The Potter's Field

by Andrea Camilleri

Damned if he was going to tell them now that the dismembered stranger’s death dated from about two months ago.

  “Oh, I dunno, just wondering...”

  “No, there hasn’t been anything,” said Musante.

  “Nothing at all,” Gullotta confirmed.

  Apparently, when they had to lie, they become soloists. It was clear they had no intention whatsoever of letting a borderline madman like him in on a secret investigation.

  They said goodbye.

  “Take care of yourself,” Gullotta suggested.

  “Take a few days off,” Musante advised.

  So something had definitely happened two months earlier. Something the Antimafia Commission was keeping hidden because the investigation was still ongoing.

  When he got to the station he called Fazio and told him of his talk with Musante and Gullotta. He did not tell him, of course, that they thought he was crazy.

  “Have you got any friends at Antimafia?”

  “Sure, Chief. Morici.”

  “Is he about fifty, with a mustache?” asked Montalbano, alarmed.

  “No.”

  “Could you talk to him?”

  “What do you want me to say to him?”

  “Ask him if he knows what happened two months ago, which Musante and Gullotta didn’t want to tell me.”

  “I can try, Chief, but...”

  “But what?”

  “Morici and I may be friends, but he’s a man of few words. The guy’s like a statue. He doesn’t even sweat.”

  “Well, try to make him sweat a little. Have you started working on Pecorini?”

  “Yessir. I’ve started and I’ve even finished. The response was negative.”

  “Meaning?”

  “He doesn’t work at customs in Catania and never has. Nobody with that name has.”

  “Ah, I see. Maybe the person who gave me this information didn’t mean ‘customs’ as in ‘customs office,’ but was simply referring to that part of town. People do talk that way, sometimes.”

  “So where am I supposed to find him now, this Pecorini?”

  Wasn’t it possible that Mimì went through some agency to rent that house?

  “Listen, how many real estate agencies are there in Vigàta?”

  Fazio did a quick mental tally.

  “Five and a half, Chief.”

  “What do you mean by ‘a half’?”

  “There’s one that also sells cars.”

  “See if Pecorini used one of them to rent a house.”

  “To rent it himself or to rent it out to others?”

  “To rent it out. He owns the house. And if you have any luck, have them tell you where he works, or at least where he lives. He must have an address and phone number with the agency.”

  “Do you know the address of the house?”

  “No.”

  It was best not to give Fazio too much information. He was liable to discover that Mimì was renting it.

  That afternoon, as he was coming back in to the station, he nearly collided with Mimì Augello, who was coming out in a hurry.

  “Greetings, Mimì.”

  “Greetings,” Mimì replied brusquely.

  Montalbano turned around to look at him as he headed through the parking lot towards his car. Mimì seemed to be walking with his back slightly hunched.

  At that very moment another car parked right beside Mimì’s, and from it emerged a woman of more than considerable beauty.

  But Augello didn’t consider her at all. He didn’t even look at her, in fact, but only started up his car and left.

  How he had changed! Once upon a time, Mimì would most certainly have tried to strike up a conversation and make friends with a woman like that.

  9

  Five minutes after the inspector had sat down at his desk, the door flew open and slammed against the wall with such force that it frightened Catarella himself, the author of what should have been a simple knock.

  “Man, whatta crash! Even scared me m’self, Chief! Ahhh Chief! Whatta woman!”

  “Where?”

  “Right ’ere, Chief. Inna waitin’ room. Says ’er name’s Dolorosa. I say it oughter be Amorosa! Says she wants a talk t’yiz poissonally in poisson. Jesus, whatta woman! Ya gotta have eyes t’see this one!”

  She must be the woman the inspector saw get out of the car. A woman who puts even Catarella in a state like that, and Mimì doesn’t deign to give her a glance? Poor Mimì! He was in a really bad way!

  “Send her in.”

  She didn’t seem real. She was stunning, about thirty, dark and very tall, with long hair falling over her shoulders, big, deep eyes, a broad mouth, full lips siliconized not by a surgeon but by Mother Nature herself, perfect teeth for eating living flesh, and big hoop earrings, like a gypsy. Also gypsylike were her skirt and a blouse that swelled with two international-tournament-size bocce balls.

  She didn’t seem real, but she was. Man, was she ever real.

  Montalbano had the impression he’d already met her somewhere, but then realized that it was because she looked like a Mexican movie actress from the fifties he’d seen in a recent retrospective.

  When she entered, the office filled with a faint scent of cinnamon.

  But it wasn’t perfume that gave off that scent, the inspector thought. It was her skin. As she held out her hand to him, Montalbano noticed that she had extremely long fingers, disproportionately long, fascinating and dangerous.

  They sat down, she in front, he behind the desk. The woman had a serious, worried air about her.

  “What can I do for you, signora . . . ?”

  “My name is Dolores Alfano.”

  Montalbano sprang up towards the ceiling, and on his way back down, his left butt-cheek landed on the edge of the chair and he very nearly disappeared behind the desk. Dolores Alfano seemed not to notice.

  So here, at last, personally in person, was the mysterious woman Fabio Giacchetti had talked to him about, the woman who, returning from an amorous tryst, nearly got run over by someone, perhaps on purpose.

  “But Alfano is my husband Giovanni’s surname,” she continued. “My maiden name is Gutierrez.”

  “Are you Spanish?”

  “No, Colombian. But I’ve been living in Vigàta for years, at Via Guttuso, 12.”

  “So, what can I do for you, signora?” Montalbano repeated.

  “My husband is away at sea, sailing on a container ship as first mate. We stay in touch through letters and postcards. Before leaving, he always gives me a list of his ports of call with arrival and departure dates, so he can receive my letters when he goes ashore. We also sometimes call each other with our satellite phones, but pretty rarely.”

  “Has something happened?”

  “Well, Giovanni embarked a few months ago on a rather long voyage, and after three weeks had gone by, he still hadn’t written or phoned me. This has never happened before. So I got worried and called him. He told me he was in good health and had been very busy.”

  Montalbano was spellbound as he listened to her. She had a bedroom voice. There was no other way to define it. She might say only “hello,” and immediately one imagined rumpled blankets, pillows on the floor, and sweat-dampened sheets smelling of cinnamon.

  And the Spanish accent that came out when she spoke at length was like a spicy condiment.

  “. . . a postcard from him,” said Dolores.

  Lost in her voice, Montalbano had become distracted, his mind indeed on unmade beds and torrid nights, with perhaps some Spanish guitars playing in the background...

  “I’m sorry, what did you say?” he said.

  “I said that the day before yesterday, I got a postcard from him.”

  “Good. So now you’ve been reassured.”

  The woman did not reply, but pulled a picture postcard out of her purse and handed it to the inspector.

  It showed the port of a town that Montalbano had never heard of. The stamp was Argentinean. On the back was written : Doing great. How a
bout you? Kisses, Giovanni.

  You couldn’t very well say the captain was an expansive sort. Still, it was better than nothing. Montalbano looked up at Dolores Alfano.

  “I don’t think he wrote it himself,” she said. “The signature looks different to me.”

  She took four other postcards out of her purse and passed them to Montalbano.

  “Compare it with these, which he sent me last year.”

  There was no need to resort to a handwriting expert. It was glaringly obvious that the handwriting of the last postcard was fake. And falsified rather carelessly at that. The old postcards also had a different tone:

  I love you so much

  Think of you always

  I miss you

  I kiss you all over

  “This last postcard I received,” Dolores continued, “brought back the strange impression I had after calling him on the phone.”

  “Which was?”

  “That it wasn’t him at the other end. His voice was different. As if he had a cold. But at the time I convinced myself that it was because of the distortion of the cell phone. Now I’m no longer so sure.”

  “And what do you think I should do?”

  “Well . . . I don’t really know.”

  “It’s sort of a problem, signora. The last postcard wasn’t written by him, you’re right about that. But that might also mean your husband didn’t board the ship for any number of reasons and then had a friend write to you and send it so you wouldn’t get worried.”

  Dolores shook her head.

  “In that case, he could have telephoned me.”

  “True. Why didn’t you call him?”

  “I did. As soon as I received the card. And I called him twice after that. I even tried again before coming here. But his telephone is always turned off, nobody answers.”

  “I understand your concern, signora, but...”

  “So you can’t do anything?”

  “No, I can’t. Because, you see, the way things are today, you aren’t even in a position to file a missing persons report. Who’s to say whether the situation isn’t other than what you say it is?”

  “But what could the situation be, in that case?”

  “Well, I dunno. For example . . .” Montalbano started walking on eggshells. “Mind you, this is only a conjecture, but maybe your husband met somebody . . . You know what I mean? . . . Somebody who—”

  “My husband loves me.”

  She said it serenely, almost without intonation. Then she took an envelope out of her purse and withdrew the letter that was inside it.

  “This is a letter he sent me four months ago. Please read it.”

  . . . not a night goes by that I don’t dream of being inside you . . . I hear again the things you say when you are reaching orgasm . . . and immediately you want to start all over again . . . when your tongue...

  Montalbano blushed, decided he’d seen enough, and gave the letter back to her.

  Maybe it was just his imagination, but he thought he saw, deep inside the woman’s deep dark eyes, gone as fast as it had appeared, a flash of . . . irony? amusement?

  “The last time he was here, how did your husband behave?”

  “With me? The same as always.”

  “Listen, signora, all I can do at this point is give you some, er, personal advice. Do you know the name of the ship on which your husband is sailing?”

  “Yes, the Ruy Barbosa.”

  “Then get in touch with the shipping company. Are they Italian?”

  “No. Stevenson and Guerra is Brazilian.”

  “Do they have a representative in Italy?”

  “Of course, in Naples. His name is Pasquale Camera.”

  “Have you got an address and telephone number for this Pasquale Camera?”

  “Yes, I’ve got them right here.”

  She took a piece of paper out of her purse and held it out to Montalbano.

  “No, don’t give it to me. It’s you who has to call for the information.”

  “No, I can’t,” Dolores said decisively.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t want my husband to think that I . . . No, I’d rather not. Please, you do it.”

  “Me? But, signora, as a police inspector I ca—”

  “Just say you’re a friend of Giovanni’s and you’re worried because you’ve had no news of him for a while.”

  “Look, signora, I—”

  Dolores leaned forward. Montalbano was resting his arms on the desktop. The woman laid her hands, hot as if with fever, on top of Montalbano’s, her long fingers snaking inside the cuffs of his shirt, first caressing his skin, then clutching his wrists.

  “Help me,” she said.

  “All . . . all right,” said Montalbano.

  They stood up. The inspector went to open the door for her and saw that half the police department was in the waiting room, all feigning indifference.

  Apparently Catarella had passed the word about Dolores’s beauty.

  Once alone, the inspector took off his jacket, unbuttoned his cuffs, and rolled up his sleeves.

  Dolores’s fingernails had left marks on his skin. She had branded him. His skin burned a little. He sniffed his arms, which smelled slightly of cinnamon. Wasn’t it best to settle the matter at once? And get this black leopardess out of his hair? The less he saw of her, the better.

  “Catarella! Ring up this number in Naples for me. But don’t tell them you’re calling for the police.”

  Multiplication table for eigh—. A woman picked up at once.

  “Camera Shipping Company. May I help you?”

  “Davide Maraschi here. I’d like to speak to Mr. Camera.”

  “Please hold.”

  A recording of a song in keeping with the setting began: “O sole mio.”

  “Could you please hold?” the woman cut in. “Mr. Camera is on another line.”

  A new song: “Fenesta ca lucive.”

  “Could you hold just a minute longer?”

  New song: “Guapparia.”

  The inspector liked Neapolitan songs, but he was starting to wish they would play some rock. Discouraged and worried he was going to have to sing along with the entire Piedigrotta repertoire, he was about to hang up when a man’s voice cut in:

  “Hello, this is Camera. What can I do for you?”

  What the hell did he tell the secretary his name was? He remembered Davide, but not the surname, except for the fact that it ended in -schi.

  “I’m Davide Verzaschi.”

  “How may I help you?”

  “I’ll take only a few minutes of your time, as I can see you’re very busy. You represent Stevenson and Guerra, correct?”

  “Among others.”

  “Good. Listen, I urgently need to get in touch with someone presently on board the Ruy Barbosa. Would you be so kind as to explain to me how I might go about this?”

  “How do you intend to get in touch with this person?”

  “I’ve ruled out carrier pigeons and smoke signals.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Camera.

  Why did he always have to make wisecracks? The guy might hang up, and that would be the end of that.

  “I don’t know, in writing or by telephone.”

  “If you have a satellite phone, you only have to dial the number.”

  “I have, but nobody answers.”

  “I see. Wait just a minute while I check the computer . . . Here we are. The Ruy Barbosa will be calling at the port of Lisbon in exactly eight days. So you can write a letter. I can even give you the address of the Portuguese representative and—”

  “Isn’t there a quicker way? I have some bad news to tell him. His aunt Adelaide has died; she was like a mother to him.”

  The pause that followed meant that Mr. Camera was torn between duty and pity. And the latter won out.

  “Look, I’ll make an exception, given the gravity and urgency of the situation. I’ll give you the cell phone number of the first
mate, who is also the ship’s purser. Write this down.”

  So how was he going to wiggle out of this now? The first mate of the Ruy Barbosa was the person he was looking for! He couldn’t think of a single way to get out of the predicament.

  “The first mate,” Mr. Camera continued, “is named Couto Ribeiro, and his number is—”

  What was the guy saying?

  “I’m sorry, but isn’t the first mate Giovanni Alfano?”

  There was a sudden silence at the other end.

  And Montalbano was seized by the same sense of panic that always came over him when the line got cut off as he was speaking over the telephone. It was as if he’d been rocketed into the icy loneliness of outer space. He started yelling desperately.

  “Hello? Helllloooo?”

  “No need to shout. Are you a relative of Alfano’s?”

  “No, we’re friends, former schoolmates, and...”

  “Where are you calling from?”

  “From . . . from Brindisi.”

  “So you’re not in Vigàta.”

  Elementary, my dear Watson.

  “How long has it been since you last saw Alfano?” the man continued.

  What the hell had got into Camera? What were all these questions? His tone was brusque, almost angry.

  “Well . . . it’s probably been a little over two months . . . He told me his next job would be aboard the Ruy Barbosa, as first mate. Which is why I’m surprised . . . What happened?”

  “What happened is that he never showed up to board the ship. I had to look for a substitute at the very last minute, and it wasn’t easy. Your friend got me into trouble, a great deal of trouble, in fact.”

  “Have you heard from him since then?”

  “Three days later he sent me a note saying he’d found something better. Listen, if you get a hold of him, tell him that Camera’s going to kick his ass all the way to Sardinia if he sees him. So, what are we going to do, Mr....”

  “Falaschi.”

  “. . . are you going to take down Couto Ribeiro’s number or not?”

  “Please go ahead.”

  “Oh, no you don’t! Get smart with me, will you? First you must clarify something for me, my good Mr. Panaschi. If you knew Alfano was aboard the Ruy Barbosa, why didn’t you contact him instead of me?”