“We? You expect me to go to the police with you?”
“Somebody has to.”
“And you picked me. Do you have any idea what the publicity on something like this could do to my reputation, my career on the bench, my marriage?”
“How can it hurt you? You’re a potential victim, that’s all. All you’ve done is consider an investment in what you believed was a legitimate charity.”
“That’s not what concerns me,” Mantle said.
“No? Oh . . . the club.”
“That’s right, the club.”
“None of that has to come out—”
“Unless Delman brings it out. Or it comes out some other way.”
“Well, that’s a risk whether you go in with me or not. The Delmans are going down, one way or another—I promise you that. Do us all a favor and help me bust them.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Then I’ll have to talk to Mrs. Inman,” Tamara said. “Tell her I went to you first and you turned me down. And tell the police the same thing.”
Mantle deliberated again. Somewhere in the house a clock bonged; it was so quiet Tamara could hear the faint after-echoes.
He said finally, “It’s my place to discuss this business with Mrs. Inman, not yours. Dr. Hawkins as well. They have a right to know the situation before I agree to do anything.”
“That’s fair. Maybe you could convince them to go in, too. The more witnesses, the better.”
“They may want their names kept out of it, if possible.”
“But you’ll come with me in any case? If I have to go in alone, I won’t keep anybody’s name out of it.”
“You seem to have left me no choice.”
“Can you talk to them tonight?”
“Not Mrs. Inman. She’s attending a charity benefit in San Jose. Sometime tomorrow. That should be soon enough to suit you.”
“You don’t sound very grateful, Judge.”
“It remains to be seen if I have anything to be grateful for.”
Tamara laid one of her business cards on the desk in front of him. “You can reach me at one of those numbers anytime. The sooner the better, okay? For everybody’s sake.”
Mantle didn’t answer. Didn’t say another word to her. Just got up and looked at her until she did the same, then ushered her out into the cold night.
22
The owner of the old two-toned van and the DDTDAWG license plate was an ex-con named Joseph Hoffman.
Tamara got me that information on Thursday morning. She also tracked down Hoffman’s felony record. The crime that had landed him in Folsom for twenty-seven months had nothing to do with drugs and was the only blot on his record: receiving and selling stolen property. He’d owned a junk shop out near the Cow Palace, and when the cops raided it they found a storeroom full of small appliances, computers, and other goods taken in various burglaries throughout the city. He claimed he hadn’t known any of the stuff was hot; the judge and jury didn’t believe him. His sentence had been three years, with time knocked off for good behavior. Since his release eighteen months ago, he’d been living in Daly City, working for a reputable salvage dealer in South San Francisco, and apparently avoiding any further trouble with the law.
Nothing in any of that to tie him to a middle school teacher like Zachary Ullman, at least on the surface. There was one potentially interesting fact: the police had found out about Hoffman’s fencing operation not on their own hook but through a tip from a source so reliable that they’d had no trouble getting a search warrant for the premises raid.
The tipster had been Hoffman’s wife, Rosette.
She’d also testified against him at his trial, claiming she’d discovered what he was up to by accident and felt it her duty to “do the right thing” and turn him in. The last honest citizen. But there were other motivations in such cases. One possibility was that she’d known about the fencing or suspected it all along, the marriage had turned rocky, and she’d made up her mind to throw Hubby to the wolves. Another was payback for some offense other than a failing marriage. A third was sheer malice. In any case, she’d divorced Hoffman immediately after he was convicted, taken her seven-year-old son and her share from the sale of the junk shop, and started a new life under her maiden name, Prescott. Current address: 1499 Javon Street, El Cerrito. Current place of employment: Sweet Treats Bakery, Fairmount Avenue, El Cerrito.
She was the person to talk to. Nobody knows a man better than his ex-wife, or is more likely to dish up any dirt she has on him when the relationship ends badly. And that went double for an ex-wife who’d already been instrumental in putting her former hubby away in the slam for twenty-seven months.