Death at Sea: Montalbano's Early Cases Page 11
The response took them all by surprise.
“She wasn’t the same as usual. Actually, to tell you the truth, I’d never seen her so nervous. She kept turning around to look behind her, like she was afraid someone might be coming after her. When somebody walked past her she grabbed my arm, and I could feel her trembling . . .”
Montalbano hurried back to the cashier.
“Please try and answer my questions as precisely as possible. Did anything happen that afternoon or evening that could have upset Pamela?”
“No, there wasn’t anything like that.”
“An argument with a customer, a rude comment . . .”
“No, nothing at all.”
“Think it over carefully, because the waiter says that when Pamela left here, she was very agitated.”
“Ah!” said the cashier. “Maybe it was the phone call.”
“She got a phone call?”
“Our phone’s right here—see?—at the cash register. So I’m always the one who picks up. The customers were already all gone when it rang. Some man said he wanted to talk to Pamela. Me and Pitrino went out to pull down the first two shutters. She was just setting down the receiver when I came back in.”
“So it was a long phone call?”
“Yeah.”
* * *
“If we assume that she was in fact kidnapped, the kidnapper can only be someone who knew what route Pamela took to walk home. And I’m convinced that the kidnapping occurred when she was about to cross Viale della Vittoria, which is broad and cars can drive pretty fast on it,” said Montalbano.
“But the question isn’t where, it’s why,” said Fazio. “And maybe the explanation for everything is in that phone call.”
“If we could somehow find a motive, it would be a big help,” the inspector admitted.
They sat there for a few moments, thinking. Then Montalbano had an idea.
“Take Pamela’s daybook and write down all the names and numbers you can find in it. Try and see if there’s anyone with the Mafia or who’s had any trouble with the law.”
“And what if I find something?”
“If you find something, then tell me.”
“And after I tell you, then what?”
“Are you trying to bust my chops, Fazio? When we’re wandering in the dark like we’re doing, even the light from a match is better than nothing. And while we’re at it, let’s keep going. Turn on the speakerphone and get me Barletta on the line.”
“Signor Barletta? Montalbano here. Since you’ve already filed a missing persons’ report, why don’t you see if you can get a little help from TeleVigàta or the Free Channel and send them the photo of Pamela that’s on her ID card? Sound like a good idea? Yes? Then get on it right away, so it’ll be broadcast on tonight’s news.”
He ended the call and turned to Fazio.
“The last name in her diary is Enrico De Caro, the lover who never got his turn. Give him a call and ask him to come in here tomorrow morning at nine.”
* * *
When he walked into the station the next morning, Fazio told him that De Caro was very sorry but had an engagement that morning that he couldn’t postpone, so he would come that afternoon.
Fazio hadn’t finished speaking when the phone rang.
“Chief, ’ere’s a Signor Pirtuso onna line ’at wants a talk t’yiz—”
“Poissonally in poisson?”
“Yessir. Howdja guess?”
“Never mind. But I don’t know any Pirtuso.”
“How can ya say ya don’ know ’im, Chief? ’E’s the prizidint o’ the Sicilian Bank!”
“But then his name is Verruso, not Pirtuso!”
“Why, wha’d I say? Pirtuso.”
“Put him on,” said the inspector, turning on the speakerphone. “Good morning, sir, what can I do for you?”
“I urgently need to talk to you, but unfortunately I can’t come to your office.”
“Talk to me about what?”
“About the girl who disappeared, the bar girl from the Castiglione.”
“We’ll be right over.”
* * *
Bank President Verruso, bowing ceremoniously, showed them into his office and closed the door.
“I’ll get straight to the point,” he began. “Last night, on the midnight news report on TeleVigàta, I learned that Ernesta Bianchi, who goes by the name of Pamela, had disappeared. She’s . . . a client of ours. Have there been any new developments since then?”
“None.”
“If I’ve understood correctly, she disappeared sometime Sunday night, is that right?”
“That’s right,” said Montalbano.
“But that’s not possible,” said the banker.
“Why not?”
“Because at eight o’clock Monday morning, which is when we open, the young lady was here, at the bank.”
Montalbano’s and Fazio’s eyes opened wide.
“To do what?” asked the inspector.
“As I said, she’s a client of ours. She has a checking account and two safety-deposit boxes with us.”
“Did she make a withdrawal?”
“Yes, but only in the sense that she withdrew everything and closed the account. She also took what was in the two safety-deposit boxes. She had a medium-sized suitcase with her and put everything in it.”
“Can you tell me how much was in her account?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t. All I can say is that Barletta paid her well, she earned a lot in tips, and she was a great economizer.”
“Did she tell you why she was closing the account and the deposit boxes?”
“She alluded vaguely to a sudden death that forced her to return to Milan. But . . .”
“But?” Montalbano encouraged him.
“I wouldn’t want . . . it’s just an impression of mine . . . without . . . Well, she seemed to me very, very afraid.”
“It’s starting to seem clear that we’re looking at a voluntary disappearance,” Fazio said as they were heading back to the station.
“More than a disappearance, it was a sudden, precipitous flight,” Montalbano countered. “And what’s clear is that what brought it on was that telephone call she got as the café was closing. Apparently the man on the phone threatened her so severely that Pamela decided to run away as soon as possible.”
“But where could she have spent the night?” asked Fazio.
“If we start asking questions, we’ll never get to the end of it,” said the inspector. “You said she was a girl with no history? Well, you were dead wrong. She’s got a history, all right, and a complicated one at that. The only problem is, we don’t know how to read it.”
Catarella assailed him in the entranceway.
“Ahh, Chief! A Signor Sconsolato called tree times oigently wantin’ a talk t’yiz!”
“All right, when he calls back, put him through to me.”
They’d barely sat down when the phone rang.
“Is this Inspector Montalbano?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Mario Consolato.”
“What can I do for you?”
“Listen, I wouldn’t want there to be any misunderstandings. I’m a good person, a good father, an honest businessman, and I’ve never had any problems with the law!”
“I’m glad to hear.”
“So I don’ want anyone to think that if I knew this girl it was because . . . you know, I was doin’ it with her.”
“What girl are you talking about?”
“Pamela.”
“Tell me everything.”
“I don’ live in Vigàta. I live in Montereale, but I come to Vigàta almost daily. And I heard on the TV news that this Pamela, the bar girl at the Castiglione, supposedly disappeared Sunday night. Is that
right?”
“It appears to be.”
“There, you said ‘appears to be’—’cause, on Monday morning, around nine-thirty, I gave her a ride in my car.”
“Tell me everything in the proper order.”
“All right, I’ll do just that. As I said, I live in Montereale. On Monday morning I had to go to Montelusa, and so I drove through Vigàta, and there, on the Corso, just past the Banca dell’Isola, around nine-thirty at the latest, I spotted Pamela with a suitcase in her hand, heading towards the taxi stand. And so I pulled over and asked her if she wanted a ride to Montelusa. She said okay and got in the car. When we got there, she had me drop her off at the station.”
“Did she tell you at any time during the ride why she was leaving Vigàta?”
“Inspector, she never once opened her mouth. Except to thank me and say good-bye.”
“Was she nervous or worried?”
“She was terrified, Inspector. So badly that I asked her what had happened to her, if someone had done something to her, but she wouldn’t answer.”
* * *
“What trains normally leave at around ten in the morning?” Fazio wondered aloud.
“Call and find out.”
The answer was that there was a train for Palermo at ten-fifteen.
“She would’ve taken that train even if it was going to Istanbul,” said the inspector. “The important thing was for her to get as far away as possible, as quickly as possible.”
“But what could she have done that was so dangerous that it would lead to such a frightening telephone call?”
“Certainly something that had to do with her nighttime escapades. Speaking of which, did you draw up that list?”
“Not yet.”
“Do it soon.”
Fazio shrugged.
“What’s the rush? At any rate, I don’t think we’re gonna hear any more about this girl.”
“What makes you so sure? In the meantime, De Caro’s going to come and talk to us this afternoon.”
4
Enrico De Caro, who didn’t show up until almost seven p.m., was a well-dressed man of about thirty, rather likable, alert, intelligent, and not the least bit upset at being summoned to the police department.
“Sorry I’m late, but I’m the political secretary for the—”
“No need to apologize. I thank you for coming. Do you know why I wanted to see you?”
“Inspector, the only possible reason could be that I was planning to spend a few nights with Pamela starting Monday. Is that right?”
“That’s right.”
“But tell me something. How did you find out?”
“Pamela wrote everything down in her diary, including first and last names and telephone numbers.”
De Caro didn’t seem especially worried.
“Really? How silly!”
“You probably have nothing to say to us, but I wanted to meet you anyway, because . . .”
De Caro started laughing, cutting off the inspector.
“But I have a great many things to tell you!”
“About Pamela?”
“Absolutely!”
“Then go ahead.”
“Well, Inspector, Pamela had planned that I would go to her place starting Monday because she hadn’t wanted to come to my place, as I’d suggested. I live alone, you see. I’m single.”
“So what happened?”
“What happened was that Sunday evening, around midnight, she called to ask me if she could come immediately to my place and spend the night there. I was pleasantly surprised and said yes. When I asked her why she’d changed her mind, she said she couldn’t stay on the phone and would explain it to me later.”
“Did she tell you where she was calling from?”
“The Caffè Castiglione.”
Fazio and Montalbano exchanged glances. The girl had clearly called De Caro right after getting the phone call that had scared her to death.
De Caro continued:
“When I opened the door, she was standing there pale as a corpse and very upset. Once inside, she started crying desperately. I’d never seen her that way. I didn’t know what to do. So I made her some chamomile tea, and she finally calmed down a little.”
“Did you ask her what had happened?”
“Of course. But she didn’t give me a clear answer. There were long silences, and every so often she would say a few disjointed things in incomplete sentences, but always repeating that she didn’t do it.”
“Didn’t do what?”
“Well, from what I could gather, she’d received a telephone call from a man, an ex-lover, who seriously threatened to kill her, saying her hours were numbered.”
“Did she tell you his name?”
“No. But she did say that he was someone who would definitely be capable of killing her. She told me she didn’t want to have anything to do with this man—he was physically repellent to her—but in the end she’d been forced to go with him because he’d had her assaulted by two young toughs who actually tore all her clothes off.”
“But why was he threatening her?”
“Apparently the guy had received a letter from Pamela asking for ten million lire in exchange for her silence about their relationship. She seems to have had in her possession a very compromising note from this man. If he didn’t pay up, she would ruin his life. Except that Pamela swore up and down to me that she knew nothing about this blackmail, and she seemed sincere to me.”
“But couldn’t she just call the guy and clear things up?”
“That’s what I suggested, but she said it would be useless, because it seemed clear to her that the man was convinced it was her. So I told her she should do something to convince him, and send back to the man the compromising note he’d written to her. But she replied that she didn’t have it anymore. She’d noticed sometime before. Maybe she’d thrown it away, she couldn’t remember. So she came to the conclusion that the only thing to do was to leave Vigàta. I advised her to go to the police, but she wouldn’t hear of it. She only wanted to run away. So I had her lie down for a few hours, but she never fell asleep. In the morning she went into the bathroom, and I made her coffee. Then she asked me if I had a suitcase she could use, and I gave her one. I have nothing more to tell you.”
* * *
“So that completes the picture,” said Montalbano. “But we’ll never know who the man that threatened her was. Oh, well. And I think you’re right, Fazio: That’s probably the last we’ll hear of Pamela.”
He was dead wrong.
* * *
A report on the Free Channel’s eight-thirty evening news program hit Montalbano like a club to the head.
At around five p.m. this afternoon, during an inspection of the two tunnels along the line between Montelusa Alta and Montelusa Bassa, a railway technician discovered the body of a woman in the second tunnel, mistaking it at first for a pile of rags. Summoned at once to the scene, the police initially concluded that it had probably been an accident due to the inattention of the traveler, who they conjectured had accidentally opened the door and fallen out, crashing against the ballast and expiring at once. However, after a summary examination, the coroner, Dr. Pasquano, declared that the victim had been strangled before being thrown out of the train, and that the murder had occurred on Monday morning. The recovery of the victim’s purse a few yards away from her body has allowed authorities to identify her as Ernesta Bianchi, born in Milan twenty-six years ago.
The investigation into the murder has been assigned to Inspector Barresi, chief of the Montelusa Homicide Unit.
He turned off the TV and rang Fazio. The line was busy.
The sense of agitation that had suddenly come over him wouldn’t allow him to keep still. He walked around the table five times and tried Fazio’s number again. It was free.
“Fazio, have you heard?”
“Yeah. I called a friend of mine with Montelusa Homicide to find out whether they also found the suitcase beside the body.”
“Did they?”
“No.”
“Come immediately to my place and bring her agenda. The killer’s name is in there.”
* * *
Fazio must have driven over a hundred miles an hour, because ten minutes later he was knocking at the door.
They sat down at the small dining room table. Montalbano started dictating all the names in the agenda, as Fazio wrote them down on a sheet of paper in front of him.
When they came to the name Michele Turrisi, who’d frequented Pamela four months after her arrival in Vigàta, Fazio made an exclamation of surprise.
“That’s a name I wasn’t expecting.”
“Why?”
“Turrisi is a former hitman for the Sinagras who’s made a career as the family accountant. He’s married to Agostino Sinagra’s niece.”
“Let’s keep going.”
When they got to the end, they concluded that the person who stood the most to lose by being blackmailed by Pamela was indeed Michele Turrisi. The Sinagras would have made him pay dearly for his adulterous betrayal. And as poor Pamela had pointed out, he was someone who wouldn’t think twice before killing someone.
“What are we gonna do?” asked Fazio.
“I’ll tell you in a second,” said Montalbano, who’d started getting dressed again.
“You want to go to Turrisi’s house?”
“Are you kidding? Did you come here in a squad car?”
“Yeah. But what’ve you got in mind?”
“I think I get it now. I’m convinced it wasn’t Pamela who sent that letter.”
“Then who was it?”
“Do you remember the reason why Carlo Puma wouldn’t park outside Pamela’s front door?”
“No.”
“Because Signora Rosalia Insalaco, the landlady, would sometimes take down the license plate number of the cars of Pamela’s boyfriends.”