didn’t get to hear the verdict. If they voted to indict, an arrest warrant would be issued. And then, only after Anna was arraigned, would the indictment be unsealed—that’s when I’d get to hear the full scope of the charges. And if the jury chose not to indict—well, I wasn’t really sure what would happen then.<
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  * * *

  On the last day of August, the day after I testified, I booked a flight to Tennessee for that same evening. I chose a return flight for the morning of Wednesday, September 6, the day after Anna was due to appear in criminal court to face misdemeanor charges. I was depleted, and felt that the trip would not only be relaxing but would also help put my parents’ minds at ease. Though they were careful not to be overbearing, they had each been in touch with me separately to express their ongoing support and concern.

  Before leaving for my flight, I received another secure message from American Express. They requested “a detailed letter describing the events surrounding [my] claim.” I planned to write it while I was in Knoxville.

  After work, I stopped by my apartment to quickly pack a bag. Nick had been traveling since the first week of August, and with no one else around to watch my cat on such short notice, I decided to bring her with me. Boo and I landed in Knoxville just before midnight.

  The weekend passed without incident. I caught up on sleep, watched movies, and lounged around. Although I was glad to see my parents, I behaved like a total thin-skinned grump—overly sensitive and terribly cranky. Luckily, my family understood. Aside from the time I spent debriefing my parents, the days were largely Anna-free. Until Monday morning, on Labor Day, when I received a message from Officer McCaffrey. He needed a few details for his report and asked if I knew whether Anna was back in New York. She hadn’t posted anything since the photos from Los Angeles, so I wasn’t sure.