The Fourth Secret Read Free Page A

way back from India. Look, you won’t believe this, but I left Mumbai the morning of the tenth and … Sorry, but when I start talking … What did you want to ask me?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Then what the fuck?!” said Mr. Siracusa as the inspector hung up.
    Fazio returned.
    “Just as I thought, Inspector. Verruso took the call.”
    “That means that we’ve been cut out.”
    “Well, that’s one way to look at it.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “We are half in and half out, sir. We’re out because this is not our investigation; we’re in because we know something Verruso doesn’t. And that is, that it wasn’t an accident, but murder. Unless this really was an accident, and Mr. Siracusa is one of those people who can see the future in a crystal ball.”
    “And?”
    “We have two choices: we can either take the letter, burn it, and pretend we never received it, or muster all our courage—for we’ll need all of it to do something like this—and send the letter to the carabinieri, with our best compliments.”
    Montalbano remained silent, lost in his thoughts. At that moment, Augello walked in and immediately understood that something wasn’t right in that room.
    “What’s going on here?”
    Montalbano explained everything. The result was that Augello also became silent and lost in thought. But after a little while, he decided to talk.
    “We could buy ourselves some time without wasting Verruso’s. It’s important that our relationship with the carabinieri be completely transparent.”
    “And how do we do that?” Fazio asked.
    “We’ll start by conducting a small investigation and we’ll take it from there. If things go well, that is, if we turn up something concrete, we’ll keep investigating and then we’ll figure out what to do with our colleagues when the time comes. However, if we meet a dead end …”
    He stopped there and Montalbano finished his sentence: “We’ll send everything to the carabinieri, and they can take it from there. Mimì, can you explain the meaning you give to the word
transparency
?”
    “The exact same meaning you give to it,” Mimì replied.
    So the inspector divided up the tasks. That business was going to be taken care of by the three of them; there was no reason to make any noise; they had to proceed on the down low, without any rumors reaching the murderer, or worse the carabinieri. Fazio was going to Via Madonna del Rosario 38 to see who lived there and if they knew an Attilio Siracusa. Fazio tried to say something, but the inspector cut him off.
    “I know it’s a waste of time. It’s a fake name and address. But we have to do it anyway.”
    As for Mimì, he was going to grab the envelope and go to the post office. There must be very few people in Vigata who use priority mail to send something within Vigata. He was going to get the form back, the one you fill out when you send a parcel priority mail, and see if the clerk remembered who came to the counter. While he was there, in an informal capacity and just out of curiosity, he might as well ask them how the fuck a priority envelope took three days to travel less than a mile.
    “And what about you?”
    “I’m going to Montelusa. I want to speak to Pasquano.”
    “So what’s this? Now you’re breaking my balls over other peoples’ deaths?”
    “Dr. Pasquano, absolutely not, you see, it’s a statistical survey we’ve been asked to fill out by the ministry and so …”
    “A survey about how many Albanian workers fall from scaffolding each year in Italy?”
    “No, Doctor, the survey is about …”
    “Listen, Montalbano, stop with the bullshit. If you want to ask me something, cut the crap. Tell me what’s going on.”
    “You see, Doctor, we’re investigating a theft in a jewelry store in Vigata, where this Puka was allegedly involved, and I repeat allegedly. We think he might have been eliminated by his accomplices, that’s all.”
    It worked. Dr. Pasquano didn’t seem angry anymore.
    “Well!