At four that afternoon, Kevin entered Ryan's office without knocking. He said the compliance people had obtained the gate logs and that Anna and Lisa had made statements to outside counsel. Ryan asked whether the two women could be disciplined before the statements circulated, and Kevin replied that the audit committee had already issued a preservation and nonretaliation notice. For the first time Ryan looked genuinely afraid of the paperwork, not of the witnesses themselves.
"We can call the old man back," Kevin suggested. "Make him sign that he disrupted boarding and agrees to withdraw the complaint." Ryan considered the idea, then asked whether Arthur had threatened legal action. Kevin said no, but the old man had spoken as though he understood the airline's internal controls. Ryan decided that confidence was a sign of someone coached by an employee and began building a theory that Anna had recruited Arthur to embarrass the station.
The theory became a kind of refuge. If Arthur was part of a conspiracy, then Ryan and Kevin were defending themselves rather than covering their own conduct. If Lisa was insubordinate, her refusal to sign a false report could be recast as professional misconduct. If Anna had exceeded her access, the preservation order could be dismissed as an unauthorized intrusion. The men found these explanations comforting because they converted every new piece of evidence into proof of someone else's wrongdoing.
They asked airport security to bring Arthur to the station office for a final administrative interview. Officer Patel declined to treat the request as a law-enforcement order because no crime had been alleged and the passenger was not required to attend a meeting merely because management wanted one. Kevin threatened to complain to Patel's supervisor, and Patel invited him to use the official channel. The refusal meant Arthur would have to be contacted voluntarily, which Ryan found insulting because he had grown used to confusing a workplace instruction with public authority.
Arthur received the request through the airline's customer-care line and forwarded it to Vivian. She told him an interview might be appropriate if it could be conducted with independent counsel present and if no one attempted to pressure him into waiving rights. Arthur said he wanted Ryan and Kevin to hear directly that their accusations had harmed a real person, but Vivian reminded him that witnesses were not meant to extract confessions. They agreed that he could return later only after the investigators reviewed the risk and the legal team arranged appropriate safeguards.
While the decision was being made, Lisa sat in the crew scheduling office with a paper bag containing a sandwich she could not bring herself to eat. The flight attendants she normally worked with had departed on replacement assignments, and rumors were already spreading that she had challenged a manager in front of passengers. Some colleagues sent supportive messages; others advised her to apologize and keep her head down until the matter passed. Lisa understood both reactions because for most of her career she had been the person advising caution.