AT THE WHITE HOUSE, THERE WAS ALL THE EXPECTED, OVERT SECURITY—ID check and magnetometer at the East Gate; stepped-up Secret Service presence; Capitol Police everywhere. And then there was everything I couldn’t see. I wondered how many surveillance cameras and maybe even rifle sites were on me as I walked up the curved drive to the East Wing’s main entrance.
My only regret was that Sampson wasn’t here with me to see this. And Bree. And maybe Nana and the kids. A quick photo op with everybody?
Nina Friedman was waiting on the front steps as promised. She was just as efficient in person, juggling her BlackBerry to shake my hand even as we turned to head inside.
“Thank you for coming. Won’t you please follow me?” she said. That was it. There was no briefing, no explanation.
Once I cleared the security desk and another magnetometer in the entry hall, I expected to be taken to a conference room, or maybe up to the First Lady’s offices on the second floor.
But it quickly became clear that wasn’t going to happen. Ms. Friedman walked me straight through the East Wing lobby and out the other side.
I kept my mouth shut as we passed from one building to the next, down the long East Colonnade with its view of the Kennedy Garden, and into the ground floor of the White House itself.
It made sense, now that I thought about it. Secret Service was probably restricting Mrs. Coyle’s movement as much as possible. Her office time would have been kept to a minimum, at best.
They stopped us for another ID check at the base of the main stairs. Then again on the first-floor landing before we could continue up to the residence. By the time we got to the stair landing on the second floor, the agents seemed to be expecting us. They only nodded at Ms. Friedman as we passed.
The museum quality of the lower levels had given way to something more like a home up here. There was plush blue and gold carpeting, a baby grand piano, several built-in bookcases, with hardbacks that looked like someone had actually read them.
I’m not so jaded that I wasn’t tripping out a little on where I was, either. It was impossible to be there and not think about all the presidents and First Ladies who had walked through these very rooms for the last two hundred years—all the way back to John Adams.
I guess the word for what I felt is humbled.
The hall narrowed and then narrowed again through a deep arch that opened to a sunny sitting room on the other side.
Mrs. Coyle was there with two female aides. To my right was the Lincoln Bedroom. This was just shy of surreal. I was definitely in the loop now.
The First Lady’s deputy chief of staff started the introductions.
“Mrs. Coyle, this is—”
“Detective Cross. Yes, of course.”
As Regina Coyle came over to shake my hand, I could see her eyes were still red from whenever she’d last cried. Probably not long ago.
“Thank you so much for being here,” she said. “I’m hoping you can be of some help to me.”