“No.”
“Listen, Michela. You can’t refuse. Your brother has been murdered, and we must—”
“I’m not refusing. I said no to the thought of your coming back without warning and asking me more questions, when I need to take a shower, take a sleeping pill, and go to bed.”
“All right. But I’m warning you, tomorrow will be a very hard day for you. Among other things, you’ll have to identify the body.”
“Oh God oh God oh God. But why?” One needed the patience of a saint with this woman. “Michela, were you absolutely certain that was your brother there when I broke open the door?”
“Absolutely certain? It was too dark. I caught a se… I thought I saw a body in the armchair and …” “Therefore you cannot confirm that it was your brother in that chair. And theoretically, I can’t either. Do you understand what I’m saying?” “Yes,” she said.
Great big tears started flowing down her face. She muttered something the inspector didn’t understand. ““What did you say?”
“Elena,” she repeated more clearly. “Who’s she?”
“A woman my brother used to …” “Why did you want to cover up for her?” “She’s married.”
“How long had they been seeing each other?” “Six months, at the most.” “Did they get along well?”
“Angelo told me they quarreled every now and then … Elena was …is very jealous.”
“Do you know all about this woman? Her husband’s name, where she lives, and so on?”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.” She told him.
“What sort of relationship do you have with this Elena Sclafani?”
“I only know her by sight.”
“So you have no reason to tell her what happened to your brother?” “No.”
“Good. You can go to bed now. I’ll come pick you up tomorrow morning around nine-thirty.”
3
Somebody must have found the switch for the two lights that lit up the part of the terrace nearest the former laundry room. Judge Tommaseo was walking back and forth in the illuminated area, carefully avoiding the surrounding darkness. Sitting on the balustrade with lighted cigarettes in hand were two men in white smocks. They must have been ambulance workers, waiting for the go-ahead to pick up the body and take it to the morgue.
Fazio and Gallo were standing near the entrance to the room. They’d removed the door from its hinges and propped it against the wall. Montalbano saw Dr. Pasquano washing his hands, which meant he’d finished examining the body. The coroner looked angrier than usual. Maybe he’d been interrupted during a game ofbriscolaortressette,which he played every Thursday night.
Tommaseo ran up to the inspector.
“What did the sister say?”
Apparently Fazio had told him where the inspector was and what he was doing.
“Nothing. I didn’t interrogate her.” “Why not?”
“I wouldn’t have dared without you being present, Dr. Tommaseo.
The public prosecutor puffed up his chest. He looked like a turkey-cock.
“So what were you doing all this time with her?”
“I put her to bed.”
Tommaseo look a quick glance around, then huddled up conspiratorially next to the inspector. “Pretty?”
“That’s not the right adjective, but I’d say yes.”
Tommaseo licked his lips.
“When could I …interrogate her?”
“I’ll bring her to your office tomorrow morning, around ten-thirty. Is that okay with you? Unfortunately, I’ve a meeting with the commissioner at eleven.”
“That’s fine, go right ahead.”
He licked his lips again. Pasquano came up.
“So?” asked Tommaseo.
“So what? Didn’t you see him yourself? He got shot in the face. One shot. That was enough.”
“Do you know how long he’s been dead?” Pasquano gave him a dirty look and didn’t answer. “Roughly speaking,” Montalbano bargained. “What day is today?” “Thursday.”
“Roughly speaking, I’d say he was shot late Monday evening.”
“Is that all?” Tommaseo cut in again, disappointed.
“I don’t think I saw any wounds from assegais or boomerangs,” Pasquano said sarcastically.
“No, no, I was referring to the fact that his member was—”
“Oh, that? You want to know why he had it out? He’d just performed a sexual act.”
“Do you mean that he was taken by surprise right after masturbating and killed?”
“I didn’t say anything about masturbation,” said Pasquano. “It might have been oral sex.”
Tommaseo’s eyes started to flash like a cat’s. He lived for these sorts of details. Gloried in them. Wallowed in them.
“You think so? So the murderess killed him right after giving him a—”
“What makes you think it was a murderess?” asked Pasquano, who, no longer angry, was beginning to amuse himself. “It could just as easily have been a homosexual relation.”
“True,” Tommaseo reluctantly admitted.
The homoerotic hypothesis clearly didn’t appeal to him.
“Anyway, it’s not sure there were only oral relations.”
Pasquano had cast the bait, which the prosecutor immediately swallowed.
“Think so?”
“Yeah. It’s possible the woman—assuming, for the sake of hypothesis, that it was a woman—was straddling the man.”
Tommaseo’s eyes turned more catlike than ever. “Right! And as she was bringing him to orgasm and looking in his eyes, she already had her hand on the weapon, and—”
“Wait a second. What makes you think the woman looked her victim in the eyes?” Pasquano cut in, a seraphic expression on his face.
Montalbano felt like he couldn’t take Pasquano’s shenanigans any longer and would burst out laughing at any moment.
“But how could shenotlook him in the eyes, in that position!” said Tommaseo.
“We’re not certain that was the position.”
“But you yourself just finished saying—”
“Listen, Tommaseo, the woman might well have straddled the man, but we don’t know how—that is, whether facing him or with her back to him.”
“True.”
“And in the latter case, she would not have been able to look her victim in the eye, wouldn’t you say? Anyway, from that position, the man would have had an embarrassment of riches. Well, I’m going to go. Good night. I’ll keep you informed.”
“Oh, no you don’t! You have to explain yourself! “What do you mean by ‘an embarrassment of riches’?” said Tommaseo, running after the coroner.
They disappeared into the darkness. Montalbano approached Fazio.
“Did Forensics get lost?”
“They’ll be here any minute.”
“Listen, I’m going home. You stay here. See you tomorrow at the office.”
He got home in time for the local news. Nobody, of course, knew anything yet about the death of Angelo Pardo. But the two local stations, TeleVigata and the Free Channel, were still talking about another death, a truly distinguished corpse.
Around eight o’clock on Wednesday, the night before, the honorable Armando Riccobono, a deputy in parliament, had gone to see his party colleague, Senator Stefano Nicotra, who for the previous five days had been staying at his country house between Vigata and Montereale, taking a modest breather from his normally intense political activity. They’d spoken by telephone on Sunday morning and agreed to meet on Wednesday evening.
A seventy-year-old widower with no children, Senator Nicotra, a Vigata native, was sort of a local and national hero. A former minister of agriculture and twice undersecretary, he had skillfully navigated all the different currents of the old Christian Democratic Party, managing to stay afloat even through the most frightful storms. During the horrific hurricane “Clean Hands,” he had turned into a submarine, navigating underwater by means of periscope alone. He resurfaced only when he’d sighted the possibility of casting anchor in a safe port—the one just constructed by a former Milanese real-estate speculator—cum—owner of the top three private nationwide television stations—cum—parliamentary deputy, head of his own personal political party, and finally prime minister. A number of other survivors of the great shipwreck had gone along with Nicotra, and Armando Riccobono was one of these.