“Of course! And the Griffos were there.”
“Tell me what happens on these excursions.”
“Normally we set out at seven in the morning. It depends on how long it will take to get to where we’re going. The passengers are all getting on in years, retired, that kind of people. They go on the tour not so they can see, say, the Black Madonna of Tindari, but so they can spend a day in the company of other people.You know what I mean? Their kids are grown up and far away, they don’t have any friends ... During the drive, there’s always somebody in the coach to entertain them, selling things, like, I dunno, household goods, blankets, that sort of thing. And we always arrive in time for the midday Mass. For lunch they go to a restaurant the boss has an arrangement with. The cost of the meal is included in the ticket. And you know what happens after they eat?”
“No, I don’t. Tell me.”
“They go back to the bus for a little nap. After they wake up, they take a stroll around town, buy little gifts and souvenirs. At six—in the evening, that is—I take roll call and we leave. At eight, by prior arrangement, we stop at a café at the halfway point, and they have coffee and cookies. That’s also included in the price of the ticket. Then we’re supposed to be back in Vigàta around ten o‘clock.”
“Why did you say ‘supposed to be’?”
“‘Cause it always ends up being later.”
“Why’s that?”
“As I said, Inspector, the passengers are all old folks.”
“So?”
“If one of ‘em asks me to stop at the first café or service station because they need a lavatory, what’m I gonna say, no? So I stop.”
“I see. And do you remember if anyone on last Sunday’s return trip asked you to stop?”
“Inspector, they made it so we didn’t get back until almost eleven! Three times, we stopped! And the last time we weren’t but half an hour from Vigata! I even asked if they could wait, we were so close. Nothing doing. And you know what happens then? One of ‘em gets out, they all get out. They all need a lavatory, and we end up losing a lot of time.”
“Do you remember who it was that asked you to make the last stop?”
“No, sir, I honestly don’t remember.”
“Did anything strange or unusual happen, anything out of the ordinary?”
“What could possibly happen? If anything did, I didn’t notice.”
“Are you sure the Griffos made it back to Vigàta?”
“Inspector, once we’re back, I don’t have to call the roll anymore. If any of these people didn’t get back on the bus after one of the stops, the others would have noticed. Anyway, before leaving, I always toot the horn three times and wait at least three minutes.”
“Do you remember where you made the extra stops on the way back?”
“Yessir.The first was on the Enna highway, at the Cascino service station. The second was on the Palermo-Montelusa expressway, at the Trattoria San Gerlando; and the last was at the bar-trattoria Paradiso, a half-hour drive from here.”
Fazio straggled back around seven o‘clock.
“You took your time.”
Fazio didn’t reply. Whenever the inspector chided him for no reason, it merely meant he needed to let off steam. Answering would have made things worse.
“Anyway, Chief. There were forty people who went on that excursion. Eighteen married couples, which makes thirty-six, two old ladies, which makes thirty-eight, and the Laganà brothers, twins, who never miss a single one of these tours, who aren’t married, and who live together in the same house. The Laganà brothers were the youngest of the bunch, fifty-eight years old. And the passengers also included the Griffos, Alfonso and Margherita.”
“Did you tell them all to be here tomorrow morning at nine?”
“I did. And I didn’t do it by phone, but by going door-to-door. You should also know that two of them can’t come tomorrow. We’ll have to go to their place if we want to question them. The name’s Scimè: the wife is sick with the flu, and the husband has to stay by her side and can’t go anywhere. I took one liberty, Inspector.”
“What was that?”
“I divided them up into groups. They’ll come in ten at a time, one hour apart. There’ll be less confusion that way.”
“Good idea, Fazio. Thanks.You can go now.”
Fazio didn’t move. The moment had come for avenging the unjustified reproach of a few minutes before.
“As for taking my time, I wanted to mention that I also went to Montelusa.”
“What for?”
What was happening to the inspector? Was he forgetting things?
“You don’t remember? I went to do what you told me to do. To talk to the people at Manzo and Company, the ones who cut the check for two million we found in Nenè Sanfilippo’s pocket. All aboveboard. Mr. Manzo paid the kid a million lire a month to keep an eye on his computer and fix anything that needed fixing ... Last month there was a snag and he didn’t get paid, and that’s why the check was for double the amount.”
“So Nenè worked.”
“Worked? With the money Manzo paid him he could barely pay the rent! Where’d he get the rest?”
When Mimi Augello stuck his head inside the door it was already dark outside. His eyes were red. For a moment Montalbano thought Mimi had been crying, having suddenly repented. Which was the fashion, in any case: everyone, from the pope to the latest mafioso, was repenting about something. But, no, nothing of the sort! In fact, the first thing Augello said was: “This is wrecking my eyes, going through Nenè Sanfilippo’s papers! I’m only halfway through the letters.”
“Are there only letters from him?”
“Are you kidding! It’s a regular correspondence. Letters from him and letters from a woman, but hers aren’t signed.”
“How many are there?”
“About fifty from each. For a while they exchanged letters every other day ... They’d do it and then comment on it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I’ll explain. Let’s say they slept together on a Monday. On Tuesday, they would write to each other, commenting, in detail, on everything they’d done the day before. From her perspective and from his. On Wednesday, they’d get together again and the next day they’d write to each other. The letters are pure filth. They had me blushing at moments.”
“Are the letters dated?”
“All of them.”
“Seems fishy to me. With our postal system, how could the letters always arrive punctually the next day?”
Mimi shook his head no.
“I don’t think they were mailed.”
“So how did they send them?”
“They didn’t. They handed them to each other next time they met. They probably read them in bed, and then started fucking. Sounds like an excellent stimulant.”
“I can see you’re an expert in these things. Aside from the date, do the letters mention the place of origin?”
“Nenè’s always come from Vigàta. Hers are from Montelusa or, on rarer occasions, from Vigàta. Which bolsters my hypothesis. Which is that they would get together sometimes here, sometimes in Montelusa. She’s married. Both he and she often mention the husband, but they never say his name. The period they saw each other most often coincided with a trip abroad by the husband. Who, as I said, is never mentioned by name.”
“That gives me an idea, Mimi. Isn’t it possible the whole thing is a pile of bullshit dreamed up by the kid? Isn’t it possible this woman doesn’t exist, that she’s a product of his erotic fantasies?”
“I think the letters are authentic. He typed them into the computer and then destroyed the originals.”
“What makes you so sure the letters are authentic?”
“What she writes. They minutely describe what a woman feels when she’s making love. They give details that would never remotely occur to us men. They do it in every way possible: normal, oral, anal, in all the positions, on different occasions, and every time, she says something new, intimately new. If it was all made up by the kid, he would surely have turned out to be a great writer.”