One look at his face sufficed to tell the entire police station that this wasn’t a good day.
In the closet there was somebody else in Catarella’s place. Minnitti, a Calabrese.
“Where’s Catarella?”
“He stayed up all night working at the station, Chief, and this morning he collapsed.”
Maybe he’d taken Angelo Pardo’s computer home with him, because there was no sign of it anywhere. The moment the inspector sat down at his desk, Fazio came in.
“Two things, Chief. The first is that Commendator Ernesto Laudadio came here this morning.”
“And who is Commendator Ernesto Laudadio?”
“You know him well, Chief. He’s the man that called us when he got it in his head you wanted to rape the murder victim’s sister.”
So His Majesty Victor Emmanuel III went by the name of Ernesto Laudadio! And while he was earnestly lauding God, he was busting his fellow man’s balls.
“What’d he come for?”
“He wanted to report a crime committed by persons unknown. Apparently last night somebody tried to force open the victim’s garage door, but thecommendatorefoiled the plot, firing two rifle shots at the unknown man and chasing him away.”
“Did he injure him?”
Fazio answered with another question.
“Are you injured, Chief?”
“No.”
“Then thecommendatoredidn’t injure anyone, thank God. Would you please tell me what you were doing in that garage?”
“I’d gone there earlier to look for the strongbox, since both you and I had forgotten to look there.” “That’s true. Did you find it?”
“No. Then I went back later, because all at once a small detail came back to me.”
He didn’t tell him what this detail was, and Fazio didn’t ask.
“And what was the second thing you wanted to tell me?”
“I got some information on Emilio Sclafani, the schoolteacher.”
“Oh, good, tell me.”
Fazio slipped a hand in his jacket pocket, and the inspector shot him a dirty look.
“If you pull out a piece of paper with the teacher’s father’s name, the teacher’s grandfather’s name, the teacher’s father’s grandfather’s name, I’ll—”
“Peace,” said Fazio, removing his hand from his pocket.
“Will you never rid yourself of this public-records vice?”
“Never, Chief. So anyway: The teacher is a repeat offender.”
“In what sense?”
“I’ll explain. The man’s been married twice. The first time, when he was thirty-nine and teaching at Comisini, with a nineteen-year-old girl, a former pupil of his from theliceo.Her name was Maria Coxa.”
“What kind of name is that?”
“Albanian. But her father was born in Italy. The marriage lasted exactly one year and three months.” “What happened?”
“Nothing happened. At least that’s what people say. After being married a year, the bride realized that it was mighty strange that every evening when her husband lay down beside her, he would say, ‘Good night, my love,’ kiss her on the forehead, and go to sleep. Get the drift?”
“No.”
“Chief, our schoolteacher did not consummate.” “Really?”
“So they say. So his very young wife, who needed to consummate—”
“Went consummating elsewhere.”
‘The husband found..’
“Exactly, Chief. A colleague of the husband’s, a gym
teacher…you get the idea. Apparently the husband found out but
didn’t react. One day, however, he came home at an unexpected time of day and caught his wife trying out a particularly difficult exercise with his colleague. Things got nasty and reversed.” “Reversed?”
“I mean our schoolteacher didn’t touch his wife, but took it out on his colleague and beat him to a pulp. It’s true the gym teacher was stronger and in better shape, but Emilio Sclafani put him in the hospital. He went berserk; something turned him from a patient cuckold into a wild beast.”
“What was the upshot?”
“The gym teacher decided not to press charges, Sclafani split up with his wife, got himself transferred to Montelusa, and got a divorce. And now, in his second marriage, he finds himself in the exact same situation as in the first. That’s why I called him a repeat offender.”
Mimi Augello walked in and Fazio walked out.
“What are you still doing here?” Mimi asked.
“Why, where am I supposed to be?”
“Wherever you want, but not here. In fifteen minutes Liguori’s going to be here.”
The asshole from Narcotics!
“I forgot! I’ll just make a couple of phone calls and run.”
The first was to Elena Sclafani.
“Montalbano here. Good morning, signora. I need to talk to you.”
“This morning?”
“Yes. Can I come by in half an hour?”
“I’m busy until one o’clock, Inspector. If you want, we could meet this afternoon.”
“I could make it this evening. But will your husband be there?”
“I already told you that’s not a problem. At any rate, he’s coming back this evening. Listen. I have an idea. Why don’t you invite me out to dinner?”
They agreed on the time and place.
The second call was for Michela Pardo.
“I’m sorry, Inspector, I was just on my way out. I have to go to Montelusa to see Judge Tommaseo. Fortunately, my aunt was able …What is it?”
“Do you know Fanara?”
“The town? Yes.”
“Do you know who lives at Via Liberta 82?” Silence, no answer. “Hello, Michela?”
“Yes, I’m here. It’s just that you took me by surprise … Yes, I know who lives at 82 Via Liberta.” “Tell me.”
“My aunt Anna, my mother’s other sister. She’s paralyzed. Angelo is—was—very close to her. Whenever he went to Fanara, he always dropped in to see her. But how did you know—”
“Routine investigation, I assure you. Naturally I have many other things to ask you.”
“You could come by this afternoon.”
“I have a meeting with the commissioner. Tomorrow morning, if that’s all right with you.”
He dashed out of the office, got in the car, and drove off. He decided he needed to have another look at Angelo’s apartment. Why? Because. Instinct demanded it.
Inside the front door, he climbed the silent staircase of the dead house and cautiously opened, without a sound, the door to Angelo’s flat, terrified that His Majesty Victor Emmanuel III might burst out of his apartment with a dagger in his hand and stab him in the back. He headed to the study, sat down behind the desk, and started to think.
As usual, he sensed that something didn’t tally but couldn’t bring it into focus. So he got up and started walking around the apartment and fussing about in each room. At one point he even opened the shutter to the balcony off the living room and went outside.
In the street right in front of the building, a convertible had stopped, and two young people, a boy and a girl, were kissing. They had the radio—or whatever it was—at full volume.
Montalbano leapt backwards. Not because he was scandalized by what he saw, but because he finally understood why he’d felt the need to return to the apartment.
He went back to the study, sat down, searched for the right key in Angelo’s set, put it in the lock to the middle drawer, opened this, took out the little book entitledThe Most Beautiful Italian Songs of All Time,and started leafing through it.
All the songs dated back to the forties and fifties. He, Montalbano, probably wasn’t even born when people were singing those songs to themselves. And, more importantly— or so it seemed to him—they had nothing to do with the CDs in the Mercedes, which all had rock music.
8
There were numbers written in the narrow white margin on each page of the booklet. The first time he’d seen them, the inspector had thought they involved some sort of analysis of the meter. Now, however, he realized that the numbers referred to only the first two lines of each song. Next to the linesPale little lady, sweet fifth-floor neighbor From across the way,span>were the numbers 37 and 22, respectively; next toToday the carriage may seem A strange relic from the olden days,span>23 and 29; whileDon’t forget these words of mine Little girl, you don’t know what love isspan>had 26 and 31. And so on down the line for all the other ninety-seven songs in the book. The answer came to him all too easily: Those numbers corresponded to the total number of letters in the respective line of the song. A code, apparently. The hard part was figuring out what it was for. He put the booklet in his pocket.