I smiled. “Lead on.”
—
Andrew Wallace pulled out a laminated card he kept on a chain around his neck and slid it through a reader. Then he pressed a button and our elevator began to drop.
“They gave you an access pass for the building?” I said.
“Just the garage and a few restricted areas. I’m here all the time anyway.”
“For the Mies project?”
“My thesis.”
“Right.” I stared at a run of floor numbers as they lit up above the door. Beside me Wallace shifted his feet and cleared his throat. I glanced over. Mistake.
“Are you a cop?” he said.
“I’m a private investigator.”
“I knew it. So why are you here?”
“I’m working a case, but I can’t tell you much about it.”
“Is it a murder?”
“That’s a pretty good question.”
“And you can’t answer it?”
“Probably not.” Our elevator slowed, then stopped. The doors eased open. “You still gonna show me our ice-cream machine?”
Wallace adjusted the camera bag on his shoulder. “This way.”
We walked into a space full of strained light and thick shadows. I stopped for a moment and took a couple of pictures of the elevator with my phone. Then I took a shot of the security camera covering the elevator and a shot of the garage. Wallace led me through a maze of cars and empty parking spaces until we reached a small door.
“This is where a lot of the cleaning and maintenance guys keep their lockers.” Wallace pointed just ahead. “There’s the machine.”
The Dippin’ Dots machine was massive and blue, with red and green balloons plastered all over it. An Illinois state vending permit was stuck just above the face of a grinning clown. The machine was licensed to a corporation named Double D Entertainment, Inc. I wrote down the name in a small black notebook.
“Damn.” Wallace gave the machine a halfhearted kick.
“What?”
He pointed to a flashing red light and the words SOLD OUT glowing in neon-green type.
“Guess they don’t keep the thing stocked up,” I said.
“Like everything else,” Wallace said.
“You want to head back up?”
“That’s it?”
“Not very exciting, is it?”
“Why do you care about the Dippin’ Dots machine?”
“I don’t care about the machine. Just its owner.”
“Oh.”
We walked back through the garage and waited for the elevator. Wallace took out his camera and began to scroll through some photos he’d shot.
“What do you do with the pictures?” I said.
“They’re part of my research. Over the last four years I’ve taken thousands of photos in the Loop. Hell, I’ve probably taken a few thousand inside this building alone.”
Our elevator arrived with a soft chime. We got on, and the car began to climb.
“You’ve been shooting in here for the last four years?” I said.
“Between undergrad and graduate school, pretty much.”
“How about trials, stuff like that?”
“You mean do I have access not granted to the regular media?”
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
We arrived at the twenty-fifth floor. There were a few people hanging around in front of Hogan’s courtroom. I gave them a wide berth and found a quiet corner where we could sit. Wallace kept his camera bag beside him as he spoke.
“What is it you’re looking for, Mr. Kelly?”
“Do you have access?”
“I never got into a courtroom if that’s what you’re after.”
“It’s not.”
The grad student licked his lips. Now that we’d come to it, maybe he didn’t want to play detective so much. “They let me take photos in some restricted areas as long as I’m discreet. Mostly hallway stuff during some of the trials.”
“So you might be able to help me?”
“Depends on what you’re looking for.”
“The Perry trial.”
Wallace nodded like he’d known all along. “You mean the day he disappeared.”
“Were you here?”
“I shot a few things. Nothing too exciting.”
“Where were you?”
Wallace pointed down the hall. “I was by the elevators. The governor and his wife walked around the corner, and she hit the call button. I snapped off a few pictures while they were waiting.”
“Did you see Perry himself get on the elevator?”
“Actually, no. He went into the bathroom and I rode one of the cars down.”
“So you followed Ms. Perry to the garage?”
“Yes. I thought I could get some shots of them driving out. Of course, the governor never showed.”
“Anyone ever look at your pictures?”
“Security grabbed them after everything happened. Then I had to talk to a bunch of federal investigators. Guys like you.”
“Hardly.”
“Well, there wasn’t much to tell them. We went over each photo and then they let me go.”
“Do you still have the shots?”
“Not with me but, yeah, I still have them.”
“Do the feds know you have them?”
“They told me if anything showed up in the media they’d find me and arrest me. I asked them for what, and they told me they’d think of something.”
“They would.” I took out a couple of business cards. “Keep one of these for yourself. Write your contact info on the other.”
Wallace wrote down a cell number and e-mail on the back of one of the cards and tucked the other in his jacket pocket. “You want to take a look at my photos?”
“I want to buy them.”
“They’re not gonna be much help.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
“I have to work all day tomorrow and the next.”
“Can you e-mail them to me?”
“To be honest, I’d rather show you. Otherwise, I’m not sure you’d know what you were looking at.”
“How about you call me when you get free and we’ll figure out a time to meet?”
“Sounds good.” Wallace got up to go and paused.
“What is it?” I said.
“Did you know the Perrys?”
“I met the governor once or twice. Why?”
“His wife.”
“What about her?”
“She seemed a little out of it that day.”
“Her husband was going off to jail for thirty years.”
“Yeah, I guess. Tell you the truth she kind of creeped me out.”
“Call me, Andrew.”
“Cool.”
I watched as the grad student disappeared around a corner. Then I took out my smartphone and pulled up the website for the Illinois Secretary of State. I accessed its corporate records division and plugged in DOUBLE D ENTERTAINMENT. The corporation was no longer in good standing in Illinois. Its registered agent was a man named Paul Goggin. I did a quick wire search for Goggin and came up with nothing. I found one cell number for a “Paul Goggin” in an online directory, but no address. When I dialed the number, it was disconnected. I logged off and watched people go in and out of Hogan’s courtroom. The place looked like it was filling up. I walked down the hallway to the elevator Ray Perry had taken and rode it to the ground floor. The car was like a million others. Four walls, a floor, and ceiling. I took a couple of photos of the interior, then glanced up at the emergency exit cut into the roof. I took a picture of that as well. The elevator pinged and the door opened. I walked through the lobby of the federal building, hit the revolving doors, and pushed my way into the Loop.
CHAPTER 4
I wrangled Eddie Ward’s address and number from a producer I knew over at CBS. She told me she’d been trying to get an interview with him for the past six months, but no one ever answered his phone. Of course, she’d neve
r bothered to drive out to the address. Maybe she thought Eddie would wander in on his own, looking to give her an exclusive.
The electrician lived on the top floor of a skinny three-flat just west of Palmer Square. I got there around eleven and knocked on his door, but there was no answer. I made as much noise as I could coming back down the stairs and stopped in front of the second-floor apartment. I knew she was looking at me through the peephole and waited. My patience was rewarded as the door creaked open and a nose poked out.
“Beatrice Sanderson?”
“How do you know my name?”
“I saw it on the buzzer.”
“What do you want?”
“I was looking for Eddie Ward.”
The door opened another inch. The nose was attached to a woman who looked more like a squirrel—the twitching, sniffing, inquisitive kind. Harmless enough…and hunting for nuts.
“He’s long gone,” she said.
“You don’t say.”
“Hasn’t been around for months.”
“That unusual for Eddie?”
“Highly.”
“Not likely to go off to Vegas?”
“Eddie?” Beatrice thought that was pretty damn funny. “You a friend?”
“Business.” I had my gun on my hip. She went from that to my face and came up with “cop.” I was more than happy to let her think that, especially since I was about to engage in some breaking and entering.
“Listen, I need to get into Eddie’s place.”
“I don’t have a key.” Beatrice opened the door wider to let me in. Stale air and old age had made their bed in there and weren’t leaving any time soon. At least not until death came along and put them out of a job.
“I’ll take your word for it,” I said. “I might have to force the door a bit up there. Might make some noise.”
“No one lives on the first floor. Just me and Eddie. Or used to be Eddie.”
“So you don’t mind if I bang around a little?”
“Gonna rob the place?”
“No, ma’am.”
A wave of her hand. “Knock yourself out.”
“You won’t call the police?”
“Why would I do that?” She nodded at my gun. “Got ’em right here.”
I walked back upstairs and considered the door to Eddie’s apartment. Then I planted a size ten just under the lock. The jamb burst in a splinter of nails and wood. And I was in. The place was a cheap one-bedroom that felt like it hadn’t been lived in for a while. I noticed a fine layer of dust on the vinyl couch and a residue of grit that crunched under my shoes. I stuck my head in the bedroom. Eddie’s bed was made and his room was neat. I looked in the bathroom and saw nothing but a closed shower curtain. Eddie had a couple of paperback books on a shelf in the living room and a small table with a drawer full of old bills. I poked around, looking for something personal. Photos, a day planner, checkbook. There was nothing. I took another look at the bills. The latest was a past-due gas notice from four months ago. I went into the kitchenette and checked the stove. Working. I swept up some of the grit off the floor and slipped it into a Baggie. Then I did the same with the dust on the couch. I closed up the door as best I could and walked back downstairs. Beatrice was waiting.
“Made enough noise.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t bother me none.”
“You haven’t seen Eddie in a few months?”
“Already told you that.”
“How about his mail? Who takes that?”
“There was a pile.” The old woman shifted her weight in the door. I could see a tray with her breakfast still on it, set up in front of a TV. Dr. Phil was on, talking to a woman about her fear of wearing red.
“What happened to it?” I said.
“Mailman took it away.”
I refused to believe Beatrice hadn’t gotten to the bottom of that. I wasn’t disappointed.
“He told me they’d gotten a termination notice.”
“You mean a forwarding address?”
“That’s what I said. The mailman told me it’s different. With a termination notice the post office just collects the mail until the person has a fixed address.”
“This was a few weeks ago?”
“At least a month. Maybe more.” Her eyes rolled toward the ceiling. “Is Eddie dead up there?”
“I didn’t see him.”
Beatrice seemed a little disappointed. “I’ve got to go. Do you have a card?”
I gave her one. She tucked it into the pocket of her robe without looking at it and shut the door in my face.
CHAPTER 5
Marie 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.”
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