The Shape of Water Read Free Page B

Jurisprudence at the University of Girgenti at the Time of King Martin the Younger (1402-1409) . These Lo Biancos, he claimed, however nebulously, were his ancestors.
    “How did he die?” he asked the doctor.
    “See for yourself,” said the doctor, standing aside.
    Montalbano stuck his head inside the car, which felt like an oven (more specifically, a crematorium), took his first look at the corpse, and immediately thought of the police commissioner.
    He thought of the commissioner not because he was in the habit of turning his thoughts up the hierarchical ladder at the start of every investigation, but merely because some ten days earlier he had spoken with old Commissioner Burlando, who was a friend of his, about a book by Ariès, Western Attitudes Toward Death, which they had both read. The commissioner had argued that every death, even the most abject, was sacred. Montalbano had retorted, in all sincerity, that in no death, not even a pope’s, could he see anything sacred whatsover.
    He wished the commissioner were there beside him now, to see what he saw. This Luparello had always been an elegant sort, extremely well-groomed in every physical detail. Now, however, his tie was gone, his shirt rumpled, his glasses askew, his jacket collar incongruously half turned up, his socks sagging so flaccidly that they covered his loafers. But what most struck the inspector was the sight of the trousers pulled down around the man’s knees, the white of the underwear showing inside the trousers, the shirt rolled up together with the undershirt halfway up his chest.
    And the sex organ obscenely, horridly exposed, thick and hairy, in stark contrast with the meticulous care shown over the rest of his person.
    “But how did he die?” he asked the doctor again, coming out of the car.
    “Seems obvious, don’t you think?” Pasquano replied rudely. “You did know he’d had heart surgery,” he continued, “performed by a famous London surgeon?”
    “No, I did not. I saw him on TV last Wednesday, and he looked in perfect health to me.”
    “He may have looked healthy, but he wasn’t. You know, in politics they’re all like dogs: the minute they realize you can’t defend yourself, they attack. Apparently he had a double bypass in London. They say it was a difficult operation.”
    “Who was his doctor in Montelusa?”
    “My colleague Capuano. He was getting weekly checkups. His health was very important to him—you know, always wanted to look fit.”
    “You think I should talk to Capuano?”
    “Absolutely unnecessary. It’s plain as day what happened here. Poor Mr. Luparello felt like having a good lay in the Pasture, maybe with some exotic foreign slut, and he had it, all right, and left his carcass behind.”
    He noticed that Montalbano had a faraway look in his eyes.
    “Not convinced?”
    “No.”
    “Why not?”
    “I don’t really know, to tell you the truth. Can you send me the results of the autopsy tomorrow?”
    “Tomorrow?! Are you crazy? Before Luparello I’ve got that twenty-year-old girl who was raped in a shepherd’s hut and found eaten by dogs ten days later, and then there’s Fofò Greco, who had his tongue cut out and his balls cut off before they hung him from a tree to die, and then—”
    Montalbano cut this macabre list short.
    “Pasquano, let’s get to the point. When can you get me the results?”
    “Day after tomorrow, if in the meantime I don’t have to run all over town looking at other corpses.”
    They said good-bye. Montalbano called over the sergeant and his men and told them what they had to do and when to load the body into the ambulance. He had Gallo drive him back to headquarters.
    “You can go back afterward and pick up the others. And if you speed, I’ll break your neck.”
     
 
Pino and Saro signed the sworn statement. In it their every movement before and after they discovered the body was described. But it neglected to mention two important things, which the garbage