Read Online Game of Mirrors by Andrea Camilleri - Free Book Online

detail.”
    The attempt to add another mirror to the game had failed.
         
    Fazio returned, and Montalbano brought him up to speed on what Augello had told him.
    “They’re trying every trick in the book,” Fazio commented.
    “How’d it go at the body shop?”
    “Chief, even for a quick touch-up job, they have to keep the car for four days.”
    Montalbano cursed.
    “So what am I supposed to do?”
    “I’ve already taken care of it. I got you a car that drives exactly the same way as yours. It’s outside in the parking lot, the gray car next to mine. Here are the keys.”
    He set them down on the desk.
    “And here’s the bullet,” he continued.
    Montalbano picked it up and looked at it.
    “Are you sure this is it?”
    “Chief, how many bullets do you think were embedded in your seat?”
    “But this is a special bullet from a rifle!”
    “So?”
    “It can’t be from the carabinieri.”
    “But didn’t you tell me you saw someone shooting from the passing car?”
    “Yes, but not with a rifle!”
    “Maybe you just didn’t notice that there was someone else with a rifle.”
    Montalbano turned pensive. He replayed the scene at the roadblock in his mind and came to a conclusion.
    “You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to talk to Lieutenant Vannutelli.”
    He had Catarella ring the lieutenant, who replied that he would be waiting for him at the headquarters of the carabinieri.
         
    He decided to go on foot. He hadn’t had time yet to try out the borrowed car.
    “Did you manage to catch them?” he asked the lieutenant.
    “No, they got away.”
    “Did anyone tell you I was there?”
    “You were there?!”
    Montalbano told him the whole story. And then he showed him the bullet. Vannutelli picked it up, examined it, and looked dumbfounded.
    “Where on earth did this come from? People were shooting machine guns and automatic weapons, not rifles.”
    “That’s why I’m here. The entry hole in my car door is perfectly round. The shot must have been fired from a point parallel to my car.”
    Vannutelli kept looking at the bullet with puzzlement.
    “The carabinieri stopped me just as I was beside the first car in the line going towards Montelusa. The shot could only have come from that car, or from the one right behind it.”
    “What I think you’re trying to say is that the guys who drove through the roadblock had armed accomplices, is that right?”
    “Precisely.”
    “Thanks. I’ll talk to the marshal who conducted the roadblock and get back to you.”
         
    When he got to his office, he called Fazio.
    “Have you got any friends in Forensics?”
    Montalbano, for his part, had a profound dislike of the chief of Forensics. The mere sight of him gave him a stomachache. And his feelings were returned in kind.
    “Sure.”
    He handed him the bullet.
    “Have him look at it in private.”
    “What do you want to know?”
    “Whatever there is to know.”
    “You in a hurry?”
    “No.”
    “Then I’ll take it to Montelusa tomorrow.”
         
    As he was about to leave to go home, Lieutenant Vannutelli rang.
    “Listen, I had a long talk with Marshal Capua and De Giovanni, the carabiniere who stopped you and remembers you perfectly.”
    “What did they say?”
    “They said your theory doesn’t hold water.”
    “And why not?”
    “Because at the moment the speeding car reached the roadblock, Capua was checking the first car in the queue and he’s absolutely positive that nobody fired a shot from that car. De Giovanni, on the other hand, right after stopping you, was walking over to the second car and had to squeeze up against it to avoid the speeding car coming through. If anyone fired a shot from that car, it would have struck him.”
    The argument was airtight.
    Then how to explain the bullet hole?
    He went into the parking lot, got in the car that Fazio had procured for him, and drove three times around the lot as a test. It felt fine.
    So he headed off to