“You were saying that his brother . . .”
“That’s all, thank you.”
Montalbano looked at his friend Nicolò.
“Why did you have me come here? Those two interviews don’t seem to reveal anything!”
“I decided to keep you abreast of everything. Anyway, you don’t convince me, Salvo. This suicide doesn’t smell right to you, I can feel it.”
“It’s not that it doesn’t smell right; it just makes me uneasy.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“Sure, we can talk. At any rate, the case isn’t in my hands. But you have to promise me that you won’t just use what I say for your news reports.”
“Promise.”
“When I talked to Livia about it over the phone she said that she didn’t think Larussa was the type to commit suicide. And I have a lot of faith in Livia’s sensitivity.”
“Good God, Salvo! The ingeniousness of the makeshift electric chair has all the hallmarks of an eccentric like Larussa! It’s practically got his trademark on it!”
“And that’s exactly what makes me uneasy. Are you aware that after the rumor of the wonderful works of art he created began to spread, he never once agreed to give an interview to any of the fashion magazines that were pressuring him?”
“He wouldn’t give me one either, the one time I asked him. He was unsociable.”
“Right, he was unsociable. And when the mayor of Ragona wanted to sponsor an exhibition of his work for charity, what did he do? He refused, but sent the mayor a check for twenty million lire.”
“That’s right.”
“And then there’s that novel by Potocki he left out for everyone to see—another touch of exhibitionism. No, none of this stuff fits with his usual way of doing things.”
They looked at each other in silence.
“You should try to interview this younger brother of his,” the inspector suggested.
On the eight o’clock news report, Nicolò Zito broadcast the two interviews of which he’d given Montalbano an advance screening. When the Free Channel newscast was over, the inspector switched to the evening news report of TeleVigàta, the other local station, which began at eight-thirty. The opening story was, naturally, the suicide of Alberto Larussa. There again was Carabinieri Lieutenant Olcese, being interviewed by Simone Prestìa, Galluzzo’s brother-in-law, who worked for the television station.
“The only new information that has emerged,” the lieutenant declared, using the exact same words as in his interview with Nicolò Zito, “all of it, points to a suicide. Certainly a very elaborate, fanciful suicide, but a suicide nonetheless.”
Damn, what an imaginative guy this lieutenant is! thought the inspector, but then the officer continued.
“Even his brother—” and then he suddenly broke off, before adding, “That’s all, thank you.”
“You were saying that even his brother . . .”
“That’s all, thank you,” said Lieutenant Olcese. And he walked stiffly away. Montalbano sat there with his mouth open. Then, since the footage had shown only the lieutenant, with Prestìa’s voice coming from off camera, he began to suspect that Zito had passed his interview on to Prestìa. Journalists sometimes did each other these sorts of favors.
Montalbano rang Zito.
“Did you give Prestìa your interview with Olcese?”
“Not on your life!”
He hung up, pensive. What did that bit of playacting mean? Maybe the towering Lieutenant Olcese wasn’t as stupid as he was trying to appear.
But what could be the purpose of this scenario?
There could only be one: to sic the journalists on the suicide victim’s brother. To what end? Whatever the case, one thing was certain: The suicide didn’t smell right to the lieutenant, either. There was no getting around it.
For three whole days Nicolò, Prestìa, and a host of other journalists were on the trail of Larussa’s brother in Palermo, whose name was Giacomo, but never once managed to track him down. They took up positions outside his house and in front of the high school where he taught Latin. No dice. The guy seemed to have become invisible. Then the school headmaster, besieged with requests, made up his mind to announce that Mr. Larussa had taken a ten-day leave. He didn’t even show up at his brother’s funeral (which was held in a church: Rich people who commit suicide are always considered insane and therefore absolved of their sin). It was a funeral like any other, which triggered a hazy memory in Montalbano’s brain. He phoned Livia.
“I think I remember that one day, when we went to visit Alberto Larussa together, he spoke to you about the kind of funeral he would like to have. Do you remember?”
“I’ll say! He was kidding, but not entirely. He took me into his studio and showed me the drawings he’d made.”
“Drawings of what?”
“Of his funeral. You wouldn’t believe the hearse, with weeping angels six feet tall, cherubs, and stuff like that. All mahogany and gold. He said that when the time was right, he would have it specially made. He’d even designed the uniforms that the wreath-bearers would wear. And I can’t even begin to describe the casket: something probably on a par with the pharaohs.”
“How odd.”
“What?”
“That somebody so reclusive as him, practically a loner, would dream of having a funeral fit for a pharaoh, as you put it, something so exhibitionistic.”
“Yeah, I thought it was strange at the time too. But he said that death was such a total transformation that, after we die, we might as well show ourselves as the exact opposite of what we were when we were alive.”
A week later Nicolò Zito broadcast a veritable scoop. He’d managed to video the objects that Alberto Larussa had created in his workshop for the purpose of killing himself: four bracelets, two for the ankles and two for the wrists; a copper band a good three inches wide, which he’d strapped around his chest; and a sort of headset where instead of earphones there were two rectangular metal plates to be placed at the temples. Montalbano saw it on the midnight edition of the news. He immediately called up Nicolò; he wanted a copy of the tape. Zito promised to get him one by the following morning.
“But why are you so interested in those things?”
“Did you get a good look at them, Nicolò? Those are things that you or I could make, except that we don’t know how. Those objects are so crude that not even the vo’ cumprà would bother to peddle them on the beach. An artist like Alberto Larussa would never have used anything like that, not in a million years—he would have felt ashamed to be found dead with such poorly made objects attached to his body.”
“So then what does it mean, in your opinion?”
“In my opinion, it means that Alberto Larussa did not commit suicide. He was murdered, and whoever killed him set things up to look like the manner of his suicide was consistent with Larussa’s eccentricity and originality.”
“Maybe we should inform Lieutenant Olcese.”
“You know what?”
“What?”
“Lieutenant Olcese knows more about this than you and me put together.”
In fact, Lieutenant Olcese knew so much about it that exactly twenty days after the death of Alberto Larussa, he arrested his brother, Giacomo. That same evening, the Free Channel newscast featured an interview with the assistant prosecutor Giampaolo Boscarino, a man who was keen to look good when he appeared on the air.
“Dr. Boscarino, what are the charges against Giacomo Larussa?” asked Nicolò Zito, who had rushed to Palermo to cover the story.
Before replying, Boscarino smoothed out his blondish mustache, touched the knot of his tie, and ran a hand over one of his jacket lapels.
“He is charged with the brutal murder of his brother, Alberto, which he tried to pass off as a suicide by staging a macabre spectacle.”
“H
ow did you arrive at this conclusion?”
“Sorry, but the proceedings of investigations are sworn to secrecy.”
“Can you tell us anything at all?”
Boscarino ran his hand over his lapel again, touched the knot of his tie, and smoothed out his blondish mustache.
“Giacomo Larussa clearly contradicted himself several times. The investigation brilliantly carried out by Lieutenant Olcese also brought to light a number of elements that further compromise Mr. Larussa’s position.”
He smoothed out his blondish moustache, touched the knot of his tie, and then the face of Nicolò Zito appeared.
“We were also able to interview Mr. Filippo Alaimo, of Ragona, a retiree of seventy-five whose testimony has been considered crucial by the prosecution.”
The screen filled with a full shot of a very thin peasant with a large dog curled up at his feet.
“I’m Filippo Alaimo, that’s right. You should know, Mr. Newsman, that I have insomnia an’ can’t sleep at night. I’m Filippo Alaimo—”
“You’ve already told us that,” said Zito’s voice off camera.
“So what the hell was I sayin’? Ah yes. So, since I can’t sleep, when I don’ feel like stayin’ inside no more, I wake up the dog an’ take ’im out for a walk, no matter what time o’ the night. An’ so the dog, whose name is Pirì, when ’e’s woke up inna middle o’ the night, well, ’e gets a li’l ticked off.”
“What does the dog do?” Nicolò asked, still off camera.
“I’d like t’ see whachoo’d do, Mr. Newsman, if somebody woke you up inna middle o’ the night and made you go out an’ walk fer two hours! Woun’t you get ticked off? Well, so do the dog. An’ so Pirì, soon as ’e sees somp’n move—don’ matter if iss a man, anamal, or car—well, ’e goes after it.”
“And that’s what happened on the night of the thirteenth, is that correct?” Nicolò cut in, probably fearing that if he let the guy go on, viewers wouldn’t understand a thing anymore. “You were near the home of Alberto Larussa, the deceased, when you saw a car come out of his gate at high speed . . .”
“Yessir, ’ass right. Juss like you say. So the car come out, Pirì wen’ after it, an’ that asshole behine the wheel run over my dog. Look at this, Mr. Newsman.”
Filippo Alaimo bent down, grabbed the dog by the collar, and lifted him up. The animal’s hind legs were wrapped in bandages.
“What time was it, Mr. Alaimo?”
“Le’ss say it was roundabout two-thirty, three o’clock inna mornin’.”
“And what did you do?”
“I started yellin’ after the car an’ sayin’ ’e was a fuckin’ asshole. An’ I took down ’is license plate.”
Nicolò Zito’s face reappeared on screen.
“According to reliable sources, the license plate number jotted down by Mr. Alaimo corresponds to that of Giacomo Larussa. The question now is: What was Giacomo Larussa doing at his brother’s house in the middle of the night, especially since it was well known that relations between the two siblings were not good? Let us put the question to Gaspare Palillo, the lawyer who has taken on the task of defending the suspect.”
Fat and pink, Palillo looked exactly like one of the three little pigs.
“Before answering your question, I would like to ask you one myself. May I?”
“Please go ahead.”
“Who advised the supposed witness Filippo Alaimo not to wear the glasses he usually wears? This seventy-five-year-old retiree has a myopia of minus eight in both eyes and very limited vision. And at two-thirty in the morning, by the faint light of a streetlamp, he’s able to read the license plate number of a fast-moving car? Come on! Now, as for your question, it should be pointed out that over the last month of the deceased’s life, relations between the two brothers had improved, so much so that my client went to his brother’s house in Ragona no less than three times over the course of that month. And I should further point out that it was the suicide victim himself who had initiated this reconciliation, telling my client on several occasions that he could no longer stand the loneliness, that he felt very depressed and in need of his brother’s comfort. It’s true that my client went to Ragona on the thirteenth, stayed for a few hours with his brother, who seemed even more depressed than usual, and then headed back for Palermo before suppertime, around eight p.m. He learned of his brother’s suicide the following day, when he heard it reported on a local radio station.”
In the days following Alberto’s death, the sort of things that usually emerge in cases like these began to emerge.
Michele Ruoppolo of Palermo declared that as he was heading home around four a.m. on the morning of the fourteenth, he saw Giacomo Larussa’s car pulling in. Normally it takes two hours at the most to drive from Ragona to Palermo. If Giacomo Larussa had left his brother’s house at eight p.m., how did it take him eight hours to get home?
Palillo the lawyer retorted that Giacomo Larussa had returned home at ten p.m. but had been unable to fall asleep because he was so worried about his brother. And so around three a.m. he’d gone out again, got in his car, and gone for a drive along the seashore.
Arcangelo Bonocore of Ragona swore by all that was holy that around six p.m. on the evening of the thirteenth, as he was passing by the home of Alberto Larussa, he’d heard yelling and loud noises inside, as if from a violent altercation.
Palillo the lawyer said that his client remembered the moment well. There was no altercation. At a certain point Alberto Larussa had turned on the television to watch a program he liked called The Marshal. In that episode there was a violent brawl between two characters. Palillo could even produce a video recording of that broadcast episode, if need be. Mr. Bonocore was mistaken.
Things went on in this fashion for another week, until Lieutenant Olcese pulled out the ace he’d been keeping up his sleeve, something that Prosecutor Boscarino had already hinted at. Right after they’d found the body—the lieutenant said—he’d ordered his men to look for a sheet of paper, anything written that might explain the motivation for such a gruesome act. But they didn’t find anything, because Alberto Larussa had nothing to explain inasmuch as the idea of committing suicide never even passed through his mind. To make up for this, in the first drawer on the left-hand side of his desk—unlocked, Olcese emphasized—they found an envelope in plain view, on which was written: To be opened after my death. And since Signor Larussa was dead—the lieutenant explained with a logic worthy of Monsieur La Palisse—they opened it. Just a couple of handwritten lines: I leave everything I own, stocks, bonds, land, houses, and other properties to my beloved younger brother Giacomo. Followed by his signature. There was no date. It was precisely the lack of date that aroused the lieutenant’s suspicion, and so he submitted the testament to both chemical and graphological tests. The chemical examination revealed that the letter had been written one month earlier at the most, given the particular type of ink used, which was the same as the one normally used by Alberto Larussa. The graphological test, conducted by the Court of Palermo’s handwriting expert, yielded an unequivocal result: that the handwriting of Alberto Larussa had been skillfully falsified.
This business of the fake testament did not go down easy with Palillo the lawyer.
“I know the scenario the people conducting the investigation have in their heads. My client pays a call on his brother, somehow knocks him unconscious, writes up the will himself, goes to his car and gets the stuff for the mock self-execution, which he’s had made by someone in Palermo, carries his unconscious brother into the workshop (which he knows well and has even admitted so, since Alberto often received him there), and sets up the whole macabre mise-en-scène. But I ask myself then: What need was there to write up a false testament when a will already existed, duly registered, which said the same things? Let me state that as clearly as possible: The last will and testament of Angelo Larussa, father of Alberto
and Giacomo, went as follows: I leave all my possessions, movable and immovable, to my eldest son Alberto. Upon his death, all possessions will pass on to my younger son, Giacomo. So I ask myself: Cui prodest? Who stood to gain anything from that pointless second testament?”
Montalbano heard Olcese’s and the lawyer Palillo’s statements on the midnight news broadcast, when he was already in his underwear and about to turn in. They upset him and he no longer felt like going to bed. It was an exceptionally quiet night, and so, still in his underpants, he went for a walk along the water’s edge. The second testament made no sense. Though he considered Larussa’s brother guilty, the inspector sensed something excessive in the concoction of that text. Actually everything about this whole story seemed excessive. But the phony testament was like an extra brushstroke on a canvas, one color too many. Cui prodest? Palillo the lawyer had asked. Who stood to gain? And the answer came spontaneously, unstoppably, to his lips. He saw a sort of blinding burst of light, as if a photographer had just popped a flash in his face, and he suddenly felt his legs go weak. He had to sit down in the wet sand.
“Nicolò? Montalbano here. What were you doing?”
“Well, given what time it is, I was going to bed, if you don’t mind. Did you hear what Olcese said? You were right all along: Giacomo Larussa is not only a self-interested murderer, he’s a monster!”
“Listen, have you got something to write with?”
“Wait while I go get a pen and paper. Here we are. Okay, go ahead.”
“Let me preface this, Nicolò, by saying that these are sensitive matters that I can’t let my men get involved in, because if the carabinieri ever found out, there would be hell to pay. Therefore, I too should be left out of it. Is that clear?”
“Crystal clear. It’s my baby.”
“Good. First of all, I want to know why Alberto Larussa didn’t want anything to do with his brother for so many years.”
Montalbano's First Case and Other Stories Page 20
