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

Doctor, what I mean is: Did they cut off his sex organ as well?”
    â€œIf they had, I would have mentioned it.”
    â€œHow old was he?”
    â€œAbout forty.”
    â€œHeight?”
    â€œNot less than five foot ten.”
    â€œNon-European?”
    â€œHardly! One of ours.”
    â€œFat? Thin?”
    â€œTrim and in excellent shape.”
    â€œCan you tell me anything else?”
    â€œYes. When he was killed, he hadn’t yet evacuated.”
    â€œIs that important?”
    â€œIt certainly is. Because we found something of potential importance in his stomach.”
    â€œNamely?”
    â€œHe’d swallowed a bridge.”
    Montalbano balked.
    â€œWhat kind of bridge?”
    â€œThe Brooklyn Bridge.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œHas the dessert wine gone to your head, Montalbano? I’m talking about teeth. The bridge may have come loose while he was eating, and he may have swallowed it later by accident.”
    The inspector thought about this a moment.
    â€œCouldn’t the bridge have ended up in his stomach while they were mangling his face?”
    â€œNo, it would have remained in his mouth or throat. The body can’t swallow after it’s dead. He may have swallowed it during some trauma before he was shot.”
    â€œWhat did you do with it?
    â€œI sent it immediately to Forensics. You realize, however, that it’ll be months before they can tell us anything about it.”
    â€œRight,” said Montalbano, discouraged.
    â€œAnd don’t expect them to be able to tell you the name of the victim’s dentist, either.”
    â€œRight,” Montalbano repeated, more disconsolate than ever.
    â€œWant another cannolo?”
    â€œNo. Thanks anyway. I’ll be seeing you.”
    â€œYou will? I hope not to see you again for a good while,” said the doctor, sinking his teeth into a second cannolo.

    But Pasquano had told him something of great importance. The man had been killed by a gunshot at the base of the skull. Execution style. With hands and feet bound, the poor bastard had been forced to kneel, and the executioner had fired a single shot into his brain.
    It was as if the Mafia had actually left its signature.
    But questions still remained. All of them. Who was he? Why was he killed? Why go to such trouble to make him unidentifiable? Why cut him into so many pieces? Certainly not to facilitate moving the body. There are other ways to do that. Like dissolving the body in acid. And why did they bury the body at ’u critaru under a foot of topsoil? Didn’t they know that with the first heavy rains the bag would be unearthed ? There was a rocky crag barely fifty yards farther up: under a pile of rocks the bag would never have been found.
    No, it was clear that the killers wanted, after a certain amount of time had passed, for the body to be discovered.

    â€œAh, Chief Chief! Fazio tol’ me a tell yiz ’at the minute y’ got back I’s asposta tell ’im y’got back.”
    â€œAll right, then tell him and send him to my office.”
    Fazio arrived at once.
    â€œBefore you say anything, let me talk first. I’ve been to see Pasquano.”
    He told him what the doctor said.
    â€œSo, in conclusion,” said Fazio, “the victim was a forty-year-old man, five feet ten inches tall, and trim. Not much to get excited about. I’ll start looking into the disappearance reports.”
    â€œMeanwhile tell me what you wanted to tell me.”
    â€œChief, the woman you wanted information on is called Dolores Alfano. She’s thirty-one, married without children, and lives at 12 Via Guttoso. She’s foreign, maybe Spanish. Alfano met her abroad when she was twenty, fell head over heels for her, and married her. And she is, in fact, a very beautiful woman.”
    â€œHave you seen her?”
    â€œNo, but every single man I talked to raved about her looks.”
    â€œDoes she have a