In Tuesday's Kerik round-up, Newsday reports that one thing the background checkers came across was a wife Kerik had never mentioned to anyone before -- his first wife, the former Ms. Linda Hales of North Carolina, who Kerik married in 1978. Regrettably, Newsday adds that there is some question as to whether marriage #1 and marriage #2 (to Jacqueline Kerik) may have well ... overlapped.

Contacted yestereday, an aide to Kerik told Newsday that Kerik disputed both the date of his second marriage found in his autobiography and the date of his divorce in his first marriage provided by an attorney for the former Ms. Hales (now named Linda Priest).

Said the aide: "[T]hey made a mutual agreement between the two of them never to talk about it."

Another Newsday article explores how Rudy and the New York City managed not to find out about any of Kerik's shenanigans when he was on the public payroll.