IM10 August Heat (2008) by Andrea Camilleri Page B

him anything.
    “Get me the prosecutor!” the doctor suddenly ordered.
    Tommaseo came in.
    “Listen, Judge, I can’t go on working in here. It’s too hot, the thing’s liquefying before my eyes. Can I take it away?”
    Tommaseo looked inquiringly at the head of Forensics, Vanni Arquà.
    “If you ask me, yes,” said Arquà.
    Arquà and Montalbano got on each other’s nerves.They didn’t say hello when they met, and they spoke to one another only in cases of pure necessity.
    “Okay, take the body out of here and put seals over the window,” Tommaseo ordered.
    Pasquano looked at Montalbano. Without saying anything to anyone, the inspector went back upstairs, took a bottle of beer from the fridge—Guido had restocked—and returned to the terrace, settling into the same deck chair. He heard the noise of cars leaving.
    A few minutes later Dr. Pasquano appeared, and sat down as before.
    “I see you know the house well. Could I have a beer, too?”
    As the inspector was headed towards the kitchen, Fazio and Galluzzo came in.
    “Chief, can we go now?”
    “Sure. Here, take this piece of paper. It’s the phone number of a developer named Michele Spitaleri. I want you to track him down, right now; you absolutely have to find him and tell him that I’ll be waiting for him at the station tomorrow morning at nine o’clock sharp. Good night.”
    He brought the cold beer out to Pasquano and told him how and why he knew the house so well.Then he said:
    “Doctor, it’s too beautiful an evening to get you pissed off. You tell me if you want to answer a few of my questions or not.”
    “No more than four or five.”
    “Did you manage to determine her age?”
    “Yes. She was probably fifteen or sixteen years old. That’s one.”
    “Tommaseo told me it was a sex-related crime.”
    “Tommaseo is a perverted asshole.That’s two.”
    “What do you mean, two?You can’t count that as a question! Don’t cheat! We’re still on the first one!”
    “Oh, all right.”
    “Second question:Was she raped?”
    “I’m not in a position to say. Maybe not even after the autopsy. Although I would assume she was.”
    “Third: How was she killed?”
    “They cut her throat.”
    “Four: How long ago?”
    “Five or six years. She was well preserved because they wrapped her up well.”
    “Five: In your opinion, was she killed down there or somewhere else?”
    “You should ask Forensics. Whatever the case, Arquà found plenty of traces of blood on the floor.”
    “Six—”
    “No, no, no! Time’s up and beer’s finished. Good night.”
    He got up and left. Montalbano also stood up, but only to get himself another beer in the kitchen.
    He didn’t have the heart to leave the terrace on a night like this. All of a sudden, he missed Livia. Just the previous evening, they’d been sitting in this exact same place, in harmony and in love.
    Suddenly the night felt cold to him.
     
     
     
    Fazio was already at the station by eight o’clock the next morning. Montalbano arrived half an hour later.
    “Chief, you gotta forgive me, but I just don’t believe it.”
    “You just don’t believe what?”
    “The story of how the body was discovered.”
    “How else was it supposed to have been discovered, Fazio? Callara happened to see the trunk, he lifted the lid, and—”
    “Chief, if you ask me, you arranged things so that Callara would be the one to open it.”
    “Why would I do that?”
    “Because you’d already found the body the day before, when you went to get the kid.You’ve got a nose like a hunting dog, Chief! Like you’re not going to open that trunk! And you didn’t say anything right away so your friends could leave in peace.”
    He had understood everything. That wasn’t exactly the way things had gone, but by and large Fazio was right on the mark.
    “Listen, you can believe whatever you like. Did you find Spitaleri?”
    “I tried him at home and his wife gave me his cell phone number. At first there was no