The Burning Wire

Pulaski said emotionally. “I didn’t remember I’d already started the engine. I turned the key again and the noise . . . well, it scared me. I guess my foot slipped off the brake.”
    “Who was he?”
    “Just some guy, Palmer’s his name. Works nights at a trucking company. He was taking a shortcut back from a grocery store. . . . I hit him pretty hard.”
    Rhyme thought about the head injury that Pulaski himself had suffered. He’d be troubled by the fact that his carelessness had now seriously injured someone else.
    “Internal Affairs’s going to talk to me. They said the city’ll probably be sued. They told me to contact the PBA about a lawyer. I . . .” Words failed him. Finally he repeated a bit manically, “My foot slipped off the brake. I didn’t even remember putting the car in gear or starting it.”
    “Well, Rookie, blame yourself or not, but the point is, this Palmer’s not a player in the Galt case, is he?”
    “No.”
    “So deal with it after hours,” Rhyme said firmly.
    “Yessir, sure. I will. I’m sorry.”
    “So, what’d you find?”
    He explained about the sheets he’d managed to tease out of Galt’s printer. Rhyme complimented him on that—it was a good save—but the officer didn’t even seem to hear. Pulaski continued, explaining about Galt’s cancer and the high-tension wires.
    “Revenge,” Rhyme mused. “The old standby. An okay motive. Not one of my favorites. Yours?” He glanced at Sachs.
    “No,” she replied seriously. “Greed and lust’re mine. Revenge’s usually an antisocial personality disorderthing. But this could be more than revenge, Rhyme. From the demand note he’s on a crusade. Saving the people from the evil energy company. A fanatic. And I still think we may find a terrorist connection.”
    Apart from the motive, though, and the evidence tying Galt to the crime scenes, Pulaski had found nothing that suggested his present whereabouts or where he might be going to attack next. This was disappointing but didn’t surprise Rhyme; the attacks were obviously well planned and Galt was smart. He’d have known from the start that his identity might be learned and he would have made arrangements for a hideout.
    Rhyme scrolled through numbers and placed a call.
    “Andi Jessen’s office,” came the weary voice through the speakerphone.
    Rhyme identified himself and a moment later was talking to the CEO of the power company. She said, “I just talked to Gary Noble and Agent McDaniel. There’re five people dead, I heard. And more in the hospital.”
    “That’s right.”
    “I’m so sorry. How awful. I’ve been looking at Ray Galt’s employee file. His picture’s up in front of me right now. He doesn’t look like the kind of person who’d do something like this.”
    They never do.
    Rhyme explained, “He’s convinced he got cancer from working on the electric lines.”
    “Is that why he’s doing this?”
    “It seems. He’s crusading. He thinks working on high-power lines is a big risk.”
    She sighed. “We’ve got a half dozen suits pending on the issue. High-voltage cables give off EMFs—electromagneticfields. Insulation and walls shield the electrical field, but not the magnetic. There’re arguments that that can cause leukemia.”
    Reading over the pages from Galt’s printer, now scanned and up on the monitor in front of him, Rhyme said, “He also talks about the lines attracting airborne particles that can cause lung cancer.”
    “None of that’s ever been proven. I dispute it. I dispute the leukemia thing too.”
    “Well, Galt doesn’t.”
    “What does he want us to do?”
    “I guess we won’t know that until we get another demand note or he contacts you some other way.”
    “I’ll make a statement, ask him to give himself up.”
    “It couldn’t hurt.” Though Rhyme was thinking that Galt had come too far simply to make a point and surrender. He had more retribution in mind, they had to assume.
    Seventy-five feet of cable and a dozen split bolts. So far he’d used about thirty feet of the stolen wire.
    As he disconnected, Rhyme noticed that Pulaski was on the phone, head down. The officer looked up and met his boss’s eyes. He ended his call quickly—and guiltily—and walked over to the evidence table. He started to reach for one of the tools he’d collected and then froze, realizing he didn’t have latex gloves on. He pulled on a pair, cleaned the rubber fingers and palm with the dog-hair roller.