The Overnight Kidnapper

by Andrea Camilleri

  “Are you still there?”

  “Yes.”

  “Please wait for us. We’re on our way.”

  Then, turning to Mimì:

  “You come with me.”

  “To do what?”

  “Some young guy just called to report a car that’s been set on fire. And since you’re the specialist in torched cars . . .”

  * * *

  They got to the scene of the crime, as Catarella might have called it, in a flash, since Gallo was driving. Caldarera got out of his car as soon as he saw them, and started walking towards them.

  He was a youth of about twenty, dark and handsome, with a bright smile and a likable, intelligent manner.

  All that was left of the torched car, which was just barely off the road, was a charred carcass still giving off a few wisps of smoke.

  “They must have set fire to it just after I passed,” said the lad. “By the time I returned, it was already burning itself out.”

  Montalbano didn’t bother to go and look at the car from up close. That wasn’t what interested him.

  “Did you get a good look at the man who was pulling the bike out of the trunk?” he asked the youth.

  “I did see him, but if you ask me what he looked like I wouldn’t be able to tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he was wearing a cap pulled down to his eyebrows, dark sunglasses, and had a scarf wrapped around his mouth as though he had a cold . . .”

  Montalbano and Augello exchanged a glance. That was exactly how the kidnapper covered himself to avoid being recognized.

  “Can you tell me anything else?”

  “By the way he moved, he didn’t seem very young to me. Too bad, though.”

  “Too bad about what?”

  “About the car he torched. I’m really into cars and I know how much—”

  “What kind of car was it?” Augello interrupted him impatiently.

  “A Porsche Cayenne. There’s only one in Vigàta.”

  “And do you know who it belongs to?”

  “Sure. It belongs to Marcello Di Carlo, who has an electronics store—”

  “Didn’t it seem strange to you that it wasn’t Di Carlo driving it?” the inspector asked.

  “I just assumed he’d let the guy borrow it.”

  They thanked the youth, Augello alerted Forensics, and they went back to the station.

  On the drive back, the inspector got Fazio on the phone.

  “What point are you at?”

  “I’m on my way back.”

  “So are we. We went to see a car that was torched. It was Di Carlo’s Porsche.”

  “What do you think that means?”

  “It may mean that there won’t be any more kidnappings. Unless the guy steals another car and keeps abducting women.”

  * * *

  Naturally, since Gallo was driving, they got back to the station five minutes before Fazio, who, upon arriving, said:

  “There’s a new development.”

  “Good, we need one,” said Montalbano. “We’ve been getting a little bogged down in this mess.”

  “The forensics guys demanded that the undertakers unwrap the body before taking it away.”

  “Why?”

  “They want to test the cellophane for fingerprints.”

  “Oh, right! As if the killer would be stupid enough not to have used gloves!” said Augello.

  “At any rate,” Fazio resumed, “I was able to get a good look at the naked corpse, and from up close. It’s a man of about forty, pretty well-groomed. But the important thing is that he has a Z-shaped scar under his left shoulder blade.”

  “That should help to identify him,” said Augello.

  “I’ve got an opinion on that, as far as that goes,” said Fazio.

  “Let’s hear it,” Montalbano said, prodding him.

  “Since he’d been dead for a while, the face on the body was rather deteriorated, but still, when I was able to see it after they removed the cellophane, it reminded me of someone I’d seen in a photograph. And you saw it, too,” he said to Montalbano.

  “I did?” the inspector asked incredulously.

  “You certainly did.”

  “Where?”

  “At Di Carlo’s house. There were two framed photos in his study. And in both, we see this person with an elderly couple, perhaps his father and mother.”

  “Yes, now I remember,” said the inspector, “though only vaguely.”

  “I’m sorry, but didn’t you guys say he had a sister?” Augello cut in. “We can ask her.”

  “No, because, then, if it’s not Di Carlo . . .” said the inspector.

  “We could ask Bonfiglio, who must surely know whether Di Carlo has a scar like that,” Fazio suggested.

  “I think it’s best, for now, to keep Bonfiglio out of this. We can play that card when we interrogate him,” said the inspector.

  “That leaves only Luigia Jacono,” said Mimì.

  Montalbano looked over at Fazio.

  “I get it,” said Fazio. “It’s my turn. But, if you don’t mind, I’ll call her from my office.”

  While waiting, Mimì Augello took out the newspaper he had in his jacket pocket and started reading it. Montalbano, for his part, decided to clean up his desk drawers, but upon opening the first one, got immediately discouraged. It was a proper emporium, with everything imaginable: ballpoint pens, letters, stamps, pencils, notebooks, outdated calendars, newspaper clippings, memos, a compass, and even a shirt he thought he’d lost. He reclosed it without touching anything and started staring at the wall in front of him.

  Finally Fazio returned.

  “Yeah, it’s definitely him. Luigia Jacono says Di Carlo had a scar just like that one.”

  “Did she ask you why you wanted to know?”

  “Yeah. And so I told her the truth.”

  “And how’d she react?”

  “She started crying.”

  12

  The inspector glanced at his watch. It was getting so late that he was in danger of finding his customary trattoria closed.

  Still, there were a few things he wanted to clear up before the lunch break.

  “The fact that Di Carlo was murdered rules out a few possible hypotheses but suggests a few others,” he began. “But, before saying anything else, I want you both to know that nobody must know, for the moment, that we’ve identified the body. I want to see how Bonfiglio reacts when I tell him.”

  Then, turning to Fazio:

  “The murder of Di Carlo completely nullifies your hypothesis that it was he himself who set fire to his store before disappearing, so he could scam the insurance company. Do you agree?”

  “Yes.”

  “Moreover,” the inspector continued, “the fact that he was killed practically a few days after returning from Lanzarote rules out that he could have been the person who organized Luigia’s abduction. Do you both agree?”

  “Yes,” Mimì and Fazio replied in unison.

  “So, then, the question now is: Who killed Di Carlo, and why?”

  “You still don’t think it could have been the Mafia, since Di Carlo had refused to pay the racket?” asked Fazio.

  “The Mafia has never kidnapped anybody for not paying the racket. They either set fire to their store or place of business, or else kill the owner before everyone’s eyes, to set an example. They would never hide the body away, let alone wrap it up in cellophane.”

  “Do you have any idea why anyone would want to wrap up a corpse like that?” asked Augello.

  “There is one possible explanation. The sheets of wrapping not only enveloped the whole corpse from head to toe; they were also carefully closed shut, sealed, in fact, with tape.”

  “Why, do you think?”

  �
��By sealing the sheets of cellophane in this fashion, they prevented any air from circulating and any smell from wafting out. You could keep a corpse like that in your own house, or anywhere at all, without anyone ever smelling the rot.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Mimì, “but why would the killer keep his victim at home instead of getting rid of the body as quickly as possible?”

  “Mimì, if I could answer your question, I would be well on the way to solving the case. Let me think about that a little. For now, let’s go and have some lunch. We’ll meet back up here at four.”

  * * *

  The fact that he’d left the house early that morning and had been out in the open air for so long had stirred up in him the sort of wolflike hunger that had begun to seem a thing of the past. After witnessing the immense satisfaction with which he’d eaten his pasta in squid ink, Enzo set before him two second courses: the usual striped mullet, and a dish of fried calamaretti so crisp and clean they were like bread sticks just out of the oven.

  “Your choice.”

  “Do you know the famous story of Buridan’s ass?” Montalbano asked him.

  “No.”

  “Some guy by the name of Buridan owned a donkey. One day he wanted to try an experiment. On the one hand he prepared a little stack of fresh hay, on the other, a pile of carob beans, and he put the ass between them. Unable to choose between the two things, both of which he liked a great deal, the animal stood there without moving, looking first to the right, and then to the left. And so, unable to make up his mind, he ended up starving to death.”

  Enzo removed the dish with the calamaretti.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’m leaving you the mullet. I wouldn’t want you to die of starvation on me.”

  “What, you think I’m Buridan’s ass or something? Put those calamaretti back. I’ll eat them after I’ve eaten the mullet.”

  A walk along the jetty therefore became a necessity.

  Sitting on the flat rock under the lighthouse, he started reflecting on the whole affair, beginning with the unanswered question Augello had asked him.

  What reason indeed did the killer have for running the enormous risk of keeping the corpse hidden, rather than get rid of such incontrovertible evidence immediately?

  He sat there thinking about this for a spell, and in the end came to the only possible conclusion, which was that the discovery of Di Carlo’s murdered body was supposed to constitute, for the killer, the last act of the show he was putting on. And therefore the whole thing had been organized according to a plan as contorted as it was intelligent, following a precise order. For this reason, finding Di Carlo’s corpse was like the last tessera of a mosaic—that is, one part of a whole.

  But what was the whole?

  What did it consist of?

  The inspector contemplated these two questions for a long time; then, since it was nearly time for their meeting, he went back to the station.

  * * *

  On the desk he found a letter envelope, addressed to him and marked URGENT PERSONAL & CONFIDENTIAL on the outside. There was no return address, but the postmark was stamped in Palermo and bore the previous day’s date.

  Fazio and Augello were sitting down and waiting for the meeting to begin. Politeness dictated that he should read the letter later, after the meeting, but that word, “urgent,” on the envelope got the better of him.

  “Excuse me just a minute,” he said.

  He opened the envelope and started reading. But then he immediately looked up and said to the two:

  “This letter is about Di Carlo. It was sent yesterday from Palermo. I’ll read it to you out loud.”

  Dear Inspector Montalbano,

  My name is Mario Costantino. I am the exclusive representative of the J Company in Sicily and live in Palermo at Via Ubaldo Carapezza, 15.

  I am writing to you about Marcello Di Carlo. What I am about to tell may be of no importance whatsoever, but I still feel that it is my duty to bring it to your attention.

  The day before yesterday, when passing through Vigàta, I went to see Di Carlo, long a client of mine, at his store to ask if he had any new orders for me. I was unaware of all that had happened. And so I was told by the shop owners nearby that not only had his store been set on fire, but that he had disappeared without a trace.

  And so I immediately recalled something that happened to me last August 31. I was at Rome’s Fiumicino airport, on my way back from my summer vacation. I was waiting to take the 5:30 p.m. flight to Palermo, standing in line for the usual security check before entering the boarding area.

  Just in front of me was a couple: a man of about forty and a blond woman a few years younger. They were quarreling in soft voices, but I still heard a few statements quite clearly.

  He was asking her how a certain Giorgio had managed to learn that they were flying home that same day and was insistently accusing his companion of having informed this person. The woman kept denying it, practically in tears, asking him why she would ever have wanted to do such a thing. Every so often the man would say, as if to himself: “How am I ever going to get out of this? What am I going to tell him?”

  At one point he turned towards his companion, allowing me to recognize him as Marcello Di Carlo. But since we were in line and he was distracted, he didn’t see me, nor was I keen on him spotting me when he was in such an agitated state.

  He did recognize me, however, in the boarding area and nodded to me in greeting. Then he and the woman stepped aside from everyone else and continued their wrangling. Once inside the aircraft, my seat was too far from theirs, and so I couldn’t see them anymore.

  At the Palermo airport, I saw Di Carlo again as we were heading towards the baggage claim area. He was now alone. We exchanged a few words about our respective vacations, but it was clear that Di Carlo’s thoughts were elsewhere. At some point we were joined by the woman, who was very upset and out of breath, and who, paying no mind to my presence, said anxiously: “He’s waiting for us outside. I saw him.” Di Carlo stopped dead in his tracks. I said good-bye and kept on walking. Di Carlo didn’t even return my good-bye.

  That is what I had to tell you.

  I remain at your disposal for any and all clarifications. I include here my telephone numbers.

  With regards,

  Mario Costantino

  “And this means that Signor Bonfiglio has been feeding us bullshit,” was the inspector’s comment. “But we’ll get back to that later. For now . . .”

  “Before you start”—Mimì Augello cut him off—“I have to tell you something that Anna brought to my attention. On the twenty-eighth of July Bonfiglio wired five thousand euros to Di Carlo.”

  “Only five thousand?”

  “Only five thousand.”

  “But isn’t five thousand a little insufficient for a month-long vacation in Lanzarote, for someone used to spending money hand over fist like Di Carlo, especially since he’s with another person?” asked Montalbano.

  “Maybe he borrowed the rest from someone else,” said Fazio.

  The inspector went straight to the subject of greatest interest to him.

  “Listen up, guys. This morning we made a mistake. We considered Di Carlo’s murder, along with the fire in his store and his disappearance, as a separate case. Whereas, in my opinion, it’s all bound up with everything else. In other words, until this morning, we thought we were dealing with two parallel cases. On the one hand the three abductions, and on the other, the murder. And that’s where we may have gone wrong.”

  “Explain why,” said Augello.

  “It is highly probable that the abductions and the murder are part of one same chain of events.”

  “What makes you say that?” Augello asked.

  “The fact that the kidnapper, who has been the same person in all three abductions, used Di Carlo’s car.”r />
  “But he may have stolen it.”

  “Then why didn’t Di Carlo report the theft?” Montalbano retorted.

  “But he’d gone on the lam!”

  “No, Mimì. This business about him going on the lam of his own volition was dispensed with once and for all this morning. He didn’t report the theft because he couldn’t, having already been murdered and wrapped up by the kidnapper.”

  “Then why torch the car?”

  “Because he no longer needs it. Di Carlo’s car had made its last journey.”

  “And what would that have been?”

  “Transporting Di Carlo’s body to the place where it was found.”

  “Then what was the point of setting fire to the first car, the one he’d used for the first two kidnappings?”

  “Mimì, I can answer that, even though I know I may be wrong. He set fire to it because it, too, had been used as a funeral hearse.”

  Instead of asking for which victim that car had been used as a hearse, Augello simply remained silent and thoughtful. Fazio buried his face in his hands.

  Moments later Montalbano broke the silence.

  “You’re both thinking of the same person, right? The great absent woman, the ghost never seen. The girl from Lanzarote. The missing piece of the mosaic. We even thought that she hadn’t come forward because she was complicit with Di Carlo; but now that we know that Di Carlo was murdered about a week ago, isn’t it reasonable to think she may have met the same end?”

  “Sorry, guys,” said Augello, “but I’m getting sick and tired of all these questions without answers, all these assumptions that then turn out to be wrong. You, Salvo, say you can’t manage to see the whole picture, right? Well, then, just to have a starting point in common, tell us how you see things.”

  “Okay. The three main characters in the overall picture are the so-called kidnapper—”

  “Why do you refer to him as ‘so-called’?” Augello interrupted. “He did carry out those three abductions!”