IM10 August Heat (2008) Read Online Free Page B

company.
    “Gallo!”
    Gallo immediately appeared, getting water all over the floor.
    “Your orders, Chief ?”
    “Listen, look in every room to see if the cat is in it.When you’re sure he’s not, close the window and door to that room, and do the same with the rest. We have to be sure the cat is nowhere in the house, and we have to prevent him from having any way to get back inside.”
    Gallo looked completely befuddled. Weren’t they looking for a missing kid? Why had the inspector become so fixated on this cat?
    “Excuse me, Chief, but what’s the animal got to do with it?”
    “Just do as I say. And leave only the front door open.”
    Gallo began his search, Montalbano went out through the little gate, walked to the edge of the cliff, which plunged straight down to the beach, then turned around to look at the house from that distance.
    He studied it long and hard, until he became convinced that what he was seeing was not just an impression. Ever so imperceptibly, by only a few millimeters, the entire house listed to the left. It must certainly be the result of the ground’s having shifted a few days earlier, causing the living room floor to crack and subsequently releasing the various invasions of cockroaches, mice, and spiders.
    He went back to the terrace, grabbed a ball that Bruno had left on one of the deck chairs, and set it down on the ground. Slowly, the ball began to roll towards the little wall on the left.
    It was the proof he was looking for.Which might explain everything or nothing at all.
    Going back out through the little gate, he walked until he was far enough away to study the right side this time. All the windows on that wall were closed, which meant that Gallo had finished doing what he was supposed to do on that side. Montalbano saw nothing unusual.
    Then he headed behind the house, where the entrance and the parking area were. The front door was open, as he’d told Gallo to leave it. Nothing out of the ordinary there.
    He resumed walking until he could get a good look at the other side, the one where the house listed a little.The tilt was almost invisible. One of the two windows was closed, while the other was still open.
    “Gallo!”
    Gallo popped his head out.
    “See anything?”
    “This is the smaller bathroom. I’m done. The cat’s not here. That leaves only the living room. Can I shut this window?”
    As Gallo was closing the window, Montalbano noticed that the gutter above the window had broken, leaving a gap at least three fingers wide. It must have been an old problem that had never been fixed.
    When it rained, all the rainwater poured out at that spot instead of going into the pipe that channeled it towards a well to one side of the terrace. To prevent a gigantic puddle from forming on the ground below and staining the wall of the house with humidity, somebody had put a big metal drum underneath it, one of those used for storing pitch.
    Montalbano noticed, however, that the drum had been moved and was no longer perpendicular to the break in the gutter. It now stood at least three feet away from the wall.
    If the water could no longer fall straight into the drum, Montalbano reasoned, then there should be a great big puddle here, a lake, since it had rained so hard over the last two days. Instead there was nothing.What was the explanation?
    He felt a kind of electric shock, ever so slight, run down his spine.This usually happened to him when he was on the right track. He went up to the drum.There was, in fact, a bit of water in it, but not as much as there should have been, and it had certainly fallen there directly from the sky.
    At that moment he noticed that the water pouring out of the gap in the gutter for two days and one night had carved out a veritable pit at the foot of the wall.
    It was impossible at first to tell why the drum blocked it from view.
    The pit had a circumference of about three feet. In all likelihood the surface of friable earth covering some sort of