The Governor's Wife (3 page)

M
arie Perry maintained a suite of offices on Michigan Avenue, south of the river and just north of the Art Institute. The reception area featured floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Millennium Park. The receptionist, a matchstick of a woman dressed in black from head to toe, had already offered me fourteen different flavors of herbal tea. I told her I was fine. Then she brought out a selection of apples from six different states. Again, I took a pass. Finally, she told me they were having a yoga class for everyone in the office at one. They had spare workout clothes, towels, and a mat if I was interested. I showed her my gun and told her I had some people to shoot later on and wanted to keep my edge. The receptionist pretty much left me alone after that.

I’d sat there maybe fifteen minutes when a second woman, also malnourished and swaddled in black, came out to get me. She walked me down a hall filled with bright colors and a soft hissing that sounded like steam escaping from a busted pipe.

“What’s that?” I said.

“What?”

“Sounds like a gas leak.”

“Oh.” The assistant looked back at me with that zombie/acolyte smile you used to see only at an
Oprah
taping. “That’s their waterfall. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Whose waterfall?”

“Marie and Ray’s. They spent a month in Kenya. Marie recorded all the sounds of their trip so they could reconnect with Africa whenever they felt the need. These are the waterfalls of Thika. I’m thinking of playing it at my wedding once I get engaged. Course I have to get a boyfriend first. Here we are.”

The assistant pushed open a door and I walked into Marie Perry’s office. In case I had any doubts, there was a life-size portrait of her and Ray hung on the wall directly above her chair. The shot was taken at least five years and half a lifetime ago. Ray was dressed in a tux and reaching out to shake a hand. Marie Perry was glammed up in an evening gown and glancing over her bare shoulder at the world she’d left behind.

“That’s a Bichet.”

I turned. The woman herself stood in the doorway.

“The gown, I mean. Andre Bichet. The photograph was taken by Bellows. He used to take all our shots when…well, you know when. I keep it around to impress I’m not sure who these days.”

Marie Perry walked behind her desk. She was dressed in faded jeans and an oversize sweater with a set of reading glasses stuck up on her forehead. Back in the day, she’d been touted as the engine that powered the Raymond Perry political machine. She knew who to woo and who to avoid. More important, she wasn’t afraid to stick a knife in someone’s back if she had to. And in Chicago, you always had to.

Most people assumed the governor’s mansion in Springfield was just the beginning for Marie Perry. The woman had plans. A seat in the U.S. Senate for her husband, maybe a run for the White House if the cards fell right. But first lady of Illinois was as far as she’d rise. And it had been a costly climb.

The years had done their best work on her face. Puffiness around the lips and eyes. A loose bag of skin under the chin. Lines carved into pale, drawn cheeks. Marie Perry was decaying before my very eyes. Even worse, she was being mocked by the polished image that hung just behind her.

“You mind if I smoke?” she said and sat down.

“What about your yoga class?”

She chuckled and pulled out a pack of Marlboros. “I gave that up a while back. You want one?”

I shook my head and took a seat across from her. Marie lit up and streamed smoke from the side of her mouth. It wreathed her head, then floated toward the ceiling.

“I used to do yoga, meditation, chanting. The whole nine yards. Then Ray disappeared, the feds arrested me, and the press had me for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Walk through that shit storm and tell me how
nama
-fucking-
ste
life sounds.”

I was going to ask about Kenya and the waterfalls but figured no one should have too much fun in one day.

“You told my assistant you wanted to talk about Ray,” Marie said, playing with the pack of Marlboros as she spoke.

“I’m a private investigator.”

“I know who you are, Mr. Kelly. Why are you interested in my husband?”

“You mean who hired me?”

She ashed her cigarette and drew one foot up onto her chair. “Exactly. Who hired you? And why do they care about Ray?”

“I don’t know the answers to either of those questions.”

“And yet you took the job anyway. Must be a good bit of money.”

“It’s not about the money.”

Smoke bubbled out of her mouth along with the laughter. “Don’t bullshit me and I’ll extend you the same courtesy.”

“Can we talk about your husband?”

“Why should we?”

“I don’t know. Why did you agree to meet today?”

“Maybe I was bored. Not a lot of demand these days for a disgraced former first lady, especially one half the world thinks helped engineer her husband’s disappearance. The only people I talk to on a regular basis are the feds. Believe it or not, I almost look forward to that monthly colonoscopy.”

“Why did Ray do it?”

“He was looking at thirty years in prison.”

“Any other reason?”

“My husband didn’t tell me about his little plan, if that’s what you’re asking.”

There was a knock on the door, and the assistant stuck her head in. “Your appointment’s in half an hour.”

“Thank you, Pamela. I’ll just be a few minutes.”

Marie Perry gave Pamela a withering smile and waited until she’d shut the door. “They’re all interns. Too naïve to realize I’m nothing. So we pretend I’m still first lady. And I go to third-rate fund-raisers and ribbon cuttings. Today it’s a cupcake shop in Andersonville. They pay for my time. Sad thing is I’d probably do it for free.”

“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?”

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.”