The Governor's Wife Read online

  “Let’s get back to Ray.”

  “Ray’s gone, Mr. Kelly. And he’s not coming back.” She crushed her cigarette into an ashtray and pivoted in her chair to look out a window, at the front steps of the Art Institute. I noticed a slight tremor in her hands as she steepled them under her chin.

  “Ms. Perry?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you all right?”

  She turned her head and pinned me to the wall with a bloodless stare any self-respecting corpse would have been proud of. “You’re the private investigator, Mr. Kelly. What do you think?”

  CHAPTER 6

  I walked down Michigan Avenue, trying to shake off the uncomfortable feeling that Marie Perry drank a couple of pints of blood for dinner every night and crawled into a coffin when she needed some shut-eye. I stopped at an afterthought of a bar on the corner of Michigan and Monroe and ordered a Jim Beam, rocks. My phone buzzed and I ignored it. Then I punched in a number and waited.

  “Kelly?”

  “Vince, what’s up?”

  Vince Rodriguez was a homicide detective with the Chicago PD. He was also a friend. It wasn’t like I had a lot of friends. Some of that was by design. The rest just came naturally. Rodriguez, however, was a constant. Someone I could count on even when it wasn’t in his best interest…which was often.

  “Where you been hiding?”

  “Laying low. Working.” I hadn’t talked to Rodriguez in three months. I hadn’t talked to anyone significant in three months. Except for my dog. And I was pretty sure she was getting sick of my act as well. “What’s been going on?”

  “Same old bullshit. Still dealing with the West Side. People hate the cops, lining up to file their lawsuits. Lawyers running around with their hands out.”

  It had been four years since the West Side had been the target of a bioweapons attack. Five hundred people had died and Chicago still hadn’t fully recovered. Physically, emotionally, or psychologically. The city would survive. A little scratched and dented maybe, but that was Chicago. Algren put it best—“like loving a woman with a broken nose.”

  “You got a little time to talk?” I said.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Not on the phone.”

  “Goddamnit, Kelly.”

  “It’s nothing. Just a conversation. One drink and a conversation. You’ll like it.”

  “I won’t like it.” A pause. “Where are you?”

  I told him. Fifteen minutes later, the cop slid onto a stool and signaled for the bartender.

  “What are you drinking?”

  “Beam, rocks.”

  The detective nodded. “Same.”

  The bartender went off to pour Rodriguez’s drink. He pointed his chin at a TV hung from the ceiling. “You see the news yet?”

  “No. Why?”

  “We found an infant up in Lincoln Park this morning.” The bartender returned with the drink. Rodriguez took a sip and sighed. “Damn, that’s good.”

  “What’s it about?”

  “Someone told us they saw this guy leave a baby in the trunk of a car. I happened to be nearby and rolled on it. Turns out the car was using phony plates and had been stolen in Toronto.”

  “And the kid?”

  “Who knows? Could be just some lousy parents who like to steal cars. Could be they were looking to sell the kid.”

  “Black market?”

  “We’re seeing a lot more of it. Word is they might be running an operation out of Chicago. Anyway, the kid was cute as hell. Latino. A news crew got a shot of him as we pulled him out of the trunk. Bingo. Fucking story blows up. All of a sudden I got five cameras looking for another shot of the kid. We shipped him off to the NICU at Northwestern Memorial, then held a press conference.” Rodriguez rattled the ice cubes in his glass and studied me under the barroom light. “You all right?”

  “Never better.”

  “Have you seen her?”

  “Seen who?”

  Rodriguez shook his head and glanced again at the TV. “Hey, can you put on the news? WGN.”

  The bartender came over with a remote and changed the channel.

  “Thanks.” Rodriguez turned back to me. “You want to talk? Or you just gonna stew in it?”

  “It” was a woman named Rachel Swenson. She was a federal judge and had been my girlfriend until she sold me out to the feds. We’d tried to put it back together a couple of times over the past year and almost got there…until we wound up making everything worse. Now there was nothing left but hurt. And hope. That was the thing that got you in the end. The hope.

  “Think I’m gonna stew,” I said.

  “Course you are. What else would you do? So…and I know I’m gonna regret this…why did you call me down here?”

  “I’ve got a new client.”

  “I’m thrilled for you.”

  “I don’t know his name.”

  “Really?”

  I took out my phone and pulled up the e-mail that had hired me. Rodriguez read it once, then read it again before sliding the phone back across the bar.

  “I knew I shouldn’t have come.”

  —

  “Raymond Perry?”

  “Told you it was interesting.”

  We’d taken our conversation to a booth. The TV was still on, but my cop friend had lost interest in himself.

  “How long has it been since he skipped out?”

  “Two years,” I said.

  “Feels more like ten. Last I heard they’d spotted him on an island somewhere.”

  “He’s been ‘seen’ in the West Indies. Before that it was Paris, British Columbia, and Bangkok. All in the past year and a half.”

  “Our own little Whitey Bulger.”

  “More like a ghost.”

  “You ever meet him?”

  “Once. At Kustok’s wake.”

  Walter Kustok was a Chicago cop. He’d been on the job less than six months when he knocked on the front door of a South Side bungalow. An estranged husband fired three times through the closed door and killed Kustok where he stood.

  “What did you think?” Rodriguez said.

  “Ray came in by himself. No limo, no entourage, no speech. Just paid his respects to the family. Then he went to the bar and drank with Kustok’s buddies until close.”

  “I heard about that.”

  “He was a politician, but I liked Ray. At least that night I did.”

  Rodriguez grunted and took a sip of his bourbon. “Who’s dropping all the cash to find him?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Did they deposit the first hundred?”

  “It’s sitting in an account with my name on it.”

  “You touched any of it?”

  I shook my head.

  “You gonna?”

  “Why, you need a loan?”

  The detective fed me a grin. “Depends on what you want me to do.”

  “I was thinking you could get someone in Financial Crimes to put a trace on the account.”

  “As it happens, I have someone down there who owes me a favor. Thing is, these people aren’t likely to have left any tracks.”

  “I know, but I figure it’s worth a shot.”

  Rodriguez shrugged, then sat up in his seat. “There we are. Hey, turn it up.”

  The bartender hit the volume, and we watched as Rodriguez stood behind his boss who was droning on about how the baby they’d found was healthy. No ID as of yet, but the Chicago PD was working on it.

  “I look like a fat fuck,” Rodriguez said.

  “I heard TV does that to Latinos.”

  “You ever watch Telemundo? We were made for TV.”

  “The Irish were made for TV.”

  “The Irish were made for a coffin. It’s called the sun, Kelly. Give it a try sometime.”

  The news package ended, and a tall brunette began talking about the investigation.

  “I thought they interviewed you?” I said.

  “Must not have made the final cut. What else is
new? So, let’s get back to all that money.”

  “Will you have your finance guy look at it?”

  “Sure.”

  “He won’t make any waves?”

  “Nah. This guy’s good. If they left any fingerprints, he’ll find ’em.”

  “Thanks.”

  “That’s it?”

  “What do you know about Ray’s wife?”

  Rodriguez frowned. “Marie Perry? Not much. She’s Billy Bones’s daughter. High society, charity type. Ran around Springfield like a queen until they slapped the cuffs on Ray.”

  “And now?”

  “Now? Expiration date’s long gone.”

  “She’s not that old.”

  “It’s not the years, Kelly. It’s the miles. I don’t think she’s even in town anymore.”

  “She’s got an office two blocks from here.”

  “No kidding. Who cares? Better yet, why do you care?”

  “Marie Perry was with the governor when he disappeared.”

  “Actually, she wasn’t with him. That’s the whole point. Listen, the wife is a pariah. When Ray skipped, he left her flat. No one wants to touch her. No one wants to be seen with her.”

  “How about her father?”

  “Bones? Hell, he’s deader than she is. Besides, from what I hear they hate each other.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Don’t know. Some family bullshit or something. Any way you look at it, Marie Perry’s not in a position to be advancing you a hundred G’s.”

  “I didn’t say she hired me.”

  “Then what? She helped Ray disappear? Please. Since the day he skipped, her life’s been fucked. And that’s a fact.”

  “She thinks I’ll never find him.”

  “She’s right. So take the money, wherever it’s from, and run.”

  “You remember Eddie Ward?”

  “No.”

  “He was the electrician who took the elevator down twelve floors with Ray.”

  “How could I forget?”

  “Eddie was in the federal building that morning to work on a Dippin’ Dots machine. That’s freeze-dried ice cream.”

  “I know what Dippin’ Dots are.”

  “The machine was licensed to a corporation named Double D Entertainment. I looked up the registered agent. It’s a guy named Paul Goggin.” I wrote the names out on a napkin and pushed it across the table. Rodriguez wasn’t impressed.

  “So what?”

  “Eddie’s disappeared. I got a funny feeling Goggin might be right behind him.”

  “When you say ‘disappeared,’ what exactly do you mean?”

  I glanced at the detective’s glass. “Maybe I should get us another one before we get started?”

  “I already opened up a tab. It’s in your name.”

  CHAPTER 7

  Rodriguez and I talked for another half hour. He promised to see if he could dig up anything on the whereabouts of Eddie Ward or Paul Goggin. Before he left, Rodriguez urged me again to empty the hundred grand out of the account before it disappeared of its own accord. I told him I’d think about it and followed him out the door five minutes later. I hailed a cab and looked out the window as we crawled through the evening rush on Lake Shore Drive. I had the cabbie get off at Fullerton Avenue and head west until we hit Lincoln. Then we backtracked a couple of blocks and pulled up in front of a bar with a hanging sign of a gigantic carrot.

  Sterch’s had been a tradition on Lincoln Avenue since the early seventies. The place was, and always had been, a drinkers’ bar. Serious drinkers. The kind who put their keys and money on the bar because they knew they were gonna be there awhile. I walked in around half past five. The bar was full, and there wasn’t a TV in the place. Boxing gloves and carrots hung from the ceiling and walls. An ALCOHOL FUTURES chalkboard was pegged above the register. On it were the names of six or seven regulars who’d had drinks bought for them in absentia or had been too lubricated at the time to take advantage of someone’s largesse. Beside the board was a stack of citations from the city of Chicago for violations of its no-smoking laws and a white-and-black sign that read: THE MORE CORRUPT THE STATE, THE MORE NUMEROUS THE LAWS. TACITUS. In the back of the place, the bar had been kind enough to set up its own no-smoking section. It consisted of an empty rectangle made of aluminum tubing and hanging a foot or two from the ceiling. Nice.

  I caught the bartender’s eye and ordered a longneck Bud, then took my beer to a seat by the window and watched the people walk past. I’d been coming into Sterch’s a couple of times a week for the past few months. The “craic,” as my Irish-born friends liked to call bar conversation, was “mighty”…even if you were just listening. Which is mostly what I did. Listen to the chatter, drink my beer, and stare out the window. She usually caught the 5:45 bus up Lincoln Avenue. She used to drive to work, but now she took the bus. Sometimes, it ran a little late. Tonight was one of those times. Rachel Swenson was the second-to-last person to get off. She wore a black jacket with a collar she lifted against a sudden patter of rain. Rachel hustled across Lincoln and turned to urge someone behind her to beat the blinking light. She stretched out her hand and laughed. My eyes tracked back through the crowd, hunting for her companion. A couple of taxis cruised into the intersection and blocked my view. Then they laid on their horns just for fun. By the time the people and cars had cleared, Rachel was gone. As was her friend.

  I had two more beers at Sterch’s and eavesdropped on the conversations floating through the place. At a table to my left, a man and woman were comparing Royko to today’s crop of scribblers. Not much of a comparison. Not much of a conversation. Behind me, a couple of guys debated the merits of our mayor. One guy thought he was setting himself up for a run at the White House. The other figured that to be a lateral move at best. And not a very smart one. My mind wandered back to Rachel, standing in a soft rain in the middle of the street, living her life and filling it up with people. I figured that was a good thing. No matter how much it hurt. I finished my beer, picked up my money, and headed out.

  —

  Maggie’s nose was at the front door as soon as I cracked it. She ran around in circles until I opened up a cabinet for the dog food. Then she was all business, sitting at attention, eyes riveted on my every move. I filled her bowl, crouched down, and stared at her. She held my gaze for about ten seconds before her eyes flicked toward the bowl.

  “Maggie.”

  Her eyes came back to mine and held on for another thirty seconds. Then the drift again, accompanied this time by a soft whine.

  “Mags.”

  She barked once and slapped her tail against the floor. I nodded toward the bowl. She dove in up to her ears. Ten seconds later, she was done. I pulled her leash off a hook sunk into the wall.

  “Park?”

  She streaked to the front door and sat. I leashed her up, and we walked three blocks to a field next to a local middle school. The rain had stopped and the turf was just wet enough to be sloppy. Springer-spaniel weather. I unsnapped the leash and threw a tennis ball into the night. Mags brought it back and dropped it at my feet. I threw it again. The city felt empty—the only sound the metal clink of Mags’s tags as she ran. I thought about Ray Perry. Maybe he was on a beach somewhere. Maybe he was dead. Maybe someone just wanted him dead. The tennis ball rolled against my shoe. I picked it up and looked at Mags, tongue out, tail thumping against the grass. I tossed the ball from hand to hand and smelled the smoke and sweat of Sterch’s coming off my clothes. Mags barked. I’m still here, she said. I wound up and leaned into a throw. When I was in high school, I played center field. No one ever ran on me. If they did, it was at their peril. A couple of years back, I took a bag of balls out to my old position. In my mind and heart, I knew I could still do it. Then I picked up a ball and fired toward home plate. The mechanics were fine. Better, even, than I could have hoped for. The ball, however, barely reached the pitcher’s mound. I remembered taking a look around. Maybe they’d changed the dimensions of the diamond.
Maybe I was in deep center field. I grabbed another ball out of the bag and tried again. This one rolled up on the mound and bounced off the rubber. My shoulder was on fire down to my fingertips. I told myself I just needed to build up the arm again. If I came out once a week for a summer, I’d be back to where I was. That’s what I told myself. Then I threw the bag of balls into the trunk of my car and slammed it shut.

  I got back to the apartment around 8:00 p.m. No messages. No e-mails. I made myself some mac and cheese and threw in a can of tuna because I thought I needed the iron. I wasn’t sure if tuna had any iron, but figured the mac and cheese didn’t and the upgrade couldn’t hurt. When I was done, Mags licked the bowl clean. Maybe she needed some iron, too. I fixed up a pot of coffee and took a cup into the living room, where I sat down with my laptop. Mags curled up on the other end of the couch and stared at me. I googled Ray Perry and began to pick through articles. Then I googled his wife. The picture I pulled up was taken at a community forum years ago. Even in the best of times, Marie Perry’s face was better seen through the lens of a camera. Some people were just like that. Not unattractive in real life, just never quite living up to the magic of being “photogenic.” I studied the elegant set of her chin and clean line of her jaw but couldn’t find any of the pain I’d seen today. Still, there was something inescapably sad wrapped up in Marie Perry’s smile, and I wondered where it came from.

  I clicked the photo shut and opened up my black notebook. On the first blank page, I wrote down three names. EDDIE WARD. PAUL GOGGIN. RAY PERRY. I drew a line between WARD and GOGGIN and wrote VENDING MACHINE underneath it. Then I drew a line between PERRY and WARD and wrote ELEVATOR RIDE. Off to one side I scratched out MARIE PERRY and drew a final line between her and her husband. I stared at my little diagram for a while, then logged on to the website for the Illinois State Board of Elections. After about an hour, I had a working list of Ray Perry’s major donors from 2005 through 2010. My routine was the same. I took each name in turn and did a search for any media coverage. Then I did a litigation search, cross-referencing the donor’s name against civil and criminal court cases filed in Cook County. The donor list was an impressive one. A lot of high rollers. A lot of corporate money. I didn’t really know what I was looking for but figured I’d recognize it when I saw it. It wasn’t the best plan, but right now it was all I had.