Don’t you know that with a jury made up of people with a sense of Honor, Family, Duty, and Womanly Virtue, Nicotra would surely be exonerated?”
They’d arranged to meet Mimì at the dried-up drinking trough. But when they got there, Augello and his men were nowhere to be seen.
“What the fuck are they doing?” Montalbano asked out loud, upset.
“Well,” Zito said, trying to calm him down, “it’s going to take a little time for him to do what you asked him to do.”
The inspector fired up a cigarette. Luckily he’d found a café with a tobacco license open in Rivera and had bought three packs, just to be safe.
The first to show up were four firemen with a great big truck equipped with a crane. Apparently Augello had clearly explained to them the work they would have to do, which was to go down into some wells that had long run dry but were very deep.
“We’re ready,” said the head fireman. “Shall we go in?”
His name was Mallia and he’d listened almost distractedly while the inspector reviewed the situation for him.
“We have to wait until my deputy gets here,” said Montalbano.
“Well, we’re going to go ahead anyway and check things out. That’ll save us a little time. We’ll meet back up at the first well.”
“Do you know where they are?”
“Of course, just over a quarter mile from here. A couple of years ago I pulled a corpse out of one,” said Mallia.
A good start is the best of guides, as the poet said. Without anyone noticing, Montalbano superstitiously touched his cojones to ward off bad luck.
At last Mimì pulled up in his car. A squad car came up behind him, with Gallo at the wheel, accompanied by Galluzzo and a young new officer, Lamarca, who seemed like a bright, alert kid.
The three wells had been dug some thirty years ago, about a hundred yards apart from one another, and were linked by a sort of narrow goat track. The land, about thirty hectares in all, had belonged for generations to the Fradella family, who, though good farmers, had never been able to grow a single tree there, or plant a square yard of any kind of plant whatsoever. It was useless land, all of it. Since legend had it that long ago some brigands had raped and killed a poor peasant girl there, everyone believed that the land yielded nothing because it was cursed. And so the Fradellas summoned a hermit priest from Trapani province who knew how to fight the devil. Not even he was able to make so much as a blade of grass grow. The ground was sterile because it was arid, but perhaps only a little water would suffice to change everything. Then, about thirty years ago, Joe Fradella returned from America, where he owned a ranch, and he explained to his relatives that he knew an extraordinary diviner who could find water even in the middle of the Sahara desert. And he brought the rhabdomancer from America, at his own expense. The moment the diviner took a little walk around the area, he said:
“There’s a whole sea of water under the ground here!”
And so the Fradellas dug the first well, and about a hundred feet down the water started coming up nice and fresh. They dug another two, and within about two years’ time, the land, irrigated by a round-the-clock system of pipes and canals, started to turn green. And whatever they planted there grew. In short, those thirty hectares became a sort of paradise on earth. Then the regional government decided to build a new high-speed road between Montelusa and Trapani. A public works project of great importance, the politicians said. The road was to pass straight through Monte Scibetta, and so they dug a tunnel that pierced the mountain from one end to the other. But once the tunnel was finished, everything else came to an end, too. That is, the high-speed road was never made, because the only thing that moved at high speed in the whole affair was the money allocated for it, which raced straight into the pockets of the contractors and local Mafia. And the kicker
They’d arranged to meet Mimì at the dried-up drinking trough. But when they got there, Augello and his men were nowhere to be seen.
“What the fuck are they doing?” Montalbano asked out loud, upset.
“Well,” Zito said, trying to calm him down, “it’s going to take a little time for him to do what you asked him to do.”
The inspector fired up a cigarette. Luckily he’d found a café with a tobacco license open in Rivera and had bought three packs, just to be safe.
The first to show up were four firemen with a great big truck equipped with a crane. Apparently Augello had clearly explained to them the work they would have to do, which was to go down into some wells that had long run dry but were very deep.
“We’re ready,” said the head fireman. “Shall we go in?”
His name was Mallia and he’d listened almost distractedly while the inspector reviewed the situation for him.
“We have to wait until my deputy gets here,” said Montalbano.
“Well, we’re going to go ahead anyway and check things out. That’ll save us a little time. We’ll meet back up at the first well.”
“Do you know where they are?”
“Of course, just over a quarter mile from here. A couple of years ago I pulled a corpse out of one,” said Mallia.
A good start is the best of guides, as the poet said. Without anyone noticing, Montalbano superstitiously touched his cojones to ward off bad luck.
At last Mimì pulled up in his car. A squad car came up behind him, with Gallo at the wheel, accompanied by Galluzzo and a young new officer, Lamarca, who seemed like a bright, alert kid.
The three wells had been dug some thirty years ago, about a hundred yards apart from one another, and were linked by a sort of narrow goat track. The land, about thirty hectares in all, had belonged for generations to the Fradella family, who, though good farmers, had never been able to grow a single tree there, or plant a square yard of any kind of plant whatsoever. It was useless land, all of it. Since legend had it that long ago some brigands had raped and killed a poor peasant girl there, everyone believed that the land yielded nothing because it was cursed. And so the Fradellas summoned a hermit priest from Trapani province who knew how to fight the devil. Not even he was able to make so much as a blade of grass grow. The ground was sterile because it was arid, but perhaps only a little water would suffice to change everything. Then, about thirty years ago, Joe Fradella returned from America, where he owned a ranch, and he explained to his relatives that he knew an extraordinary diviner who could find water even in the middle of the Sahara desert. And he brought the rhabdomancer from America, at his own expense. The moment the diviner took a little walk around the area, he said:
“There’s a whole sea of water under the ground here!”
And so the Fradellas dug the first well, and about a hundred feet down the water started coming up nice and fresh. They dug another two, and within about two years’ time, the land, irrigated by a round-the-clock system of pipes and canals, started to turn green. And whatever they planted there grew. In short, those thirty hectares became a sort of paradise on earth. Then the regional government decided to build a new high-speed road between Montelusa and Trapani. A public works project of great importance, the politicians said. The road was to pass straight through Monte Scibetta, and so they dug a tunnel that pierced the mountain from one end to the other. But once the tunnel was finished, everything else came to an end, too. That is, the high-speed road was never made, because the only thing that moved at high speed in the whole affair was the money allocated for it, which raced straight into the pockets of the contractors and local Mafia. And the kicker
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