The Shape of Water

by Andrea Camilleri

  and rushed out the door.

  ~

  Nobody answered at Saro’s flat. Montalbano knocked next door, and a little old lady with a belligerent face opened up.

  “What is it? What you doin’, botherin’ people like that?” she said in thick dialect.

  “Excuse me, signora, I was looking for Mr. and Mrs. Montaperto.”

  “The mister and the missus! Some mister and missus! Them’s garbage people, scum!”

  Relations apparently were not good between the two families.

  “And who are you?”

  “I’m a police inspector.”

  The woman’s face lit up, and she started yelling in a tone of extreme contentedness.

  “Turiddru! Turiddru! Come here, quick!”

  “What is it?” asked a very skinny old man, appearing.

  “This man’s a police inspector! Doncha see I was right! D’ya see who the cops are lookin’ for? D’ya see they were nasty folk! D’ya see they ran away so they wouldn’t end up in jail?”

  “When did they leave, signora?”

  “Not half an hour ago. With the li’l brat. You go after ’em right now, you might still catch ’em along the road.”

  “Thank you, signora. I’m going after them right now.”

  Saro, his wife, and their little son had made it.

  ~

  Along the road to Montelusa the inspector was stopped twice, first by an army patrol of Alpinists and then by another patrol of carabinieri. The worst came on the way to San Giusippuzzu, where between barricades and checkpoints it took him forty-five minutes to go less than three miles. At the scene he found the commissioner, the colonel of the carabinieri, and the entire Montelusa police department on a full day. Even Anna was there, though she pretended not to see him. Jacomuzzi was looking around, trying to find someone to tell him the whole story in minute detail. As soon as he saw Montalbano, he came running up to him.

  “A textbook execution, utterly ruthless.”

  “How many were there?”

  “Just one, or at least only one fired the gun. The poor counselor left his study at six-thirty this morning. He’d picked up some documents and headed toward Tabbìta, where he had an appointment with a client. He left the study alone—this much is certain—

  but along the way he picked up someone he knew in the car.”

  “Maybe it was someone who thumbed a ride.”

  Jacomuzzi burst into laughter so loud that a few people nearby turned and stared at him. “Can you picture Rizzo, with all the responsibilities he has on his shoulders, blithely giving a ride to a total stranger?

  The guy had to beware of his own shadow! You know better than I that behind Luparello there was Rizzo.

  No, no, it was definitely someone he knew, a mafioso.”

  “A mafioso, you think?”

  “I’d bet my life on it. The Mafia raised the price—they always ask for more—and the politicians aren’t always in a position to satisfy their demands.

  But there’s another hypothesis. He may have made a mistake, now that he felt stronger after his recent appointment. And they made him pay for it.”

  “Jacomuzzi, my congratulations, this morning you’re particularly lucid—apparently you had a good shit. How can you be so sure of what you’re saying?”

  “By the way the guy killed him. First he kicked him in the balls, then had him kneel down, placed his gun against the back of his neck, and fired.”

  Immediately a pang shot through Montalbano’s neck.

  “What kind of gun?”

  “Pasquano says that at a glance, considering the entrance and exit wounds and the fact that the barrel was practically pressed against his skin, it must have been a 7.65.”

  “Inspector Montalbano!”

  “The commissioner’s calling you,” said Jacomuzzi, and he stole away.

  The commissioner held his hand out to Montalbano, and they exchanged smiles.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Actually, Mr. Commissioner, I was just leaving. I happened to be in Montelusa when I heard the news, and I came out of curiosity, pure and simple.”

  “See you this evening, then. Don’t forget! My wife is expecting you.”

  It was a conjecture, only a conjecture, and so fragile that if he had stopped a moment to consider it well, it would have quickly evaporated. And yet he kept the accelerator pressed to the floor and even risked being shot at as he drove through a roadblock. When he got to Capo Massaria, he bolted out of the car without even bothering to turn off the engine, leaving the door wide open, easily opened the gate and the front door of the house, and raced into the bedroom. The pistol in the drawer of the bedside table was gone. He cursed himself violently. He’d been an idiot: after discovering the weapon on his first visit, he had been back to the house twice with Ingrid and hadn’t bothered to check if the gun was still in its place, not once, not even when he’d found the gate open and had set his own mind at rest, convinced that it was he who’d forgotten to shut it.

  ~

  And now I’m going to dawdle a bit, he thought as soon as he got home. He liked the verb “dawdle,” tambasiare in Sicilian, which meant poking about from room to room without a precise goal, preferably doing pointless things. Which he did: he rearranged his books, put his desk in order, straightened a drawing on the wall, cleaned the gas burners on the stove. He was dawdling. He had no appetite, had not gone to the restaurant, hadn’t even opened the refrigerator to see what Adelina had prepared for him.

  Upon entering, he had as usual turned on the television. The first item on the TeleVigàta news gave the details surrounding the murder of Counselor Rizzo. Only the details, because the initial announcement of the event had already been given in an emergency broadcast. The newsman had no doubt about it, Rizzo had been ruthlessly murdered by the Mafia, which became frightened when the deceased had recently risen to a position of great political responsibility from which he could better carry on the struggle against organized crime. For this was the watchword of the political renewal: all-out war against the Mafia.

  Even Nicolò Zito, having rushed back from Palermo, spoke of the Mafia on the Free Channel, but he did so in such contorted fashion that it was impossible to understand anything he said. Between the lines—

  indeed, between the words—Montalbano sensed that Zito thought it had actually been a brutal settling of scores but wouldn’t say so openly, fearing yet another lawsuit among the hundreds he already had pending against him. Finally Montalbano got tired of all the empty chatter, turned off the television, closed the shutters to keep the daylight out, threw himself down on the bed, still dressed, and curled up. What he wanted to do now was accuttufarsi—another verb he liked, which meant at once to be beaten up and to withdraw from human society. At that moment, for Montalbano, both meanings were more than applicable.

  15

  More than a new recipe for baby octopus, the dish invented by Signora Elisa, the commissioner’s wife, seemed to Montalbano’s palate a truly divine inspiration. He served himself an abundant second helping, but when he saw that this one, too, was coming to an end, he slowed down the rhythm of his chewing, to prolong, however briefly, the pleasure that delicacy afforded him.

  Signora Elisa watched him happily; like all good cooks, she took delight in the expressions that formed on the faces of her table companions as they tasted one of her creations. And Montalbano, because he had such an expressive face, was one of her favorite dinner guests.

  “Thank you very, very much,” the inspector said to her at the end of the meal, sighing. The purpiteddri had worked a sort of partial miracle—partial because while it was true that Montalbano now felt at peace with man and God, it was also true that he still did not feel very pacified in his own regard.

  When the meal was over, the signora cleared the table and knowingly put a bottle of Chivas on the table for the inspector and a bottle of bitters for her husband.

  “I’ll let you two talk about your
murder victims, the real ones; I’m going into the living room to watch the pretend murders, which I prefer.”

  It was a ritual they repeated at least twice a month. Montalbano was fond of the commissioner and his wife, and that fondness was amply repaid in kind by both. The commissioner was a refined, cultured, reserved man, almost a figure from another age.

  They talked about the disastrous political situation, the unknown dangers the growing unemployment held in store for the country, the shaky, crumbling state of law and order. Then the commissioner asked a direct question.

  “Can you tell me why you haven’t yet closed the Luparello investigation? I got a worried phone call from Lo Bianco today.”

  “Was he angry?”

  “No, only worried, as I said. Perplexed, rather. He can’t understand why you’re dragging things out so much. And I can’t either, to tell you the truth. Look, Montalbano, you know me and you know that I would never presume to pressure one of my officers to settle something one way or another.”

  “Of course.”

  “So if I’m here asking you this, it’s out of personal curiosity, understood? I’m speaking to my friend Montalbano, mind you. To a friend whom I know to possess an intelligence, an acumen, and, most important, a courtesy in human relations quite rare nowadays.”

  “Thank you, sir, I’ll be honest with you. I think you deserve as much. What seemed suspicious to me from the start of the whole affair was the place where the body was found. It was inconsistent, blatantly inconsistent, with the personality and lifestyle of Luparello, a sensible, prudent, ambitious man. I asked myself: why did he do it? Why did he go all the way to the Pasture for a sexual encounter, putting his life and his public image in danger? I couldn’t come up with an answer. You see, sir, it was as if, in all due proportion, the president of the Republic had died of a heart attack while dancing to rock music at a third-rate disco.”

  The commissioner raised a hand to stop him.

  “Your comparison doesn’t really work,” he observed with a smile that wasn’t a smile. “We recently had a minister go wild on the dance floor of third-and worse-rate nightclubs, and he didn’t die . . .”

  The “unfortunately” he was clearly about to add disappeared on the tip of his tongue.

  “But the fact remains,” Montalbano insisted.

  “And this first impression was abundantly confirmed for me by the engineer’s widow.”

  “So you’ve met her? Quite a mind, that lady.”

  “It was she who sought me out, after you had spoken well of me. In our conversation yesterday she told me her husband had a pied-à-terre at Capo Massaria and gave me the keys. So what reason would he have to go risk exposure at a place like the Pasture?”

  “I have asked myself the same question.”

  “Let us assume for a moment, for the sake of argument, that he did go there, that he let himself be talked into it by a woman with tremendous powers of persuasion. A woman not from the place, who took an absolutely impassable route to get him there. Bear in mind that it’s the woman who’s driving.”

  “The road was impassable, you say?”

  “Yes. And not only do I have exact testimony to back this up, but I also had my sergeant take that route, and I took it myself. So the car is actually driven down the dry bed of the Canneto, ruining the suspension.

  When it comes to a stop, almost inside a big shrub in the Pasture, the woman immediately mounts the man beside her, and they begin making love. And it is during this act that Luparello suffers the misfortune that kills him. The woman, however, does not scream, does not call for help. Cool as a cucumber, she walks slowly down the path that leads to the provincial road, gets into a car that has pulled up, and disappears.”

  “It’s all very strange, you’re right. Did the woman ask for a ride?”

  “Apparently not, and you’ve hit the nail on the head. And I have yet another testimony to this effect.

  The car that pulled up did so in a hurry, with its door actually open. In other words, the driver knew whom he was supposed to encounter and pick up without wasting any time.”

  “Excuse me, Inspector, but did you get sworn statements for all these testimonies?”

  “No, there wasn’t any reason. See, one thing is certain: Luparello died of natural causes. Officially speaking, I have no reason to be investigating.”

  “Well, if things are as you say, there is, for example, the failure to assist a person in danger.”

  “Do you agree with me that that’s nonsense?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, that’s as far as I’d gone when Signora Luparello pointed out something very essential to me, that is, that her husband, when he died, had his underwear on backwards.”

  “Wait a minute,” said the commissioner, “let’s slow down. How did the signora know that her husband’s underwear was on backwards, if indeed it was?

  As far as I know, she wasn’t there at the scene, and she wasn’t present at the crime lab’s examinations.”

  Montalbano became worried. He had spoken impulsively, not realizing he had to avoid implicating Jacomuzzi, who he was sure had given the widow the photos. But there was no turning back.

  “The signora got hold of the crime-lab photos. I don’t know how.”

  “I think I do,” said the commissioner, frowning.

  “She examined them carefully with a magnifying glass and showed them to me. She was right.”

  “And based on this detail she formed an opinion?”

  “Of course. It’s based on the assumption that although her husband, when getting dressed in the morning, might by chance have put them on backwards, inevitably over the course of the day he would have noticed, since he took diuretics and had to urinate frequently. Therefore, on the basis of this hypothesis, the signora believes that Luparello must have been caught in some sort of embarrassing situation, to say the least, at which point he was forced to put his clothes back on in a hurry and go to the Pasture, where—in the signora’s opinion, of course—he was to be compromised in some irreparable way, so that he would have to retire from political life. But there’s more.”

  “Don’t spare me any details.”

  “The two street cleaners who found the body, before calling the police, felt duty-bound to inform Counselor Rizzo, who they knew was Luparello’s alter ego. Well, Rizzo not only showed no surprise, dismay, shock, alarm, or worry, he actually told the two to report the incident at once.”

  “How do you know this? Had you tapped the phone line?” the commissioner asked, aghast.

  “No, no phone taps. One of the street cleaners faithfully transcribed the brief exchange. He did it for reasons too complicated to go into here.”

  “Was he contemplating blackmail?”

  “No, he was contemplating the way a play is written. Believe me, he had no intention whatsoever of committing a crime. And this is where we come to the heart of the matter: Rizzo.”

  “Wait a minute. I was determined to find a way this evening to scold you again. For wanting always to complicate simple matters. Surely you’ve read Sciascia’s Candido. Do you remember that at a certain point the protagonist asserts that it is possible that things are almost always simple? I merely wanted to remind you of this.”

  “Yes, but, you see, Candido says ‘almost always,’ he doesn’t say ‘always.’ He allows for exceptions. And Luparello’s case is one of those where things were set up to appear simple.”

  “When in fact they are complicated?”

  “Very complicated. And speaking of Candido, do you remember the subtitle?”

  “Of course: A Dream Dreamed in Sicily. ”

  “Exactly, whereas we are dealing with a nightmare of sorts. Let me venture a hypothesis that will be very difficult to confirm now that Rizzo has been murdered. On Sunday evening, around seven, Luparello phones his wife to tell her he’ll be home very late—he has an important political meeting. In fact, he goes to his little house on Capo Massaria for a lovers’ tryst.


  And I’ll tell you right away that any eventual investigation as to the person who was with Luparello would prove rather difficult, because the engineer was ambidextrous.”

  “What do you mean? Where I come from, ambidextrous means someone can use both hands, right or left, without distinction.”

  “In a less correct sense, it’s also used to describe someone who goes with men as well as women, without distinction.”

  Both very serious, they seemed like two professors compiling a new dictionary.

  “What are you saying?” wondered the commissioner.

  “It was Signora Luparello herself who intimated this to me, and all too clearly. And she certainly had no interest in making things up, especially in this regard.”

  “Did you go to the little house?”

  “Yes. Cleaned up to perfection. Inside were a few of Luparello’s belongings, nothing else.”

  “Continue with your hypothesis.”

  “During the sex act, or most probably right after, given the traces of semen that were recovered, Luparello dies. The woman who is with him—”

  “Stop,” the commissioner ordered. “How can you say with such assurance that it was a woman? You’ve just finished describing the engineer’s rather broad sexual horizons.”

  “I can say it because I’m certain of it. So, as soon as the woman realizes her lover is dead, she loses her head, she doesn’t know what to do, she gets all upset, and she even loses the necklace she was wearing, but doesn’t realize it. When she finally calms down, she sees that the only thing she can do is to phone Rizzo, Luparello’s shadow man, and ask for help. Rizzo tells her to get out of the house at once and suggests that she leave the key somewhere so he can enter. He reassures her, saying he’ll take care of everything; nobody will ever know about the tryst that led to such a tragic end. Relieved, the woman steps out of the picture.”

  “What do you mean, ‘steps out of the picture’?