The Overnight Kidnapper

by Andrea Camilleri

  “Your observations are correct if he lost the letter on the thirty-first of August, when Di Carlo and Silvana were on the plane to Rome. But if he lost the letter on the night he went to her house with the jerry can, or when he went to kill them, then there’s no way he can go back to look for it without running a huge risk.”

  “That may be so, but such a gross mistake on Bonfiglio’s part doesn’t seem possible to me.”

  “And yet he made it.”

  Fazio came in.

  “Chief, I remembered I had a friend at the provincial tax office, so I called him up. It turns out Bonfiglio doesn’t own any other properties than the apartment he lives in.”

  “Why did you want to know?” asked Augello.

  “I think he would have needed some place for wrapping up the corpse . . .”

  Mimì started laughing.

  “Oh, right! Just go for a drive in the country and you’ll find dozens of abandoned farmhouses in ruins where you could perform an autopsy on a corpse without any bother!”

  This was true. The telephone rang.

  “Ahh, Chief, ’ere’s a jinnelman onna line ’ooz name I din’t get but ’e says ’e was rescued an’ ’a’ss why ’e wants a talk t’yiz poissonally in poisson.”

  “Rescued from what?”

  “I dunno, Chief.”

  The inspector didn’t want to waste any time.

  “Hello, Inspector Montalbano? Rescudo’s the name, Michele Rescudo.”

  “Just a moment, please.”

  Covering the receiver with his hand, he asked Fazio:

  “Do you know anyone named Michele Rescudo?”

  “Yeah, I do. He works at city hall. I think he manages the Piano Leone dump.”

  The inspector turned on the speakerphone.

  “What can I do for you, sir?”

  “Inspector, I’m the person in charge of—”

  “Yes, I know. Has something happened?”

  “What’s happened is, a few minutes ago, as the loader was moving some stuff here at the dump, a big package broke and a corpse fell out of it.”

  “Male or female?”

  “The body is in a pretty bad state, Inspector, and it’s anybody’s guess when it was brought here. Half of it’s still inside the sack. But to judge from the hair, I’d say it’s female.”

  Without being able to say why, Montalbano was immediately and utterly certain that they’d located Silvana’s body.

  “We’ll be right there.”

  “Unless you absolutely need me,” said Augello, “I’d rather not go. Every time I go anywhere near Piano Leone, I feel like throwing up.”

  “Okay.”

  “Wait just one minute,” said Fazio.

  He went out and came back moments later wearing a pair of big fisherman’s boots made of green rubber and holding a similar pair in his hand, which he held out for the inspector.

  “Put these on,” he said, “and be sure to tuck your trousers inside, like I’ve done.”

  * * *

  The Piano Leone dump, which was located right at the border of Vigàta municipal territory with Montereale’s, served five different towns, and before becoming a huge waste disposal site had been a desolate chiarchiaro—that is, a barren, rocky expanse of scrubby sorghum bushes and prickly pears, completely unsuitable for farming and abandoned by all fauna except snakes and lizards.

  Now, however, to make up for this, it was overpopulated with animals, including rats as big as cats, packs of wild, starving dogs, and many hundreds of seagulls who had sold their proud seafaring dignity to become miserable scroungers.

  Before one could even see it, the dump announced its presence by its smell.

  “Shut your window,” said Fazio, who was driving.

  Montalbano obeyed and then put on the small white face mask Fazio had handed to him.

  When I get old and need assistance, thought Montalbano, I’ll take on Fazio as my in-home nurse.

  Rescudo, a fiftyish man with a mustache, was waiting for them at the main entrance to the dump.

  “The body’s not in this area. If you let me in the car, I’ll take you there.”

  They drove along one edge of the dump for nearly a kilometer, and at a certain point, Rescudo said:

  “Stop here.”

  They got out. It was like being on the high bank of a lake made not of water but of smoky, muddy sludge.

  Indeed here and there one could see dense black smoke rising from a gray sea of mostly gutted garbage bags, out of which poured every kind of refuse imaginable, befouling the air and looking pestiferous to the touch.

  “I know you’re not gonna like it, but we’re gonna have to go down there,” said Rescudo. “Just follow me.”

  A short distance ahead there was a sort of path carved out between two mounds of garbage. They went down the path in single file. Montalbano was terrified he might slip and end up with his head buried in filth.

  At last they came to a clear area with a power shovel stopped almost right in the middle of a great mound of garbage bags. A man in overalls came up to them.

  “This is Vanni. He operates the shovel,” said Rescudo, introducing him.

  “How did you notice?” Montalbano asked Vanni.

  “I’d scooped up a shovelful,” said Vanni, “when a bag broke in midair and I saw first a big mass of blond hair and then a bust fall out. So I lowered the shovel in such a way that the sack with the body would remain on top.”

  “Let’s go and have a look,” said the inspector.

  “Do you want to go look from up close or from the driver’s seat?” asked Vanni.

  “From up close.”

  “Then wait just a few minutes.”

  Vanni went over to the shovel, turned it on, and began very slowly to back up. Finally the machine emerged from the mound of garbage. Montalbano and Fazio began to approach, with Rescudo following behind them. The inspector immediately noticed a streak of purple hair amid the mass of blond, and no longer had any doubts.

  Despite the advanced state of decomposition, the face still bore very visible signs of having been beaten severely.

  It was hard to tell what she had looked like before. The face was so swollen that it seemed as if the killer had wanted to erase her very features. The same for her breasts and chest, which had been reduced to a formless mass of flesh.

  Good thing the rest of the body was still inside the bag, because that would have been a hard sight to bear.

  Fazio took several steps away, turned his back to the others, and vomited.

  Then he came back beside the inspector.

  “Shall I inform everybody?”

  “Yes, but you should tell Forensics they’d better bring along a generator, because pretty soon you won’t be able to see anything here.”

  Fazio started making his phone calls. Rescudo dismissed Vanni and lit up a cigar.

  Montalbano likewise felt like smoking, but was afraid to remove his face mask. He looked over at Rescudo with a twinge of envy. Rescudo must have been an intelligent man, because he understood at once.

  “Everyone gets used to it after a while, Inspector. Used to life and death, to stink and shit . . .”

  The inspector could have sent for Gallo to pick him up, since there was no need for him to hang around when the circus arrived. Fazio would largely suffice. But it didn’t seem right to leave; it would have been like one final insult to the poor woman, who, even if one admitted she had acted improperly, in no way deserved to die such a horrible death or to suffer such terrible disfigurement after her death.

  But how, come to think of it, had she acted improperly?

  What had she done wrong, really?

  Deceived Bonfiglio?

  So what?

  She’d done nothing more than act according to the dictates
of nature. Bonfiglio was almost thirty years older than her, whereas Di Carlo was almost the same age. With the little love messages she was sending Bonfiglio from Lanzarote, Silvana wasn’t so much trying to deceive him as trying to buy time, to prevent him from becoming suspicious before they got back and Di Carlo had found the best way to lay everything out on the table and let him know that they had fallen in love and wanted to get married.

  But things had gone wrong, and Bonfiglio, in a fit of rage, had gone to the airport to . . .

  Wait. There was something here that didn’t make sense.

  In a fit of rage?

  Are we so sure about that?

  Bonfiglio spoke of a double betrayal. Of friendship and of love. But then, logically speaking, at the airport he should have had it out with both Marcello, a traitor in friendship, and Silvana, a traitor in love. Instead, he attacked Marcello and didn’t say even a word to Silvana, who, according to his account, stood aside and cried.

  No, that was no natural way to act. The scene recounted by Bonfiglio didn’t make any sense.

  So what was the explanation?

  There was one plausible explanation. Bonfiglio had consciously forced himself to act that way and kept up the charade in his angry tirade against Di Carlo: never once addressing Silvana, ignoring her completely, as if she wasn’t there, because if he’d had even the slightest contact with her, even just verbal contact, he might be unable to restrain himself and his hatred would have burst forth in a rage as unstoppable as a volcano.

  He might even have gone so far as to kill her right then and there, before everyone’s eyes, at the airport.

  Something scurried fast between Montalbano’s feet, interrupting his train of thought. He leapt in the air. Rescudo smiled.

  “That was a rat,” he said. “Now that the sun’s gone down, they’re starting to come out. If we stay here, they’ll eat us alive. You two’d better get back in your car.”

  And just leave that poor body there to be torn apart? How much more would it be made to suffer, even after death?

  “But the rats might . . .”

  “Oh, don’t worry about the body, sir, I’ll still be here. I’m gonna start up the shovel again now, so the noise keeps them away.”

  Climbing back up to the edge was like resurfacing from a Dantean circle of Hell.

  They slipped back into the car with the windows closed tight. Little by little the last light of day faded. The inspector remembered an old comedy by an Italian writer according to whom the next Great Flood would be created not by rain from the heavens but when all the toilets and sewers of the world started spewing out all the muck that had been thrown into them over the centuries, and that was how mankind would end, drowned in its own excrement. At the time it had seemed to him a work of the imagination, but now he was starting to have his doubts.

  * * *

  By the time he got back to the station it was past ten o’clock.

  Pasquano had deigned only to say that the time of death went back at least a week, and even he, in the face of that mangled body, had felt the need to restrain himself and didn’t utter a single obscenity.

  There hadn’t been anything for Forensics to do except to take the garbage bag away with them. It was just a formality, since they were sure to find more fingerprints than they would know what to do with.

  Prosecutor Platania, on the other hand, informed Montalbano that Bonfiglio had been issued his notification, chosen a lawyer by the name of Laspina, and agreed to be interrogated the following morning at nine-thirty in his own home, since he was still running a bit of a fever.

  “Do I need to be there?” asked Montalbano.

  “Of course. Actually, it would be best if you yourself carried out the bulk of the interrogation, since you’ve already been talking to him. This time, however, we’re going to write it all down.”

  “And what about the search warrants?”

  “I’ve given up on that. Your arguments convinced me it would just be a waste of time.”

  “It might not be a bad idea to keep the news that we’ve found the body from going public,” said Montalbano. “At least until after we’ve interrogated Bonfiglio.”

  “I agree.”

  * * *

  He didn’t make it home till after eleven. He wasn’t in any condition to eat anything; if he put anything in his mouth he was sure to throw it back up.

  What he felt, on the other hand, was a tremendous need to wash himself thoroughly. After taking a shower, he went and sat out on the veranda, with whisky and cigarettes within reach.

  He wanted to devote some thought to interrogating Bonfiglio, which he would have to do the following day. There wasn’t any doubt that the man’s malaise in Silvana’s house was genuine. After venting his hatred as he’d done, emptying himself out entirely, he couldn’t tolerate going back to the place where he’d killed two people. There, that was a possible starting point: Take Bonfiglio back to his nervous tension of that morning, when he’d refused to go into the bedroom. And for this reason, use the same approach as in the prior interrogation, when he’d started things off by informing Bonfiglio that they’d found Di Carlo’s corpse. This time, however, it was about Silvana, his last great love, and therefore his reaction would be completely different. Bonfiglio had pretended to cry over Marcello, but over Silvana he would cry in earnest, especially if Montalbano was able to describe to him the condition to which the girl’s body had been reduced.

  The phone rang. He went and answered, thinking it was Livia. Instead, he was greeted by the voice of Guttadauro the lawyer and Mafia adviser, who was always very ceremonious in his dealings with the inspector.

  “My good Inspector, it’s been so long since I last had the pleasure of hearing your voice that I couldn’t resist calling you, despite the late hour. How are you, my good man?”

  “I’m fine, thanks. And yourself?”

  “I can’t complain. I imagine you’re rather busy these days with the case of that businessman Di Carlo’s murder . . . They said on TV that the body had been found, correct?”

  “Yes, that’s correct. He was killed by a single gunshot at the base of the skull.”

  “So that would mean a Mafia-style execution?”

  “That’s what they want us to think.”

  “I see. But you, sharp as a knife as always, weren’t fooled by appearances.”

  “No, I didn’t fall for it.”

  “We didn’t think you would. Never be fooled by appearances! A good rule to live by.”

  That royal “we” was supposed to mean that he wasn’t speaking for himself alone. Montalbano decided the conversation had gone on for too long.

  “Well, sir, now that you’ve had the pleasure of hearing my voice . . .”

  “Forgive me, good sir, I won’t keep you any longer. Have a good night.”

  “And a good night to you, too.”

  So, through the lawyer’s mouth, the Mafia had wanted him to know that they had nothing to do with Di Carlo’s death. Montalbano, however, had known this from the start.

  But why had Guttadauro so emphasized appearances? What was he trying to tell him?

  16

  The following morning Platania came to the station at nine o’clock sharp with a man dressed all in black and wearing thick-lensed glasses, whose name was Garofalo. He was supposed to record the minutes of the interrogation.

  The inspector asked the prosecutor if it was all right to have Fazio come along, too. He wouldn’t be present for the interrogation but would remain available nearby.

  “Why, do you fear some kind of violent reaction on Bonfiglio’s part?”

  “Not at all. But he might be useful to us.”

  Platania had no objection to bringing Fazio along.

  Since they had no other plans to work out, they got in their cars and drove off.

  At nu
mber 6, Via Ragusa—a rather central street in town—stood an old four-story building that had been entirely renovated a few years earlier.

  There was no doorman or elevator.

  “Bonfiglio lives on the second floor,” said Fazio.

  They began climbing the stairs. There were two apartments on each floor. Fazio rang the doorbell to Bonfiglio’s flat, and the door was opened by a reed-thin, sandy-haired man of about fifty, elegantly dressed.

  “Please come in,” said the man.

  In the entrance hall he introduced himself as Emilio Laspina, Bonfiglio’s lawyer. Montalbano had heard good things about him.

  “My client is still running a high fever, but he didn’t want to postpone the meeting. I hope you will take his cooperation into proper consideration in this affair. Please follow me.”

  The apartment had very large rooms, tall, airy windows, high ceilings, and a broad corridor. It was a structure from bygone days, when space wasn’t measured in centimeters and walls were solid and thick. The living room was tastefully furnished.

  Bonfiglio’s condition had clearly taken a turn for the worse, and one could say the same for his nervous system as well.

  He greeted everyone with a nod of the head, but didn’t open his mouth. His chin was trembling.

  “Where shall we sit?” asked Laspina.

  “You and your client,” replied Platania, “can sit on the sofa; Inspector Montalbano and I will sit on those two armchairs beside it; and Garofalo can sit on that chair there and use the little table beside it.”

  “Before starting,” Montalbano intervened, “it might be a good idea for Signor Bonfiglio to turn over to us the gun he told us he owned during one of our prior meetings.”

  “We anticipated such a request,” said the lawyer. “And my client turned it over to me. You can find it in that case on the table. As far as I can tell, it has never fired a shot.”

  “We’ll leave it to the forensics lab to establish whether or not that’s the case. Fazio, you take custody of the gun and wait for us in the entrance hall,” said Montalbano.