But what if Miranda had now told the Dubai police that she had met a flight attendant named Cassie the night before, and they had already informed the FBI in America? That would demand a very different lie, one that was more dangerous but in some ways a much easier one to pull off. That lie was simply this: Alex Sokolov had been alive when she had left his hotel suite.
Maybe, as a matter of fact, she should say that no matter what, because at some point Miranda would talk to the police, and Cassie knew that her stories should be consistent. So, yes, this was the tale. This was what had happened. This was the lie.
In the meantime, she would brace for impact. It was, she knew, inevitable.
FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
FD-302 (redacted): CASSANDRA BOWDEN, FLIGHT ATTENDANT
DATE: July 28, 2018
CASSANDRA BOWDEN, date of birth—/—/——, SSN #————, telephone number (—)————, was interviewed by properly identified Special Agents FRANK HAMMOND and JAMES WASHBURN at JFK INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, immediately upon her flight’s arrival in the U.S.
HAMMOND conducted the interview; WASHBURN took these notes.
After being advised of the nature of the interview, BOWDEN provided the following information.
BOWDEN said that she has been with the airline since she finished college 18 years ago, and this is the only job she has ever had.
BOWDEN confirmed that ALEXANDER SOKOLOV was seated in 2C on Flight 4094 on Thursday, July 26, from Paris to Dubai. He introduced himself to her on the plane before they took off. She said they met for the first time when the aircraft was still at the gate and passengers in the economy cabin were still boarding. He drank red wine, coffee, and water on the flight.
She described him as “low-maintenance” and said it was clear that he was traveling alone. She did not recall him speaking to the passenger across the aisle (2D) or to the passenger beside him (2B), but thought it likely if he spoke to anyone it would have been 2B. She based this solely on her experience that passengers are more likely to speak to the person beside them than across the aisle.
She said that she and SOKOLOV spoke mostly during the food service, and talked almost entirely about the wine and entrée and dessert choices.
She characterized him as a polite and “charming” young man. She said he was “a bit of a flirt” and liked the uniform/dress she was wearing. He told her he worked for a hedge fund and had meetings in Dubai. He said something about clients and real estate holdings there, but added that what he did was just too boring to discuss. He did not say with whom he was meeting or where.
SOKOLOV did not sleep on the plane, which she found normal because it was a daylight flight. She said he ate, he watched a movie, and he worked. She reported that she saw documents open on his laptop, but she did not look at them. She saw no papers on his tray table. Likewise, she said that while she was aware that at one point he was watching a movie, she did not observe which one.
Finally, she said he seemed calm and content—not at all agitated. She characterized the flight as completely uneventful.
6
Usually the drug tests were random: not every flight attendant and member of the flight crew was tested. One or two people would be singled out by an airline employee as they disembarked and asked to take what they called the “whiz quiz.” This was different. They were all tested: the entire crew. And all of their bags were searched.
Everyone passed the drug test. And nothing illegal was found in any of their rollers or kits.
* * *
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It was odd, Cassie thought, it was strange. It was as if the FBI had no interest in knowing her whereabouts during the flight crew’s overnight in Dubai. It was as if Frank Hammond and James Washburn had no reason in the world to suspect that she might have been with Alex Sokolov when he was killed. Hammond was a handsome guy roughly her age with a countenance that had seemed slightly bemused—as if he had seen it all. His hair was short, the color of cinnamon, and just starting to recede. Washburn was younger, with pale, perfect skin and rather professorial, rimless eyeglasses. The two of them acted as if they were concerned only with what she had seen of the man on the flight, and whether he had said something that might have been revealing. Did that mean they were hoping somehow to entrap her in a lie? It seemed not, because they never asked anything that would have necessitated one. Rather, it was as if they honestly didn’t know that one of Alex’s colleagues had come to the suite in Dubai and had a drink with her.
In hindsight, she realized, her fear had been almost comic. They didn’t even record the interview. Apparently that was FBI policy. Hammond asked her questions and Washburn wrote down her answers using a ballpoint pen and yellow legal pad as if it were 1955. When she had asked about the lack of a recorder—good God, they didn’t even use their phones—Washburn had said later that he’d type it up on some form he called an FD-302.
She wished she had been a little more detailed about Alex’s and her flirting during the interview, but only because there was always the chance that one of the other crew members had mentioned it. Even her friend Megan might have said something. But Megan had insisted that her interview had been cursory, too. The agent who had talked to her was a woman named Anne McConnell, and Megan said that she had asked very little about the rest of the crew.
Probably the real suspects were the employees who worked at the hotel. Or, perhaps, the investors he was supposed to see in Dubai. Or maybe it was the desperate underground that risked Arabian justice to prey upon the scads of rich foreigners who descended upon the city daily. These were the sorts of people the Dubai police most likely were interested in.
And, in truth, it probably was one of them who had killed Alex. She could ruminate forever on why they had spared her and probably never figure it out. It was best to let go of that sort of self-scrutiny. It wasn’t helpful.
But she couldn’t exhale completely because there was still Miranda. At some point, that was the loose end that Cassie feared was going to trip her. As much as the ghost of Alex Sokolov might dog her, she knew if necessary she could drown that specter with an extra shot of Sipsmith or Jose Cuervo. But Miranda? She had shown up in the suite with the bottle of Stoli, glass chips of which were probably still embedded in that plush carpet in a room at the Royal Phoenician. By now she had almost certainly said something to the Dubai police, and no amount of tequila or gin was going to make Miranda go away.
* * *
? ?
She left her suitcase in the hallway of her apartment and pressed Frank Hammond’s business card onto the refrigerator in her windowless kitchen with a magnet from the animal shelter. She wasn’t sure what else to do with it. Then she went to her bedroom. The apartment was a small one bedroom, but it had a valuable asset: it was on the fifteenth floor and had a magnificent, unobstructed view of New York Life’s pyramidal gold cone and, a little further away, the Empire State Building. She’d come a long way from the bottom bunk in a crash pad in Queens. She kicked off her shoes and collapsed on her bed and gazed for a moment at the two buildings. The sun was just beginning to set. She fell asleep in her uniform when it was still light out.
* * *
? ?
Terrain, terrain! Pull up, pull up!