The Potter's Field

by Andrea Camilleri

  Catarella came in, went up to the desk, and set four photographs down on it.

  “They’s juss sint from Tauro Gioiosa an’ I prinnit ’em.”

  He left.

  “You’d better be careful, Chief. The next time he comes in, the guy’s gonna shoot just like you said,” said Fazio, worried. “And it may start a revolution.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Montalbano. “Come and have a look at these photos yourself.”

  Fazio came up beside him.

  The first shot, which showed the bedroom, had been taken in such a way as to display the whole room. On the right was an open door that afforded a glimpse of the bathroom. The bed was almost as big as the one the Alfanos had in Vigàta, and there was an armoire, a chest of drawers, and two chairs. All in perfect order but for a pair of trousers tossed carelessly onto the bed.

  The second shot showed a sort of living room with a kitchenette in the corner and hanging cupboards. There was also a small table with four chairs, two armchairs, a television, a sideboard, and a refrigerator. Beside the sink was an uncorked bottle of wine, a can of beer, and two glasses.

  The third photo showed the bathroom. But the shot was taken so as to isolate the sink, toilet, and bidet. Here it was clear that whoever had last used the toilet had forgotten to flush, since the bowl was full of shit.

  The fourth was an enlargement of the pair of trousers on the bed.

  “Hadn’t the lady said she left the place in order?” said Fazio.

  “Yeah. That means someone entered the apartment after she left.”

  “The husband?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Definitely accompanied by someone else. There are two glasses.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you think, Chief?”

  “At the moment I don’t want to think about anything.”

  “What are we going to do?”

  “We have to show these photos to Dolores immediately. Call her right now and ask her if she can come here or if we should go there.”

  Dolores Alfano showed them into the living room, after receiving them without so much as a smile. She was clearly nervous and mostly curious to know what the two men had to tell her. She didn’t even ask if they wanted coffee or something to drink. Montalbano weighed his options. Should he get straight to the point or beat around the bush, given that she wasn’t going to like what he had to tell her? Better not to waste any time.

  “Signora,” he began, “I believe I recall you saying this morning that it was your custom, when leaving the apartment in Gioia Tauro, to leave everything orderly and neat. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you don’t have a cleaning woman?”

  “I do the cleaning myself.”

  “So, once you leave Gioia Tauro and lock up the flat, nobody else goes inside. Is that correct?”

  “That seems logical to me, no?”

  “One more thing, signora. In your opinion, could your husband have lent the apartment to a friend who needed a place to stay, perhaps an associate passing through?”

  “When he wasn’t there, you mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “I would absolutely rule that out.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Giovanni is very possessive. Of me, of his things, of everything that belongs to him. You can imagine how he would feel about leaving his apartment to someone...”

  She stopped short when she saw Montalbano signal to Fazio, who handed him the envelope he was holding.

  The inspector pulled out three photographs and laid them down on the table. The first was the photo of the bedroom, which Dolores recognized immediately.

  “But that’s . . . May I?”

  “Of course.”

  Dolores picked it up, looked at it, and didn’t say a word, but from her half-open mouth came a sort of faint, long lament. Then, photograph still in hand, she closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair. She remained that way for a moment, chest rising and falling with her anxious breath, waiting for the effect of what she’d seen to pass. Then she sighed deeply, opened her eyes, bent down brusquely, and grabbed the other two photos. She didn’t even need to study them, and tossed them back onto the table.

  She must have turned pale, because her skin, which was naturally dark, had now lightened to a kind of gray.

  “Somebody . . . somebody went in after I . . . It’s not possible . . . I left everything in order...”

  Montalbano then took the fourth photograph out of the envelope, the enlargement of the shot of the trousers, and handed it to her.

  “I know this is a difficult question, but can you tell me if these trousers belong to your husband?”

  She took a long look at the photograph. Then she leaned back in her chair again, closed her eyes again. This time, however, a tear fell from her left eye. Only one, very round. It looked like a pearl. That single tear was more tragic, more desperate than a whole waterfall of tears. Dolores managed to say, in a soft voice:

  “They’re the ones he was wearing when he left to board the ship.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Without answering, Dolores Alfano stood up, went to a chest in the living room, opened a drawer, returned to the table with a magnifying glass in hand, and picked up the photo again. Then she passed the glass and photo to the inspector. She had regained complete control of herself.

  “See? He left the belt in the trouser loops. If you look closely, the buckle is a large plate of copper with his initials interwoven, G and A. He had it made in Argentina.”

  The inspector was unable to read the initials, but he could see that something had been carved into the copper plate.

  “So it’s clear your husband waited for you to leave before going back into the flat. And he came with someone else.”

  “But why?! To do what?!”

  “Maybe he needed some time, was waiting until a certain hour and didn’t want to be seen out and about, since he had officially taken ship already. Does your husband drink wine?”

  “Yes, but he doesn’t like beer.”

  “Apparently whoever was with him did. Do you know if the beer and wine were already there in the apartment?”

  “Yes. There was beer in the fridge, because I like to drink it.”

  “As you can see, the bathroom was left a mess. Does your husband care about cleanliness and hygiene?”

  “Inspector, anyone who spends long periods of time on a ship follows strict rules of hygiene. And my husband is a maniac for cleanliness.”

  “So it couldn’t have been him who left the bathroom in that condition.”

  “Absolutely not. And he must not even have realized that the person with him hadn’t—”

  “Why would he have changed his trousers?”

  “That’s something I can’t understand. Maybe he’d got them dirty or torn them.”

  “It doesn’t look like it in the photo.”

  “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Did he have a change of clothes with him?”

  “Of course. In two big bags he took away with him that morning.”

  “Weren’t there any clothes in the armoire?”

  “No, he’d taken everything away with him.”

  “So, once back in Via Gerace, your husband opened a bag, took out a pair of trousers, and put them on instead of the ones he’d been wearing.”

  “Apparently.”

  12

  Until that moment, Dolores Alfano had managed to stay calm and control herself. Now she began to tremble slightly. She still had a gray cast.

  “Excuse me, I need to go to the bathroom,” she said, getting up.

  She went out. She’d left the door open, and they could hear her vomiting.

  “Fazio, have you got your cell phone with you?” asked the inspector, also getting up.

  “Yessir.”

  “Call Catarella and ask him for the number of the Gioia Tauro police, then call and ask for Inspector Macannuco. Th
en pass the phone to me.”

  “But where are you going now?”

  “Out on the balcony to smoke a cigarette.”

  He felt a weariness weighing down on him like a ton of iron. It had come over him all at once, when a thought had flashed in his brain as he was studying the photo of the trousers. What a strange reaction!

  Time was when he would have made an angry or sly remark. No longer. Weariness and discouragement were his only response.

  As he looked out over the railing at the port—a steamboat mooring, seagulls flying low, fishing boats in drydock—a melancholy feeling welled up inside him, on top of his fatigue, bringing a lump into his throat.

  “I’ve got Macannuco on the line,” said Fazio, reaching through the window and handing him the cell phone.

  “Montalbano here. Did you get the warrant?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “I wanted to ask you if the trousers that were on the bed were dirty or torn.”

  “Absolutely not.”

  “Did you get any fingerprints?”

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “My dear Salvo, somebody took great care to get rid of every last trace. A perfect job, professional. And you don’t seem surprised. Did you expect as much?”

  “Yes.”

  “Let’s see now if I can surprise you with some other news. Inside the bathroom ceiling, right over the sink, there’s a trapdoor.”

  “It’s not visible in the photo you sent.”

  “That’s because the shot’s not taken from the right angle. Anyway, I climbed a little stepladder and opened it. There’s a small sort of attic there, and I found an empty suitcase and a shoebox.”

  “Which am I supposed to be surprised by, the suitcase or the shoebox?”

  “The shoebox. It was also empty, but I noticed, on the bottom, a trace of some white powder, which I had tested.”

  “Cocaine.”

  “That’s right. And that’s why I had to inform the public prosecutor.”

  “I understand. Thanks, Macannuco. I’ll be in touch.”

  He went back inside. Fazio was sitting in the armchair. Dolores still hadn’t returned from the bathroom.

  “What did Macannuco say?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  Dolores came into the room. She had washed and changed her clothes. But she hadn’t recovered her vivacity. She looked withered. In her movements, her way of walking, and her eyes. She sat down with a sigh.

  “I’m sorry, but I feel very tired.”

  “We’ll be leaving right away, signora,” said the inspector. “But first I must ask you at least one question, which could be helpful to the investigation. Very helpful. I know it’s painful for you to be asked at a time like this to remember the past, but I have no choice.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “How did you meet your husband?”

  The question shocked Fazio, who looked at Montalbano with surprise. Signora Dolores winced before answering, as if from a shooting pain.

  “He came to my father’s office.”

  “In Bogotá?”

  “No, we were in Putumayo.”

  Putumayo. The biggest drug production center in Colombia. Filippo Alfano had gone to the right place.

  “The nurse had been absent for several days,” Dolores continued, “and my father asked me to fill in for her.”

  “Your father was a doctor?”

  “A dentist.”

  “And what sort of dental work did Giovanni need?”

  She smiled at the memory.

  “He’d fallen from his motorbike. Papa had to give him a bridge.”

  What more did he need to know? Who’s in Grandma’s bed? The big bad wolf. What’s thirty minus two? Twentyeight. He had known for at least the past half hour who the dead man in the critaru was. But the fatigue was now making his legs ache. He got up from the armchair with some effort. Fazio also stood up.

  “Thank you, signora. As soon as I have any news, I’ll be sure to tell you.”

  “Thank you,” said Dolores.

  She didn’t make a scene. Didn’t scratch him, didn’t twist his hand, didn’t grab him by the lapels of his jacket. The woman was dignified, composed, sober. Different. For the first time, the inspector felt genuine admiration for her.

  “That woman’s got balls!” Fazio said admiringly once they were on the street. “I was expecting some hair-raising scene from her, and instead she controlled herself even better than a man.”

  Montalbano didn’t comment on this comment, but only asked:

  “Were you aware that Pasquano, when he did the autopsy on the critaru victim, found a bridge in the stomach?”

  Fazio, who was bending down to unlock the car door, stopped halfway and looked up at him, stunned.

  “He had a bridge in his stomach?”

  “He most certainly did. Apparently, shortly before he was killed, the bridge came unstuck and he swallowed it. But it hadn’t had time to pass through his body.”

  Fazio was still bent down halfway.

  “And there’s more,” the inspector went on. “The bridge had been made, beyond the shadow of a doubt, by a dentist in South America. Now, you tell me. Who’s in Grandma’s bed?”

  “The big bad wolf,” Fazio replied automatically.

  But immediately afterwards, he straightened himself abruptly, as the meaning of Montalbano’s words finally penetrated his brain.

  “So . . . according to you, the dead man in the critaru—”

  “—is Giovanni Alfano. Not according to me, but according to Matthew,” Montalbano concluded. “Anyway, you yourself said that Alfano’s statistics corresponded pretty closely with those of the dead man.”

  “Holy shit, you’re right! But, I’m sorry, who’s this Matthew?”

  “I’ll tell you later.”

  “But why would anyone want to kill him?”

  “You know what Macannuco told me? First, that all the fingerprints had been perfectly wiped away.”

  “Professionals?”

  “Apparently. The second thing he said is that they found an empty shoebox with traces of cocaine in it, in a sort of crawl space above the bathroom.”

  “Holy shit!”

  “Exactly. Which means that, despite the strict surveillance he was under, Alfano was mixed up with drugs. Maybe he was a courier.”

  “That seems impossible.”

  “Impossible or not, appearances lead us to conclude that those are the facts. So it’s only natural to think that one fine day, following in his father’s footsteps, Giovanni Alfano started behaving inappropriately in the eyes of his work provider.”

  “Don Balduccio?”

  “So it seems. And in Balduccio’s eyes, that’s a serious offense. And intolerable. Giovanni, despite his father’s treason, had always been treated like one of the family, to the point that not only did Balduccio not disown him, he actually helped him out when he was in Colombia. So Giovanni is a traitor to his own blood. He has to die. You with me so far?”

  “Yes. Go on.”

  “So Don Balduccio hatches an ingenious plan. He lets Giovanni leave for Gioia Tauro with Dolores, then has him kidnapped, brought back to Vigàta, killed, chopped up, and put in a garbage bag. And he even tells his men to arrange things so that the body isn’t discovered for some time. That way everyone will think that Giovanni boarded his ship. The plan is executed without a hitch, even though Balduccio in the meantime ends up in a hospital. Giovanni’s wife, however, some two months after her husband sets sail, starts to get suspicious and comes and tells us about it.”

  “But why all the drama of cutting him up into pieces and burying them at ’u critaru?”

  “Have you ever read the Gospels, Fazio?”

  “Never, Chief.”

  “Bad.”

  And he explained the whole story to him. When he had finished, Fazio was looking at him, open-mouthed.

  “So it’s as if Don Balduccio had left his
signature!”

  “Right. That’s why it all makes sense, don’t you think?”

  “I sure do. So what do we do now?”

  “We take a little time.”

  “And what about Signora Dolores?”

  “For the moment there’s no point in telling her anything more . . . It would only make her suffer and wouldn’t help her at all. The body’s in such bad shape she wouldn’t even be able to identify it.”

  “Chief, I was just thinking that whoever wrote the anonymous letter to the Antimafia office knew everything.”

  “Yeah. When the time is right we’ll rub Musante’s nose in it, for having dismissed that letter too quickly. But before we make any moves, give me a day to think things over.”

  “Whatever you say, Chief. What are you doing now, coming to the office?”

  “Yes, I want to pick up my car and go home.”

  Fazio parked, and they got out.

  “Chief, could I come into your office for a few minutes? I’d like to talk to you about something,” said Fazio, who hadn’t opened his mouth the whole way back to the station.

  “Of course.”

  “Ahh Chief Chief !” said Catarella, racing out of his closet, “I gots a litter f’yiz I’s asposta give yiz poissonally in poisson.”

  Looking around himself with a conspiratorial air, he pulled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to the inspector.

  “Who gave it to you?”

  “Isspector Augello did. An’ he said I’s asposta put it in yer hand the minnit I sawr yiz.”

  “And where is he?”

  “ ’E stepped out momentaneously, Chief, but ’e says ’e’ll be back.”

  Montalbano pushed on towards his office, with Fazio following behind.

  “Have a seat, Fazio, while I see what Mimì wants.”

  The envelope was open. There were only a few lines.

  Dear Salvo,

  This is to remind you that you promised to let me know as soon as possible whether or not you plan to assign me the only important case on our hands at the moment.