The Governor's Wife

by Michael Harvey

  I took a sip of coffee and typed in a name off the list. Hi-Top Construction. It was an Illinois corporation that had donated almost two million dollars to Perry spread out over three years. I pulled up the articles of incorporation for Hi-Top from the secretary of state’s office. The company’s registered agent was a local lawyer named Albert Striker. I shuffled through my handwritten notes. Striker had also acted as the registered agent for another Perry donor, an outfit called Eagle Cement. Neither company listed any corporate officers other than Striker. Not unusual, but interesting. I plugged Striker’s name into the state’s database. Five more corporations popped up. One of them, Railway Steel, was also on the Perry donor list.

  I got up and poured myself some more coffee. Then I walked back into the living room and opened a fresh document on my laptop. Under the heading STRIKER GROUP, I typed the names of the three privately held corporations. Between them, they’d donated more than eight million dollars to Ray Perry over three years. When I expanded the window to five years, the donations jumped to more than fifteen million. Each outfit had won bids for significant highway construction projects during Perry’s time in Springfield. I dug into the online clips and pulled up details on the state contracts. I printed out some articles and added names to my list. Spokesmen, contractors, more lawyers, a half-dozen vice presidents. Around 1:00 a.m., I found the entity I’d been looking for—Beacon Limited, a holding company that appeared to own all of the other outfits. Not surprisingly, Albert Striker was the only individual listed on Beacon’s corporate charter. I put the name in caps and highlighted it in bold. By 2:00 a.m., I’d gone through two-thirds of the donors and filled up twenty pages with notes. I’d identified a couple of other key Perry supporters and listed them alongside the Striker group. I turned off the computer, collected my handwritten notes, and locked them away in a drawer. Then I drank a glass of whiskey and smoked a cigarette by an open window. Maggie was curled up on the floor of my bedroom and yawned when I came in. She gave me a quick scan to see if I had any food, then went back to sleep. I lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. Smart dog. Stupid owner.

  CHAPTER 8

  Spyder sat in the dark at a large round table, surrounded by an array of glowing computer screens. He accessed a display to his left and cycled through a series of cameras they’d set up in the apartment. Then he picked up a cell phone and punched in a number.

  “I’m watching him sleep,” Spyder said.

  “Alone?”

  “Unless you count the dog.”

  “So you got everything installed?”

  “We’ve got every room covered. His landline and every keystroke on his laptop as long as he’s in the apartment.”

  “How about his office?”

  “No-go. The building’s got some quirky things going on with its wireless reception, and he just installed a fairly sophisticated alarm system.”

  “Can you beat it?”

  “Of course, but it might take some time.”

  A pause. “Let’s just focus on the apartment for now.”

  “Fine.”

  “Why are you calling?”

  “He spent a lot of time online tonight.”

  “Looking at what?”

  “I’m sending it to you now. There’s a lot, so it’s gonna take a while to get through.”

  “You take notes like I told you?”

  Spyder stared at the pad of paper by his elbow. “Filled up half a notebook.”

  “Give me the highlights.”

  “He pulled up stuff on Perry like you thought. Then he started digging around in the state database for donations to Perry’s campaign and corporate records.” Spyder edged the notebook a little closer. “Spent some time with a company called Hi-Top Construction. Another called Beacon Limited.”

  “Stop.”

  Spyder waited. He hated this cloak-and-dagger bullshit, but the pay was too good to pass up.

  “Did he make any calls?”

  “Nothing,” Spyder said.

  “You sure?”

  “Hundred percent. We don’t have coverage on his cell phone, but I would have heard the call.”

  Another pause. “Take a look out the window.”

  Spyder was sitting in the front room of a third-floor apartment. The room had three windows that looked out at Kelly’s building across the street. Spyder had the windows covered. Now he reached out and tweaked one of the blinds.

  “Can you see his place?”

  “You know I can.”

  “We’re gonna have someone follow this guy in the morning. I want you to coordinate with them.”

  “It’ll be early. I’m guessing this prick doesn’t like to sleep very much.”

  “We’re not paying you to lie around in bed. Call me when he’s up.”

  Spyder snapped his phone shut and considered a half-dozen ways he could cut his boss’s throat. Unfortunately, the man didn’t have a name or a face, so Spyder would have to content himself with the ten K wired into his account every other week. He turned up the audio levels in the apartment so the sounds would wake him when Kelly got up. Then Spyder zipped himself into his sleeping bag. He thought about the rifle in the closet. Another ten thousand. Per body, no less. Spyder smiled and closed his eyes. At the end of the day, it was all about the money…and pretty easy money at that. Spyder couldn’t have been more wrong.

  CHAPTER 9

  I sat on an overpass, sipping coffee and staring down at the Eisenhower Expressway. It was just past 6:00 a.m., and a crew from Hi-Top Construction was arriving at the job site. There were ten of them in the pickup. Two up front in the cab. The rest piled into the back. A man with a belly like a cast-iron tub got out of the front and opened a gate so the truck could drive through. The work area ran for almost two miles and was bounded on both sides by a black privacy fence. The pickup stopped near a Hi-Top trailer, and the men in the back climbed out. I pulled a small set of binoculars from my jacket pocket for a better look. The men were dressed in dark pants and long-sleeved shirts. Each carried some sort of suitcase. One wore what looked like a priest’s collar. Iron Belly gestured for them to put their luggage in the trailer. Then he began handing out picks and shovels. The workers hefted their tools and lined up at a long table on the far side of the trailer. That was when Iron Belly brought out the vodka.

  I punched in a number on my phone. Jack O’Donnell picked up on the first ring.

  “What do you want?”

  “Hey, Jackie. I figured you’d be up. How you doing?”

  “I thought I was doing fine. Now, I’m not so sure.” For ten years, Jack O’Donnell had worked for the Chicago Tribune as their transportation editor. Now he ran an industry newsletter called The Guard Rail. O’Donnell had spent his professional career studying the men who broke rocks and built highways for a living. If there were bodies buried under the blacktop, O’Donnell knew how to find them. Whether he’d tell me was another matter entirely.

  “Where are you?” O’Donnell said.

  “I’m sitting on the Ike. Looking at a work site.”

  “Which job?”

  “Just past Twenty-Fifth Avenue. Let me ask you a question. You ever hear of an outfit called Beacon Limited?”

  “Fuck you, Kelly. Everyone knows Beacon.”

  “Not me. Not until last night.”

  “They like to spread their business out over a bunch of subsidiary contractors, but they’re one of the biggest players in the country. What do you want with them?”

  “You sound a little tight, Jack.”

  “I’m fine.”

  I looked again at the site. The workers were still clustered around the table. Iron Belly was passing out orange vests.

  “You got some time, I’d like to pick your brain.”

  Silence.

  “Jackie, you hear me?”

  “I heard you. You want to talk about Beacon?”

  “Just a couple of questions.”

  “It’s never just a couple of questions. Not with you.”


  I waited.

  “Let me think about it.”

  “You got my number?” I said.

  “I got it. Make sure you pick up when I call.”

  “Fine, Jackie. I’ll talk to you.”

  O’Donnell cut the line. I sat for another minute, watching the ebb and flow of early morning traffic, light stuff streaming smoothly around the construction zone. I started up my car and drove down onto the highway, parking just inside the fence and walking toward the work crew. As I approached, I heard a babble of voices. Best I could tell, all of it was in Polish. I got to within thirty feet before someone noticed me.

  “Hey.” It was the priest. He had a cold hot dog, no bun, in one fist. There were more dogs piled on the table along with two half-gallon jugs of vodka and a stack of paper cups. The priest said something to me I didn’t understand, so I smiled. He smiled back. The other workers moved closer. Some had paper cups full of vodka. A couple had shovels. I nodded as they broke out again in Polish. Then Iron Belly stepped out of the trailer.

  “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Name’s Kelly.” I stuck out my hand. Iron Belly didn’t take it.

  “You’re trespassing.”

  “Sorry. I’m an insurance investigator. Looking for a man named Albert Striker.”

  “Never heard of him.”

  “He works for a company called Beacon Limited.”

  “Never heard of it.” Iron Belly glanced at his work crew, then back at me. “Now piss off before someone gets hurt.”

  “Can they understand a word of what we’re saying?”

  “They understand enough to kick your ass.”

  I nodded and smiled at the crew. “You just pick ’em up at O’Hare?”

  Iron Belly grabbed a shovel. Up close, I could see the rotted holes where his teeth used to be and a wad of tobacco stuck in his cheek. “You want to play fuck-fuck, mister. I love to play fuck-fuck.”

  I wasn’t sure whether his Polish army would stand and fight. Or just offer me a drink. Either way, I’d stirred the pot. And that was enough for one morning. I was halfway back to my car when I saw them. Four of them. Not Polish. Not illegal. One had a red beard and a bat in his hands. They spread out in a semicircle. Red Beard did the talking.

  “This your car?”

  “It is.”

  He swung the bat and spiderwebbed the passenger’s side of my front windshield. “You’re trespassing.”

  “You work for these guys?” I said and hooked a thumb back toward the trailer.

  Red Beard nodded. He was six feet plus. Maybe two thirty. And the smallest of the bunch. “This is how we give out tickets to trespassers.” He smashed in a side window. “Next time, it’s your fingers. After that, knees and ankles. You understand what I’m saying?” He turned and started in on the passenger’s-side door. That was when I pulled out my gun and shot him in the thigh. Red Beard went to the ground with a heavy grunt.

  “Next one goes in the kneecap,” I said as the other three circled. “Whoever catches it walks with a limp for the rest of his life.”

  I waited to see if anyone wanted to play hero. Hired help usually didn’t, and this bunch was no different. They pulled Red Beard to his feet and began to back up. He cursed and tried to come at me again, but his leg buckled. I figured he was the leader and was glad I’d shot him first.

  “Back away from the car,” I said.

  They gave me fifty feet. I insisted they give me fifty more. Then I slipped in the front seat and started up the car. I ran over a half-dozen cones as I pulled out of the work site and back onto the Ike. I was two miles down the road, windshield nicely smashed and no one in the rearview mirror, when my phone buzzed. It was Rodriguez.

  “You up yet?”

  “Up and out,” I said.

  “Where are you?”

  “Just went for a run.”

  “Sounds like you’re driving.”

  “What’s going on, Vince?”

  “I got a little information this morning on one of your pals. Paul Goggin.”

  “Where is he?”

  Rodriguez gave me Goggin’s last-known address. It was one all Chicagoans found their way to sooner or later: 2121 West Harrison Street. Also known as the Cook County Morgue.

  CHAPTER 10

  Rodriguez was waiting in a lobby paved in squares of green and white linoleum. He didn’t say a word, just motioned for me to follow. We were buzzed into the morgue by a receptionist sealed up in her own Plexiglas tomb. Rodriguez led me down a dingy hallway to a small office with more linoleum, a table of gunmetal gray, and two folding chairs. Rodriguez pushed out a chair with his foot and slapped a folder on the table.

  “What’s this?” I said, taking a seat and flipping the file open.

  “It’s the paperwork on Goggin.”

  I pushed it aside. “Got a question for you. Beacon Limited.”

  “They own companies that build roads.”

  “Big outfit?”

  “The biggest. Why?”

  “Would you be surprised if their subsidiaries use illegals for some of their grunt work?”

  “I’d be surprised if they didn’t.”

  “So it’s not something anyone should get too excited over?”

  “Fuck, no. What’s this about?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What did you do?”

  “You really want to know?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Smart man.” I opened up the folder again and pulled out Goggin’s autopsy report. It was dated three and a half months ago. The cause of death was given as massive head trauma. Underneath that was a space for manner of death. Someone had typed in the word: HOMICIDE.

  “The body’s gone, I take it?”

  Rodriguez eased his long frame into the other chair and tilted back against the wall. “Long gone.”

  “So why are we here?”

  “You won’t believe it.”

  “Try me.”

  “Four months ago, Goggin’s driving down the Dan Ryan. Kid pushes a rock off an overpass and puts it right through his windshield.”

  “A rock, huh?”

  “Goggin was killed immediately. We arrested the little prick a day later.”

  “Your case?”

  “Nah. The detectives who handled it are good. They developed some information in the neighborhood, brought the kid in, and got a confession.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Sitting in county, waiting on a trial date.”

  I noticed an envelope clipped to the back of the file. It was thick with photographs.

  “Mostly autopsy stuff,” Rodriguez said. “There’s a few shots from the scene.”

  I flipped through the photos. Massive head trauma was an understatement.

  “The kid claims he’s innocent?” I said.

  “Aren’t they all? He’ll cut a deal.”

  I pulled out a photo of the car with the body removed. The windshield was gone, and the front third of the roof on the driver’s side was crushed.

  “Hell of a rock,” I said.

  Rodriguez leaned over for a look and grunted.

  “Can I talk to the kid?” I said.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Don’t know. Where’s the car?”

  “Probably down at the pound.”

  “Let’s go take a look,” I said.

  “At the car?”

  “The kid, Vince. Let’s go see the kid.”

  CHAPTER 11

  The kid’s name was Roderick Hampton. I read through his case file as Rodriguez drove us down to the jail. Hampton was sixteen years old. He lived two miles from the crime scene and had been arrested the day after Goggin’s death. According to the file, Chicago detectives had developed a CI who stated that Hampton had bragged about hurling the rock off the bridge. Two locals subsequently came forward and claimed to have seen Hampton running off the bridge at or around the time of the crash. Hampton had been appointed a public defender an
d would be tried as an adult.

  “This happened at three-thirty in the morning?” I said.

  Rodriguez looked over. “So what?”

  I went back to my reading. Rodriguez pulled into the lot at the jail, and we got out. Cook County Jail is the largest of its kind in the country. It covers ten city blocks and houses almost ten thousand inmates. Rodriguez led us through security to the prisoner-intake area. It looked like a terminal at O’Hare, except all the passengers were murderers and rapists and all the flights were nonstop to hell. A row of cages ringed the outside of the room and were filled to capacity. Someone yelled Rodriguez’s name, but he kept going. In the center, jail employees sat in front of green computer screens and processed detainees into the facility. We charted a diagonal path through the human debris. To our left, a heavily muscled Latino was sitting in a chair, helping a woman decipher a series of symbols and numbers carved on his chest. She took a picture of the tattoos and typed some information into her computer. The Latino looked up and rattled his cuffs.

  “Rodriguez.”

  “Jimenez. What are you in for?”

  Jimenez shrugged. Rodriguez glanced at the woman who talked as she typed. “Strong-arm robbery. Assault.”

  “Next time I see you, we go to that place. For the empanadas.” Jimenez was still talking as we walked away.

  “Buddy of yours?” I said.

  “Come on.” Rodriguez led me out of the intake area and down a long, dank corridor. A line of fifty men stood in their bare feet, hands on their heads, faces pressed against a wall made of gray cinder block. Opposite them, two correctional officers stood on an iron bench and yelled instructions. A third officer picked through a collection of shoes, sneakers, and boots that had been scattered down the hall.

  “Let’s hang for a minute,” Rodriguez said. “Let ’em process these guys.”

  The officer picking through the shoes came up with a length of plastic sharpened to a wicked point. He laid it on the bench beside three other shanks, a set of brass knuckles, and a coil of thin wire wrapped around a pipe. Halfway down the line, a prisoner collapsed on the floor and started to spasm. One of the officers on the bench gave Rodriguez a look and motioned us past. We walked down the line, stepped around the man on the ground, and turned into a short hallway. Another officer stood in front of a door. He had a length of chain and a couple of sets of cuffs on a loop at his belt.