Death at Sea: Montalbano's Early Cases Page 10

  * * *

  As soon as he came into the station, just past eight o’clock, Catarella informed him that Signor Valletta had been waiting for him for the past half hour.

  “Is Fazio in?”

  “Yessir, onna premisses ’at’d be ’ese ’ere premisses, ’a’ss where ’e is.”

  “Tell him to come to my office, and then show Barletta in, too.”

  The two came in at the same time. Barletta looked worried and was holding some papers in his hand.

  “Still no word of her,” he said disconsolately.

  “Would you like to file a missing persons’ report?”

  “Absolutely. I brought the papers.”

  “What papers?”

  “Her contract with me, and a photocopy of her ID card . . . Pamela’s real name wasn’t Pamela, but Ernesta.”

  “All right, then, go with Signor Fazio into his office to draft the report, then the two of you come back here, and we’ll all go to Pamela’s house—er, Ernesta’s, or whatever her name is.”

  * * *

  After her husband died, Signora Rosalia Insalaco, a sixtyish woman as tubby as a barrel and covered with more necklaces and bracelets than the Madonna of Pompeii, had to make do with a measly pension, and so she got the brilliant idea to split her little suburban house into two apartments and rent out half of it.

  This second apartment had a separate entrance at the rear of the house.

  “Pamela wanted me to keep the extra key myself. But I’m no busybody, I want you to know.”

  Montalbano would have bet his family jewels that the minute Pamela was out of the house, the widow would always go and search her apartment, not sparing even the young woman’s underwear.

  “But, in spite of your discretion, you couldn’t help but hear when Pamela was at home, correct?”

  “Inspector, what can I say? Even if I didn’t want to, I could actually hear her breathing.”

  “How long has it been since she came home?”

  “Two nights. Of that I’m absolutely sure. It’s been total silence, not a sound.”

  “All right, now give me the key. I’ll come back to you afterwards.”

  Barletta stood up to follow him.

  “No, sir. You stay here and keep the lady company.”

  * * *

  A tiny entrance with a small arch framing a long hallway with five doors, three on the left and two on the right. Kitchen, bathroom, large closet, bedroom, sitting room. Everything very clean, floors shiny as mirrors, dishes in the kitchen looking as if they’d never been used.

  The most interesting things were found in the bedroom, where, in addition to a spacious double bed with a nightstand on either side and a television with a videocam, but no cassettes, there was a large armoire. Pamela possessed an incredible quantity of bras and panties, all expensive, provocative stuff, predominantly black in color.

  But the real find was in one of the four drawers of the armoire.

  It was shut with a little lock that Fazio had no trouble opening, and contained eight agendas, the most recent for the present year.

  In them Pamela would write down, with the care of an accountant or bookkeeper, the name of the lover on duty for that week or fortnight. And on the day of their first meeting, she also wrote down the person’s telephone number.

  And she noted the presents she received. A bracelet here, a pair of earrings there, a necklace . . .

  “You gonna want to look at all these diaries?” Fazio asked.

  The inspector wasn’t interested in the girl’s amatory past.

  “Nah, I’ll just take the current one. Pamela’s only been in Vigàta for six months.”

  “I don’t think there’s much else to see in here.”

  They returned to the other side of the house.

  2

  “Find anything?” Barletta asked anxiously as soon as they reappeared.

  “Not a thing,” replied Montalbano, who didn’t see why he should have to report everything to him.

  But he caught sight of the expression of surprise on the widow’s face. She must certainly have known of the existence of the diaries in the armoire. And he would have bet she’d opened the lock and thumbed through all of them, page after page.

  “Signora Insalaco, does Pamela have a cleaning woman?”

  “Yessir, she does. I found her one myself. A dependable woman. Her name’s Agata Gioeli. She’s also got a copy of the house key. She comes every morning from eleven to two. She also cooks for her, and when Pamela gets up, usually around noon, she tidies up the bedroom. It was Agata who came and told me that Pamela hadn’t come back the night before, because the bed was still made.”

  “Was this the first time that’s happened?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how did she usually find the bed?” Montalbano asked mischievously.

  “We can talk about it, if you like,” the widow said with some reservation and a twisted grin.

  “Some other time. So Agata should be here soon?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Tell her please to come to the police station. Does Pamela have a car?”

  Barletta answered.

  “What’s she need a car for? It’s a fifteen-minute walk from here to the café.”

  “Anyway, almost every night she had someone to drive her home,” added the widow.

  “So you would hear them arrive and then leave?”

  “Of course. But it’s not like they left right away.”

  “How much later, normally?”

  “It depended. One hour, two hours, three hours, even four . . .”

  So the widow would stay up listening to everything Pamela did.

  “I see. We’ll talk about that again later, if need be. For now I have to say good-bye. I thank you for your cooperation.”

  “And what should I do?” Barletta asked as they were leaving.

  “I’ll let you know if there are any new developments,” said Montalbano, to cut things short.

  * * *

  A perusal of Pamela’s agenda revealed that the lover scheduled for that Sunday night, one Carlo Puma, was to see his term expire after that night, and the torch was to have been picked up on Monday night and carried forward by a certain Enrico De Caro. Pamela had written down both of their phone numbers.

  The inspector decided to let a little time pass before bothering them. It was better to tiptoe around this thing for the moment. Otherwise, if the girl reappeared in a few days, as was likely, he would have raised a big cloud of dust for nothing.

  Agata, the cleaning lady, was a tall, slender woman of about fifty with sharp eyes and a quick tongue. Montalbano wanted Fazio to be present for the meeting.

  “As far as we’ve been able to gather, Miss Pamela didn’t like to sleep alone at night,” the inspector began diplomatically.

  Agata threw her head back and emitted a long laugh that sounded rather like a horse’s whinny.

  “Sleep at night? Are you kidding? That girl didn’t sleep at night—she usually fell asleep around dawn!”

  “How can you say that? You weren’t there.”

  “Oh, that would’ve been all I needed, to be there! But when the young lady finally did make up her mind to get up and I went into the bedroom, it was like stepping onto a battlefield! For instance, sometimes they would do it right on the box spring, throwing the mattresses onto the floor; other times they would move the bed so they could see their reflection in the mirror on the armoire; other times they would move the armoire; then on other nights they’d do the TV thing . . .”

  “What TV thing?” Montalbano and Fazio asked in unison.

  They were thinking the same thing: Want to bet that Pamela liked to videotape her athletic feats?

  “They’d watch on TV these films of men and women screwing their eyeballs
out.”

  Fazio exchanged a quick glance with Montalbano.

  “How come we didn’t find any films like that?” Fazio asked her.

  “Because about ten days ago the young lady sold them to a man who paid her well for them,” replied Agata. “I was there.”

  “Do you know who he was?”

  “Yessir, his name’s Giuseppe Cosentino.”

  “Do you know this man’s phone number or address?”

  “No, sir.”

  Montalbano thumbed through Pamela’s diary and had a stroke of luck. He found Cosentino’s name and phone number. Beside it was the word: cassettes.

  But the housekeeper hadn’t finished telling the story of the state she would find the house in when she came in the morning.

  “But it wasn’t just the bedroom! Nosirree! They had to do it in the bathtub, too! With the shower running, flooding the whole goddamn place! Or on the two armchairs in the living room! An’ sometimes, I’m not kidding, on the kitchen table! Right when they were eating something, they’d get the urge and throw the tablecloth on the floor with everything on it! And—”

  “Listen,” Montalbano said, interrupting her, “did the young lady ever mention to you any quarrels she may have had with her nightly companions?”

  “What, you think she’s gonna tell me about something like that? I was just the cleaning lady. She never confided in me.”

  “Did the young lady ever receive any phone calls when you were in the house?”

  “Now and then.”

  “Were you able to hear whether—”

  Agata Gioeli gave her horsey laugh.

  “Mr. Inspector, the phone would ring and ring, but she never answered and didn’t want me to, either.”

  “Why wouldn’t she answer?”

  “Because she was a walking corpse! She would shuffle around the house with her hands out in front of her, like a sleepwalker! All dazed from lack of sleep and too much fucking! She could only start talking after she’d had at least five coffees!”

  “Do you have any idea why she might have disappeared?”

  “Nah. I only know one thing, that if the young lady don’t come back, I’m gonna lose a month’s pay.”

  * * *

  After Agata left, Fazio made a philosophical observation.

  “So, we’re looking at a girl who, even with all the affairs she had, seems not to have any history.”

  “You’re exactly right. In fact, we don’t even know whether she ran away of her own volition or was disappeared. So let’s start trying to give some substance to all these words.”

  He consulted the diary again, turned on the speakerphone, and dialed a number.

  “Hello?”

  “Is this Giuseppe Cosentino?”

  “Yes, it is. Who’s calling?”

  “This is Inspector Montalbano, police.”

  “Ah.”

  A pause.

  “Can’t you talk?”

  “I’m in a meeting.”

  “Any idea why I’m calling?”

  “Yes. But, I’m terribly sorry, but at the moment I can’t . . . His Excellency the bishop is here and—”

  “Just one question. Was it you who bought some certain videocassettes from a young woman you know?”

  “Yes.”

  “Thank you.”

  He hung up.

  “So this tallies with what Agata told us. As you can see, we have to tread on some slippery, maybe dangerous turf. It’s possible that among those sharing Pamela’s wild nights there may be some high rollers. So we need to—”

  The internal phone rang, interrupting him.

  “Chief, ’ere’d a happen a be a Signor Fuma onna premisses ’oo wants a talk t’yiz poissonally in poisson.”

  “Wait a second.”

  He turned to Fazio.

  “You know anyone named Fuma?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Ask him what he wants to talk to me about,” he said to Catarella.

  A few minutes went by. Then Catarella returned.

  “’E don’t wanna tell me, Chief. ’E says ’e’ll tell yiz over the phone if I go away.”

  “Okay.”

  A moment later a stifled male voice said:

  “This is Carlo Puma. I want to talk to you about Pamela.”

  “Come in at once.”

  Then, turning to Fazio, the inspector said:

  “It’s Carlo Puma, Pamela’s last lover.”

  He was a man in his mid-forties with a distinguished air and good manners. But he was clearly nervous and upset.

  “Please sit down. What have you got to tell me?”

  “I’d rather speak to you alone.”

  “I’m sorry, Signor Puma, but my colleague Fazio stays. If you don’t like it, you can leave.”

  Puma remained seated and wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief.

  “It’s not easy for me . . . I came of my own accord to prevent any vicious rumors from . . . I’m a town councilor, president of the business consortium, and I wouldn’t want . . .”

  “Mind if I help you out a little?” Montalbano asked.

  “How?”

  “By telling you, for example, that you were going to spend Sunday night with Pamela, and that was to be your last night after the six previous ones.”

  Puma very nearly fell out of his chair. He just sat there, mouth agape, trying to catch his breath.

  “But . . . how . . . how do you know that?”

  Montalbano showed him the daybook.

  “Pamela wrote down the names and phone numbers of all her lovers.”

  “Oh, my God!” Puma wailed.

  “Tell me about Sunday night,” said Montalbano.

  Making a visible effort, Puma managed to calm down a little.

  “I’d arranged with Pamela, ever since the first time, that I would wait for her in my car, in Vicolo Caruana, at around a quarter past midnight. When she walked by, I would get out of the car and follow her on foot.”

  “Why not park outside the front door and wait for her there?”

  “Because Pamela told me her landlady was a very nosy busybody and often took down the license plate number of the people who drove her home.”

  “I see. Go on.”

  “On Sunday I was at Vicolo Caruana at midnight. I had a little present for her.”

  “What was it?”

  “A bracelet . . . a rather expensive one. I waited until one o’clock, and I began to get worried, because she’s usually so punctual . . . So I started up the car and drove past her house, but there were no lights on inside. I got out and rang the bell, but nobody answered. So I went to the café, but it was closed. And that’s the whole story. The following evening I heard she’d disappeared.”

  “Did Pamela ever talk to you about having problems with any of her ex-lovers?”

  Puma became uncomfortable.

  “We never really talked much . . . You see, I could only stay at her place for as long as necessary, after which I had to get home by a certain hour, otherwise my wife . . .”

  “I see. If you have anything else to tell us—”

  “If it’s possible to keep my name—”

  “I’ll try to leave you out of it.”

  * * *

  After Puma left, Fazio took a negative view of things.

  “He didn’t tell us anything new.”

  “But he did imply something that raises a question. How many streets are there that link the café to Pamela’s house? Puma didn’t see her on Vicolo Caruana, but is that the only street she could have taken? Isn’t it possible Pamela didn’t feel like seeing him and took another route? And isn’t it also possible that Pamela never got as far as Vicolo Caruana?”

  “What do you s
ay we go for a little walk?” Fazio suggested.

  Montalbano agreed.

  3

  Before they left the station, Fazio rang Barletta and asked him to carefully explain the route that Pamela usually took to go home from work.

  Then they went out and followed this route step by step, according to the directions they’d been given. They calculated that on average it took about twenty minutes to cover the distance.

  Pamela could also get to her house by way of another small street, though this one had been blocked at one end to cars as well as pedestrians, due to ongoing work on the sewers.

  Ergo: That night, Pamela, after leaving the café, definitely walked some twenty yards along the Corso, turned right, probably took Salita Gomez uphill, after which she crossed Viale della Vittoria and took Via Indipendenza, but she quite certainly never turned right again onto Vicolo Caruana.

  Montalbano suggested they go to the café and get further clarifications from Barletta.

  “Last Sunday, when you were closing, who were the last people to leave the establishment?”

  “I dunno, ’cause I wasn’t here. You can ask the cashier,” said Barletta, falling in behind them.

  The cashier didn’t hesitate for a second.

  “As usual, the last people out were Pamela, Pitrino the waiter, and me. I’m the one who lowers and raises the shutters.”

  “Was there anyone outside waiting for Pamela?”

  “Out here in front, no, sir. But you should ask Pitrino. He walked with her for a ways that evening.”

  Pitrino, the waiter, a skinny man of sixty with eyeglasses like the bottoms of Coke bottles, declared that since he lived halfway up Salita Gomez, he’d walked that way with the girl. It wasn’t the first time they’d done that, though often Pamela had someone waiting for her in their car and didn’t need to be accompanied. No, nobody had stopped her along the way.

  At this point the inspector asked Pitrino a routine question.

  “What kind of mood was Pamela in?”