Free The Potter's Field by Andrea Camilleri

longer. You have to intervene, Chief, and find out what’s up with him. Maybe his marriage is going bad or something . . .”
    â€œWhy didn’t you say anything to me earlier?”
    â€œChief, nobody likes to rat on people around here.”
    â€œAnd what happened with Catarella?”
    â€œHe didn’t put a call through to Inspector Augello, because he thought he wasn’t back in his office yet. Then she called again and Catarella put her through to Augello.”
    â€œWhy do you say ‘she’?”
    â€œBecause Catarella said it was a woman.”
    â€œName?”
    â€œCatarella said that both times she called she said only, ‘Inspector Augello, please.’”
    â€œThen what happened?”
    â€œAugello came out of his office looking like he was crazy and grabbed Catarella by the collar, pushed him up against the wall, and screamed, ‘Why didn’t you put the first call through to me?’ It’s a good thing I was there to pull him back. And it’s a good thing there wasn’t anyone else, or there would have been trouble. They would surely have reported it to the union.”
    â€œBut he’s never done anything like that when I’m around.”
    â€œWhen you’re around, Chief, he controls himself.”
    So that was how it was. Mimì no longer confided in him, Catarella neither, Fazio had snapped at him . . . An uneasy situation that had been dragging on for some time without his even noticing. Once upon a time he was attuned to the slightest change of mood in his men and became immediately concerned and wanted to know the reason. Now he didn’t even notice anymore. He had, of course, noticed the change in Mimì, but that was only because it was so obvious that it would have been impossible not to notice. What was wrong with him? Was he tired? Or had old age made his antennae less sensitive? If so, then the time had come to pick up his walking papers. But first he had to resolve the problem of Mimì.
    â€œWhat were the two things you wanted to tell me?” he asked.
    Fazio seemed relieved to change the subject.
    â€œWell, Chief, since the start of the year, in Sicily, there’s been eighty-two missing persons reported, thirty of whom were women. Which means fifty-two were men. I’ve done a little sifting. Mind if I look at some notes?”
    â€œAs long as you don’t start reading me vital statistics, fine.”
    â€œOf these fifty-two, thirty-one are non-Europeans with their papers in order who didn’t show up to work from one day to the next and didn’t go back to their place of residence either. Of the remaining twenty-one, ten are children. Which leaves eleven. Of these eleven, eight are between seventy and almost ninety years old. All of them are no longer all really there, the kind that might leave the house and not be able to find the way back.”
    â€œWhich leaves us with how many?”
    â€œThree, Chief. Of these three—all of whom are around forty—one is five foot two, the second is six foot four, and the third has a pacemaker.”
    â€œAnd so?”
    â€œAnd so none of these reports concerns our corpse.”
    â€œAnd now, what should I do to you?”
    Fazio looked flummoxed.
    â€œWhy should you want to do something to me, Chief?”
    â€œBecause you wasted so many words. Didn’t you know that wasting words is a crime against humanity? You could have simply said to me: ‘Look, none of the people who have been reported missing corresponds to our body in the bag.’ That would have synthesized the whole thing, and we both would have saved something: you, your breath, and me, my time. Don’t you agree?”
    Fazio shook his head negatively.
    â€œWith all due respect, sir, no.”
    â€œAnd why not?”
    â€œMy dear Inspector, no ‘synthesis,’ as you call it, could ever give a sense of all the work that went into arriving at