Montalbano's First Case

by Andrea Camilleri

“I dunno. It’s up to you.”

  He wasn’t absolutely sure Rosanna was going to be as cooperative with him as she had been with Fazio. But now, since Cusumano’s name had come up, things were different, and Montalbano couldn’t afford to make any mistakes. He left the station, went to a store, bought a summer dress, had it wrapped, went back to the station, and opened the holding room.

  “Good morning.”

  “Good morning.”

  She finally answered; she must have left her stubborn silence behind. That was a good sign! The inspector thought she was beautiful. Her eyes were lively and her lips were fire red without any need for lipstick. Montalbano threw the package on the mattress.

  “It’s for you.”

  She tried to untie the ribbon, but couldn’t, so she cut it with a single bite of her sharp white teeth, almost those of a wild animal.

  She unwrapped the package and saw the dress. Her movements, nervous at first, became slow. She picked up the dress, got up, and held it close to her body. The inspector felt proud of himself: He had accurately guessed her size.

  “Do you want to try it on? I’ll wait outside.”

  He had never met a woman who could resist trying on something she’d just been given, whether it was a pair of earrings or underwear.

  “Yes.”

  “When he came back in, she was standing in the middle of the room smoothing the dress over her hips. As she saw him, she immediately ran toward him and gave him a big hug.

  “She’s just like a little girl,” the inspector thought for a moment.

  Just for a moment, though, because he felt her hips pushing, touching, turning slightly as her grip around his neck grew stronger and her cheek touched his own.

  “And this isn’t something a little girl would do,” Montalbano admitted, as he reluctantly freed himself from her embrace.

  He had begun to see that their brief physical contact had been enough—it was more eloquent than a thousand words. She went back to sit on the mattress, and she leaned forward slightly, checking the hem of the skirt.

  “I have to ask you a few questions.”

  “Ask them.”

  “When was it that Cusumano … what do you call him?”

  “Pino.”

  “When was it that Pino told you to kill Rosato?”

  “He wrote me two weeks before he got out of jail.”

  “Did you ever go there to visit him?”

  “Only once. I couldn’t go earlier, because they wouldn’t let me through—I was still underage. But Pino would send me notes.”

  “But you don’t know how to read!”

  “That’s true. But the person who brought me the notes read them to me.”

  “What was the name of the person who brought them to you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where are these notes now?”

  “Pino wanted me to burn them. And so I burned them.”

  “When did he give you the revolver?”

  “He sent it to me through the same person who brought me the notes.”

  “After Pino got out of jail, did you guys meet?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because first I had to kill the judge.”

  “Sorry to tell you this, but if you had killed the judge, you would have never seen Pino again.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Because they would have arrested you. And do you know how many years you get for murder?”

  She laughed, from her throat, throwing her head back.

  “They wouldn’t have arrested me. There were going to be two of Pino’s men ready to take me away from the courthouse as soon as I shot him.”

  “You mean that, as you were shooting, two of Cusumano’s men would have created a diversion that allowed you to escape?”

  “Yes, something like that.”

  “Do you know what they had planned?”

  Rosanna hesitated for a moment.

  “They would have set off a bomb.”

  Not bad, a bomb exploding in a crowd as a diversion.

  “And you didn’t know who his men were?”

  “No.”

  Montalbano stopped to think for a moment.

  “What happened? Did you get stuck?” the girl asked.

  She had started to enjoy answering his questions.

  “No,” the inspector said. “I didn’t get stuck. I was just thinking. Let’s assume everything you’ve told Fazio and me is true …”

  She suddenly jumped to her feet, her hands clenched in fists along her sides.

  “It’s true! It’s all true!”

  “Calm down. I wanted to ask you why you decided to tell us everything. Why did you decide to implicate your lover in this matter?”

  “Because he didn’t keep his word.”

  “Explain yourself.”

  “He told me that if the cops arrested me before I shot the judge, they wouldn’t keep me in jail, not even a day—they would let me go immediately. Instead …”

  “And instead he forgot all about you.”

  She didn’t answer; her eyes turned pitch black.

  “He’s too busy,” Montalbano said.

  She focused the black flame of her eyes on the inspector’s.

  “He’s too busy enjoying his brand-new wife, whom he hasn’t seen for the past three years,” Montalbano speculated.

  Rosanna was clenching her fists so tightly they had turned white.

  “And he got rid of you with his bullshit about killing Judge Rosato.”

  By now the girl had reached her breaking point. Another word and something was definitely going to happen.

  “And the proof that he wanted to fool you is in the fact that he gave you a revolver that doesn’t shoot. He gave you a broken one.”

  He saw her let out a long breath, actually he heard her do so, for as she exhaled, the air made a strange noise, the exact same one people make when punched in the stomach. She didn’t know the revolver wasn’t going to work. And the thing that had to happen, happened, but it wasn’t what the inspector had in mind. Rosanna got up, leaned forward, grabbed the hem of her skirt, took off the dress, pulling it over head, and threw it at Montalbano’s feet, standing there, beautiful, a blade of light, in her underwear and bra.

  “You can have your dress back. I don’t want anything from you.”

  And then she started to walk toward him. Montalbano literally ran out the door and locked it behind him. Once, at the circus, he saw a tamer do the same thing to a tiger that had rebelled.

  Just before noon, Fazio came back.

  “Sir, I know it for a fact. Giuseppe Cusumano is out of town. He’s coming back late tonight or early tomorrow morning. Rest assured, sooner or later I’ll get my hands on him and bring him here to you.”

  “I don’t doubt it. I need you to check on something, but not through the official channels. Otherwise it’ll take at least a month.”

  “Anything I can do.”

  “I need you to find out if something the girl told me is true. She said that a week before Cusumano was released, she went to visit him in Montelusa.”

  “Sir, if she went, they’ll have a record of it. Let me make a phone call.”

  Not even ten minutes later he was back in front of the inspector.

  “They’ll let me know in an hour.”

  “Listen, do we have a TV set?”

  “Here at the station? No. But the café next door has one. If you want, we can ask them to turn it on.”

  “Let’s go get a coffee then.”

  The café was completely empty. Fazio, who was a regular, like all the other men who worked at the station, asked the barista to turn on the TV and switch it to Retelibera. The news was already on.

  The usual things: two bank robberies in the county, a country home burned to the ground, an unidentified corpse at the bottom of a well. Then they interviewed a high-ranking official who managed to speak for ten minutes without saying anything in pa
rticular. Then they showed Rosanna Monaco’s face and Fazio, who didn’t know anything about it, almost dropped his coffee cup. Nicolò Zito’s voiceover diligently repeated what the inspector had told him: that anyone who had employed the girl as a housemaid over the previous four years was invited to … et cetera.

  “That was a good idea,” Fazio said. “Do you think any of them will come forward?”

  “I’m certain of it. Those who don’t have anything to hide will call. To show us how much they respect the law. And those whose coal is wet will pretend they didn’t receive our invitation. But we should be able to find out who they are anyway, even if they don’t show up.”

  Before going to lunch, he gave his instructions to the dispatcher: if someone called about the girl, he was supposed to invite them down to the station after four in the afternoon. If a caller couldn’t make it, he or she should leave a phone number.

  With the taste of the sea still in his mouth—the mullets were a miracle of freshness—he took a long walk on the pier, all the way up to the lighthouse.

  He had the nagging sensation he was getting everything wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on the mistake. Maybe the mistake was in the way he was conducting the investigation: he felt like those who float on the seawater and feel a slight current moving them off course. And so, he decided to let himself drift away.

  When he set foot in the station, Fazio wasn’t there. The dispatcher, however, informed him they had received five calls regarding Rosanna Monaco. Out of the five, four were coming to the station beginning at four and at half-hour intervals thereafter. But the fifth, Mr. Francesco Trupiano, was indisposed with the flu, and thus didn’t feel up to leaving his house; the inspector, if he wanted, was more than welcome to stop by at any time. Since there was still an hour left before the first appointment, and since Mr. Trupiano lived nearby, Montalbano decided to pay him a visit. Mr. Trupiano himself answered the door, a skinny old man, wearing a hat, wool gloves, and a little cape over his shoulders.

  “Come in, come in.”

  And as he said that, he started running like a hare toward the other room.

  “The drafts! Close the door! The drafts!”

  He was yelling as if he was about to be swept away by the gulf’s stream. Montalbano closed the door and followed him into a living room filled with heavy black furniture. Everything was clean. Mr. Trupiano had sat down in an armchair facing the TV and had covered his legs with a blanket. Next to his feet, there was a smoky brazier. The inspector started to sweat; he almost wished that man had nothing to tell him.

  “What can you tell me about this Rosanna Monaco?”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “Everything you can tell me.”

  “And what do you want me to tell you?”

  “Mr. Trupiano, I don’t know what you can tell me. Should I try asking you some questions?”

  “Fine, but I’m only marginally involved.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You want to know who employed Rosanna as a housemaid over the past four years, isn’t that right?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Then I’m in it only for the first five months of these four years.”

  “Rosanna worked for you for only five months, four years ago.”

  “No, Rosanna worked for us for a year and five months. But that year doesn’t count; otherwise you’d be interested in the past five years. Does that compute?”

  “What was your occupation, Mr. Trupiano, accountant?”

  “Watchmaker.”

  And that explained the man’s precision.

  “Fine, let’s only talk about those five months that are part of the four years we’re interested in. How was Rosanna?”

  “Cute.”

  “I don’t want to know what she looked like, but how she behaved.”

  “What happened, did she die?”

  “Who?”

  “Rosanna.”

  “No, she’s very much alive.”

  “Then why do you keep using the past tense?”

  “Could you please answer the question?”

  “Nice. She had a nice personality. She worked hard. She never talked back. My wife, God bless her soul, had no reason to complain.”

  “Are you a widower?”

  “For about two years now.”

  “What kind of hours did Rosanna keep?”

  “She came in at eight in the morning and left at six at night.”

  “Then, all in all, she was a very good girl.”

  “For a year and four months.”

  The heat that seemed to emanate from beneath all Mr. Trupiano’s blankets was making Montalbano so sleepy, he nearly missed the discrepancy. Or maybe he was experiencing the initial symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning because of the brazier.

  “Thanks,” he said, rising to his feet.

  But then he froze, his ass in midair.

  “Come again?”

  “I said she was a good girl for a year and four months.”

  “And what about the last month?” the inspector asked, perking up his ears and sitting back down.

  “She changed during the last month.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, she became nervous, she started talking back, she would show up late without any desire to work. Then one day she stopped coming altogether. A bit later, her mother showed up, asking about her daughter, but I didn’t tell her anything.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because she was rude and loud.”

  “Can you tell me what you couldn’t tell Rosanna’s mother?”

  “Of course. It was the phone calls.”

  “Phone calls she made?”

  “The girl never called anyone, she received them, everyday, around five thirty. About half an hour before Rosanna finished work, someone would call her on the phone. And she would rush to answer, as if, pardon my French, her ass were on fire.”

  “So, you never had the chance to find out who it was that …”

  “You see, sometimes Rosanna wouldn’t get there quick enough, and so either my wife or I would get it. It was a young man’s voice, always the same one.”

  “Did he ever say his name?”

  “He would always say, ‘It’s Pino.’ ”

  “Cusumano!” the inspector shouted, hearing a sort of triumphal march, like Aida, exploding in his head.

  Mr. Trupiano jumped out of his armchair, scared half to death.

  “Holy Mother! What happened? Why are you shouting?”

  “Nothing, nothing,” Montalbano said. “Calm down.”

  “You calm down,” said the old man, annoyed.

  “So this Pino Cusumano kept calling …”

  “You keep saying Cusumano, Cusumano! You’re obsessed with this Cusumano! His name was Pino Dibetta!”

  The great orchestra playing inside the inspector’s head quickly changed its repertoire and started a requiem.

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Of course I’m sure about it! I may be eighty years old, but my brain still functions perfectly.”

  “One last question, Mr. Trupiano. Do you own any weapons?”

  “Guns or blades?”

  The watchmaker’s precision.

  “Guns.”

  “A hunting rifle. I used to like it, hunting.”

  “Mr. Corso, the first on the list, arrived about ten minutes ago,” the guard told him.

  “Is Fazio in?”

  “He hasn’t shown up yet.”

  “Get me Gallo.”

  Gallo came in right away.

  “You’re from Vigata, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know a Pino Dibetta?”

  Gallo smiled.

  “Of course.”

  “Why are you smiling?”

  “Because he’s a friend of my younger brother’s. He’s always over at the house. Both of them worked at the Montecatini factory.”

  “Then listen: Tell him that I�
�d like to see him in a couple of hours. And now let Mr. Corso in.”

  8

  Mr. Corso owned a grocery store. He worked his ass off in the store from morning to night, so he repeated his wife’s opinion of Rosanna, which was that she was a good girl. He had hired her with a regular contract. No, his wife had told him that nobody called Rosanna on the phone. The girl didn’t quit—it was the wife who told her to stop coming since their niece needed a job and they had decided to help her out by hiring her as a housemaid. No, they didn’t pay the niece; they only gave her room and board. No, sir, he didn’t he keep guns in the house. Could he know why they were asking about this girl? Oh, no? Good-bye and thank you anyway.

  Mrs. Concetta Pimpigallo (née Currò), seventy years old and the widow of the accountant Arturo, who used to work for the fruit and vegetable consortium, was accompanied by her daughter Sarina, fifty, unmarried, and apparently mute, since she never spoke a word. She stated that she couldn’t say anything bad about Rosanna. In all honesty, sometimes she showed up late, but not that often, about five minutes at most. She would bring it to Rosanna’s attention by pointing at the grandfather clock they had in the living room—“A Swiss clock, my dear Inspector, the likes of which they don’t make anymore, exact down to the second!”—and she would detract those five minutes from her wages. Why did Rosanna leave? The girl told her that she had met that skunk, Mrs. Siracusa, at the market, and she had suggested she work for her, offering more money. That’s all. Why was Mrs. Siracusa a skunk? Hasn’t the inspector met her yet? No? As soon as he had made her acquaintance, he was more than welcome to call the widow Pimpigallo and then they could talk about it. No, Rosanna didn’t receive any phone calls. Guns? In her house? God almighty! Could they know why the police … No? Too bad.

  Mr. Giacomo Nicolosi was a nervous and gloomy forty-year-old. He stated that he worked in Germany, so he never had the opportunity to meet the girl in person. The girl had worked for him for eight months, during which time he was abroad for work. His wife had wanted to hire her because she had to look after two young children and his in-laws who were over seventy. His wife told him to tell the inspector that Rosanna Monaco had always worked hard and decided to leave on her own accord. They didn’t keep guns in the house. Why did he come to the station instead of his wife, who knew a lot more about the girl? Because he would never, ever have allowed his wife to show up at a police station like a common whore.