“No, probably not,” Montalbano concurred.
~
Returning to his newspapers, Montalbano learned much less from them than he already knew of the life, miracles, and recent death of Silvio Luparello, engineer.
They merely served to refresh his memory. Heir to a dynasty of Montelusa builders (his grandfather had designed the old train station, his father the courthouse), young Silvio, after graduating with highest honors from Milan Polytechnic, had returned to his hometown to carry on and expand the family business. A practicing Catholic, he had embraced the political ideals of his grandfather, a passionate follower of Don Luigi Sturzo (the ideals of his father, who had been a Fascist militiaman and participated in the March on Rome, were kept under a respectful veil of silence), and had cut his teeth at the FUCI, the national organization of Catholic university students, creating a solid network of friendships for himself. Thereafter, on every public occasion—
demonstration, assembly, or gala—Silvio Luparello had always showed up alongside the party bigwigs, but always one step behind them, half smiling as if to say that he stood there by choice, not out of hierarchical protocol. Officially drafted numerous times as a candidate in both the local and parliamentary elections, he had withdrawn every time for the noblest of reasons (always duly brought to the public’s attention), invoking that humility, that desire to serve in silence and shadow, proper to every true Catholic. And in silence and shadow he had served for nearly twenty years, until the day when, fortified by all that his eagle eyes had seen in the shadow, he took a few servants of his own, first and foremost Deputy Cusumano. Later he would likewise get Senator Portolano and Chamber Deputy Tricomi to wear his livery (though the papers called them “fraternal friends” and “devoted followers”). In short, the whole party, in Montelusa and its province, had passed into his hands, as had some 80 percent of all public and private contracts.
Not even the earthquake unleashed by a handful of Milanese judges, unseating a political class that had been in power for fifty years, had touched him. On the contrary: having always remained in the background, he could now come out into the open, step into the light, and thunder against the corruption of his party cronies. In barely a year’s time, as the standard-bearer for renewal, he had become provincial secretary, to the acclaim of the rank and file. Unfortunately, however, this glorious appointment had come a mere three days before his death.
One newspaper lamented the fact that cruel fate had not granted a man of such lofty and exemplary stature the time needed to restore his party to its former splendor.
In commemorating him, both newspapers together recalled his great generosity and kindheartedness, his readiness to lend a hand, in any circumstance, to friend and foe alike, without partisan distinction.
With a shudder, Montalbano remembered a news story he’d seen the previous year on some local TV station. In the town of Belfi, his grandfather’s birthplace, Luparello was dedicating a small orphanage, named after this same grandfather. Some twenty small children, all dressed alike, were singing a song of thanks to the engineer, who listened with visible emotion. The words of that little song had etched themselves indelibly in the inspector’s memory: What a good man,
What a fine fellow
Is our dear
Signor Luparello.
In addition to glossing over the circumstances of the engineer’s death, the newspapers also carefully ignored the rumors that had been swirling for untold years around far less public affairs in which he’d been involved. There was talk of rigged contract competitions, kickbacks in the billions of lire, pressures applied to the point of extortion. And in all these instances the name that constantly popped up was that of Counselor Rizzo, first the caddy, then the right-hand man, and finally the alter ego of Luparello. But these always remained rumors, voices in the air and on the wind. Some even said that Rizzo was a liaison between Luparello and the Mafia, and on this very subject the inspector had once managed to read a confidential report that spoke of currency smuggling and money laundering. Suspicions, of course, and nothing more, since they were never given a chance to be substantiated; every authorization request for an investigation had been lost in the labyrinths of that same courthouse the engineer’s father had designed and built.
~
At lunchtime Montalbano phoned the Montelusa flying squad and asked to speak with Corporal Ferrara.
She was the daughter of an old schoolmate of his who had married young, an attractive, sharp-witted girl who every now and then, for whatever reason, would try to seduce him.
“Anna? I need you.”
“What? I don’t believe it.”
“Do you have a couple of free hours this afternoon?”
“I’ll get them, Inspector. Always at your service, night and day. At your beck and call, even, or if you like, at your whim.”
“Good. I’ll come and pick you up in Montelusa, at your house, around three.”
“This must be happiness.”
“Oh, and, Anna, wear feminine clothes.”
“Spike heels and slit dress, that sort of thing?”
“I just meant not in uniform.”
~
Punctually, at the second honk, Anna came out the front door in skirt and blouse. She didn’t ask any questions and limited herself to kissing Montalbano on the cheek. Only when the car turned onto one of the three small byways that led from the provincial road to the Pasture did she speak.
“Um, if you want to fuck, let’s go to your house. I don’t like it here.”
At the Pasture there were only two or three cars, but the people inside them clearly did not belong to Gegè Gullotta’s evening shift. They were students, boys and girls, married lovers who had nowhere else to go. Montalbano took the little road to the end, not stopping until the front tires were already sinking into the sand. The large shrub next to which Luparello’s BMW had been found was on their left but could not be reached by that route.
“Is that where they found him?” asked Anna.
“Yes.”
“What are you looking for?”
“I’m not sure. Let’s get out.”
As they headed toward the water’s edge, Montalbano put his arm around her waist and pressed her toward him; she rested her head on his shoulder, smiling.
She now understood why the inspector had invited her along: it was all an act. Together they would look like a pair of lovers who had found a place to be alone at the Pasture. In their anonymity they would arouse no curiosity.
What a son of a bitch! she thought. He doesn’t give a shit about my feelings for him.
At a certain point Montalbano stopped, his back to the sea. The shrub was in front of them, about a hundred yards away as the crow flies. There could be no doubt: the BMW had come not by way of the small roads but from the beach side and had stopped after circling toward the bush, its nose facing the old factory; that is, in the exact opposite position to that which all the other cars coming off the provincial road had to take, there being absolutely no room in which to maneuver. Anyone who wanted to return to the provincial road had no choice but to go back up the byways in reverse. Montalbano walked another short distance, his arm still around Anna, his head down: he could find no tire tracks; the sea had erased everything.
“So what now?”
“First I have to call Fazio. Then I’ll take you back home.”
“Inspector, may I tell you something in all honesty?”
“Of course.”
“You’re an asshole.”
4
“Inspector? Pasquano here. Where the hell have you been hiding? I’ve been looking for you for three hours, and at headquarters they couldn’t tell me anything.”
“Are you angry at me, Doctor?”
“At you? At the whole stinking universe!”
“What have they done to you?”
“They forced me to give priority to Luparello, the same way, exactly, as when he was alive. So even in death the guy has t
o come before everyone else? I suppose he’s first in line at the cemetery, too?”
“Was there something you wanted to tell me?”
“Just an advance notice of what I’m going to send you in writing. Absolutely nothing: the dear departed died of natural causes.”
“Such as?”
“To put it in unscientific terms, his heart burst, literally. In every other respect he was healthy, you know. It was only his pump that didn’t work, and that’s what screwed him, even though they made a valiant attempt to repair it.”
“Any other marks on the body?”
“What sort of marks?”
“I don’t know, bruises, injections . . .”
“As I said, nothing. I wasn’t born yesterday, you know. And anyway, I asked and obtained permission for my colleague Capuano, his regular doctor, to take part in the autopsy.”
“Covering your ass, eh Doc?”
“What did you say?”
“Something stupid, I’m sorry. Did he have any other ailments?”
“Why are you starting over from the top? There was nothing wrong with him, just a little high blood pressure. He treated it with a diuretic, took a pill every Thursday and Sunday, first thing in the morning.”
“So on Sunday, when he died, he had taken it.”
“So what? What the hell’s that supposed to mean? That his diuretic pill had been poisoned? You think we’re still living in the days of the Borgias? Or have you started reading remaindered mystery novels?
If he’d been poisoned, don’t you think I would have noticed?”
“Had he dined that evening?”
“No, he hadn’t.”
“Can you tell me at what time he died?”
“You’re going to drive me crazy with questions like that. You must be watching too many American movies, you know, where as soon as the cop asks what time the crime took place, the coroner tells him the murderer finished his work at six-thirty-two P.M., give or take a few seconds, thirty-six days ago. You saw with your own eyes that rigor mortis hadn’t set in yet, didn’t you? You felt how hot it was in that car, didn’t you?”
“So?”
“So it’s safe to say the deceased left this world between seven and nine o’clock the evening before he was found.”
“Nothing else?”
“Nothing else. Oh yes, I almost forgot: Mr. Luparello died, of course, but he did manage to do it first—
to have sex, that is. Traces of semen were found around his lower body.”
~
“Mr. Commissioner? Montalbano here. I wanted to let you know I just spoke with Dr. Pasquano on the phone. The autopsy’s been done.”
“Save your breath, Montalbano. I know everything already: around two o’clock I got a call from Jacomuzzi, who was there and filled me in. Wonderful, eh?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
“It’s wonderful, that is, that someone in this fine province of ours should decide to die a natural death and thereby set a good example. Don’t you think? Another two or three deaths like Luparello’s and we’ll start catching up with the rest of Italy. Have you spoken to Lo Bianco?”
“Not yet.”
“Please do so at once. Tell him there are no more problems as far as we’re concerned. They can get on with the funeral whenever they like, if the judge gives the go-ahead. Listen, Montalbano—I forgot to mention it this morning—my wife has invented a fantastic new recipe for baby octopus. Can you make it Friday evening?”
~
“Montalbano? This is Lo Bianco. I wanted to bring you up to date on things. Early this afternoon I got a phone call from Dr. Jacomuzzi.”
What a wasted career! Montalbano thought furiously to himself. In another age he would have made an excellent town crier.
“He told me the autopsy revealed nothing abnormal,” the judge continued. “So I authorized burial.
Do you have any objection?”
“None.”
“Can I therefore consider the case closed?”
“Think I could have two more days?”
He could hear, literally hear, the alarm bells ringing in the judge’s head.
“Why, Montalbano? Is there something wrong?”
“No, Your Honor, nothing at all.”
“Well, why then, for the love of God? I’ll confess to you, Inspector—I’ve no problem doing so—that I, as well as the chief prosecutor, the prefect, and the commissioner, have been strongly pressured to bring this affair to an end as quickly as possible. Nothing illegal, mind you. Urgent entreaties, all very proper, on the part of those—family, political friends—who want to forget the whole sad story as soon as possible. And they’re right, in my opinion.”
“I understand, Your Honor. But I still need two days, no more.”
“But why? Give me a reason!”
He found an answer, a pretext. He couldn’t very well tell the judge his request was founded on nothing, or rather on the feeling that he’d been hoodwinked—he didn’t know how or why—by someone who at that moment was proving himself to be shrewder than he.
“If you really must know, it’s out of concern for public opinion. I wouldn’t want anyone to start whispering that we closed the case in haste because we had no intention of getting to the bottom of things. As you know, it doesn’t take much to start people thinking that way.”
“If that’s how you feel, then all right. You can have your forty-eight hours. But not a minute more.
Try to understand the situation.”
~
“Gegè? How’s it going, handsome? Sorry to wake you at six-thirty in the evening.”
“Fucking shit!”
“Gegè, is that any way to speak to a representative of the law? Especially someone like you, who before the law can only shit your pants? And speaking of fucking, is it true you’re doing it with a ten-andchange black man?”
“Ten-and-change?”
“Inches of cock.”
“Cut the shit. What do you want?”
“To talk to you.”
“When?”
“Tonight, late. You tell me what time.”
“Let’s make it midnight.”
“Where?”
“The usual place, at Puntasecca.”
“A big kiss for your pretty lips, Gegè.”
~
“Inspector Montalbano? This is Prefect Squatrito.
Judge Lo Bianco communicated to me just now that you asked for another twenty-four hours—or forty-eight, I can’t remember—to close the case of the late Mr. Luparello. Dr. Jacomuzzi, who has politely kept me informed of all developments, told me that the autopsy established unequivocally that Luparello died of natural causes. Far be it from me to think—what am I saying, to even dream—of interfering in any way, since in any case there’d be no reason to do so, but do let me ask you: why this request?”
“My request, sir, as I have already explained to Justice Lo Bianco and will now reiterate, was dictated by a desire for transparency, to nip in the bud any malicious supposition that the police department might prefer not to clarify every aspect of the case and wish to close it without due verification of all leads. That’s all.”
The prefect declared himself satisfied with the reply, and indeed Montalbano had carefully chosen two verbs (“clarify” and “reiterate”) and one noun (“transparency”) which had forever been key words in the prefect’s vocabulary.
~
“Hello? This is Anna, sorry to disturb you.”
“Why are you talking like that? Do you have a cold?”
“No, I’m at the squad office, but I don’t want anyone to hear.”
“What is it?”
“Jacomuzzi called my boss and told him you don’t want to close the Luparello case yet. The boss said you’re just being an asshole as usual, which I agree with and actually had a chance to tell you just a few hours ago.”
“Is that why you called? Thanks for the confirmation.”
“There�
�s something else I have to tell you, Inspector, something I found out right after I left you, when I got back here.”
“Look, Anna, I’m up to my neck in shit. Tell me about it tomorrow.”
“There’s no time to lose. It may be of interest to you.”
“I’m going to be busy here till one or one-thirty this morning. If you want to drop by now, then all right.”
“I can’t make it right now. I’ll see you at your place at two.”
“Tonight?!”
“Yes, and if you’re not there, I’ll wait.”
~
“Hello, darling? It’s Livia. Sorry to call you at work, but—”
“You can call me whenever and wherever you want. What is it?”
“Nothing important. I was reading in a newspaper just now about the death of a politician in your parts. It’s just a brief notice. It says that Inspector Salvo Montalbano is conducting a thorough investigation of the possible causes of death.”
“So?”
“Is this death causing you any problems?”
“Not too many.”
“So nothing’s changed? You’re still coming to see me Saturday? You don’t have some unpleasant surprise in store for me?”
“Like what?”
“Like an awkward phone call telling me the investigation has taken a new turn and so I’ll have to wait but you don’t know how long and so it’s probably better to postpone everything for a week? It certainly wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Don’t worry, this time I’ll manage.”
~
“Inspector Montalbano? This is Father Arcangelo Baldovino, secretary to His Excellency the bishop.”
“It’s a pleasure. What can I do for you, Father?”
“The bishop has learned, with some astonishment, I must say, that you think it advisable to prolong your investigation into the sad and unfortunate passing of Silvio Luparello. Is this true?”
The Shape of Water Page 3
