The Potter's Field by Andrea Camilleri Read Free Book Online

you want?” Pasquano began, with the gentle courtesy for which he was famous.
    â€œHave you done the autopsy?”
    â€œWhich one? The little girl who had her throat slit? The drowned Moroccan? The peasant who was shot? The—”
    â€œThe man found chopped to pieces in a garbage bag.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œCould you—”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWhat if I came to see you in half an hour?”
    â€œMake that an hour.”

    When he arrived and asked for Pasquano, an assistant replied that the doctor was still busy and had given instructions to have the inspector wait for him in his office.
    The first thing Montalbano noticed on Pasquano’s desk, between the papers and photographs of murder victims, was a cardboard pastry-shop tray full of giant cannoli and a bottle of Pantelleria raisin wine and a glass beside it. Pasquano had a notorious sweet tooth. The inspector bent down to smell the cannoli: fresh as could be. So he poured himself a bit of the sweet wine into the glass, grabbed a cannolo and started scarfing it down while contemplating the landscape through the open window.
    The sun lit up the colors in the valley, making them stand out sharply against the blue sea in the distance. God, or whoever was acting in his stead, had assumed the guise of a naïf painter here. On the horizon, a flock of seagulls frolicked about, pretending to squabble among themselves in a parade of nosedives, veers, and pull-ups that looked exactly like an aerobatics show. He watched their maneuvers, spellbound.
    Having finished the first cannolo, he took another.
    â€œI see you’ve helped yourself,” said Pasquano, coming in and grabbing one himself.
    They ate in religious silence, the corners of their mouths smeared with ricotta cream. Which, by the rules, must be removed with a slow, circular movement of the tongue.

4
    â€œSo, what can you tell me, Doctor?” the inspector asked after they had drunk a bit of sweet wine, passing the only available glass back and forth.
    â€œAbout what? The international situation? My hemorrhoids?”
    â€œAbout the body in the bag.”
    â€œOh, that? It was a long and aggravating process. First I had to complete the puzzle.”
    â€œThe puzzle?”
    â€œI had to piece the body back together, my friend. It had been dismembered, remember?”
    â€œI do,” Montalbano replied, grinning.
    â€œYou find that amusing?”
    â€œNo, I find the verb you use amusing.”
    â€œDismember? You don’t like the rhyme with ‘remember’ ? Try to remember the man you dismembered . . . ,” the doctor sang. “If you prefer, I could use some other verb, like dice, quarter, butcher...”
    â€œLet’s just say ‘chopped up.’ Into how many pieces?”
    â€œQuite a few. They didn’t spare any effort in their butchery. They used a hatchet and a large, very sharp cleaver. First they killed him, and then—”
    â€œHow?”
    â€œA single gunshot at the base of the skull.”
    â€œWhen?”
    â€œLet’s say two months ago, maximum. Then, as I was saying, they burned off his fingertips. After which they got down to work. With saintly patience they cut off all his fingers and toes and both ears, then smashed up his face to where it was unrecognizable, pulled out all his teeth, which we were unable to find, chopped off his head, hands, both legs all the way up to the groin, the right arm and forearm, but only the left forearm. Strange, isn’t it?”
    â€œAll this butchery, you mean?”
    â€œNo, the fact that they left the left upper arm. I wonder why they didn’t cut that off, too, while they were at it.”
    â€œHave you found anything that might lead to a quick identification?”
    â€œNot a fucking thing.”
    â€œSpeaking of which, Doctor: and the sex organ?”
    â€œNot doing too badly, thank you very much. Nothing to worry about.”
    â€œNo,