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“Wait, you mean—?”
“The bomb maker. Yeah.”
“Man. Wasn’t he on the West Coast? That report on the wire,the government building in Anaheim or someplace? Blew the shit out of it.”
Pulaski said, “He’s here now. Well, he’s ninety-two percent here.” He explained about the percentage likelihood of facial recognition. “But I’m thinking of it as one hundred.”
“So the vic, the stock trader—this Dalton—was just a wrong-time/wrong-place guy.”
“Looks like it. Saw something he shouldn’t. Payment transfer, I’m guessing.”
“Just the facial ID? That’s all you got? Nothing else?”
“A maybe else.”
“What?” Sellitto grumbled.
Pulaski reminded himself not to be cute with a veteran like the detective. “There wasn’t any more DAS coverage in the area. But I found a security cam in a clothing boutique.” The patrolman had thought it was a nice place. Normally, he’d have bought Jenny something in it—but not when the time was speeding past, the forty-eight-minute mark left far behind.
“I think Tarr got into a dark red sedan that maybe had Jersey plates.”
“Tarr … I’m just looking him up on NCIC. Jesus. He sells his bombs all over the world. Doesn’t matter what your politics are. You pay him enough he’ll make you an IED, no questions asked. He doesn’t plant them. He just makes them. The Palestinians’ve bought them to blow up Israelis, and vice versa. So, sedan you were saying? Maybe Jersey?”
“I rolled trace from where the tires were. Maybe that’ll give me a lead.”
“Wasn’t it two days ago?”
“Like Lincoln says, ‘The unlikely is better than nothing.’”
Sellitto muttered, “I think he said it better than that.”
“He probably did.”
Sellitto said, “I’m going to tell Dellray at the Bureau, and Iknow a guy at ATF. They’ll want to jump on any leads to Tarr. Says here there’re rewards on his head, half million.”
“I’m going to follow up.”
“The crane, though, Pulaski.”
“I will. But I want this guy.”
“He’s terrorist enabled. And interstate. And international. That makes it fed all the way.”
Pulaski said evenly, “No, not all the way. He killed a vic here. It’s a homicide. And it’s my case.”
A pause. “Fair enough. Listen, something else. I need to talk to you. Won’t take long. Maybe lunch today at Maggie’s?”
“I can do a half hour. That’s it, though.”
“Good. Make it one o’clock?”
“Sure.” Pulaski was staring absently at the door that Tarr—if Tarrwasthe killer—had kicked open after shooting Dalton in the back of the head.
“Oh, hold on, Pulaski … Got a notice coming through. About your Tarr case.”
His heart thudded.
The detective continued, “Yeah, here it is. You want to write this down.”
