The Reunion

Part Two

Chapter 6

Upstate New York, January, 1988

"Sidney!" I shouted so she could hear me, as her office was at the far end of the Pioneer's suite of offices, and I was way too lazy to get up and go talk to her in person. This was a trick I had learned from Alan Roman, my predecessor, and apparently was a time-honored custom among Pioneer editors-in-chief, which I now was.

I took a big breath, ready to shout to her again, when Syd stuck her head around the doorframe and simply raised her eyebrows.

"Honestly, Stephen," she said. "You know how rude it is to shout to me. Get off your ass and come talk to me."

She lectured me like this on a regular basis but didn't really expect me to give up shouting.

I ignored her protest, except to give her my most winning smile, and held out a brochure.

"Take a look at this."

She grabbed it from me and started to read, then turned it over and looked at the back.

"Where is St. Bonaventure?"

"Someplace way out in the western part of the state, I think. Town called Olean." The brochure was promoting a collegiate journalism conference at St. Bonaventure in the next month. "Wanna go?"

"Go?"

"Yeah. We're winning that award from them, for 'Most Improved College Newspaper' and I want to go pick it up and attend the conference."

"So, where do I come in?"

I rolled me eyes. "You come with me, genius."

"How would we get there?"

"I'd drive."

"In Lemonade?"

Lemonade was Syd's somewhat pejorative name for my car, an appropriately lemon-yellow 1963 MGB Roadster, which was a great car when it worked.

"Yes, in my MG."

"Will it get that far?"

"My car is more reliable than you give me credit for."

"If you say so."

"So?"

She gave me a quizzical look.

"Will you go to the conference with me?"

"Oh, of course. We'll have fun."

The road trip to Olean was a blast. Syd brought her boom box, as the 8-Track player in my car was ancient and I used it mostly for keeping things like small bags of marijuana out of sight. She had a bag with dozens of cassettes and changed them regularly. I was entertained by her singing along and dancing in her seat.

And of course, we talked, music on low in the background. Syd and I could talk for hours, and often did. Didn't matter what the subject was.

It was brutally cold once the sun went down and the heater in my MG was marginal, at best, but we kept it at full blast. As we approached Olean, I could tell Syd was suffering a little, even with gloves and hat and coat on.

"Cold?"

"Of course."

Syd had booked the hotel and while the conference hotel had space, the price was ridiculous, we thought, so Syd found us another place at about half the price. I'd asked her the name of the hotel and she said "Holiday Inn, I think." She told me that we were also sharing a room.

We had directions from the Thruway exit and after about 7 hours of driving, I pulled up in front of a very inauspicious looking place called the Holiday Motel.

"Holiday Inn, eh?"

Syd shrugged.

We went in to register and to find out if there was anywhere nearby where we could get some food. Syd filled out the little card and paid the woman at the desk in cash - I think it was $49 -- and got the key.

As she turned back to me, the clerk looked at me.

"May I help you sir?"

Syd answered for me.

"We're together."

"You're what? I'm not sure we can..."

Syd cut her off in mid-sentence, getting right in her face with a glare than would have made a general cower.

"You have a problem with that? Are you sure you want to make an issue out of a white guy and black girl being together? This is 1988, honey. Catch up."

After which, she grabbed my hand and we held hands all the way back to the car, leaving the clerk sputtering at the desk.

We moved the car, so it was outside the door to our room and went in to a dingy, dark and cold room with two double beds. Syd called dibs on the bathroom and went in to brush her teeth and change. When she came out, I got just a quick look at her in a t-shirt and panties, quite obviously braless, then she jumped into bed. I did my thing and got into the other bed.

"Are you sure you turned up the heat?" she asked.

"Positive. It's on high -- we'll probably wake up sweating."

"Okay. Good night Stephen."

"Night, Syd."

I think I probably went right to sleep, because the next thing I remember was Syd throwing her blanket over mine and crawling in bed with me.

"I'm so cold, Stephen. Warm me up."

She was shivering, so I pulled her to me, put my arms around her and hugged her tight.

"How can you be so warm?"

"Just a hot-blooded male, I guess."

Eventually she stopped shivering and as she warmed up, I became aware that her breasts, constrained only by the thinnest of t-shirts were mashed up against my chest. Then I realized that her nipples were as hard as a rock and once I realized that my dick started to react. Soon, I was hard as a rock as well, with my cock trying to push through the thin nylon of my gym shorts right into her belly. I laid there embarrassed and afraid to move a muscle.

Syd must have felt my cock poking into her and was equally motionless. Then, with a muttered thanks for warming her up, she rolled over and away from me. There wasn't too far to go in that bed, but I rolled over too, and we had maybe six inches between us. Eventually my cock softened, and I was able to go back to sleep.

I don't know what woke me, but I lay there in a sort of semiconscious state with a profound sense of satisfaction. The room had warmed up nicely and I'd kicked off most of the covers in the night. So had Syd, and we were back to cuddling, this time with me spooning her, my morning wood poking into her magnificent ass. But if that wasn't bad enough, in her own tossing and turning, Syd had also kicked off her covers and her t-shirt had ridden up just enough that I could see the bottoms of her breasts, and my arm was around her now mostly naked torso, with my right hand just brushing against the bottom of her left breast.

If I had moved an inch, my fingers would be fully on her breast. Two inches and I could be palming her nipple. Three and I'd be fondling her.

There was nothing I wanted to do more in that moment.

Syd awoke with a start, and must have realized where my hand was, and felt my cock poking into her ass. She grabbed my hand with hers, moved it away from her and abruptly got out of bed, grabbed some clothes and disappeared into the bathroom, all without a word.

I had this terrible sinking feeling. I was sure she must have been offended by my hand, otherwise why jump out of bed so abruptly? I think I realized just then how much my friendship with Sydney meant to me. And, I realized, as much I loved her and wanted her, I never would risk any feeling of awkwardness between us. I feared I may have done just that.

I jumped up and got dressed, so there was no chance of Syd seeing me in my boxers and was sitting on the edge of the bed when she came out of the bathroom. She was quiet and set about getting her things together.

"Sydney, I'm sorry."

"For feeling me up in the night?"

"Oh God, I didn't mean to..."

She laughed.

"It's okay, Stephen."

"No, it's not. I must have made you uncomfortable. You jumped out of bed so fast, I'm surprised you're even speaking to me."

Sydney went back to her packing for a bit and stopped, clearly thinking about something, then came over to me.

"You think I jumped out of bed because I was offended that you had your hand on me?"

I nodded. She came closer and put her hands on my shoulders.

"Sweety, I jumped out of bed because if I had stayed there one more minute, I would have done something we both would have regretted. I was so turned on, I wanted it so badly... but I couldn't Stephen. It would change us, might ruin our friendship. I would never risk that."

"Me neither," I said, looking up at her as she ran her fingers through my hair.

"Now you've got to take care of that bedhead," she said with a laugh.

I stood, inches from her, and reached out and put my hand on her hip, pulling her to me.

"Are we okay, Sydney?"

She gave me one of her brilliant smiles and kissed my cheek.

"We're better than okay, Stephen," she said, giving me a ferocious hug.

She whispered into my ear as she held me.

"Much, much better than okay."

Chapter 7

Washington, DC

Syd had taken the morning Acela back to New York on Monday morning and I was in my home office, Bluetooth headset on, making calls and checking my sources.

I hadn't written the Cameron suicide story. I felt I was too close to it, so I called the newsroom on Sunday as soon as I disconnected from the president and told my editor what I had heard.

"Jesus, Bradley. You sure?"

"It's on deep background, so you can't use his name. Can't tell another soul, in fact. But the source is the president."

"You two getting tight?"

"Very funny. He's pretty upset by it. I might learn more this afternoon when I go to the White House. He thinks the death is 'fishy' to use his term."

"Really? Why?"

"It's not like Cameron, for one thing. And why now? The book has been out for weeks. He got fired, yes, but he had to see that coming. He's been around the block a few times. He knew Richardson had to get rid of him. And a criminal case is by no means a sure thing. Neither is conviction. It just doesn't add up."

I returned to the table with Syd and Monica and tried to engage in the process of getting to know Sydney's daughter, apparently with mixed success because as soon as we were alone again, Syd called me on it.

"Ok, what happened on that phone call? You were very distracted when you came back to the table. Is everything okay?"

"Oh, everything's okay, I think. That was Richardson again. He called to tell me that Cameron committed suicide this morning in his office at HHS."

"Oh my God! That's terrible. I hope you don't feel responsible?"

"No, not really. I'll probably be blamed by some, at least in the short term. But I think there's more to it. So does the president."

"More how?"

"As Richardson says, Cameron had no shame. He just wasn't the personality type to feel it. When I did my final confrontational interview with him for the book, he sat there and smirked at me -- I felt that he was thinking he almost got away with it, and this thought made him happy. Not the suicide type."

We walked a little way further in silence and then Syd asked me, "What did you think of Monica?"

"I thought if I was 30 years younger, I'd ask her on a date."

"What an awful thing to say to a girl's mother!"

I laughed. "She is so much like you were at her age, it's scary. Same big laugh. Same thousand-watt smile. Same sarcastic sense of humor. When I hugged her as we were leaving, I got a powerful sense of déjà vu. For a second, I felt like I was 20 again, with you in that fleabag hotel in Olean."

"You mean the Holiday Inn?" She laughed. "I'm surprised you remember that. Not our best moment."

I stopped walking and turned to face her.

"You remember just before we left, when I asked you if we were okay?"

"I do," she said. "I seem to remember telling you we were better than okay."

I nodded. "From that day to about three days ago, I have never felt more loved than I did in that moment."

"Stephen, that's so sweet. And kind of sad, too. You deserved more in your life."

"I have it now. Never letting it go." She put her arm through mine and squeezed it tight.

"Me neither."

Everyone in official Washington was positively aghast at Cameron's suicide. How they processed it was Washington-predictable. The Ds figure it was shame, pure and simple. He'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, so to speak, and his conscience was plaguing him.

The Rs, on the other hand, knew Cameron well enough to know it wasn't shame, and admitting that would have forced them to reckon with the fact that one of their own was a crook and a shyster and, more importantly, that they'd need to consider returning what amounted to millions in campaign cash contributed by Jerome Beckwith. If they were to admit that Cameron was guilty of conspiring with Beckwith to defraud the government, then the cash would need to be returned. If, on the other hand, Cameron was wrongly and viciously accused by a notorious enemy of the people and couldn't bear people thinking poorly of him, then the blame was mine. All mine.

"Rodney Cameron was a good man, a decent, God-fearing family man who was crushed by the false accusations of Stephen Bradley," said the senior Senator from Wisconsin, a well-known conspiracy monger. "The radical left can't stand to see a Republican succeed, even if it's in one of their pet projects."

I ignored it to the best of my ability, and fortunately my brethren in the press did too. My credibility apparently held up to the worst they could throw at me. More than one publication started to identify me as "the four-time Pulitzer Prize Winning Author Stephen Bradley." It was a mouthful, but it blunted the criticism nicely.

I had not learned that much at my Sunday afternoon session with Richardson, and we both agreed that the stories about his follow up actions needed to wait until after Cameron's funeral, but there was nothing stopping me from getting the reporting underway.

At this point in my career, I had a long-established list of contacts whom I called depending on what the topic was. For this one, given it was on the same topic as my book, I was able to reach out to some pretty familiar folks. Everyone said the same thing -- suicide was out of character for Rodney Cameron. So I called a guy I'd known in DC PD's major crimes unit to see what they knew.

"Hey Bradley, long time. What's up?

"Calling to see what you've heard about Rodney Cameron?"

"You know that's an FBI case, right?"

"Of course. But I also know you and know you're not likely to just walk away for it..."

He snorted into the phone. "I know that Cameron seems like an unlikely suicide -- everyone seems to agree about that. But the Federal Protective Service said they let him into the building alone around 8 a.m. and no one else was in the building who was unaccounted for. Guards heard the shot a little before 9 and were in his office within two minutes. Hard to see how someone could shoot him and get away clean."

"I think I hear a 'but' in there?"

"Yeah there's this one thing... I don't know what the feds think about this, but I can't get my head around it," he said. "The gun didn't belong to him. The serial number had been ground off and it looks like it was etched with acid or something. The FBI will identify the gun eventually, but why would you go to that trouble if you're committing suicide? Cameron owned a couple of handguns -- they were both locked up tight at his home. So why use some anonymous gun? And where would he get something like that? It's not like he could run over to the 'hood it buy it from some thug."

"Wow. Can I use any of this?"

"Absolutely not. You never talked to me."

"Ok. Deep background then?"

"Whatever."

I eventually tracked down the FBI agent, a guy named Brockman, who was running the FBI's investigation. I told him what I'd learned about the gun, and he confirmed it.

"It's fishy, Bradley, no doubt about that."

"Funny, that's exactly what another source said right after he died."

"Yeah? Well it calls the whole suicide thing totally into question. And there's one other thing."

"What's that?"

"Crime lab guys say there was no gunshot residue on his hands. Now I ask you, how do you kill yourself without getting GSR on your hands?"

"Can I use that?"

"You know we can't be quoted about an ongoing investigation. No way."

"Deep background then?"

"That's where you say 'sources close to the investigation?'"

"Yep."

"Well, it doesn't get any closer than me. But do me a favor, call the PIO and get them to give you the official no comment. That gives me a little cover.

"Fair enough."

It took the FBI's public affairs officer a while to get back to me, and when she did, she gave me a roundabout confirmation of what I needed to know.

"I'm going to have to ask you to hold off on that story until tomorrow. The Director and the Attorney General will be holding a presser in the morning."

"You know I can't hold off. It's just not what we do."

"I know. Have a pleasant evening."

I called my editor and sent a story through about a half hour later. It led the top of page 1

FBI Investigation Now Focused on Murder In Cameron Shooting

The FBI no longer considers the death of HHS Secretary Rodney Cameron to be a suicide, according to multiple sources with the FBI and local law enforcement. FBI Director James Sutton and Attorney General Armstrong W. Madden are expected to announce the developments in the case at a news conference tomorrow morning.

Law enforcement sources said the crime scene investigation yielded multiple pieces of evidence that were not consistent with a suicide. The most important of those was that there was no trace of gunshot residue on Cameron's hands.

"How do you shoot yourself without getting GSR on your hands?" asked one source.

In addition, the gun in the case, a so -called throw-away gun with no serial number, did not belong to Cameron, who had two registered handguns in his home.

The next day was spent following up on the murder story. At the press conference, the FBI director and the Attorney General seemed to be stunned by the developments.

"Never in the nearly 250 years of this republic has a cabinet secretary been murdered," said Madden. "And the fact that he was murdered, sitting at his desk at the HHS Building is almost beyond my comprehension."

The pair said the murder had evoked a "full court press" from the FBI -- "The full resources of the United States of America will be available to the FBI as they pursue the guilty party in this homicide."

Chapter 8

Washington, D.C.

The full court press was, to put it mildly, not enough.

Three weeks later the FBI was utterly clueless about who had mysteriously snuck into the Secretary's office that fateful Sunday and killed Cameron. I was running out of words to describe the "fruitless investigation" or the "dead end" the FBI found itself in. The agency was being compared to the Keystone Cops on Fox, which, to be fair was not an accurate portrayal. But neither was it their finest hour.

Brockman, a tall, square-jawed, humorless man who screamed G-Man, met me at a little hole in the wall bar where neither of us was likely to be recognized to fill me in on the lack of progress in the case.

"I've never been on a case like this, where there is literally no evidence. There are no fingerprints on his door, there's no video of the unsub on his way into the office. We can follow Cameron into and throughout most of the building, but the cameras outside his office had been disabled -- at his request."

"Wait. You mean he had the cameras outside his office turned off?"

"Actually removed. There are screw holes in the ceiling and some cables dangling. So that ties our hands to a significant extent. But there are cameras elsewhere throughout the building. And all we have is about five seconds of video of a guy in a blue windbreaker and a dark ball cap exiting through a fire door. We can't see his face and he is otherwise non-descript."

"You have to wonder why Cameron disconnected the cameras outside his office. What was he afraid of?" I asked.

"Yeah, we're all wondering the same thing."

"Can I use that? That's a pretty good story."

"Dude, you gotta get that from someone else. You can use me as confirmation, but not as a prime source."

"Okay. Fair enough. Have you tried to get in and out of the building without appearing on camera? Is it possible?"