Engineer Luparello is a very important and feared politician. Or rather, it was because his body is found in La Mannera by two scavengers. The body is abandoned in the machine and everything suggests a natural death. On the spot, which is a meeting place for prostitutes, a very precious necklace is also found. While Commissioner Montalbano is still uncertain about the facts, at political level there is an agreement propitiated by the lawyer Rizzo, friend of the dead man, and his former political opponents. Montalbano is increasingly uncertain because, as the widow Luparello says, water, like facts, does not have its own shape but takes on what you want to take on.
—Baldinotto da Pistoia