The Flight Attendant

by Chris Bohjalian

  In the morning, she told herself, she would call Derek Mayes and tell him that she did indeed need that lawyer named Ani. She was going to phone her, but it couldn’t hurt if Derek made a call, too. So much for the manicure. She would buy Band-Aids and retain an attorney. It was time.

  * * *

  « «

  In the morning, she called the Unisphere office in Dubai. It was seven a.m. in New York, three p.m. there. In her mind she saw all of those hotel lobbies and all of those airport corridors that used antique clocks to offer the time in, for instance, Tokyo and Moscow and L. A. Her plan, as much as she had one, was first to learn if the woman was actually employed there. If she was, Cassie would ask to speak with her, claiming to be an American expat who was thinking of moving some assets to Unisphere and wanted to set up an appointment. The employee would either agree to meet with her if she was a money manager of some sort or she would direct her to the right person if she wasn’t. She planned to introduce herself as Jane Brown, because as a little girl she had looked up her family’s last name one day in a Kentucky phonebook, desirous of seeing it in print, and she’d seen whole columns of Browns.

  The receptionist spoke English with no trace of an accent, and Cassie asked for Miranda.

  “Miranda,” the woman said, drawing the name out, clearly expecting as she did that Cassie would offer a surname. She didn’t. She would wait this out. And so the receptionist continued. “What is Miranda’s last name, please?”

  “I’m honestly not sure. We met at a dinner party this weekend.”

  “This is a small office. I don’t believe we have a Miranda here,” she continued. “Is it possible she works for another firm?”

  “It is,” Cassie agreed, and then she got off the phone as quickly as she could.

  * * *

  « «

  As Ani Mouradian walked her from the lobby to a meeting room, Cassie found herself wondering how in the name of God Derek Mayes thought she would be able to afford a lawyer like this. The practice was midway up the Seagram Building, a Park Avenue icon between Fifty-Second and Fifty-Third. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry. A part of her viewed the location of Ani’s firm as one more small, horrid joke the universe was playing on her: sending the daughter of a drunk who, admittedly, drank too much herself, into a building named after a renowned distiller. The reception area was windowless, but the couches were plush and deep and the wood paneling a dark mahogany that belonged in a British library or university club. She could almost see her reflection in the lacquer. The firm had the northwest corner, however, and most of the offices along the exterior walls were awash in morning summer light.

  “How many people work here?” she asked Ani.

  “We’re not all that big. I believe, counting paralegals and assistants, there are maybe sixty of us.”

  “You know I’m just a flight attendant.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I probably can’t afford you. I don’t know what Derek was thinking.”

  “Everyone thinks your life is so glamorous,” the lawyer said, ushering her into a small, interior conference room, and then shutting the door behind her. The table was round and modern and would seat no more than four people. The walls had white bookcases filled with law books. “But I know better. Derek Mayes is my uncle. Please, sit down.”

  She did. Ani took the chair beside her. Cassie guessed that Ani was ten years younger than she was. A part of her was relieved because she guessed a young person had a lower hourly rate; another part of her, however, fretted that she needed all the help and all the experience she could get. She knew she preferred older pilots to younger ones. A new pilot was every bit as competent as a seasoned one when a flight was uneventful. But when something went horribly wrong—when the engines stalled as you descended in a snowstorm, when geese clogged your engines on takeoff—you wanted as much experience as possible. Everyone who flew knew the only reason that US Airways flight 1549 landed safely in the Hudson River one January afternoon in 2009 was because the pilot, Sully Sullenberger, was an unflappable former fighter jock who was days away from his fifty-eighth birthday when a bird strike disabled both of the Airbus’s engines. The guy had white hair. He had years and years (and years) in the air.

  “Are you sure you don’t want coffee?” Ani was asking.

  “Positive. Your receptionist offered me some. I’m fine.”

  “What happened to your hand?”

  “I dropped a glass. Not a big deal.”

  Ani smiled enigmatically, and Cassie couldn’t read the woman’s face. Did she not believe her? The lawyer had creosote hair that fell to her shoulders, dark eyes, and dark, pencil-thin eyebrows. She was slender—almost slight—and was wearing an impeccably tailored gray suit. Her blouse was a conservative shade of pink.

  “So,” she said after a moment, “we do a lot of things here. Some of us specialize in employment law. Labor law, collective bargaining.”

  “You have pretty nice digs for a bunch of union lawyers.”

  She chuckled. “What makes you think we represent the unions?”

  “Well, your uncle—”

  “I’m teasing you,” Ani said, cutting her off. “But, yes, the firm makes considerably more money representing the Fortune 500. A lot of my billable hours come from an oil company. We also do criminal defense work, especially white-collar crime. I gather my uncle thinks you might be in need of a little help.”

  Cassie wondered just how much her uncle actually knew. She had a feeling he must have suspected more than he had revealed at breakfast. “He does.”

  “Go on.”

  “I’m curious: what area of your expertise did he think I needed?”

  She shook her head. “I have no idea. My uncle gives out my business cards like the Easter Bunny gives out jellybeans. I’m the daughter he never had. You called me this morning. Let’s start there.”

  Cassie glanced down at the Band-Aids on her left hand. There were five of them on the two cuts. Did they make her look hapless or inept? “You probably assume I have some labor issue with the airline.”

  “I assume nothing.”

  “Did your uncle tell you about the FBI?”

  “He said they met a flight you were on when it landed. That’s all.”

  She looked at the books over Ani’s shoulder. They were beautiful, leather the color of a saddle, lettering the gold of a general’s epaulets. Inside, she knew, were pages and pages that could probably substitute for the melatonin tabs she took on occasion when she was combating jet lag. Behind her, on the other side of the door, she was aware of a distant, faraway-seeming conversation. She heard, she thought, a copy machine. She thought of the two photos of her that were online, and then she thought once more of Sokolov’s body in the bed. She saw it from the vantage point of the hotel room drapes as she sunk, hungover, to the lushly carpeted floor. This was probably her last chance. And so she spoke.

  “I called you because the other day I woke up in a hotel room really far away from here, and the man beside me was dead.” It was just that simple.

  Ani raised one of those immaculate eyebrows but didn’t say a word. And so Cassie went back to the beginning, starting with the flight from Paris to Dubai last week when she first met Sokolov and ending with the broken wineglass last night in a Murray Hill bathtub. She told her about Miranda. She showed her the two security camera images of her from the Dubai news story on her phone. She admitted to trying to wipe the suite of her fingerprints as best she could before leaving but said she may have left behind her lipstick and a lip balm in one of the rooms. Occasionally Ani interrupted her with a question, though none of them seemed tinged with judgment, and sometimes she asked her to pause while she jotted down a lengthier note on the yellow legal pad in her lap. When Cassie was done, she said, “I honestly can’t say how much trouble you’re really in—and I’m working on the assumptio
n that you didn’t kill this man.”

  “That’s correct. Well, it’s mostly correct. I’m pretty sure I didn’t kill him, but I’m not one hundred percent sure.”

  “You’re not one hundred percent sure?” Ani asked, the surprise evident on her face.

  “That’s right. I can’t be completely confident,” Cassie said, and then she explained her tendency to drink and even, on occasion, to succumb to—or, arguably, to court—the no-man’s-land where memory hadn’t a chance. “And then there was the bottle,” she said when she had finished.

  “The bottle?”

  “In the morning, I found a broken bottle of Stolichnaya vodka. I vaguely remember when we broke it the night before. It was the vodka Miranda had brought. Alex was having trouble with the top. Anyway, the shoulder—you know, the neck and the shoulder of the bottle—were intact. Sort of. The top of the bottle was like a weapon and it was by the bed. I took all the pieces I could find and threw them away after I’d left the hotel.”

  “So, are you telling me that you might have killed him? You used the broken bottle as a weapon and cut his throat?” Her voice was flat. Toneless.

  “Here’s the thing,” Cassie murmured. She recalled how when people had something utterly ridiculous to explain, they always seemed to begin, It’s complicated. She took comfort in the fact that she hadn’t begun with those two words. “I’m not violent when I black out. I’ve never been told I hurt someone. I may do stupid things and risk my own life, but I don’t attack people. If sometime in the night Alex had tried to have sex with me again, I don’t think I would have stopped him. It’s probably happened to me before. I mean, I know it has.”

  “Men having sex with you without your consent.”

  She nodded. “Look, I know it’s not a gray area. I just know that when I’m that drunk, I’m not prone to say no. Or, I’m sorry to say, care.”

  “You’re right, it’s not a gray area. It’s rape.”

  “But I don’t think Alex would ever have tried to rape me. Either I was so drunk I was oblivious—”

  “That’s not consent, Cassie!”

  “Let me finish. Please. Either I was so drunk I was oblivious, or I was happy with whatever was happening. But if I did ask Alex to stop, I believe he would have. He was a really gentle guy. I mean, he washed my hair in the shower. So, why would I have taken the broken bottle and fought him?”

  “Is it possible that you killed him while he was sleeping? Is that where this is going?”

  “It’s possible, but…”

  “But…”

  “But I don’t think so,” Cassie said. “That’s not me. And I’ve thought about this a lot since it happened. And…”

  “Go on.”

  “And I thought I left. I have this memory of leaving that’s pretty distinct.”

  “Leaving the hotel room.”

  “Yes. The suite.”

  “But you woke up beside him in bed.”

  “When I have a blackout, there are gaps. At first I thought I was going to leave with Miranda. Go back to the airline hotel. I mean, I was dressed when Miranda was there. Obviously.”

  “Obviously,” Ani said, but her inflection was tinged with sarcasm.

  “But I didn’t leave. Miranda left and I didn’t go with her. I stayed. And Alex and I went to the bedroom and made love. After that, however, I got dressed again. I know I did. Or I almost know I did. I have this memory of being at the hotel room door and saying good-bye to him. I really do.”

  “I just want to confirm: you were there when he broke the vodka bottle?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, do you believe it might have been this Miranda person?”

  “Who killed him? It’s crossed my mind,” Cassie answered. “This is the first time I’ve verbalized any of this, so I’m almost thinking out loud. Working it through. I guess it’s possible. I left. Miranda came back. Then I came back.”

  “And you were so drunk that you didn’t notice that Alex was dead?”

  “The room’s dark. Maybe.”

  “When Miranda arrived at the suite, she knocked on the door?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I was wondering if she had a key. But even if she didn’t already have one, she steals a key while the three of you are having your little party.”

  Cassie hadn’t thought of this, but it would certainly explain how someone had gotten into the room.

  “But,” Ani continued, “if Alex knows it’s Miranda, she doesn’t need a key. He just lets her in. How long do you think you were gone?”

  “If I was gone? No idea.”

  “Why would you have come back?”

  “I probably forgot something in the room and went back for it. That’s happened before.”

  Ani looked down at her notes and then said, “It’s also possible it was someone who worked at the hotel or knew someone who worked at the hotel.”

  “Yes, I agree that’s a possibility.”

  “And while I personally have no idea how to break into a locked hotel room, I’m sure there are ways.”

  “I guess.”

  “This guy told you that he used to work for Goldman Sachs and now has a hedge fund. What else did he say about his job?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Why was he in Dubai?”

  “Meetings,” Cassie answered.

  “About?”

  “He didn’t say. All I know is what I read online, which really wasn’t very much.”

  The lawyer leaned in. “He was a guy. A young guy. My age. When guys my age hit on me, they always talk about work. It’s that alpha male thing to show me how important they are. So, think hard: surely he said something.”

  “He really didn’t.”

  “And you didn’t ask?”

  “No.”

  “Well, the fact he didn’t talk about work is revealing, too. Maybe it suggests he had something to hide.”

  “Maybe. Your uncle thinks he may have been a spy for some country.”

  Ani smiled. “My uncle loves a good spy story. So tell me: what did you two talk about?”

  “We talked about my work. He seemed really interested in what I did. Flying. Passenger craziness. He seemed to get a real kick out of the stories.”

  “What else?”

  “We talked about growing up in Kentucky and Virginia. We talked about food. We talked about drinking. But…”

  “Go on.”

  “We both got toasted pretty quickly. It’s not that we can’t hold our booze. It’s just that we drank so much,” Cassie explained. It sounded as squalid and confessional as ever.

  “What about when Miranda came? What did the three of you talk about then?”

  “I don’t remember much. It was late.”

  “Why did you think she was there?”

  “When she first arrived? I assumed she and Alex worked together or he managed her money. I assumed they were friends.”

  “Forgive me, but what kind of friends? Were they lovers? Ex-lovers?”

  Cassie looked down at the table for a moment as she answered, because it was getting harder and harder to maintain eye contact with the lawyer. “I thought so at first. I assumed she was there to have sex with us.”

  “The three of you,” said Ani evenly.

  “I guess.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No. It never even came up. She brought that bottle of vodka, we all drank some, and mostly the two of them talked. I didn’t really pay attention.”

  “They talked about his work? Her work, maybe?”

  “I remember something about a meeting they were going to have together the next morning. That’s all. Late morning, I think. There would be other people at the meeting.”

  “Who?”

  “Dubai inves
tors in the fund, I guess. I think it was going to be downtown. But I also got the sense that they really didn’t know each other all that well. They may have been meeting for the first time. I think she was maybe somebody’s daughter.”

  “Someone he knew.”

  “Or someone important in his life somewhere. But I can tell you this: I learned this morning that if she does work for Unisphere, it’s not in their Dubai office.”

  “And you know this how?”

  “I called them.”

  “Dubai.”

  “Yes,” Cassie answered, and she recounted her brief conversation with the receptionist.

  Ani sighed deeply. Epically. Cassie knew that exhalation well: it was the Sigh of Judgment. “Okay,” she said finally. “Here’s the good news. The crime occurred in the United Arab Emirates and the United States has no extradition treaty with them. The Emirates would have to bring you back via a judicial summons—a letters rogatory request or whatever the Emirates equivalent is of a letters rogatory request. And those go through the courts and can take years.”

  Cassie felt a flutter of relief and it must have been visible in her face, because almost instantly Ani held up a finger to stop the emotion from taking root.

  “But that doesn’t mean you’re home free. There’s an amendment to the U.S. law that allows us to extradite a person who has committed a crime against an American citizen overseas. I want to check to see if an American citizen is exempt from the extradition.”