With perfect timing, the doorbell rang. And it wasn’t just the EMTs; the law had also arrived.
Coy Madison was as stupid as they come. The weapon he’d used, a Saturday night special, and the ski mask were both in the trunk of his car.
Once he was confronted with the evidence, he broke down and spewed out a confession. It was all pretty much as Runyon had figured it, right down to the motive. Madison hated his wife, was jealous of her success, wanted control of her money and their joint property. No feelings for his brother, either, other than contempt for Troy’s drugged-out lifestyle, so the idea had been to get rid of both of them together. Kill her, then drive down to the rental house in San Bruno and plant the gun and ski mask on Troy, then phone in an anonymous tip to the police, and when Troy told them the bail-jump was his brother’s idea deny the hell out of it. The word of an allegedly honest citizen against that of an addict, dealer, and fugitive. Which of them would be believed?
Foolproof plan, in Coy’s view. Stupid plan, in Runyon’s. A rookie cop with a couple of ounces of imagination could have seen through it, even if Madison hadn’t screwed it up with lies of commission and omission, a bumbling murder attempt, and a too-quick return home to find out how badly his wife was wounded. He didn’t realize yet how lucky he was that he hadn’t fired a killing shot. As it was, the charges would be attempted murder and aiding and abetting a fugitive; if he stayed lucky, he might still be relatively young when he got out of prison.
While Madison was confessing, his wife hurled invective at him and the inspectors had to keep warning her to be quiet. She would have cut his throat with a dull knife if they’d let her have one. She told him so, complete with chains of four-letter words.
Runyon was glad when they let him leave. He’d have liked to be the one to pick up Troy Madison and Jennifer Piper and deliver them to the Hall of Justice, but once he’d explained where they were hiding it was out of his hands. Didn’t really matter; the fact that he’d been responsible for putting the jumper back in custody would be enough to satisfy Abe Melikian. But Runyon prided himself on being able to close his cases himself, hands on.
At least he’d been the one to blow up Coy Madison’s idiot scheme. Satisfaction enough in that, even if it was only a by-product of the job he’d been assigned to do.
21
TAMARA
Judge Alfred Mantle was doing pretty well for himself. His house in Monterey Heights, on one of the winding streets below Mt. Davidson, was one of those big Spanish-style jobs you saw in the city’s upper-class residential districts. Lots of fancy tile, lots of shrubbery and tall, thin cypress trees. House lights, porch light, spotlights strewn among the landscaping-all blazing in the foggy early-evening gloom. Not many black folks could afford to live up here; sure bet that most, if not all, of the judge’s neighbors were white.
Tamara drove on past, parked a little ways above the house. She didn’t really want to be here, but on the phone he’d said she could either come here tonight-his wife wasn’t home and wouldn’t be back until late-or see him in his chambers at City Hall sometime tomorrow. Pretty obvious why he wouldn’t agree to meet her on neutral ground. In his house or in his chambers, he’d have the psychological upper hand. Or thought he would.
The street and sidewalk were wet and the cypress trees dripped, a kind of lonely, desolate sound. But nothing could dampen her spirits tonight, not unless she screwed up with the judge-and she wasn’t going to let that happen. All she’d told him on the phone was who she was, that she needed to talk to him about the Operation Save fund and the man he knew as Lucas Zeller, and that it’d be in his best interest to meet with her ASAP. He’d asked a bunch of questions that she’d pretty much evaded; the answers were better given face-to-face. He made it plain that he didn’t like being approached this way, by a private investigator of either sex, but in the end he agreed to see her.
She rang the bell, listened to chimes floating around inside. There was one of those one-way magnifying glass peepholes in the door and she had the feeling he was right there on the other side looking out at her, sizing her up in the bright porch light before he let her in.
She did a little sizing up of her own when he finally opened the door. Up close he was even huskier than he’d seemed at a distance. Large head and thick neck, like a football player. Real judge’s face: stern eyes, streaks of gray in the curly black of his hair, and an expression blank as a wall.
The first thing he said to her was, “You’re not what I expected, Ms. Corbin.”
“No? Not a sister, you mean?”
“Not a sister and not so young. You sounded older on the phone.”
“I’m not as young as I look,” she lied.
He stood aside to let her come in. When he shut the door behind her he said, “We’ll talk in my study,” and didn’t quite put his back to her as they moved through the house.
Some house. The furniture was modern and expensive, the decor black and white, mostly, with lots of African sculptures and carvings and such on shelves and in nooks and crannies. His wife’s doing-Tamara knew that as soon as she walked into his study. Everything in there-desk, chairs, sideboard, wall paneling-was dark, gleaming wood, masculine and somber. There were a couple of framed paintings, also dark toned, and some framed documents that looked to be copies of his law degrees. A big polished silver golf trophy reared up on a shelf above the sideboard.
Mantle indicated a chair in front of the desk, went around, and sat down in a big leather chair behind it. He folded his thick hands together on the blotter and sat statue stiff, studying her some more with those stern eyes. Not saying anything, waiting for her lead.
She didn’t waste any time. “Lucas Zeller,” she said, “isn’t who he claims to be. His real name’s Delman, Antoine Delman. And his business isn’t investments; it’s petty theft and con games.”
Nothing changed in the judge’s expression. He still didn’t say anything, just kept looking at her. Hadn’t blinked even once since they’d sat down. She wondered if he was trying to quietly intimidate her. Wasn’t working, if that was it. She’d grown up with Pop’s stares and glares; the hard eye didn’t phase her anymore.
She said, “He doesn’t work alone. Has himself a partner-his mother. Her name is Alisha Delman.”
That got a couple of blinks out of Mantle. “Alisha?”
“As in ‘Psychic Readings by Alisha.’ That’s her specialty-posing as a psychic to help set up marks.”
Silent stare. Mr. Stone Face.
“They both spent a couple of years in prison,” Tamara said, “for running a con in Southern California-bilking black investors in a charity scam. A fund that was supposed to help struggling African American families keep their homes. The investors put up the cash and take a tax write-off; the families pay back the money at a reasonable interest rate, everybody makes out. Only the fund doesn’t exist and the only folks who make out, if they don’t get caught, are the Delmans-they disappear with the investment capital. Sound familiar, Your Honor?”
The stony look.
“Operation Save is their new con,” she said. “More sophisticated than the one they worked down south. They set up a Web site this time, desktop-published some brochures with fake quotes and statistics. I’ll bet you looked at the Web site but didn’t investigate Operation Save any further than that. Am I right?”
More silence. She let it go on, let him be the one to break it. Took more than a minute. His lips barely moved when he said, “How do you know all this?”
“It’s my business.”
“You seem to believe it’s mine as well.”
“No, I meant the business I’m in. The detective business.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. Who hired you?”
“I can’t tell you that. Privileged.”
“Stop playing games with me, young woman. Tell me what makes you think I’m associated in any way with Lucas Zeller.”
“Antoine Delman,” Tamara said. “And I don’t think it; I know it.”
“What do you know?”
“That he and Alisha are behind Operation Save. That he’s been working on you and Doctor Easy to invest- others, too, probably. And that his mother’s been working on Viveca Inman.”
