“All right, come on.”
And he trudged down the corridor to his office, cursing, with Montalbano following behind. They went in.
The doctor sat down behind his desk and started reading a memo. The inspector was about to sit down when Pasquano stopped him.
“No, please remain standing. That way we’ll get it over with quickly and you’ll get the hell out of here faster. What do you want?”
“You know perfectly well what I want.”
“Then I’ll be telegraphic about it. Death dates from quite a few days ago, how long I can’t really say. I think she was killed at the same time as the guy wrapped in cellophane. The girl was in a worse state than if she’d been run over by a truck. She didn’t have a single internal organ still intact. The killer apparently lost all control and kept raging ferociously against the corpse long after death.”
The inspector already knew these things, and therefore asked about what interested him most.
“Did you find anything that might be of help to me?”
“But wasn’t it you who first identified her?”
“Yes, but every—”
“Didn’t you see what kind of state the body was in? Total decomposition! A bit like you, my dear friend, with the sole difference that you, we don’t know how, manage to pretend you’re still alive.”
Montalbano decided not to acknowledge the provocation, but rather to stroke the doctor’s fur.
“But you, with your sharp eye and all your experience, I’m sure you must have discovered something which—”
Pasquano fell for it headfirst.
“Well, I can tell you one thing I won’t put in writing because I’m not one hundred percent sure of it. Actually, no, let’s cut the Gordian knot and be done with it: I just won’t tell you, and that way I won’t have to worry about it.”
The inspector did not get discouraged. He knew well what Pasquano’s weak point was. So he said distractedly:
“You know, as I was passing by the Caffè Castiglione this morning, I noticed they had something new . . .”
Hearing mention of the Castiglione, which greatly appealed to his tastes, Pasquano couldn’t refrain from asking:
“Something new?”
“They were preparing their sweets for the second of November a bit in advance. I saw mostazzoli, apple-branches, deadbones, marzipan fruits . . .”
Licking his lips like a little boy, the doctor looked him in the eye and said:
“I think—think, mind you, I’m not sure—I think I found some signs of synechia from a number of years ago.”
Montalbano had no idea what he was talking about.
“What’s synechia?”
“In this case, it would be adhesions of tissue inside the uterus after some poorly executed scraping, preventing the woman from ever being able to conceive again.”
“Let me get this straight: Are you telling me the woman had an illegal, clandestine abortion?”
“So it would seem.”
“But abortion has been legal in Italy for thirty-five years! Why didn’t she just go to a clinic?”
“The answer to your question is simple. She didn’t want anyone to know she was pregnant. And that brings our lovely little encounter to a close. I am hoping you are a man of your word.”
“Have no fear. Tomorrow morning you’ll be receiving a sampler tray.”
* * *
While driving back to Vigàta, Montalbano came to the bitter conclusion that up to this point there was a big hole in the investigation: Silvana.
What did they know about her?
Almost nothing.
Of her thirty-six years of life, they barely knew a bit of what she’d done for her final six months. They knew, quite simply, that in this period she’d had two love affairs, with two men.
But what about before that?
How many men had she had, say, from the age of eighteen onwards? And, of these, which of them had she been in love with?
And which was the one who had gotten her pregnant?
And why had Silvana felt the need to have an abortion? The explanation for doing it clandestinely was obvious: Virduzzo must never, under any condition, know about it.
So how were they going to find out more about Silvana?
There was no point asking Virduzzo. Silvana would surely have kept her most important affairs, and the most significant events in her life, secret from him.
And so?
He got a good idea just as he was pulling up at the station. As soon as he got inside he rang the Free Channel and asked for Zito.
“I’ve got some important news for you, Nicolò. We’ve found the body of Silvana Romano, Marcello Di Carlo’s girlfriend.”
“Was it also all wrapped up?”
“No, but it was put in a big garbage bag and thrown into the Piano Leone dump.”
“So I’m supposed to give this news and nothing else?”
“No, you must also say that we need as much information as we can get on her, and therefore anyone who knew her well should contact me. Then you have to tell a big fat lie, which is that there’s a witness who claims to have seen the killer’s face as he was throwing the bag with the body into the dump. In fact, he got such a good look at it that we’ve been able to put together an artist’s reconstruction, which we will make public at the proper time.”
* * *
Montalbano wanted to watch the Free Channel’s eight o’clock news edition at the station, together with Augello and Fazio.
Nicolò Zito diligently did everything the inspector had asked him to do.
“You have to admit,” Augello commented, “that looking for people who knew Silvana is a little absurd.”
“Why?”
“You act as if she’s an unknown person. Whereas all you have to do is call Virduzzo into the station to know everything there is to know about her. And he, moreover, is the one who should officially identify the body.”
“I haven’t called Virduzzo in for two reasons. The first is that I think there are a lot of things about Silvana that he doesn’t know. The second is that Virduzzo has been acting in a totally illogical way, to say the least. First he says he wants to talk to me, then he disappears. I don’t want to give him any rope. But I’m certain that now that it’s been broadcast that we found Silvana’s body, he’ll get back in touch with us.”
Montalbano then told the two about Pasquano’s discovery of Silvana’s botched abortion, and as he was just finishing up, Augello’s phone rang. Mimì listened for a moment, then passed the receiver to the inspector.
“It’s Catarella,” he said. “There’s a call for you.”
“Ahh, Chief, ’ere’s a jinnelman onna line ’at wants a talk t’yiz an’ ’is name is Paccanìa . . .”
Must be Platania.
“I’m sorry, Montalbano, but what’s this business about an artist’s reconstruction? And why wasn’t I . . .”
Montalbano explained that none of it was true and that it was a trap he’d set, hoping it might prove useful. Then he hung up.
“As I was saying . . .” he began.
The phone rang again. Augello listened and then said:
“It’s Catarella again—another call for you.”
“Ahh, Chief, Chief! Ahh, Chief! ’E’s mad as a ratty-snake!”
This was the classic Catarellian litany for whenever Hizzoner the C’mishner was at the other end of the line.
“Put ’im on.”
“Montalbano! Have you lost your mind? What’s this about this artist’s reconstruction nobody knows about?”
The inspector repeated the explanation he’d given to Platania, hung up, and opened his mouth to resume speaking, when the telephone rang again.
“Man, what a pain in the ass!” said Augello, reaching for the phone.
“Catarella again, for you again.”
“Ahh, Chief, ’ere’d a happen a be a lady onna line an’ she—”
“Put ’er on.”
“Hello, Inspector Montalbano? My name is Rita Cutaja.”
She had the tremulous voice of a woman of a certain age who was trying to refrain from crying.
“What can I do for you, signora?”
“I just now saw on TV that Silvana was . . .”
Montalbano turned the speakerphone on.
The woman could no longer hold back and was now crying openly and having trouble speaking.
“I was . . . her coworker . . . we were friends . . . I’ve been trying for days to call her on the phone . . . Nobody seems to know anything . . . If you need information, I’m available . . .”
“Signora, if you don’t feel up to coming to the station, I can come to you, even right away. As long as it’s no bother to you. If you would give me your address . . .”
“Yes, all right . . . Corso Regione Siciliana, 149.”
The inspector ended the call.
“You guys wanna come with me?”
“I do,” said Fazio.
“I’ll stay here in case any more phone calls come in, especially Virduzzo,” said Augello.
“It’s too bad you weren’t able to hear Bonfiglio’s interrogation,” Montalbano said to Fazio as they were getting into the car. “I would have liked to know your opinion.”
Fazio smiled.
“Actually I heard everything, Chief. As soon as the interrogation began, I went from the entrance and to the end of the hall and, since the living room door was open, I was able to hear the whole thing.”
“So what do you think?”
“What can I say, Chief? I don’t feel I could bet the house on him being the killer. He defended himself damn well, that much is clear, but . . .”
“But?”
“I had the distinct impression that, at a certain point—and only at that point—he was hiding something.”
“Explain.”
“It was when he changed the subject.”
How does the human brain work? Montalbano wondered some time later, when thinking back on that moment.
It was when he changed the subject.
It suddenly came back to him that, at the most delicate moment of the interrogation, Bonfiglio had started to say something but then stopped, and when he resumed speaking he said something else.
And he, the inspector, hadn’t noticed because he was concentrating so hard on the follow-up question.
“What did you say?” Platania asks, after not grasping what Bonfiglio has just muttered.
But the question is answered by the lawyer Laspina:
“He said, ‘I’m so sorry.’”
Platania doesn’t let up:
“What are you sorry about? Tell us!”
Finally Bonfiglio begins to speak:
“I’m sorry I made . . .”
But then he trails off, and when he resumes moments later, he changes what he had started to say.
“I’m sorry I wished for all those terrible things to happen to her,” he says.
So Fazio was right!
There’s a huge difference between saying “I made” and “I wished” . . . Was Bonfiglio about to say he was sorry for something he’d done that had led to the girl’s murder? And, if so, what could he have done?
And why had he stopped just in the nick of time, instead of finishing his sentence? Was he afraid of being charged as an accomplice?
And how might he have been about to finish his sentence? I’m sorry I made such a terrible mistake? What terrible mistake?
“We’re here,” said Fazio.
“Huh?” muttered Montalbano, still lost in thought.
“We’re at the home of that lady who called us.”
I’m sorry I made that phone call?
And if it wasn’t a phone call, what exactly had Bonfiglio made?
And what might he have said in that phone call that was awful enough to make him sorry afterwards?
“Chief, maybe you should get out, so I can maneuver better into the parking space.”
* * *
Rita Cutaja was a woman of sixty-five who could have served as the typical female specimen of clerk who has spent a whole lifetime between files and dusty papers in offices with insufficient lighting and even less space.
Tidy in dress, tidy in personal appearance, tidy in her movements, she lived in a small, tidy apartment.
As she spoke, her eyes often filled with tears, which she wiped away with a small lace handkerchief. Before Montalbano could get to the matter at hand, she asked a question of her own:
“Have you already spoken to Signor Virduzzo?”
“No, not yet.”
“Perhaps it would be best if you first—”
“Please let us decide that, signora.”
“All right.”
“When did you first meet Silvana?”
“When Signor Virduzzo brought her into the office and introduced her as a new employee.”
“How old was she?”
“She was twenty-three and just out of college.”
“When he brought her to the office, she had already been living with him for eight years. Did he never make any mention of her over all those years?”
“Never.”
“So he never told you she was a distant relative who’d been orphaned at a young age and more or less adopted by him?”
“No.”
“So how did you find this out?”
“Silvana told us herself.”
“But how is that possible?”
“Apparently you don’t know Virduzzo . . . He’s never rude, mind you, but he’s very closed and solitary, a man of few words. In all the years I’ve worked with him I only once saw him get really angry. In general he seems to have no feelings at all. A barren heart, you could say. He never married. Ever since his parents died, he’s had a housekeeper to look after him, a woman who’s now over eighty.”
“But he did grow fond of Silvana.”
“There’s no denying that. But always in his strange way. She, poor thing, felt stifled by him.”
“Can you explain a little better?”
“After she’d been at the office for a while, Silvana started confiding in me. I guess she saw me as a kind of surrogate mother . . . She used to tell me things she would never have told anyone else . . . That’s why I’m in a position to answer your questions. Virduzzo saw her as a daughter, yes, but he himself acted more like her boss or her owner than like a father or a stepfather. Silvana was something that belonged to him, and he was very jealously protective of her. For example, when she had to go to Palermo to take an exam at the university, he would drive her there himself, or have the housekeeper take her. He was so terribly possessive of her that at some point Silvana rebelled.”
“How?”
“Well . . . at first she gained some autonomy by talking Virduzzo into buying her a house, where—”
“It wasn’t a rental?”
“No. I’m not sure why Silvana told everybody that, but it wasn’t true . . . Then, almost for sport, or as a challenge, she started doing things right under his nose . . . It was very risky because he had the key to the place . . . But she always managed to get away with it, and would laugh about it with me.”
“Did she have many boyfriends?”
“Well . . . yes.”
“I have to ask you a delicate question. The autopsy revealed that Silvana had undergone an abortion that—”
“—That unfortunately left her sterile. I know everything.”
“When did that happen?”
“Seven y
ears ago. That time she didn’t tell me anything until it was all over . . . It was the man who got her pregnant, whose name she didn’t want to reveal, who organized the clandestine abortion . . .”
“But it seems to me rather unlikely that Virduzzo wouldn’t—”
“Luckily Virduzzo had to go to Rome during that period, so there was no way for him to suspect anything . . . But, at any rate, Silvana’s relationship with him changed just the same, afterwards . . .”
“How so?”
“She started to hate him.”
“That seems a little excessive to me. Do you mean she detested him?”
“No, I know what I’m talking about. She hated him. She became obsessed with the idea that everything that had happened to her, including her barrenness, was his fault, for always having forced her to lie and hide things from him . . . He couldn’t help but notice the change in her, and became embittered . . .”
“And how did that manifest?”
“He began to ignore her, and humiliated her by assigning the clients she had previously handled to others . . .”
“And how did Silvana take this?”
“She never said this to me, but I’m certain she hooked up with one of the office’s clients, an older man by the name of Bonfiglio, only because she hoped Virduzzo would get wind of her affair and suffer because of it.”
“Did she ever talk to you about Marcello Di Carlo?”
“Of course. It was Bonfiglio who introduced her to him. They fell in love and were very good at keeping it a secret from everyone. But, poor Silvana . . . She was caught between a rock and a hard place . . . Know what I mean? Virduzzo on the one hand and Bonfiglio on the other . . . And so she figured out a way to spend a good month in peace and quiet with her true love . . .”
“Was it Silvana who organized the vacation in Tenerife?”
“Yes, she got the money from Virduzzo, hinting to him that there was an older man she wanted to get away from . . . In short, Virduzzo was quite happy to pay for her vacation, since he had no idea that Di Carlo would be joining her.”
“So Virduzzo knew about Silvana’s relationship with Bonfiglio?”
“I’m pretty sure he did.”
The Overnight Kidnapper Page 19
