“When?”
“This morning, on the eleven o’clock report.”
How was that possible?
At eleven Pennisi and his lawyer were at the police station, and therefore nobody, theoretically, was in any position to know anything yet. And so it was clear that the information broadcast on TeleVigàta had been passed along by the author of the comedy, so that it would immediately become public knowledge.
But why the hurry?
The answer was simple. To have the case closed as quickly as possible in order to block further investigation.
Montalbano had just finished his bass when Enzo came over to tell him he was wanted on the phone.
“Beckin’ yer partin’ fer the distoibancy while y’er eatin’, Chief, but—”
“What is it, Cat?”
“Prossecator Giacono called askin’ if you could partake yerself onna premisses o’ his office, him bein’ him, Prossecator Giacono, at tree-toity.”
The inspector looked at his watch. He had just enough time.
15
“I had no choice but to put Pennisi behind bars,” was the first thing Jacono said as he was showing Montalbano in. “But I haven’t yet made up my mind to request validation of the arrest.”
“Why?”
“That’s exactly why I summoned you here. So we could discuss this affair in peace. I confess the whole thing has got me a little perplexed.”
“I’m at your service,” said the inspector. “But could I read the transcript first?”
“Here you go,” said Jacono, handing it to him.
Montalbano scanned it with his eyes.
It corresponded word for word with what the guy had said at the station.
He gave it back to Jacono.
“What is it you find unconvincing?” asked Montalbano.
“Bah . . . First of all, there’s this general impression that the whole thing was . . . well, forced . . . I’ll try to explain. Did you suspect Pennisi in any way? Had you started investigating him?”
“It was the furthest thing from my mind.”
“So he didn’t feel hunted down. Therefore, since he never once gave any sign of feeling remorse for what he’d done, why did he feel the need to turn himself in? If he hadn’t, his name would have never even come up.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes. For example, the murder weapon—by Pennisi’s account—was a Beretta pistol. Since I knew from the Forensics report that Nicotra kept a large and perfectly well-functioning revolver in his nightstand, I asked Pennisi if he was really sure that it was a Beretta. And he said he was absolutely certain. So my question is: Where did this weapon come from?”
“There’s an easy answer to that question. It was kept inside a safe in the Rosaspina offices, according to what Nino Barbera, the lawyer, told me of his own accord. He’s a member of the firm’s board of directors. And Nicotra pilfered it.”
“But that’s not the least bit logical!” Jacono snapped. “To go and steal a gun to shoot your wife’s lover when you have a revolver already within reach!”
“Indeed. And that’s not the only inconsistency, mind you. There are two other huge ones in Pennisi’s story that cast doubt on whether he’d ever even set foot in that house.”
“Tell me.”
“The first is that Pennisi claimed that as soon as he entered Inge’s house she made him take off his wet, muddy shoes and then went and put them on the floor under the radiator to help them dry. Forensics, who carefully checked the floor in that room, did find footprints from the muddy shoes of two people, but never found any trace of mud under the radiator. And yet, if the shoes had been put on the floor all messy and wet, they should have left some trace.”
“Quite correct. Please continue.”
“The second is a huge, almost ridiculous oversight, like the story of the gun. Pennisi told us that when he heard Nicotra come home unexpectedly, he grabbed his clothes and ran into the uncle’s bedroom, where the old man was sleeping like a rock, and hid behind the door, which was three-quarters open. Three-quarters, mind you. And he also said he had trouble putting his clothes back on because there wasn’t enough room. The problem is, none of this is remotely possible.”
“Why not?”
“Because the door to the uncle’s room, like all the doors on that floor, open to the outside and not into the rooms. Therefore Pennisi would inevitably have already been spotted by Nicotra once he’d reached the top of the stairs. In order to hide, if anything he should not have gone into the room but remained in the hallway, behind the three-quarters-open door.
Jacono remained silent for a moment, with a faraway look in his eyes, not focusing on anything. Then he asked:
“What do you think, personally?”
“Have you read the Forensics report on the underground safe we discovered?”
“Yes.”
“I think the crux of the whole story is in fact the safe and the millions of euros inside.”
“I’m beginning to think the same thing.”
“So they’re going to try and throw us off the scent, to lead us away from something not big, but enormous. Luckily, however, they don’t know, and for the moment they absolutely must not find out, that we discovered the safe. They also don’t know—because they were never told—that both Nicotra and the so-called uncle were armed. These are two big cards to be played at the right moment.”
Jacono’s normally serious face became even more serious.
“Let’s get right to the point, I think it’s best. You’re suggesting to me indirectly that it would be more useful to the investigation if I were to pretend to believe Pennisi’s self-accusation.”
Montalbano didn’t hesitate for a moment.
“If you prefer, I’ll suggest it to you directly.”
Jacono absorbed the blow and then said:
“What do you hope to gain?”
“Clearly the break-in at Nicotra’s house and his subsequent death have created serious problems for a certain group of people. And this group is trying to frame the occurrence as a case of marital infidelity that ended in tragedy. The picture they’re holding up for us is this. I’ll describe it for you, if you don’t mind: The husband catches them by surprise, Pennisi disarms him and then kills him and runs away. Nicotra’s wife, afraid the crime will be pinned on her, gets in her car and also runs away, bringing her uncle with her. She gets back in touch from Germany, through a lawyer, using a commonplace excuse.”
“I don’t know that part,” said Jacono.
Montalbano told him about it and then continued.
“If we make it seem that we believe all this and manage to convince them of it, they will feel more relaxed and will do something they can’t do as long as the investigation is still ongoing.”
“You say ‘they.’ But do you have any idea who ‘they’ are?”
“I’m starting to. And one of them has come out into the open.”
“You mean the lawyer Barbera?”
“Exactly. Who sits on Rosaspina’s board of directors, the company for which Nicotra was the chief accountant. And for whom our friend Pennisi works as a mason. Bear in mind also that Nicotra went into a Rosaspina construction site to die. Just a few yards more and he would have reached the provincial road, where he could have asked for help from some passing motorist. But he chose to sheer away and let his body be found at the worksite. In my opinion, he was trying to give us a very valuable clue.”
“Let me get this straight. You think that Rosaspina is behind all this?”
“No, sir, I think Rosaspina is just one part of the whole.”
Jacono didn’t press him any further. He just paused thoughtfully again and then said:
“The only road open to us for having everyone publicly believe we’ve taken the bait is to request the validation
of the arrest. Which I’ll do today.”
“Thank you, sir.”
As soon as he was outside, he had an idea and rang Zito at the Free Channel.
“Could you do a quick interview with me?”
“Do you want to talk about the Nicotra case?”
“Yes.”
“I await you with open arms.”
Fifteen minutes later he was in front of a TV camera, ready to go live for the afternoon broadcast, already having gone over the questions with Zito.
Inspector Montalbano, can you confirm the rumors according to which Pino Pennisi, a construction worker, turned himself in for having killed the accountant, Gerlando Nicotra?
I can and do confirm. He gave a full, detailed confession to Prosecutor Jacono, who will request validation for his arrest by the end of the day.
Can you tell us the motive?
Pennisi had been the lover of Nicotra’s wife, Inge Schneider, for some time. Nicotra caught them in the act and threatened to kill Pennisi, but Pennisi was able to disarm him and then shot him in reaction.
Where is Inge Schneider at present?
In Germany. She fled there after the crime, worried that she herself would be held responsible, taking along her uncle, who had been a guest in her house for several months.
But how do you explain the fact that the car that Ingrid escaped in was found all burnt up?
Naturally, Pennisi could tell us nothing about this. It is my opinion that after Signora Inge made her decision to return to Germany, she set fire to her car herself, in a naïve attempt to throw us off the trail.
Can we therefore consider the case closed?
That is my conviction.
He went back to Vigàta feeling pleased, his little task having gone quite well.
“Fazio here?”
“’E ain’t onna premisses, Chief.”
“Know where he went?”
“Nah, Chief.”
“Get him on his cell and put the call through to my office.”
He sat down and the telephone rang.
“Where are you?”
“In Montelusa, Chief. I’m doing that research you asked me to do.”
“There’s another thing I want you to do at the same time.”
“Tell me.”
“I want to know how the workers at all the different construction sites were paid.”
“What do you mean?”
“How did they receive their payment? Bank transfer? Check? Cash? For one of the sites, I already know, but you go ahead and inform yourself about all six. And we’ll meet again tomorrow morning.”
As soon as he hung up, the outside line rang. It was Gambardella.
“Can I come by around nine?”
“I’ll be waiting for you.”
Catarella came in.
“Beckin’ yer partin’ an’ all, Chief, but I got astracted an’ forgot som’n.”
“Wha’d you forget?”
“’At there’s the raggiunieri Nicotira onna premisses, the father o’ the dead corpus, an’ ’e wants a talk t’yiz poissonally in poisson.”
“Okay.”
Ragioniere ’Gnazio Nicotra, compared to the last time he came into the station, was a changed man. The grief over the death of his son had bent him in two, and he swayed a little as he walked, as though drunk.
Montalbano felt terribly sorry for him. He got up to meet him and pulled out a chair for him.
“Whatever I can do to help . . .”
“There’s nothing in particular I need to ask of you. I came here to . . . I’m sorry, but I just want to talk to someone . . . I have nobody with whom I can get these things off my chest.”
“You can talk to me.”
“I just can’t get over the fact that it was Pennisi himself who betrayed him and then killed him.”
Pennisi himself? What could these words mean? But the inspector thought it best not to ask any questions.
“Pennisi,” the old man began, “was the guy who got engaged to Inge and brought her here, but then Inge left him because he was too dissolute; his addiction to gambling and whores left him always penniless. So one day, after she was married to my son, Pennisi called her up and begged her to help him out. She talked about it with Giugiù, and my son quickly got him hired at the worksite of the firm where he was the accountant.”
“Rosaspina?”
“No, before that. At the time, Giugiù worked in Sicudiana with Rosales’s firm, Belgiorno, and when Rosales later set up Primavera, Giugiù had Pennisi come over with him, and then he did the same again when Primavera went bankrupt and Rosaspina took over. Rosales had a lot of faith in Giugiù; he considered him almost a son.”
“How was that?”
“Rosales had only one child, Stefano, who’d been a friend of Giugiù’s since elementary school. Not a day went by that my son didn’t go to the Rosaleses’ house. Then, when he was ten years old, Stefano was hit by a car and killed. Forever after that, Rosales had a special regard for Giugiù. Though now, poor Rosales, well, he is the way he is.”
“I don’t know anything about this Rosales. This is the first I’ve ever heard of him. What’s wrong with him?”
“Emilio Rosales was a powerful entrepreneur who always conducted his business between Sicudiana and Trapani. The only time he won a government contract in our area with Primavera, things went bad for him, and he had to halt the work and shut it all down. He was put on trial and convicted, retired from business, and is currently ill and under house arrest in Sicudiana.”
But Nicotra was interested mostly in talking about the ingratitude of humanity, of people like Pennisi who repaid kindness with treachery and murder.
And in this way Montalbano got home from work an hour later than usual.
It was almost eight-thirty when he walked through the front door. On his way to the kitchen to see what Adelina had prepared for him, he stopped in his tracks. He wasn’t going to have time to eat properly, the way he liked; he would have to shovel in one forkful after another without being able to enjoy it. And so he decided to open neither the refrigerator nor the oven.
All he could do before Gambardella arrived was phone Livia.
He dialed her number.
“How are you?”
“A lot better, thanks. Selene keeps me busy, keeps the dark thoughts at bay, and . . . Listen, you haven’t told me anything about yourself or your work for quite a long time . . .”
She was finally taking an interest in him again! His heart filled with contentment. He immediately complied.
“Okay, I’ll tell you something really unusual. This morning a guy came to the station to turn himself in for a murder he most certainly did not commit.”
“Why would he do that? Maybe he was covering for someone he loved or a family member?”
“No, it has nothing to do with his family; he’s trying to throw us off the trail by covering for a gang of crooks.”
“Why give himself up for that?”
“Look, this person is a construction worker who loves to gamble. They probably promised to pay off his debts and give him a large sum for his wife and children.”
“But he’ll go to jail for years and years!”
“Are you so sure? Meanwhile they’re claiming self-defense. Anyway, you know how these things usually go, don’t you? The worst he’ll get is five years, max, and then he’ll be out and he won’t need to look for work anymore, either. It’s a pretty good investment, don’t you think?”
Livia didn’t answer. Montalbano continued.
“Unfortunately for him, however, that’s not how it’ll turn out. He’ll go to jail anyway, for having tried to obstruct the investigation. But he won’t get a cent for his trouble.”
“Poor guy,” said Livia.
The inspector got ir
ritated.
“What do you mean, ‘poor guy’? He’s just a—”
The doorbell rang.
“I’m sorry, Livia, someone I was waiting for has arrived. I have to go. Good night.”
He went and opened the door, and Gambardella entered. Since it had started raining again, Montalbano sat him down in the usual chair.
“I hear the prosecutor has requested validation for Pennisi’s arrest. So was it really a case of adultery?”
Montalbano hesitated for a moment. Could he tell him the truth or not?
He decided he could.
“Not at all. It’s a well-planned attempt to throw us off, but it suits us fine, for the moment, to pretend it’s real. Now tell me about yourself.”
“I’ve established direct contact with Asciolla.”
“Did you meet?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In an absolutely safe place. An abandoned quarry near Montelusa.”
“Are you sure nobody saw you?”
“Quite sure.”
“I beg your pardon, but you take things a little too easy. And you didn’t keep to our agreement. I’d told you to let me know in advance—”
“I know. But it wasn’t out of neglect, believe me. I just didn’t have the time.”
“You’re playing with fire, you know. Do you realize that?”
“But, Inspector—”
“After this second collapse, Albachiara is again vulnerable to all manner of criticism. They’re going through a difficult moment and will defend themselves by all means possible, including murder. Is that clear? They’ve already given us a taste of this with Piscopo.”
“I give you my word it won’t happen again. Next time I’ll let you know beforehand.”
“Okay, now talk.”
“Asciolla told me the reasons he was fired. His row, as site foreman, with the works manager, Engineer Riggio, revolved essentially around two points. The first was the quality of the materials being used, which were quite inferior to those stipulated in the contract. The second was that the finished product was notably different from the approved design.”
The Pyramid of Mud Page 16
