The Governor's Wife

by Michael Harvey

  I checked my gun with security and took the escalator up one floor. Three C’s “headquarters” consisted of a single suite tucked away at the back end of a corridor full of administrative offices. The reception area was empty, save for a black metal desk and pictures of poor kids looking down at me bravely from the walls. Three C had been a hot charity when Ray was in the mansion. At one point, they ran after-school art classes in Chicago’s public schools, a mentoring program for teens as well as school-lunch programs, health screenings, and even sex-education counseling. When Ray was indicted, however, the money dried up, and the programs withered and died. Which led me to wonder what the hell Karen Simone did every day when she came to work. And who paid her.

  I called out to see if anyone was home, then wandered behind the receptionist’s desk and down a short hallway. There were two doors, both closed. The first opened into a small conference room. The second was locked. I walked back out front. Karen Simone was waiting.

  “Mr. Kelly?”

  “Sorry. Just poked my head in the back. Karen Simone?”

  She was wearing dark blue jeans and a short-waisted black jacket over a silky, cream-colored top. Her lips were brushed in pale pink, and her hair was pulled back from her face. She moved like an athlete, light and confident. When she shook my hand, I could feel the strength in her grip. Her skin smelled like cut lemons.

  “Why don’t we talk in here?” She swiped a card through a reader and pushed open the door that had been locked. “Take a seat.”

  I found a hard-backed chair. Karen settled herself behind a desk sketched in sleek lines of brushed aluminum. Her smile was a force of nature—so easy and open it had to be fake. Her office, on the other hand, was a closed book. No photos, no diplomas. Not a clue as to who Karen Simone was, where she’d been, or where she was headed.

  “You mentioned on the phone this was about Ray?” Karen sat up straight, hands clasped in front of her as she spoke.

  “I’m investigating his disappearance.”

  She nodded and threw some more wood on the smile. The young woman wasn’t going to offer up any information on her own. Fair enough. I’d come with questions.

  “If you don’t mind my saying,” I said, “this place looks like a ghost town.”

  “I don’t mind you saying.”

  “Is this the whole operation?”

  “We did have three adjoining offices on this hall but had to let them go as the leases expired. Ray left us some money in a trust, but it’s only going to last another six months or so. After that…”

  “You say ‘us,’ but are you the only employee left?”

  “We have a staff of volunteers who work here, at Prentice. That’s always been our core. Critical-care infants.”

  “How about six months from now?”

  “Unless we can find the funds, we shut down.”

  “And where do you go?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. Back east.”

  “That where you’re from?”

  “My parents are dead. I don’t have any family to speak of. I was kicking around after school when Ray Perry gave me a break. A huge break, actually.”

  I nodded and we sat. Myself, Karen, and the gray elephant, tucked away in a corner, thumbing through a copy of People.

  “Go ahead and ask about it, Mr. Kelly.”

  “Why don’t you just tell me?”

  “Fine. It ruined my life for a while. I’m sure it hurt the governor and his wife. I know it hurt them. But it ruined me. I was in a relationship at the time…”

  “So there wasn’t anything going on between you two?”

  She raised her chin a fraction. “Between me and Ray? No, there was never anything going on.”

  “No attraction at all?”

  “Have you ever met Ray?”

  “Once.”

  “Everyone I knew was attracted to him. In that respect, I was no different. But it was more as a mentor…”

  “And?”

  “Pictures lie, Mr. Kelly.”

  The questions were hard, and I thought she might waver. I guess I expected it. But she never came close. Karen Simone was nothing if not a study in poise.

  “The police must have talked to you after Ray disappeared?” I said.

  “The FBI. On several occasions. I know they followed me. And I think they might have even tapped my phone. Is that possible?”

  “It’s possible. So, what do you think?”

  “About Ray?”

  “Why did he skip out? How did he manage it?”

  “I’ll tell you what I told the investigators. I assume he disappeared because he didn’t want to go to prison. But he never said a word about it.”

  “Okay.”

  “His wife hates me. She tries to hide it…”

  “Actually, she doesn’t try to hide it at all.”

  “Oh.”

  “Do you two have any sort of relationship?”

  “We meet once a month to go over finances for the charity. She never says much.”

  “Marie thinks Ray might be dead.”

  “Why would he be dead?”

  “I don’t know. There were no signs of anything? Something small, maybe?”

  “Ray and I had breakfast the day before his sentencing. He told me he was going to stay involved in the charity from prison. That he had some money put away for Three C. It would become his lifeline to the world. He was sad. Reflective. But about to vanish? No.”

  “Scared?”

  “Of prison, sure. But that was it.”

  “You two must have talked at some point about the stories that came out? About you and him?”

  “I told you. They hurt him. But maybe not as much as you think.”

  “Are you telling me there were other women?”

  She shook her head. “Ray loved his wife. But the thing between them was broken. And he didn’t know how to fix it.”

  We both paused. A moment of silence for the marriage of Ray and Marie Perry.

  “You ever get that boyfriend back?” I said.

  “It probably wasn’t going anywhere anyway.”

  I stood up. “Thanks for the help, Ms. Simone.”

  “I’ll walk you out.”

  We made our way down the hallway, past the empty spaces and frozen faces of smiling children.

  “Does it get lonely in here?” I said.

  “I keep busy. On the phone with our volunteers. The hospital. Bill collectors.” She touched my shoulder as we reached the front door. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do you think you’ll find him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you tell me who hired you?”

  “That’s two questions. I was hired through an intermediary.”

  “So you don’t know who you’re working for?”

  “That’s right. Why do you ask?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe answering one question might lead to solving the other.”

  “I don’t necessarily want to put Ray in prison. In fact, I’m not sure what I want to do besides talk to the guy. If he should call…”

  “I hope he’s safe somewhere. And I hope he never calls.”

  “But if he does…” I took out a business card. She held it between her fingers.

  “If Ray gets in touch and is all right with it, I’ll call you.”

  “Thanks. I hope you get to keep the doors open here.”

  “You mean that?”

  “Sure, why not.”

  “You ever been inside a NICU?”

  I shook my head.

  “Do you have kids?”

  “Never married. No kids.”

  “You say it like you mean it.”

  “You want to show me the NICU, Ms. Simone?”

  “You want to see it?”

  “Probably be the best part of my day.”

  —

  We took an elevator up to the tenth floor. Karen talked as we rode.

  “Prentic
e’s NICU is state-of the-art. It’s where they keep all their critical-care infants. They also run the Safe Haven Program next door.”

  “That where they keep the abandoned kids?”

  “Prentice is designated as an area where parents can safely and legally abandon their infant, no questions asked. If the child’s healthy, Safe Haven places him or her with an adoption agency. The parents can remain anonymous and are given a bracelet with a number that identifies the child.”

  “And what if the parents decide they want their kid back?”

  “They have sixty days to reclaim the child. After that, they waive all rights. Safe Haven has its own designated area, but it’s technically attached to the NICU and is set up to take care of preemies and other critical-care infants in addition to any abandonment cases. This way.”

  We stepped off the elevator. Karen flashed her ID at a security guard and got me a temporary pass. We pushed through a set of doors and walked down a long corridor. I didn’t see any nurses or doctors. No gurneys or machines with paddles. Not even a tongue depressor taped to the wall. Karen stopped at the end of the corridor and opened another set of double doors. On the other side were a sink and some liquid soap.

  “We need to wash up before we get near the kids.” Karen turned on the water and pushed up her sleeves. When she was finished scrubbing, I did the same.

  “How many babies do they keep in here?” I said, reaching for a paper towel.

  “This is one of several nurseries. They keep anywhere from six to eight infants in each one. This way.” Karen pushed through a final set of doors and into the NICU. Here the place finally looked and sounded like a hospital. Machines beeped and buzzed. People scurried back and forth with stethoscopes and charts. To my left were a half-dozen open pods. Each held an infant. I looked at the first, sealed up in a glass incubator. His head was turned to one side, and he had a tube threaded up his nose. His chest was moving quickly, and he could pretty much fit in the palm of my hand.

  “Preemie,” Karen said over my shoulder.

  A nurse came around the corner and stopped in her tracks when she saw me bent over the child. Then she realized I was with Karen and brushed past us.

  “Our volunteers are in here every day,” Karen said. “They work with the staff. Talk to parents. Babysit their other kids if the parents bring any with them.”

  We exited the NICU at the far end of the same hallway. To my left was a glassed-in viewing area. I stepped forward and took a peek. A room full of infants peeked back. In the front row, one stretched and blinked his eyes open.

  “Hey, blue eyes,” I said. The kid started crying. Karen cooed and tapped lightly on the glass. The kid settled almost at once.

  “You’ve got the touch,” I said.

  “I’ve had practice. Listen, I need to run back inside and talk to the shift nurse for a moment. You want to wait?”

  “Take your time.”

  I watched her walk away, waved good-bye to the kids, and wandered a little farther down the hall. Around the corner I found a door. The sign above it read SAFE HAVEN PROGRAM. I walked into a small outer office with a thick piece of glass running the length of the opposite wall. On the other side of the glass was a woman. She was white, middle-aged, with a large shelf for a forehead, small black eyes, and thick, colorless lips. Her name tag read: AMANDA MASON. REGISTERED NURSE.

  “Can I help you?” Amanda’s voice sounded more metallic than human. I chalked it up to the intercom and hoped for the best.

  “I work with Detective Vince Rodriguez. We found the infant in Lincoln Park yesterday.” I slipped my business card and ID under a slot in Amanda’s window. She studied both carefully, then pushed them back.

  “I just wanted to see the kid,” I said. “Make sure he was all right.” I pulled out a pen and scratched a number on the back of my card. “Here’s the detective’s cell if you want to check it out.”

  I didn’t know if she’d call. I didn’t know if Rodriguez would back me up. And I wasn’t sure why I wanted to see the kid in the first place. But I did. So I gave her Rodriguez’s phone number. Amanda looked at it, then reached under the desk and hit a button. A door clicked.

  “Come on in.”

  On the other side of the glass was another nursery. Smaller than the NICU, this one had three pods arranged in a loose semicircle. Amanda met me just inside the door.

  “This way.” She led me to a pod with the curtain pulled back and pinned against the wall. At first all I saw were two legs kicking in the air. As I moved around the crib, I caught a flash of pink skin and a shock of thick, black hair. Then I stood over him. Smelling him. The kid made two tiny fists, stretched, and rounded his mouth into a perfect O.

  “He just woke up,” Amanda said.

  “What’s his name?”

  “He doesn’t have one.”

  “He should have a name.”

  “Is there anything in particular you needed?”

  “No, I just came by to see how he was doing.”

  “He’s a fine, healthy boy.”

  We both looked at the child again. He’d found our repartee boring and fallen back to sleep.

  “How long will you keep him?” I said.

  “A week, maybe two. They’ll put him into one of the state facilities until they find a permanent home.”

  “How does that work?”

  “There are a lot of couples who want infants, Mr. Kelly. The state will find him a spot.”

  “A spot, huh?”

  I could feel Amanda Mason studying me. “You want to sit with him for a while?”

  “I can’t stay too long, but sure.”

  She pointed her heavy jaw toward an empty chair. “If he starts to fuss, let me know.”

  I thought I detected a hint of a smile as she walked off. And then I was alone. The kid opened his eyes and wrinkled his face in another bout of yawning.

  “You look like an old man when you wake up,” I said. The kid didn’t offer much in the way of a response, so I watched his heartbeat on a screen. Tiny white waves surfing across a sea of dark blue. One of the machines buzzed once and stopped. I expected Amanda Mason to come running with her hair on fire, but nothing happened. Except the kid gurgled.

  “I’m gonna call you Vince,” I said. “You like that?”

  He rubbed his toothless gums together and kicked his legs some more. I took that as a yes. So I found a marker and scratched out VINCE on a Post-it Note. Then I stuck it above the crib.

  “The real Vince is a hell of a guy,” I said. “Besides, you kind of owe him.”

  The kid reached out with both hands, and I found myself bending forward, as if on a string, watching as he squeezed one of my fingers for all he was worth. I pulled back lightly, and his eyes widened.

  “You got a good grip.”

  He squeezed again. I smiled. He smiled back, and I wondered why anyone would willingly give up even a moment with their child. Never mind stick him in the trunk of a car and walk away.

  I gently tugged my fingers free and stood up. Along one wall of the pod was a row of photos. My gaze came to rest on the second to last. Marie Perry was seated, leaning forward slightly and warming her face against the bundle in her arms.

  “Those are our volunteers…”

  I almost jumped. Amanda Mason stood just behind me.

  “Sorry, did I scare you?”

  I smiled. “Must be those nurse’s shoes.”

  “Do you know Ms. Perry?”

  “Just what’s in the papers.”

  “Yes, well, don’t believe everything you read.”

  “No?”

  “She’s a wonderful woman. Comes in three or four times a week to hold the babies. Stays sometimes for hours.”

  “No kidding.”

  “Absolutely. I know what they wrote about her, but I just wish people could see everything.”

  I nodded back toward the crib. “Thanks for letting me get a peek at Vince.”

  “Vince?”

  I
pointed to my Post-it. Amanda’s laugh was surprisingly soft. Almost youthful. “You named him?”

  “That’s the name of the detective who found him. You may want to pass it along to the agency.”

  “I will, Mr. Kelly. And we’ll do our best to find Vince a good home.”

  I said good-bye to the kid and walked past the empty cribs. Then I was in the outer office again, looking back through the glass. Amanda Mason was testing the temperature of a baby bottle by shaking a few drops of formula on the inside of her wrist. She glanced up and caught me staring at her. The nurse nodded and didn’t seem the least bit surprised. Then she bent over and slipped the bottle into the baby’s mouth.

  —

  Karen Simone was just coming out of the NICU as I walked back down the hall.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Took longer than I thought.”

  “That’s all right. I had a look around.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “A pal of mine is a Chicago cop. He found an infant in Lincoln Park yesterday.”

  “I heard about that.”

  We started to walk toward a bank of elevators.

  “They’re keeping the baby here,” I said. “I stuck my head in to see how he was doing.”

  “And?”

  “He’s healthy. He’s happy. He’s lucky.”

  “That was very nice of you to stop by.”

  A comfortable silence carried us the rest of the way to the elevators.

  “Where are you headed?” I said and pushed the DOWN button.

  “I was going to grab some lunch. You hungry?”

  “I can’t. How about a rain check?”

  “Lunch?”

  “I was thinking more like a drink.”

  Karen cocked her head. “Business or pleasure?”

  “Probably an annoying combination of both.”

  A crooked smile touched her lips. “Next week might be better.”

  “Should I take that as a yes?”

  An elevator arrived and the door opened. Karen got on first and held the door for me. “As long as it’s nothing fancy.”

  “Are you saying you want to go to a dive?”

  “I want to go somewhere that’s not gonna freak out if someone lights up a cigarette.”

  “I know just the place,” I said and hit the button for the lobby. Marie Perry and the image of a tumbling silver dollar flashed through my head as the elevator doors closed and the car began to drop.