The Overnight Kidnapper

by Andrea Camilleri

  “That’s true, but the abduction of the three women was not an end in itself; the only purpose of that was to throw us off. So, the three main characters are the so-called kidnapper, who is an intelligent, shrewd man who likes taking risks, Marcello Di Carlo, and the girl from Lanzarote.

  “For reasons unknown to us, the kidnapper was overcome with intense hatred for Di Carlo. During Di Carlo’s vacation, he devises a plan he considers perfect. He puts it into effect the same day that Di Carlo and the girl return from Lanzarote. He steals a car with a spacious trunk and kidnaps his first victim, Enzo’s niece. Then he kidnaps his second, that is, the Smerca girl. But these are dummy abductions, carried out simply to establish the bank lead as a red herring. All clear so far?”

  “All clear,” said Augello.

  “Then he proceeds to kill Di Carlo and his girlfriend, possibly even at the girl’s house. I would bet my family jewels that he didn’t shoot the girl, however, but stabbed her to death. He then takes the keys to Di Carlo’s store from the corpse and sets fire to the place, leaving the guy’s apartment door open upstairs to muddy the waters and make us think it was the Mafia. Make sense to you so far?”

  “Makes sense,” said Augello.

  “Then he takes Di Carlo’s car, puts the two corpses in it, and hides it in a safe place. Then, once Di Carlo’s body’s been wrapped in plastic, he goes and dumps the girl’s body somewhere, in such a way that she looks like the kidnapper’s third victim. Except that something unexpected happens, which is that nobody discovers the dead girl. So he’s forced to commit a substitute kidnapping, by abducting Luigia Jacono. Afterwards, seeing that the girl from Lanzarote’s body still hasn’t been discovered, he gets rid of Di Carlo’s corpse, and that’s the end of that. Have I been clear?”

  “Quite clear,” said Mimì. “There’s just one small detail: Of the three main characters, two have no names or faces.”

  “As far as I’m concerned,” Montalbano retorted, “the so-called kidnapper is starting to look like someone we know.”

  “You mean Bonfiglio?” asked Fazio.

  “Yes.”

  “Wait a second,” Augello cut in. “And what would be the motive, then, for the two murders and three kidnappings? And don’t tell me that Bonfiglio may have lost his head because Di Carlo probably never paid him back the fifty-five thousand euros!”

  “In fact I’m not telling you that.”

  “And so?”

  “A man who does what this kidnapper has done must be possessed by a savage rage to be driven to such acts.”

  “But Bonfiglio and Di Carlo were hand in glove!”

  “Mimì, hatred is the reverse side of love. It takes very little to flip the coin. Didn’t the letter I just read to you tell you that Di Carlo was literally terrified at the idea of having to face his friend? At any rate, let’s end here. We’ve already wasted enough breath. I’m going to Montelusa now, to talk to Pasquano. We’ll meet back up tomorrow morning at nine and try to devise a plan for dealing with Bonfiglio.”

  “Wouldn’t it be better just to phone Pasquano?” asked Augello. “He may not even be in his office . . .”

  “Well, if he’s not there, it’s not the end of the world. But when I’m talking to him face-to-face, I’m better able to domesticate him.”

  * * *

  He pulled the car up in front of the Caffè Castiglione and bought a tray of six cannoli. Pasquano had a worse sweet tooth than a spoiled six-year-old, and the mere sight of the packet would predispose him to cooperate.

  There was no traffic, and so it took very little time to reach the institute.

  “Is the doctor in?”

  “He’s in his office.”

  “Is he in a meeting?”

  “No, he’s alone.”

  He knocked on the door. No answer. He knocked again. Nothing. So he turned the knob and went in.

  “Who told you you could come in?” Pasquano howled from behind his desk, where he was sitting holding a newspaper.

  “I’m sorry, I thought I heard someone say ‘come in.’ All right then, I’ll just leave. Sorry to bother you,” he said, holding the packet of pastries in full view.

  Pasquano saw it at once.

  “Well, since you’re already here . . .” he muttered.

  “Thanks,” said Montalbano, quickly sitting down and putting the packet on his lap.

  Pasquano got worried.

  “If you do that you’ll end up dropping that packet. And cannoli . . . they’re cannoli, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “. . . Cannoli are very fragile. Set them down on the desk.”

  “Well, I bought them for myself, but if you’d like to try one . . .” said Montalbano, holding the packet out to him.

  Without answering, Pasquano snatched the packet, unwrapped it, grabbed a cannolo, and started eating it.

  When he’d finished, he closed his eyes, sighed, and said:

  “Exquisite.”

  Then, reaching towards the tray, he asked:

  “May I?”

  “Go right ahead.”

  Pasquano scarfed down a second cannolo. Then he stood up, held out his hand to the inspector, and said:

  “Thanks for the visit.”

  Montalbano did not get discouraged. He shook the doctor’s hand, grabbed the tray with the four remaining cannoli, and started wrapping it. Halfway through the operation, Pasquano gave in.

  “Did you come to ask me something?”

  The inspector unwrapped the tray again and held it out for the doctor. Pasquano’s hand shot out like the head of a snake and grabbed his third cannolo.

  “Have you worked on this morning’s corpse?”

  “Yeth,” the doctor replied with his mouth full.

  “Care to give me advance notice of anything?”

  Pasquano gestured with his hand for him to wait until he’d finished the cannolo. When he had, he said:

  “Sorry, but my mouth is all dry.”

  He stood up, went over to a closet, opened it with a key he kept in his pocket, pulled out a bottle of Marsala, and, showing it to the inspector, said:

  “Would you like a little?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Pasquano set the bottle and a glass down on the desk, a clear sign that he had designs on the three surviving cannoli.

  “What do you want to know?”

  “How long ago did he die?”

  “Let’s say between six and eight days ago.”

  “How was he killed?”

  “I confirm what I said to you this morning. A gunshot wound at the base of the skull, with the bullet exiting through his throat.”

  “So, if I’m not mistaken, this means that the bullet traveled downwards?”

  “You continue to surprise me, Inspector. Despite your advanced age, your brain still functions sometimes. My compliments.”

  “Listen, is it possible the killer made him kneel before shooting him?”

  “Yes, it’s possible.”

  “So we’re presumably looking at a Mafia execution?”

  “Bah!”

  “You have doubts?”

  “Yes, because it was a small-caliber weapon, not the kind the Mafia normally uses.”

  “But do you have any idea what need the killer might have had to strip him naked?”

  “I don’t think it was the killer. These are very hot days. In my opinion, the victim was surprised in the middle of the night, while sleeping in the nude.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Between the toes on his left foot I found a tiny thread of the fabric they make bedsheets out of.”

  “Did he have any other injuries?”

  “No. There was a Z-shaped scar, however . . .”

  “Yes, I know. Fazio saw it, which is what enabled
us to identify him. Care to know who he is?”

  “I really don’t give a shit.”

  For Pasquano, one corpse was as good as another.

  Silence fell. Moments later, Pasquano spoke:

  “He’d gone to bed without showering first.”

  Montalbano looked at him but said nothing.

  “Which is what allowed me to find the cotton thread. And there were also some hairs stuck to his sweaty body.”

  “Female?”

  “Yes. Long and blond, though there were a few of a strange color as well. At least he didn’t spend his last night alone.”

  13

  He got home sooner than expected that evening. It was still too early to eat. So early, in fact, that he didn’t bother to look in either the oven or the fridge to see what Adelina had made, for fear of falling into temptation.

  He sat down on the veranda and fired up a cigarette. The September evening was soothing and maternal. The moon was so round that it looked like a child’s balloon suspended in air.

  The horizon line was dotted with the quivering lights of the fishermen’s lamps.

  A twinge of melancholy came over him at the thought that, in the past, he would surely have taken a long swim on an evening like this. Now it was out of the question.

  And Livia, too . . . The last time he’d seen her, it had felt like a dagger in his heart. Wrinkles under her eyes, strands of white hair . . . How true were the lines of that poet he loved:

  How heavy the snow weighs on these boughs.

  How heavy the years on beloved brows.

  [ . . . ]

  The years of our youth are a thing of the past.

  He roused himself. He was letting himself sink into self-pity, which is the one true sign of old age. Or was it not perhaps loneliness that was beginning to weigh on him, even more than the snow on the boughs?

  He was better off devoting himself to the case at hand.

  What could have caused Bonfiglio’s friendship with Di Carlo to turn into hatred? The money transfers told us the friendship between the two had remained stable until the end of July, since Bonfiglio kept on lending him money. But the letter sent by Costantino tells us that on the thirty-first of August, at the Rome airport, Di Carlo was terrified by the prospect that his friend had learned the date of his return to Vigàta. What happened between July and August to cause the demise, or near demise, of their friendship?

  Wait a second. The new element in the two men’s relationship could only be the girl from Lanzarote with whom Di Carlo fell in love. Also according to Costantino, the girl already had a relationship with Bonfiglio, and in fact Di Carlo accused her of being the one who informed him when they would be returning. And that’s not all. The girl knew him so well that at the Palermo airport she went and looked to see whether Bonfiglio was waiting for them.

  So perhaps Bonfiglio was telling the truth when he said that Di Carlo didn’t want to tell him the girl’s name. And it was this very behavior that aroused his suspicions.

  And so Bonfiglio begins his own private investigation to find out who the girl is. Apparently he succeeds, and on the thirty-first of August he phones or sends a message to Di Carlo telling him that he will be waiting for the couple at the Palermo airport, throwing them both into a panic.

  And this means that the girl, by going with Di Carlo, had betrayed Bonfiglio, who must have been as much in love with her as Di Carlo was. And if that was really the way it was, it was more than enough reason to turn feelings of friendship into hatred.

  At this point, Montalbano decided he’d earned a reward, so he got up and went into the kitchen. In the fridge he found a platter of cured-meat antipasti, and in the oven a double serving of eggplant Parmesan.

  He couldn’t think of a better end to the day.

  * * *

  The following morning he got to work at a quarter past nine, due to the traffic. He immediately informed Augello and Fazio of what Pasquano had told him, and the conclusion he had drawn the previous evening.

  “I also spent a long time thinking about things last night,” said Augello. “In the current state of affairs, your suspicions about Bonfiglio are all rather well-founded, but we haven’t got a shred of evidence in hand. Any decent lawyer could make the prosecution’s case collapse like a house of cards.”

  “So what do you suggest?”

  “I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just telling you to be careful when you interrogate Bonfiglio. Basically treat him like someone well-informed of the facts, not like the probable killer.”

  “Mimì, I can’t just gloss over his lies.”

  “Okay, but—”

  The office door flew open and crashed against the wall with such a boom that all three of them leapt up in their chairs.

  “Beggin’ yer—” Catarella began.

  But he couldn’t finish his sentence because he was suddenly pushed aside by a young woman barging into the room. It was Michela Racco, Enzo the restaurateur’s niece.

  Clearly upset and fiery red in the face, she said:

  “I saw the man who kidnapped me!”

  Fazio and Augello leapt to their feet.

  “Where?” asked Montalbano.

  “He was in a car that pulled into your parking lot!”

  Mimì and Fazio ran out of the room.

  “I was stopped at a traffic light when another car pulled up beside me. The man at the wheel was him, I’m positive it was, and I very nearly started screaming.”

  Mimì Augello returned.

  “I’m sorry,” he said to the girl, “but you weren’t able to see his face, were you?”

  “No, but the cap, the scarf, the dark glasses . . .”

  “Where is he?” asked Montalbano.

  “In the waiting room,” said Mimì. “He’s the person we’ve been waiting for.”

  “Thank you,” Montalbano said to the girl. “But please don’t tell anyone, not even your family, about this meeting.”

  “But why is Bonfiglio all done up like that?” Montalbano asked Augello.

  “Because he’s got a fever of a hundred and one,” replied Augello.

  “Okay, tell Fazio to bring him in.”

  “Straightaway,” said Mimì. “But please think it over, I beg you. If he’s the killer, does it seem logical to you for him to come to the police station in kidnapper’s garb?”

  “And what if he really is the kidnapper, and he put on his garb, as you call it, just to lead someone like you to make the argument you’ve just made?” Montalbano replied.

  * * *

  Bonfiglio was holding his cap in his hand and had taken his sunglasses off and untied the scarf, so that it was now hanging down on both sides of his chest. But it was clear, from the flushed tone of the skin on his face, that he had a fever.

  Fazio sat down on the little sofa, while Bonfiglio and Mimì took their places in the chairs in front of the desk.

  Montalbano decided to take advantage of Bonfiglio’s momentary weakness and started off by dealing him a heavy blow.

  “I should start by giving you some news that hasn’t leaked out yet. Bad news. Your friend Marcello Di Carlo has been found dead, killed by a gunshot to the base of the skull.”

  Bonfiglio gave a start, closed his eyes, and began swaying in his chair so severely that Augello instinctively reached out with his hand to keep him from falling on the floor.

  “Oh my God,” he said. “Oh my God.”

  He ran his hands over his teary eyes, then wiped them on his trousers. Finally he reopened his eyes, heaved a big sigh, and looked directly at the inspector.

  A flawless performance. Maybe he’s expecting applause, Montalbano thought in admiration.

  “Aren’t you going to ask us who did it?”

  Bonfiglio gave a wave of the hand as if to ward off the question.

&nb
sp; “There would be no point,” he said. “It was clearly the Mafia. I’d told him to pay the racket fee, but he . . .”

  “For your information, I must tell you that a series of circumstances have led us to rule out the Mafia as a possible suspect.”

  “But where was he killed?”

  That question is a point against you, thought Montalbano. You should have asked: If it wasn’t the Mafia, then who was it?

  “Most likely at the home of his girlfriend, while they were sleeping,” he replied.

  But then Bonfiglio asked a question that had the same effect as if he’d exploded a bomb:

  “And what about Silvana?”

  As Fazio and Augello were exchanging bewildered glances, Montalbano suddenly remembered that Luigia Jacono had also mentioned that name to him.

  If he answered the question, then the person calling the shots would be Bonfiglio, who had very shrewdly played the right card at the right moment.

  This had to be avoided.

  “Now that you mention Silvana,” he said, “when did you find out that Di Carlo had fallen in love with your girlfriend, who apparently was equally in love with him?”

  Bonfiglio didn’t seem the least bit surprised.

  “Silvana left for Tenerife in early July, and we spoke over the phone every day during the months of both July and August. But then—”

  “Excuse me for interrupting, but why didn’t you yourself go on vacation with your girlfriend?”

  “Because my sister is sick. I didn’t want to leave Sicily.”

  “Please continue.”

  “When Marcello first told me he’d fallen in love with a girl whose name he didn’t want to reveal, I didn’t suspect anything. Also because Silvana hid it very well and didn’t show any change whatsoever in her relationship with me. Actually, if anything, she became more . . . more loving, that’s the word. It was after she phoned me once from Lanzarote that the whole thing suddenly dawned on me. The strange coincidence of them both deciding to vacation in the Canary Islands . . . And then I got my confirmation.”

  “How?”