How’s this for romance: Last December, the transition team of then Mayor-elect Vince Gray ordered a full background check of Gray’s girlfriend, Linda Greene.

Among the 800 or so emails that were released yesterday to the D.C. Council committee investigating hiring practices in the Gray administration is a note from private investigator Ken Cummins (the very first Loose Lips), notifying Gray transition chairwoman Lorraine Green that his company was still waiting to be paid for vetting work it had done for Gray.

Along with the email are attached individual invoices for each person who was investigated. Cummins’ company charge $350, $750, and $1,500 per investigation, depending on how thorough a dossier the Gray team wanted. For example: Attorney General Irv Nathan got the $350 deal, while someone like Sulaimon Brown got the $1,500 treatment.

Since you’re probably now asking, Greene’s background investigation cost $1,500.

“Early on there was some interest in considering her for the position of Secretary for the District of Columbia,” says Green (Lorraine) via email, on why Team Gray was interested in vetting Greene (Linda). “Ms. Greene ultimately decided she was not interested in being considered. We conducted backgrounds on several people that in the end, for various reasons, were not selected for positions.”

Phew, it’s a good thing Greene decided she didn’t want the job. It’s one thing to have a few children of the politically connected on your payroll, but your girlfriend…

That’s not to say that Greene, who has worked in District government for many years, was unqualified. It’s just that we’ve all learned by now that perception matters in city hiring, right? So the fact that Greene was even considered for a job underscores the fact that someone working for Gray—though it’s still not entirely clear exactly who—was wayyy out to lunch on these kind of thorny issues back in the early days when the administration was making its personnel decisions.

(Side note: LL isn’t sure whether Greene and Gray are still seeing each other, because LL doesn’t spend that much time keeping track of the mayor’s personal life.)

Green also shows up later in the batch of emails, around the time LL wrote this post about her work for a businessman who was trying to buy the United Medical Center.

“I do not talk to her about government business and she has not asked me to do anything related to government business,” Gray wrote to his spokeswoman.