Death at Sea: Montalbano's Early Cases

by Andrea Camilleri

  “Gentlemen, the auction is hereby open!” he said, in the voice of a strangled rooster.

  A eunuch, perhaps? So the story about them cutting the the balls off the harem guards was true after all?

  “The first absolutely priceless item I have the honor of presenting to you tonight,” the eunuch continued, “is a Moldavian girl who has just turned nineteen, Ekaterina Smirnova. She was imported directly by our organization, and therefore we can guarantee that she is almost entirely new merchandise.”

  He then assumed a sly expression.

  “She has tremendous linguistic ability. Ah, but don’t get the wrong idea. Ekaterina speaks and writes five languages fluently. The bidding will begin at one hundred and fifty thousand lire.”

  A very young girl walked in, blond as the sun, completely naked and smiling, and exhibited herself to the crowd, first the front, then the back, after which she began a sort of dance, lying down on the floor and spreading her legs and then getting up on all fours.

  Montalbano felt a little confused. A hundred and fifty thousand lire for a beautiful girl like that seemed very little to him.

  “The starting price seems a little low to me,” he said to Giliberto.

  “Well,” Giliberto explained, “the problem is not the acquisition price, you see; the real problem is the cost of maintenance. The more beautiful the girls, the more expensive their daily upkeep: hairdresser, beautician, manicurist, masseur . . . Then there’s the wardrobe, which must be top-drawer, and the options, such as necklaces, bracelets . . . Then there’s also the apartment, the restaurant costs . . . Those are major expenses, you know.”

  Meanwhile the girl had been sold to the owner of a fishing trawler for two hundred thousand lire.

  “I’m sorry,” Montalbano insisted. “But what do you do when you start to get tired of her?”

  “You bring her back to the organization,” said Giliberto, “and they make her work the streets.”

  “And what if the girl refuses?”

  “That’s unlikely. But if that happens, they scrap her.”

  Now it was the turn of a dark, sinuous twenty-year-old girl, with a body you had to see to believe. With every move she made she appeared to be dancing.

  “The bidding will start at two hundred thousand,” said the eunuch.

  “Two hundred and fifty thousand,” said Montalbano, acting out the role he’d been assigned.

  “Two hundred and fifty thousand lire. Going once,” said the eunuch.

  Nobody said anything.

  “Anybody care to make another offer? Look at those aerodynamic breasts! Admire the bold curve of those buttocks!”

  Chaste but efficient in his pitch, that eunuch.

  “Don’t be shy! No other offers? Okay. Two hundred and fifty thousand lire, going twice.”

  Nobody said anything this time, either.

  “No other offers? Then, sold! For two hundred and fifty thousand lire!”

  Montalbano’s blood froze. He’d bought himself a woman! A sex slave! What the hell was he going to tell Livia?

  At that moment a telephone rang.

  “It’s for you,” the eunuch said to Montalbano. “Go and answer!”

  How could he know? Flummoxed, Montalbano stood up and then woke up. The telephone was still ringing. He breathed a sigh of relief. So he hadn’t bought himself a woman, he’d just dreamt it. He looked at the clock. Six-thirty in the morning. He got out of bed and answered the phone.

  “Iss terribly imbarrassin’ an’ I beckon you a towzan’ partin’s, Chief, f’ callin’ yiz so oily inna morninlike. Wha’ was ya doin’, Chief, sleepin’?”

  “No, I was playing rugby,” Montalbano replied darkly.

  “I nevveh unnastood nuttin’ ’bout that.”

  “About what?”

  “’Bout that ’Murcan game you was playin’.”

  “Cat, you wanna tell me why you called me?”

  “’Ere was a hummicide, Chief.”

  “Explain.”

  “’Ey foun’ a copse o’ the fimminine sex inna doorways on Via Pintacucuda, nummer eighteen. Fazio’s awreddy onna scene.”

  “Okay, I’m on my way.”

  * * *

  Fazio had taken measures to ensure that rubberneckers were kept a good distance away. The victim was a pretty young woman of about twenty, blond. All she was wearing was a terry-cloth bathrobe, which in her fall had come open, revealing that she’d been cut with a blade all over her body. Little cuts, both deep and superficial, from her throat to her feet. There wasn’t much blood.

  “They didn’t kill her here,” said Montalbano.

  “Certainly not,” said Fazio.

  “But it was she herself, despite being half-dead, who’d made it to this spot on her own strength.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Come with me.”

  He followed him out of the doorway.

  “Look down on the ground.”

  There were large, dark bloodstains. They led to a blue Suzuki with its driver’s-side door half-open.

  “Look inside.”

  Montalbano looked. The driver’s seat was all covered in blood. The steering wheel likewise.

  “After she was all cut up,” Fazio went on, “she had the strength to get in her car, drive here, cross the street, open the front door—the key is still in the lock—and go inside. But she didn’t make it any farther. She’d lost too much blood.”

  They went back into the doorway.

  “Who discovered her?”

  “A certain Michele Tarantino, who was coming out of the building at six, on his way to work.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “He’s in his apartment. Second floor, number six.”

  “I’m going to go and talk to him. Have you alerted the circus? Forensics, DA, Pasquano?”

  “Already taken care of.”

  * * *

  There was no elevator. He climbed the stairs, knocked, and the door was opened by an enormous woman with a waistline of at least twelve feet and arms capable of snapping the inspector in two without breaking a sweat.

  “What the hell is it now?”

  “It’s Inspector Montalbano.”

  “What the fuck do I care?”

  Montalbano forced himself to stuff it.

  “I would like to speak with Signor Michele Tarantino.”

  “Signor Michele, as you call him, is in the toilet vomiting. That’s all he’s been doing since he found the dead body. My husband’s a sensitive man!”

  She let the inspector in, then howled:

  “Michè! C’m ’ere! There’s somebody here to bust your balls again!”

  And she walked away, muttering to herself. Michele Tarantino was a tiny, skinny man of about fifty, and if he was two inches shorter you could have legitimately called him a midget.

  “Tell me something, sir. When you saw the girl, was she still alive or already dead?”

  “No, she was already dead.”

  The man must have been from Catania, to judge from his accent.

  “And what did you do?”

  “Me? I didn’t do nothing. I just started vomiting.”

  “But then who was it that called us?”

  “Signor Aurelio Scarmacca, who lives just across the landing from us, and who turned up at the exact same moment.”

  “Was he on his way out, too?”

  “No, he was coming home. He works as a night watchman.”

  “And what did you do?”

  “I came upstairs to throw up.”

  “Had you ever seen the girl before?”

  “Never. She didn’t live here.”

  * * *

  Aurelio Scarmacca had wisely not gone to bed. He was keeping himself awake by dint of coffee.

&n
bsp; “Would you like some, too, sir?”

  “Sure, why not? Thank you.”

  Serving the coffee was Scarmacca’s wife, Signora Ciccina.

  “Signor Scarmacca, how did you get inside? Did you use the key that—”

  “That’s exactly right,” said Scarmacca, a smart fellow of about forty. “I saw the key in the lock and—”

  “I’m sorry, but was there only that one key in the lock? It wasn’t part of a set?”

  “No, it was all by itself.”

  “Okay, go on.”

  “I figured one of the tenants must have forgotten it there, so I turned it and went in, and then I saw the body and Signor Tarantino, who was trembling. And so I closed the front door, came upstairs to our flat, called you on the phone, went back downstairs, and opened the front door halfway—I’m always the one who opens it in the morning—so that you couldn’t see the body from the street. And then I stood guard and waited there until the police arrived.”

  “You did the right thing. But, tell me, had you ever seen the girl before?”

  “No, sir.”

  “She didn’t live here,” Signora Ciccina added firmly.

  “How can you say that if you haven’t seen her?”

  “But I did see her. I overheard Aurelio talking on the phone and I went down to look. Not only did she not live here, but I’d never seen her before.”

  “But she had the key to the outside door,” said Montalbano.

  “Maybe she came at night, in secret, when everyone was asleep,” said Signora Ciccina.

  “And what would she come here for at night?”

  “What do you think a pretty girl’s gonna come here for at night? It doesn’t take a lot of imagination!”

  “And who was she coming to see, in your opinion?”

  “Ah, don’t ask me. I never spied on nobody in my life,” said Signora Ciccina, hardening her face.

  Best give her a wide berth.

  “How many floors are there in this building?”

  “Six. Four apartments per floor.”

  “Are there any bachelors living in any?”

  “Yessir. There’s Signor Guarnotta, and there’s Signor Ballassare on the fifth floor.”

  “All right, then. Thank you for your cooperation,” said Montalbano, standing up.

  “Then,” Signora Ciccina continued, “there are two apartments rented to two girls—one is Signorina Gioeli, and the other’s name is Persico. If it’s all right with you, I can go and talk to these two women.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Because nobody can ever really say that a man’s a man and a woman’s a woman when it comes to going to bed. Know what I mean?”

  He knew exactly what she meant.

  * * *

  He went downstairs. None of the circus had shown up yet.

  “Apparently the girl didn’t live here,” he said to Fazio. “Listen, I’m going back to the office. This afternoon—starting at three-thirty—I want to see Signor Guarnotta and Signor Ballassare, and two young women, surnames Gioeli and Persico, all of whom live in this building. And one more thing. It’s possible the girl who was killed had another key, for her own apartment. Have them search carefully in her car, under the body, anywhere they can. See you later.”

  2

  After eating he got back to the office just before three-thirty and found Fazio waiting for him. His assistant handed him a key.

  “So you found it!”

  “No, Chief, I didn’t. That’s the front-door key. Forensics was unable to get any clear fingerprints from it. But I also got two photos of the girl.”

  He set them down on the desk and said:

  “The two women are already here, you know.”

  “Tell Catarella to bring the first one in, and then come back here.”

  Albertina Gioeli was wearing clothes that made her look like a cross between a women’s-reformatory guard and a nun. She was about thirty and fat, and had a mustache.

  “I sent for Don Celestino to bless the building’s entrance,” she informed the inspector as soon as she sat down. “I’m also making a collection to pay the priest to say four Masses for the soul of that poor girl who was murdered. Would you like to contribute?”

  Caught off-guard, Montalbano made a contribution.

  “Had you ever seen this girl?” he asked her, showing her one of the photos.

  “Never!”

  The inspector saw no point in continuing. This woman was not the kind to receive another woman at night. Graziella Persico was instead another matter altogether. A pretty, well-groomed twenty-five-year-old with long legs and wearing a miniskirt, she worked as a secretary for Arlotta, a notary, and had never seen the victim before, either. For no apparent reason, Montalbano fired a shot in the dark.

  “You live on the sixth floor, correct? I have to tell you that at least two of your fellow female tenants, one from the second floor and the other on the fourth, told me that sometimes, at night, they’d . . .”

  And he stopped there, because he couldn’t come up quick enough with what the two fellow female tenants might have told him. Luckily, however, Graziella turned red as a beet.

  “I’m certainly not doing anything wrong. I’m a legal adult, I have no boyfriend, I am absolutely free. So, if Pippinello . . . I mean Signor Arlotta, the notary, comes to see me every now and then . . . He’s a very unhappy man, you know? His wife has never—”

  “That’ll be all, thank you,” Montalbano interrupted her, dismissing her at once.

  At first glance, and also at second and third glance, ragioniere Ballassare didn’t seem the type who would be having girls over for the night. He looked about fifty, was impeccably dressed all in black, and had the unsavory air of someone who was born an orphan, was always depressed, and sapped the will to live of anyone who came near him.

  He’d never seen the slain girl before.

  “Tell me something, ragioniere. What do you do for a living?”

  “I’m a bookkeeper at a funeral home.”

  He certainly wasn’t trying to mislead anyone with his appearance.

  Davide Guarnotta shook the inspector’s hand as he came in and smiled at Fazio. He was a handsome young man of about thirty, with black hair and eyes, likable and open.

  “Do you two know each other?” asked Montalbano.

  “Signor Guarnotta didn’t sleep at home last night,” Fazio explained. “He came home around eight o’clock this morning, but our men wouldn’t let him in, so I intervened and we set everything straight.”

  “Just to make sure I wasn’t a journalist, he came with me and stayed with me until I opened my front door,” said Guarnotta.

  “May I ask you why you didn’t sleep at home last night?” asked Montalbano.

  “Can’t you imagine?” Guarnotta asked in turn, grinning.

  “Haven’t you ever slept at home with another person?”

  “A few times, but not often.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m jealously protective of my things. It would bother me, for example, to have a woman rifling through my photos.”

  “Are you a photographer?”

  “No, I’m a freelance cameraman. I often work for TeleVigàta. Photography’s just a hobby.”

  “Have you ever seen this girl?”

  Guarnotta picked up the photograph and looked at it long and hard. Then he shook his head.

  “No, never. But she does look a lot like a Russian girl I know.”

  “Are you sure it’s not her?”

  “Absolutely.”

  After dismissing Guarnotta, Montalbano and Fazio sat for a few minutes looking at each other in silence. Then Fazio said:

  “It’s gonna be hard to identify her.”

  “Take one of the photos an
d show it to everyone in the building,” said the inspector. “Starting now. Though I think it’ll probably be useless. The only hope is that Dr. Pasquano might be able to tell us something after the autopsy. But he’s going to take his time. I doubt we’ll hear from him for another three or four days.”

  After Fazio left, the inspector summoned Catarella.

  “Take this photo and see if it matches any missing persons’ reports.”

  “Straightaways, Chief.”

  Later, as the inspector was leaving the office to go home, Catarella gave the photo back to him and informed him that none of the girls portrayed in the missing persons’ reports looked at all like the murder victim.

  * * *

  The following morning Fazio reported that of all the tenants in the building, only one person, a woman, upon seeing the girl’s photo, claimed to have seen her before. Nobody else recognized her.

  “What’s this lady’s name?”

  “Adele Manfredonio. She’s eighty years old, has a husband who’s paralyzed, and she lives on the third floor.”

  “Eighty years old? But can she still see properly?”

  “Her vision is perfect, Chief, and she wanted to prove it to me by reading the newspaper headlines from five steps away.”

  “And when did she supposedly see her?”

  “One night last month around two o’clock in the morning, as she was opening her front door. After opening it, she went out onto the landing and saw the girl, who was starting to climb the stairs leading to the floor above.”

  “Wait a second. How did she see her face?”

  “When the girl heard a noise, she stopped and turned around. The lady says the girl even smiled at her.”

  “Can you tell me exactly what the old lady was doing out on the landing at two o’clock in the morning?”

  “She was looking for her cat, who sometimes escapes and doesn’t come home till late.”

  Montalbano thought of something.

  “Remember what Guarnotta told us? That he had a Russian girlfriend who looked like the victim? Let’s check that out. Get me Guarnotta on the phone and then put me on.”