The Potter's Field (4 page)

None of the spectators uttered a word; none made any move. They just stood there, spellbound.

“Get that man some help,” Montalbano ordered after a moment.

His balls were so severely busted by this whole affair that he didn't even feel like laughing.

“How do we get down there to pull him out?” Augello asked Ajena.

“If we go down this same footpath we'll come to a spot not far from where the p'liceman ended up.”

“Then let's get moving.”

But at that moment Catarella emerged from the bush. He'd lost his trousers and underpants in the slide and was prudishly holding his hands over his private parts.

“Did you hurt yourself ?” Fazio shouted.

“Nah. But I found the body bag. Iss here.”

“Should we go down there?” Mimì Augello asked Montalbano.

“No. Now we know where it is. Fazio, you go down and get Catarella. You, Mimì, go and wait for them in the cave.”

“And what about you?” asked Augello.

“I'm going to get in the Jeep and go home. I've had enough of this.”

“I beg your pardon? What about the investigation?”

“What investigation, Mimì? If the body was fresh, then our presence here might serve some purpose. But who knows when and where this person was murdered? You need to call the prosecutor, coroner, and the Forensics lab. Do it now, Mimì.”

“But to get here from Montelusa, it'll take those guys a good two hours at the very least!”

“In two hours it'll be raining hard again,” Ajena chimed in.

“So much the better,” said Montalbano. “Why should we be the only ones to get soaked to the bone?”

“And what am I supposed to do for these two hours?” Mimì asked sullenly.

“You can play cards,” said the inspector. Then, seeing Ajena walking away, he added: “Why did you call Catarella and tell him my presence was indispensable here?”

“Because I thought that—”

“Mimì, you didn't think anything. You wanted to make me come here for the sole purpose of busting my balls, so I could get drenched like everybody else.”

“Salvo, you just said it yourself: Why should only Fazio and I get soaked while you're still lying in bed?”

Montalbano couldn't help but notice how much anger there was in Augello's words. He hadn't done it as a joke. What on earth was happening to the guy?

When he got back to Marinella it had started pouring again. It was well past lunchtime by then, and spending the morning in the open air had, moreover, whetted his appetite. He went into the bathroom, changed out of his rain-soaked suit, and hurried into the kitchen. Adelina had made him pasta'ncasciata and, as second course, rabbit cacciatore. She very rarely made this, but whenever she did, it brought tears of happiness to his eyes.

By the time Fazio straggled back into the station, night was falling. He must have gone home first, showered, and changed. But he was visibly tired. It hadn't been an easy day at
'u critaru
.

“Where's Mimì?”

“Gone home to rest, Chief. He felt a bit of fever coming on.”

“And Catarella?”

“Him too. Over a hundred, I'd say. He wanted to come in anyway, but I told him to go home and lie down.”

“Did you recover the bag with the body?”

“You know what, Chief? When we went back to
'u critaru
in the pouring rain with the Forensics team, the prosecutor, Dr. Pasquano, and the stretcher-bearers, and we looked inside the bushes where Catarella said he saw the bag, the bag was gone!”

“Jesus Christ, what a pain in the ass! The corpse that wouldn't stay put! So where was it?”

“The water and sludge had carried it about ten yards farther down. But part of the bag got torn, so a few of the pieces—”

“Pieces? What pieces?”

“Before the body was put in the bag, it had been cut up into small pieces.”

So Ajena was right about what he'd seen: The toes had been cut off the feet.

“So what did you do?”

“We had to wait till Cocò arrived from Montelusa.”

“And who's Cocò? Never heard of him.”

“Cocò's a dog, Chief. A really good dog. He found five body parts that had fallen out of the bag and got scattered about, including the head. After which Dr. Pasquano said that as far as he could tell, the corpse seemed complete. And so we were finally able to leave.”

“Did you see the head yourself ?”

“I did, but you couldn't tell anything from it. The face was gone. It'd been totally obliterated by repeated blows from a hammer or mallet, or some heavy object.”

“They didn't want him recognized right away.”

“No doubt about it, Chief. 'Cause I also saw the index finger of the right hand, which had been cut off. The whole fingertip had been burnt off.”

“You know what that means, don't you?”

“Of course, Chief. That the victim had a record and could have been identified from his fingerprints. So they took the necessary measures.”

“Was Pasquano able to determine how long ago he was killed?”

“He said two months, at the very least. But he needs to have a better look at him in the autopsy.”

“Do you know when he'll do that?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“And there was no report of this man's disappearance over those two months?”

“There are two possibilities, Chief: either it wasn't reported, or it was.”

Montalbano gave him a look of mock admiration.

“Well put, Fazio! Ever heard of Monsieur de la Palisse?”

“No, Chief. Who was he?”

“A man who fifteen minutes before he died was still alive.”

Fazio immediately got it.

“Come on, Chief! You didn't let me finish my thought!”

“All right then, go on. For a brief moment I thought you'd been infected by Catarella.”

“What I meant was that it's possible somebody reported the dead man's disappearance, but since we don't know who the dead man is—”

“I get your point. The only thing we can do is wait till tomorrow to see what Pasquano has to tell us.”

Once home, Montalbano was greeted by the telephone, which started ringing as he was trying to unlock the door, fumbling with the keys.

“
Ciao,
darling, how are you?”

It was Livia, sounding cheerful.

“I've had a pretty rough morning. How about you?”

“I've been great, for my part. I didn't go to the office today.”

“Oh, really? Why not?”

“I didn't feel like it. It was such a beautiful morning. It seemed like a terrible shame to go to work. You should have seen the sun, Salvo. It looked like yours.”

“So what did you do?”

“I went out and had fun.”

“Well, you can allow yourself such luxuries.”

It had slipped out, and Livia didn't let it slide.

A little while later, still in a bad mood, he settled in to watch some television. On a chair beside his armchair he had set two dishes, one full of green and black olives and salted sardines, the other with cheese, tumazzo and caciocavallo di Ragusa. He poured himself a glass of wine but kept the bottle within reach, just in case. Then he turned on the TV. The first thing that came on was a film set in some Asian country during the monsoon. What? It's deluging outside and now he has to watch a fake deluge on TV? He changed the channel. Another movie. A woman lay naked on a bed, batting her eyelashes at a young guy undressing and seen from behind. When the kid took off his underpants, the woman's eyes opened wide and she brought a hand to her mouth, surprised and amazed by what she saw. He changed the channel. The prime minister was explaining why the country's economy was going to the dogs: the first reason was the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers; the second was the tsunami in the South Seas; the third was the euro; the fourth the Communist opposition that refused to cooperate, and . . . He changed the channel. There was a cardinal talking about the sacred institution of the family. In the first row of the audience were an array of politicians, two of whom had been divorced, another who was living with a minor after leaving his wife and three children, a fourth who maintained an official family and two unofficial families, and a fifth who had never married because, as was well known, he didn't like women. All nodded gravely in agreement with the cardinal's words. He changed the channel. The screen filled with the chicken-ass face of Pippo Ragonese, the top honcho newsman of TeleVigàta.

“. . . and so the discovery of the corpse of a man brutally murdered, cut into small pieces, and put into a garbage bag disturbs us for several reasons. But the principal reason is that the investigation has been assigned to Chief Inspector Salvo Montalbano of the Vigàta Police, on whom we have, unfortunately, had occasion to focus our attention in the past. Our criticisms were directed not so much at the fact that he has political ideas—indeed every word he says is steeped in Communist beliefs—but at the fact that he has no ideas at all during his investigations. Or else, when he does, they are always absurd, outlandish, and utterly groundless. So we would like to give him some advice. But will he listen? The advice is the following. Only two weeks ago, in the area around the place called
'u critaru
, where the corpse was found, a hunter ran across two plastic bags containing the remains of two suckling calves. Might there not be a connection between these two occurrences? Might it not involve some satanic rite that—”

He turned off the TV. Satanic rite my ass! Aside from the fact that the two bags had been found two and a half miles away from
'u critaru
, it was discovered that they'd been dumped following an operation by the carabinieri to stop unauthorized animal slaughter.