Montalbano's First Case and Other Stories

by Andrea Camilleri

  “There’s no need. Just give Dr. Tommaseo my regards. I’ll send the photos over straightaway by car. Scardocchia misunderstood me.”

  “You mean you didn’t need the photos?”

  “No, we do, but we can make copies.”

  “Excellent idea,” said the inspector, hanging up.

  “What if the bluff hadn’t worked?” Fazio asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “What if Arquà asked to talk to Tommaseo?”

  “Just to be chewed out? No way. Don’t you know what Arquà rhymes with? Quaquaraquà.”

  The photos arrived about half an hour later. Montalbano had an idea spinning around in his head, and so he was quick to take them out of their envelope and examine them carefully. The forensic photographer had been meticulous, capturing all the slightest details. Montalbano handed a photo to Fazio that showed the whole bedroom, with Gerlando Piccolo lying dead in the middle of the bed.

  “Does this match your recollection of the scene?”

  Fazio took a long hard look at the photo.

  “I think that’s exactly the way it was.”

  Montalbano handed him another photo. This one showed the two paintings that had been torn off the walls, thrown to the floor, and stomped on with somebody’s heel on the narrow strip of floor between the chest of drawers and the foot of the bed. The chest’s open drawers further reduced the area of this space. The photograph highlighted hundreds of tiny shards of the glass that had once covered the little paintings in their frames.

  “When you went up to the bed, did you step on those paintings?”

  “No, sir. I stepped over them, in fact. I’d seen the pieces of glass. You stepped over them too when you came into the room.”

  “I did?”

  “Yessir, you did it instinctively, which is why you don’t remember. But why are you so interested in those paintings?”

  “It’s not the paintings I’m interested in, but all the broken glass. In your opinion, if someone stepped on it barefoot without realizing, would they get cut or not?”

  “Of course they would get cut.”

  “Grazia told me she went upstairs to see what was happening without putting her shoes on. She went upstairs barefoot.”

  Fazio remained pensive. Then he said:

  “It might not mean anything. Grazia’s a peasant girl who’s used to walking barefoot. It’s possible the bottoms of her feet are so callused that you couldn’t stick a knife in them.”

  “Go and find Galluzzo for me, and come back with him.”

  Galluzzo came in with his eyes downcast, still feeling embarrassed at what Montalbano had said to him earlier.

  “I need to ask you a question. Does Grazia limp, by any chance?”

  “What are you, Chief, some kinda magician or something? She doesn’t exactly limp, as far as that goes, but yesterday afternoon she started complaining about shooting pains on the bottoms of her feet. My wife had a look. The soles of her feet weren’t bleeding, but they were stuck with all these little pieces of glass. My wife pulled them all out with a pair of tweezers.”

  “Thanks, you can go.”

  After Galluzzo left, the inspector and Fazio made no comment.

  “How soon should we get moving?”

  Montalbano looked at his watch.

  “This afternoon, I’d say. Now it’s time to go to lun—”

  The door, which Galluzzo had closed, flew open with a crash. Catarella appeared.

  “Beckin’ yer pardon, my ’and slipped. I jess got a nominous phone call. Summon foun’a dead body in Pizzutello districk. An’ they tol’ me azackly where.”

  4

  For once, Catarella had understood and correctly reported the information provided by an anonymous caller as to the exact location where a murder victim could be found. Pizzutello was an area barely five hundred yards away from Piccolo’s house, thick with Mediterranean scrub still untouched by concrete, and a favorite haunt of furtive couples. Indeed the traffic of these couples had formed a complex web of trails and clearings through the brush, a labyrinth which, despite the wealth of information, made finding the right path a real conundrum. The two vehicles—a squad car and the inspector’s car—were twice forced to make complicated maneuvers in order to turn around and try another path. In the end they managed. The dead man lay facedown, arms spread. It was hard to tell what color his jacket was, so soaked was it with the blood, now clotted, which had come out of a small but visible hole just below his right shoulder blade. Not far away from the body was a motor scooter equipped with an ample parcel rack in back.

  “Even without seeing his face,” said Fazio, “I think I know this guy.”

  “It’s Dindò,” said Montalbano, “the kid who used to make deliveries for the supermarket. Already last night Aguglia, the manager, told me Dindò hadn’t come in to work that day. And this morning he came and reported the theft of the motor scooter by Dindò.”

  “But he was just a poor half-wit!” exclaimed Germanà, who was part of the squad on duty with Tortorella and Imbrò.

  “We have to find the weapon,” said Montalbano.

  “You mean the one he was killed with?” Tortorella asked in surprise.

  “No,” replied Fazio, after a quick glance at Montalbano, having immediately understood his thoughts. And he added: “The one Dindò had with him and fired.”

  He looked back at Montalbano as if seeking confirmation that what he’d said was correct. The inspector nodded in assent.

  “Jesus Christ! I haven’t understood a thing!” Germanà complained.

  “Never mind understanding and just start looking,” Fazio ordered him.

  They looked and looked, going as far as Piccolo’s house, but didn’t find anything.

  “Maybe the gun’s under the body,” Tortorella suggested.

  They raised the body up on one side, enough to see what they needed to see.

  “If Arquà saw what we’re doing, he’d have a heart attack,” Fazio commented.

  The weapon wasn’t there. In compensation, they discovered that his flesh and jacket had been literally torn apart around the exit wound.

  “Maybe he threw it away while crawling to this secluded spot,” said Fazio.

  Montalbano suddenly felt a lump of sorrow in his throat. Poor Dindò, a mortally wounded man-child coming here to die unseen, exactly the way animals do . . . Wasn’t Mortally Wounded the title of a beautiful book by Raffaele La Capria he’d read and loved many years ago?

  “He bled to death,” said Fazio, as if he’d been reading Montalbano’s mind.

  “Inform whoever you need to inform,” said the inspector. “But let me speak to Dr. Pasquano.”

  Moments later, Fazio passed the cell phone to him.

  “Doctor? Montalbano here. Were you able to have a look at Gerlando Piccolo?”

  “Yes indeed. Inside and out.”

  “Can you tell me anything?”

  “There’s nothing to tell you. He was killed by a single shot that cut him right down. The details are in the report. He was a picture of health. If they hadn’t shot him, he would have lived to be a hundred. He’d just finished having sex.”

  This was something Montalbano hadn’t expected.

  “Before they shot him?”

  “No, after. He started fucking after he died. What kind of stupid fucking question is that? Are you sure you feel okay?”

  “Doctor, I’ve got another corpse for you.”

  “What, have you decided to go into mass production?”

  “Fazio’ll explain to you how to get here. Have a good day.”

  When Fazio had finished speaking with Pasquano, Montalbano called him aside.

  “Listen, I’m going to go. You and the others stay here. There’s no point in me wasting a whole day looking at a corpse knowing w
ho he is, who shot him, and why.”

  “All right,” said Fazio.

  “Oh, and listen. You must tell Arquà that I want the dead man’s fingerprints compared with those found in Piccolo’s bedroom. Just to double-check. And then, to go for broke, I want him to compare Dindò’s blood with the dried blood in front of Piccolo’s house.”

  He blew into the station like a bullet. Only Catarella was there.

  “Where’s Galluzzo?”

  “’E’s at home in ’is house, eatin’.”

  “Get him on the line for me.”

  He went into Fazio’s office, grabbed the keys to Gerlando Piccolo’s place, then went into his own office as the telephone was ringing.

  “Have you finished eating, Galluzzo?”

  “No sir, we’re just starting.”

  “I’m sorry, but I’ll be outside your front door in five minutes. You and Grazia have to come with me.”

  “Okay, Chief. Who was the dead guy?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  They were so punctual that when he arrived outside the front door of Galluzzo’s building, they were already waiting outside.

  “Where are we going?” asked Galluzzo.

  Montalbano answered him indirectly.

  “Grazia, do you feel like going back to your house for an hour or so?”

  “Sure.”

  They were all silent for the rest of the drive. As soon as they entered the house, they were overwhelmed by a dense, musty smell that turned one’s stomach.

  “Open some windows.”

  When the house was aired out, Montalbano explained what he had in mind.

  “Now listen up. I want us to enact a precise reconstruction of what happened the other night. We’ll go through it several times, until I’m convinced of certain things. You, Grazia, said you were in your room, sleeping.”

  “Yessir.”

  “You, Galluzzo, go upstairs into the bedroom, and when I tell you, I want you to start making noise.”

  “What kind of noise?”

  “How should I know? Throw stuff on the floor, open and close some drawers, stamp your feet.”

  Galluzzo headed towards the staircase.

  “The two of us will go instead into your bedroom.”

  “I was lying down in bed,” Grazia said as soon as they entered.

  “Then lie down.”

  “I was undressed.”

  “There’s no need for that. Just take off your shoes.”

  Grazia lay down on the unmade bed.

  “Was this door open or closed?”

  “Closed.”

  Before closing it, the inspector shouted:

  “Okay, Galluzzo, you can start!”

  The noise he started making could be heard loud and clear. There was no way Grazia could not have become alarmed.

  “Now do what you did.”

  The girl got up, took a dressing gown hanging from a nail, and opened the door.

  “Okay, stop. You stop too, Galluzzo.”

  They exited the bedroom and went into the living room. Galluzzo came out at the top of the stairs.

  “When you left your room, was the light in the living room on or off?”

  “Off.”

  “So you ran in the dark.”

  “I know the house by heart.”

  “Did you notice whether the front door was open or closed?”

  “I didn’t pay any attention. But it must have been open because when—”

  “We’ll get to that later. Galluzzo, go back to your room.”

  “Should I start making a racket again?”

  “Not for the moment. Just get out of here. You, Grazia, go back to your bedroom and close the door. As soon as I tell you, I want you to run out of your room and up the stairs to your uncle’s room the way you did that night.”

  He closed the windows, shutters, and doors, almost succeeding in making the house totally dark inside.

  “Come, Grazia.”

  He heard the door opening, then saw a slightly more visible shadow move quickly through the darkness and become a human figure as it climbed the stairs, in the light shining through the bedroom window, which they had left open.

  “What should we do?” Galluzzo’s voice called from above.

  “Wait.”

  The inspector left the doors and windows closed, opened the front door, and climbed the stairs.

  “Are you sure the door was open when you got to the top of the stairs?” he asked Grazia.

  “Absolutely. I could see from the stairs that the light was on. If it was closed, I wouldn’t have seen the light.”

  “What was the first thing you noticed when you went in?”

  “My uncle.”

  “Did you see blood?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what did you think?”

  “That he was bleeding from the mouth because he was sick. It was only when I leaned over him that I realized he’d been shot.”

  “Galluzzo, go out into the hall. And you, Grazia, go back to your room and come out again, reclimb the stairs, come into this room, and show me the exact moment when you realized that someone had killed your uncle.”

  Montalbano went over and stood by the window, to avoid getting in Grazia’s way. The girl came up a minute later, panting from the run and her excitement. She passed between the chest of drawers and the foot of the bed, turned around, and when she reached the side where Gerlando Piccolo’s body had lain, she leaned slightly forward. Only the bare mattresses remained atop the bedsprings. Forensics had taken everything else away.

  “And what happened next?”

  “I looked up, because I heard a sound.”

  “And what did you see?”

  “I saw someone come out from behind the door, where he hid when he heard me coming.”

  “Heard you coming? But you were barefoot!”

  “I mighta been calling my uncle when I was coming up the stairs.”

  “Did the man still have the gun in his hand?”

  “I don’t know, I can’t say,” the girl said after thinking about it for a moment.

  “All right. Galluzzo! I want you to do what Grazia tells you.”

  The girl treated Galluzzo the way a window dresser treats a mannequin. In the end she said:

  “Okay, when I saw him, he was just like that.”

  “If he was just like that, then you couldn’t have seen his face. He already had his back to you.”

  “An’ that’s why I didn’t see his face.”

  “Now go back to your place beside the bed. As soon as I say ‘go,’ you, Galluzzo, run down the stairs and out the front door, which is open. And you, Grazia, show me how you grabbed your uncle’s gun and pursued the killer. Ready? Go!”

  Galluzzo was off, Grazia stood up, opened the drawer of the nightstand, grabbed an imaginary revolver, and dashed after Galluzzo.

  “Stop! Okay, come back, we’re going to do it all over again.”

  For a second he felt like one of those legendary hard-to-please film directors.

  “This time we’re going to add something. You, Grazia, are going to shoot at him like you did that night. And when you do, you’re going to shout: ‘Bang!’ And you, Galluzzo, as soon as you hear that, you’re going to stop right where you are.”

  They repeated the scene three times, and each time, Grazia’s “Bang!” stopped Galluzzo right in the doorway. The timing coincided perfectly.

  “All right, now let’s all go and sit down in the kitchen.”

  Galluzzo gulped down two glasses of water, one right after the other.

  “Shall I make you a little pasta with tomato sauce?” Grazia suggested.

  “Sure, why not? While you’re doing that, Galluzzo and I’ll go outside
for a breath of air. Call us when it’s ready.”

  “Satisfied?” was the first thing Galluzzo asked him.

  “Fairly. There’s still one detail to be clarified.”

  “Which?”

  “I’ll ask Grazia when we’re eating.”

  Galluzzo looked miffed and remained silent for a spell. Then he couldn’t resist any longer and asked again a question for which he hadn’t received an answer.

  “So who was killed?”

  “Dindò.”

  Galluzzo looked shocked.

  “The kid from the supermarket?”

  “Yes.”

  “What could the poor guy have possibly done?”

  “Well, he could have done any number of things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like killing Gerlando Piccolo.”

  To keep from falling to the ground, as his legs had turned to mush, Galluzzo had to lean against the house.

  “Are you . . . are you kidding me?” he stammered.

  “I’m not in the mood.”

  Galluzzo ran his hand over his face. Then his eyes opened wide, as he finally understood that two plus two makes four.

  “So it was Grazia who shot Dindò!” he said.

  “Exactly. And we came back here because I wanted to make sure the girl was telling the truth.”

  There was a well beside the house. Montalbano went up to it, followed by Galluzzo, who looked like a puppet whose strings had broken. He lowered the bucket, filled it with water, and hauled it up.

  “Come here and wash your face. And don’t say anything to Grazia.”

  As Galluzzo was splashing water on his face, Montalbano noticed that the window in front of him looked out from the kitchen, and he could see the girl bustling about inside. He went a few steps closer. There was nothing of the beauty that had so struck him the previous evening. Now she just looked like a perfectly normal eighteen-year-old girl, neither beautiful nor ugly, setting the table. If Livia had seen her at that moment, she would certainly have thought that Salvo had been telling her his personal fantasies and passing them off as reality. Grazia, sensing that she was being watched, looked up and smiled at him.