Cooper muttered, "Twenty thousand dollars for something the size of a watermelon. Which is what it looks like, by the way."
Rhyme nodded absently and listened to McDaniel, now back at Federal Plaza, explain on speakerphone that Galt's mother hadn't heard from him for a few days. But that wasn't unusual. He'd been upset lately because he'd been sick. Rhyme asked, "You get a Title Three on them?"
The agent explained testily that the magistrate hadn't been persuaded to issue a wiretap on Galt's family members.
"But we've got a pen." A pen register phone tap wouldn't allow agents to listen to the conversation but would reveal the numbers of anyone who called them and of anybody they phoned. Those could then be traced.
Impatient, Rhyme had contacted Pulaski again, who'd responded immediately and with a shaking voice, saying the buzzing phone had scared the "you know what out of me."
The young officer told Rhyme he was extracting information from Raymo
nd Galt's computer printer.
"Jesus, Rookie, don't do that yourself."
"It's okay, I'm standing on a rubber mat."
"I don't mean that. Only let experts go through a computer. There could be data-wipe programs--"
"No, no, there's no computer. Just the printer. It's jammed and I'm--"
"Nothing about addresses, locations of the next attack?"
"No."
"Call the minute, call the second you find something."
"I--"
Click.
The joint task force had had little luck in canvassing people on Fifty-seventh Street and in Ray Galt's neighborhood. The perp--no longer an UNSUB--had gone underground. Galt's mobile was "dead": The battery had been removed so it couldn't be traced, his service provider reported.
Sachs was on her own phone, head down, listening. She thanked the caller and disconnected. "That was Bernie Wahl again. He said he'd talked to people in Galt's department--New York Emergency Maintenance--and everybody said he was a loner. He didn't socialize. Nobody regularly had lunch with him. He liked the solitude of working on the lines."
Rhyme nodded at this information. He then told the FBI agent about the sources for the lava. "We've found twenty-one locations. We're--"
"Twenty-two," Cooper called, on the phone with the CS woman in Queens. "Brooklyn art gallery. On Henry Street."
McDaniel sighed. "That many?"
"Afraid so." Then Rhyme said, "We should let Fred know."
McDaniel didn't respond.
"Fred Dellray." Your employee, Rhyme added silently. "He should tell his CI about Galt."
"Right. Hold on. I'll conference him in."
There were some clicks and a few heartbeats of silence. Then they heard, " 'Lo? This's Dellray."
"Fred, Tucker here. With Lincoln. On conference. We've got a suspect."
"Who?"
Rhyme explained about Ray Galt. "We don't have a motive, but it's pointing to him."
"You found him?"