IM11 The Wings of the Sphinx (2009) by Andrea Camilleri Read Free Book Online Page B

not my concern. It’s yours.”
    “Listen, Doctor, were you able to tell if she’d had sexual relations before being killed?”
    “If she had, I would have told you already. And I especially would have told Prosecutor Tommaseo, which would have made him very happy.”
    “Was she a prostitute?”
    “I would also rule that out.”
    “Why?”
    “Because.”
    “What, in your opinion, was she doing at the moment she was shot?”
    “Go ask the lady with the crystal ball.”
    “Let me rephrase that. Was she standing? Lying down? Sitting?”
    “Definitely standing. And the person who shot her was behind her.”
    “Behind? Didn’t he shoot her in the face?”
    “In my opinion the girl turned around to look behind her at the very moment the killer pulled the trigger. Maybe the killer called to her, she turned around, and he shot her.”
    Montalbano thought about this for a moment.
    “Hurry up with your excogitations,” said the doctor. “I haven’t got all this time to waste.”
    “Could the girl have been trying to escape?”
    “Very likely, yes.”
    “Perhaps from an attempted rape?”
    “For that hypothesis you’ll have to check with Prosecutor Tommaseo.”
    Pasquano was really surly today.
    “Where there any signs of rings on the fingers?”
    “She wore one on her left pinkie, not the ring finger. Therefore she wasn’t married. Or perhaps married according to another rite. Or maybe she was married and simply didn’t wear a wedding ring.”
    “Any piercing?”
    “None.”
    “What about the bites on her thigh?”
    “Ah, those? Rats as big as puppy dogs.”
    “Is that all you can tell me, Doctor?”
    “No.”
    “Look, Doctor, I haven’t got time to waste, either.”
    “I found two things.”
    “Do you plan to tell me in monthly installments?”
    “I found two little pieces of black wool inside her head.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “What do you think it means? That those pieces of wool were congenital?”
    “Maybe it means the bullet passed through something woolen before entering her flesh?”
    “You can drop the ‘maybe.’”
    “She might have been wearing a turtleneck sweater.”
    “Here you can put back the ‘maybe.’”
    “And the second thing?”
    “The second thing is that I found a little bit of purpurin under the fingernails of both hands.”
    “Purpurin?”
    “For heaven’s sake, don’t repeat what I say, because it makes my balls spin even worse. You heard right: purpurin. Don’t you know what purpurin is?”
    “Isn’t it a powder used in gilding?”
    “Very good. You’ve passed the test with flying colors. Now get the hell out of here.”
    “One last question. Did she have any illnesses?”
    “She’d been operated for appendicitis.”
    “No, I wanted to know if she had any illness for which she had to take medication.”
    “I get it. You’re hoping you can identify her by going ’round to all the pharmacies in Vigàta and Montelusa. Sorry to disappoint you. The girl was in good health. And then some.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “She had the body of an athlete.”
    “Or dancer?”
    “Why not? And now, how do I have to tell you to get the fuck out of here?”
    “Thank you for your exquisite courtesy, Doctor. I hope you get a royal full house tonight.”
    “Against four aces? You really are a bastard.”

5
    As he headed back down to Vigàta, it occurred to him that a bullet entering above the jawbone could not have passed through a turtleneck sweater. The trajectory would not allow it. It would be as if the bullet, after grazing the upper part of the collar, had suddenly climbed up a little ladder.
    On the other hand, the girl might indeed have been wearing a black scarf wrapped up high, almost far enough to cover her mouth, as one does on certain particularly cold days. In that case, a few threads of wool could have been carried into the wound.
    But this hypothesis didn’t hold water, either, since the weather decidedly was not the kind in which