He picked up the thread of his argument. If Michela had a key to the little room but told him she didn’t, the lie meant that she wanted him, Montalbano, to break down the door and find Angelo shot dead inside. And this because Michela already knew that her brother’s corpse was in that room. By staging this whole scene, she was trying to make herself appear, to the inspector’s eyes, completely extraneous to the entire event, when in fact she was in it up to her neck.
He returned to the veranda, sat down, poured another whisky. How could things have gone?
Michela says that on Monday, Angelo phoned her to tell her that Elena would be coming over to his place that evening. Thus Michela made herself scarce. But what if, on the other hand, Angelo, seeing that Elena wasn’t coming, and realizing that in fact she wasn’t going to come, called his sister back, and Michela went to see him? Maybe Angelo even told her he was going up to the terrace room to get some air. Then, when Michela showed up, she found her brother murdered. She’s convinced it was Elena, who, having arrived late, had a quarrel with Angelo. Especially since Angelo must have wanted to have sex with the girl, which was all too clear. So she decides to play her ace, to prevent Elena from getting away with it. She locks everything up, goes down into the apartment below, spends the night removing everything that might reveal anything about Angelo’s shady dealings, above all the strongbox, and takes the letters down to the garage, as these will serve as evidence against Elena …
Montalbano heaved a sigh of satisfaction. Michela had all the time in the world to take care of business before reporting her brother missing. And on the night he let her stay in the apartment, she probably slept soundly and happily, since she’d already done everything she needed to do. It was still a colossal boner on his part, but without any immediate consequences.
Yet why was Michela so sure that Angelo was up to something shady? The answer was simple. When she learned that her brother was giving extremely expensive presents to Elena, and then later found out that the money had not been taken from their joint account, she became convinced that Angelo held a secret account somewhere with a great deal of money in it, too much for him to have earned honestly. The story Michela told him, Montalbano, about sales bonuses and providing for the family was a lie. The woman was too smart not to have smelled a rat.
But why had she taken away the strongbox? There was an answer to this, too: because she hadn’t managed to find where the second key was hidden, the one found by Fazio stuck to bottom of the drawer. And then, if you really consider…
The consideration began and ended there. Montalbano’s eyes suddenly started to flutter, and his head dropped. The only thing to be taken into serious consideration was the bed.
He had the misfortune of waking up a few minutes before the alarm rang. He realized that Angelo Pardo’s funeral was that morning. The word “funeral” conjured up thoughts of death…He leapt out of bed, raced into the shower, washed, shaved, had a coffee, and got dressed, all with the frenetic rhythm of a Larry Semon silent film—at one point he could even hear the jaunty chords of a piano accompaniment—then went out of the house and finally regained his normal rhythm as soon as he got in the car and began his drive to Vigata.
Fazio wasn’t at the station, Mimi, summoned by Liguori, had gone to Montelusa, and Catarella was mute, not having yet recovered from the blow dealt him the day before by Pardo’s computer, when all the passwords had suddenly vanished and he had been left standing there gazing at a monitor as empty as the fabled Tartar desert. A morgue, in short.
Around midmorning the first phone call came in. “My dear Inspector, the family all well?” “Excellent, Dr. Lattes.”
“Let’s thank the Blessed Virgin! I wanted to tell you that unfortunately the commissioner can’t see you today. Shall we make it the same time tomorrow?”
“Let’s do indeed, Doctor.”
With thanks to the Blessed Virgin, he’d been spared the sight of Mr. Commissioner’s face for yet another day. Meanwhile, however, he’d become curious to know what his boss wanted to see him about. Certainly nothing important, if he kept postponing with such ease.
Let’s hope he manages to tell me before I retire or he’s transferred,Montalbano thought.
The second call came right after the first. “It’s Lagana, Inspector. My friend Melluso, the one I gave those pages to decipher, Remember?.’
“Of course I remember. Has he succeeded in figuring out how the code works?”
“Not yet. But meanwhile he’s made a discovery that I thought could be important to your investigation.”
“Really?”
“Yes, but I’d like to tell you about it in person.” “How about if I come by around five-thirty this afternoon?” “Fine.”
The third call came at half past noon. “Montalbano? Tommaseo here.” “What is it?”
“Elena Sclafani came in to see me at nine o’clock this morning … My God!”
He’d suddenly lost his breath. Montalbano got worried. “What’s wrong, sir?”
“That woman is so…beautiful,she’s a creature of…of… “
Tommaseo was beside himself. He not only couldn’t breathe, he also couldn’t speak. “How did it go?”
“Splendidly!” the prosecutor said enthusiastically. “Couldn’t have gone any better!
Logically speaking, when a prosecutor declares himself satisfied and content with an interrogation, it means the accused got the worse end of things.
“Did you find any incriminating elements?”
“You must be kidding!”
So much for logic. The prosecutor was clearly leaning in Elena’s favor.
“The lady showed up with Traina, the lawyer, who brought along a service-station attendant, a certain Luigi Diotisalvi.”
“The lady’s alibi.”
“Exactly, Montalbano. All we can do at this point is envy Mr. Diotisalvi and open up our own service station in the hope that sooner or later she’ll need refueling, heh, heh, heh.”
He laughed, still stunned by Elena’s appearance.
“The lady was adamant in her wish that her husband should not under any circumstances learn of her alibi,” the inspector reminded him.
“Of course. I made every effort to reassure the lady. The upshot, however, is that we’re back at sea. What are we going to do, Montalbano?”
“Swim, sir.”
At a quarter to one, Fazio returned from the funeral. “Were there a lot of people?” “Enough.” “Wreaths?”
“Nine. And only one pillow, from the mother and sister.”
“Did you take down the names on the ribbons?” “Yessir. Six were unknown persons, but three were known.”
His eyes started to glisten, a sign that he was about to drop a bomb. “Go on.”
“One wreath was from Senator Nicotra’s family.”
“Nothing strange about that. You yourself know they were friends. The senator defended him—”
“Another was from the Di Cristoforo family.”
Fazio was expecting the inspector to be surprised. He was disappointed.
“I was already aware they knew each other. It was MP Di Cristoforo who introduced Pardo to the manager of the bank in Fanara.”
“And the third wreath was from the Sinagra family. The same Sinagras we know so well,” fired Fazio.
This time Montalbano was speechless.
“Holy shit!” he said.
For the Sinagras to have come this far out in the open, Angelo Pardo must have been a dear friend indeed. Was it Senator Nicotra who introduced Pardo to the Sinagras? And was Di Cristoforo therefore part of the same clique? Di Cristoforo—Nicotra—Pardo: a triangle whose area equaled the Sinagra family?
“Did you also go to the cemetery?”
“Yessir. But they weren’t able to bury him. They put him on ice for a few days.” “Why?”
“The Pardos have a family tomb, Chief, but when it came time to put the coffin in the vault, it wouldn’t fit. The lid of the coffin was too high, so they’re going to have to enlarge the hole.”