The Potter's Field (7 page)

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.

“I 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.

“So, 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.

“About what? The international situation? My hemorrhoids?”

“About the body in the bag.”

“Oh, that? It was a long and aggravating process. First I had to complete the puzzle.”

“The puzzle?”

“I had to piece the body back together, my friend. It had been dismembered, remember?”

“I do,” Montalbano replied, grinning.

“You find that amusing?”

“No, I find the verb you use amusing.”

“Dismember? 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...”

“Let's just say ‘chopped up.' Into how many pieces?”

“Quite 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—”

“How?”

“A single gunshot at the base of the skull.”

“When?”

“Let'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?”

“All this butchery, you mean?”

“No, the fact that they left the left upper arm. I wonder why they didn't cut that off, too, while they were at it.”

“Have you found anything that might lead to a quick identification?”

“Not a fucking thing.”

“Speaking of which, Doctor: and the sex organ?”

“Not doing too badly, thank you very much. Nothing to worry about.”

“No, Doctor, what I mean is: Did they cut off his sex organ as well?”

“If they had, I would have mentioned it.”

“How old was he?”

“About forty.”

“Height?”

“Not less than five foot ten.”

“Non-European?”

“Hardly! One of ours.”

“Fat? Thin?”

“Trim and in excellent shape.”

“Can you tell me anything else?”

“Yes. When he was killed, he hadn't yet evacuated.”

“Is that important?”

“It certainly is. Because we found something of potential importance in his stomach.”

“Namely?”

“He'd swallowed a bridge.”

Montalbano balked.

“What kind of bridge?”

“The Brooklyn Bridge.”

“What?”

“Has 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.

“Couldn't the bridge have ended up in his stomach while they were mangling his face?”

“No, 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.”

“What did you do with it?

“I sent it immediately to Forensics. You realize, however, that it'll be months before they can tell us anything about it.”

“Right,” said Montalbano, discouraged.

“And don't expect them to be able to tell you the name of the victim's dentist, either.”

“Right,” Montalbano repeated, more disconsolate than ever.

“Want another cannolo?”

“No. Thanks anyway. I'll be seeing you.”

“You 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.

“Ah, Chief Chief! Fazio tol' me a tell yiz 'at the minute y' got back I's asposta tell 'im y'got back.”

“All right, then tell him and send him to my office.”

Fazio arrived at once.

“Before you say anything, let me talk first. I've been to see Pasquano.”

He told him what the doctor said.

“So, 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.”

“Meanwhile tell me what you wanted to tell me.”

“Chief, 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.”

“Have you seen her?”

“No, but every single man I talked to raved about her looks.”

“Does she have a car?”

“Yes. A Fiat Punto.”

“What does she do?”

“Nothing. Housewife.”

“What about the husband?”

“Sea captain. At the moment he's sailing as first mate on a container ship. He's been out of the country for the past few months. They say if the husband comes home four times a year it's already a lot.”

“So, in theory, the poor girl is forced to go hungry. Did you hear anything to the contrary? Did anyone suggest that she fools around when the husband's away?”

“I got some conflicting reports. For one or two people, Signora Dolores is actually a slut who's too shrewd to get caught in the act; for others she's a woman who is so beautiful that if she does have a lover, she's right to have one, since her husband is always away; for the majority, however, she's a virtuous woman.”

“Sounds like you held a referendum!”

“But, Chief, men just love to talk about a woman like that!”

“In essence, though, it's all smoke and no fire. All gossip. You know what I say? Let's forget about her. Maybe the attempt to run her over really was nothing more than a moronic prank.”

“On the other hand . . . ,” said Fazio.

“On the other hand?”

“If you'll allow me, I'd like to try to find out more about this woman.”

“Why?”

“At the moment I can't really explain it, Chief. But there's something somebody said to me that made me wonder. It was sort of a flash, an idea that immediately faded. I don't remember if it was a single word or a phrase, or if it was the way the word or phrase was said to me. Or maybe it was just a silent stare that seemed important to me at that moment.”

“You don't remember at all who the person was?”

“I'm having trouble bringing it into focus, Chief. I talked to about ten people in all, women as well as men. I can't very well go back and ask them the same questions.”

“Do what you think best.”

Phoning Vanni Arquà, the chief of the Forensic Laboratory, was always a pain. The inspector didn't like the man one bit, and the feeling was amply returned in kind.

But he had no choice. Because if he didn't call him himself, Arquà would never relay any information to him. Before picking up the receiver, Montalbano took a deep breath, as if about to plunge underwater, all the while repeating to himself:

He dialed the number.

“Arquà? Montalbano here.”

“What do you want? Look, I haven't got any time to waste.”

To avoid blowing up right off the bat, he clenched his teeth so hard that the words came out very strangely.

“I hrd tht ths mrning—”

“Why are you talking that way?”

“What way? I'm talking the way I always talk. I heard that this morning Dr. Pasquano sent you a bridge he'd found—”

“Yes, he did. So what? Goodbye.”

“No, I'm sorry . . . but, if possible, I would like . . . a little more quickly . . . I realize how swamped with work you people are . . . but you must realize, that . . . for me...”

In the effort to try to be nice, to avoid hurling abuse at Arquà, he became incapable of constructing a complete sentence. He felt furious at himself.

“The bridge is no longer here with us.”