The Pyramid of Mud Read online

  Turning it all over and over in his head, he came to the conclusion that his only choice was to remove the plastic covering and open up the switch to see how it was made and how many electrical wires ran into it.

  He got back down to work with renewed enthusiasm.

  The plastic covering was not attached to the switch frame as he’d thought, but was actually a sort of snap-on lid that you could remove with two fingers.

  He took it off.

  Removing the switch from the wall not only would have served no purpose, it would also have made his examination more difficult. To open it, one had to unscrew four screws.

  The screwdriver Fazio had used was too big. Montalbano went and got another off the shelf.

  He gave it a try. It would do.

  He unscrewed the first screw, but as he was pulling it out from its hole to put it in his pocket, it slipped from his fingers and fell onto the floor, landing a few inches from his left foot.

  Keeping his right hand, with the screwdriver, pressed up against the switch mechanism, he crouched down, bending at the knee, to pick it up.

  At that exact moment he noticed that under the involuntary pressure of his right hand, the upper part of the switch mechanism had shifted a little.

  He remained in that position, puzzled and not moving. How could it have moved if there were still three screws holding it in place? Were they there only for show?

  He stood up, never minding the screw that had fallen.

  Once again he pressed lightly on the switch mechanism with his palm, and this time he clearly noticed that the entire upper part had again shifted slightly.

  So he pressed harder, to move the upper part clockwise. It turned all the way until it was upside down.

  And then it stopped and made a sort of clicking sound.

  A second later, the floor under his feet started vibrating.

  Frightened, he leapt high in the air to one side.

  Slowly, and without making the slightest sound, one of the large cement squares in the flooring, specifically the one closest to the wall with the switch on it, began to rise, revealing itself to be a trapdoor.

  When it reached a vertical position, it stopped.

  Montalbano bent over to look very carefully, fearing that an armed man might come up from below.

  He could see the top of an iron ladder, and solid darkness below.

  He reached out with one hand and touched, just once, the upside-down switch.

  A very bright light came on in the basement.

  He looked below again.

  Now he could see the entire iron ladder. It was almost vertical and attached to the wall by two iron braces, and must have been at least ten feet long.

  The bit of basement flooring he was able to see was also made of dense concrete.

  The curiosity to see what was down there was eating him alive, but he was scared to death to descend alone.

  The potential surprises were many, all of them dangerous.

  What if the trapdoor reclosed while he was down below? Was there another switch to open it back up?

  And if there was, did it work the same way as the one up above?

  And if there wasn’t, and the opening mechanism was completely different, would he be able to discover it before he died from lack of air?

  Then he found a sort of half solution.

  He took his cell phone out of his jacket pocket and put it in a pocket of his trousers. Then he took off his jacket, folded it three times, and placed it athwart the edge of the trap. That way, the lid wouldn’t be able to close entirely, leaving him a chance to breathe at the top of the iron ladder and to call out to Fazio when he heard him return.

  Then he turned around and, gripping the ladder, face to the wall, started descending.

  He touched bottom.

  Turning around, he couldn’t believe his eyes.

  He found himself in a small room about ten feet square.

  Three walls were covered in masonry and plastered, but the fourth wall, the one opposite the iron ladder, consisted mostly of the enormous steel door of a safe.

  A safe exactly like the ones you see in movies, with locks, handles, and combination knobs.

  The door was slightly ajar.

  Recovering from his shock, the inspector, using both hands, opened it all the way.

  The inside was entirely covered with shelving, and was two meters wide and one meter deep.

  And completely empty.

  What could it have contained?

  But as soon as he asked himself the question, he realized that by staying there, looking around inside the safe, he was just wasting his time.

  He climbed back out, stood aside, grabbed his jacket, and turned the switch around.

  The lid reclosed, as usual without making the slightest sound. He put the plastic cover back over the switch, then turned off the light in the basement and in the garage, went outside, and pulled down the garage door.

  He looked at his watch. Almost one o’clock.

  He grabbed his cell phone and dialed Jannaccone’s number.

  “What is it, Inspector?”

  “What were you doing?”

  Surprised by the question, Jannaccone didn’t answer immediately.

  “I was . . . on my way to lunch.”

  “Then I’ll call back in an hour or so.”

  He was just pretending. He knew Jannaccone wouldn’t let go.

  “Not at all, Inspector, tell me what you wanted.”

  “I’m just curious. When you searched the Nicotras’ house, did you also look in the garage?”

  “Of course.”

  “And you didn’t find anything?”

  “No, nothing. Why do you ask?”

  “Because for my part I found a little something.”

  “Oh, really? What?”

  “A basement with a giant safe in it.”

  “Holy shit!”

  “Holy shit is right.”

  “I’ll be right over with the team.”

  “No, go and have your lunch in peace. There’s no hurry anymore. We’ll meet up at three.”

  Then he immediately rang Fazio.

  “Where are you?”

  “On my way back. I’ll be there in about ten—”

  “Listen, I’m done here, and I’m going to head off on foot to the old lady’s illegal joint. Meet me there.”

  In all likelihood the old lady was a good cook, and he was in the throes of some serious hunger pangs.

  He got to the shop just as Fazio was pulling up behind him, having obviously flown there.

  “Wha’d you find?”

  “Big stuff. But this isn’t the place to discuss it. For now let’s concentrate on eating.”

  They went in and sat down at a table already set for two.

  The old woman came out of the kitchen, looked at them, recognized them, and made a frown.

  “Our deal din’t say you could come an’ stuff your guts.”

  “Who ever said we didn’t wanna pay? We’re gonna pay, don’t you worry about that. Whattya got that’s good?”

  “Homemade egg noodles in ragù.”

  “Sounds good,” the two men said in unison.

  “An’ f’r a secon’ course, rabbit cacciatore.”

  “Sounds good,” the chorus repeated.

  “An’ wha’ kinda wine you want? Drinkable or good?”

  “Good,” said the little chorus.

  Before they set to their noodles, the other two tables were filled. The old lady did a brisk business.

  They ate well, and paid eleven euros a head.

  “I feel like taking out a membership to this place,” Fazio said as they were leaving.

  Outside, they saw something they weren’t expecting.
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  Leaning with his buttocks against their car was Pitrineddru, the old woman’s forty-year-old colossus of a son, looking at them with his arms crossed.

  “You think he wants to make trouble?” Fazio asked softly.

  “I don’t think so, but stay on the alert anyway. The gorilla’s capable of anything.”

  When they were in front of him, Pitrineddru remained immobile, not budging an inch.

  “We’ll be needing to get into our car,” Fazio said politely. “If you would just step aside . . .”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Ya gotta tell me somethin’ first.”

  “What do you want to know?” Montalbano intervened.

  “Didja find Inghi?”

  As he was saying the German woman’s name, he cast a quick glance at the door of his mother’s store. He was afraid she might come out and catch him talking to the cops. But that glance revealed a lot to the inspector.

  “If I tell you something, will you tell me something, too?”

  “Okay.”

  “Apparently Inge went back to Germany.”

  Pitrineddru hung his head down to his chest and muttered something.

  “What did you say?”

  Pitrineddru raised his head and looked at them. To their shock, Montalbano and Fazio saw that he had tears in his eyes.

  “I said, ‘Better alive than dead.’”

  “Did you love Inge?” Montalbano asked.

  Pitrineddru nodded yes.

  “Did you and her make love?”

  Another nod.

  “When?”

  “Sometime she’d call an’ wanted the groceries delivered to her house, an’ I’d deliver them.”

  “And where did you do it?”

  “Wherever she wanted. In the garage, in the living room . . .”

  At this point, with tears now streaming down his face, he ran away behind the house . . .

  Since there was still time before Forensics arrived, and Fazio was itching to see the underground safe with his own eyes, Montalbano decided to make him happy, and they went into the garage and lowered the door behind them.

  When Fazio came back up through the trap, and Montalbano reclosed the lid, they went back outside.

  Fazio was clearly stunned.

  “Until now the secret underground bunkers I’d seen were used to hide fugitives. This one’s something else altogether. What do you think they kept in the safe?”

  “I don’t even want to think about it. I only hope Jannaccone can tell us with some certainty.”

  “One thing is clear. That Nicotra wasn’t just an accountant for Rosaspina.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why are you so quiet?” Fazio asked him.

  “Because I’m unable to get an overall picture of things. I haven’t had time to think it all through. Too many new developments, too many cards being played. This morning we learned that Inge is supposedly alive and in Germany, and that the man with the gloves was her uncle . . . Is it true? Or is it a red herring? What were the Nicotras’ responsibilities, uncle included, concerning the safe in the basement? Were they simply guarding it? Or did they know the combinations to open and close it? And why was the house attacked? To take what was in the safe? Or was the safe already empty? As you can see, a lot of pieces are still missing from the overall puzzle.”

  “They’re here,” said Fazio.

  There were two cars. Jannaccone bolted out of the first one. He’d brought three men with him.

  Montalbano said it was better if they all went into the garage together, even if it was a bit tight. That way they wouldn’t arouse the curiosity of anyone passing by.

  Once they were all inside, he lowered the door, turned on the light, and explained to Jannaccone how the light switch worked.

  Jannaccone wanted to try for himself and opened the lid of the trapdoor.

  “Down below,” said the inspector, “there is a large, empty safe. What I want to know is what was inside it. See if you can figure that out.”

  “We’ll figure it out,” Jannaccone promised.

  “Fazio and I’ll let you guys work in peace. But bear in mind: It’s extremely important that nobody know that we discovered this basement. I mean it.”

  He didn’t have time to finish his sentence before Jannaccone started going down the ladder.

  “Stop at the worksite,” Montalbano said to Fazio as soon as they headed off.

  Five minutes later they pulled up and Montalbano got out.

  “You wait in the car,” he said to Fazio.

  The dried mud was no longer a solid, continuous surface. It was riddled with hundreds of crevices like open gashes. And inside these crevices the green grass was beginning to sprout again.

  This was what he’d wanted to see.

  And he felt reassured. He got back into the car. Fazio looked at him but said nothing. And he drove off.

  “I need you to do me a favor,” Montalbano said to Fazio as they were entering the office.

  “Whatever you say.”

  The inspector looked for a sheet of paper on his desk, found it, and handed it to him.

  “Here’s the name and address of the German lawyer. You need to find me the telephone number. If I were to ask Catarella, he would end up driving me insane or hook me up with some number in Lapland.”

  Fazio went out, then returned ten minutes later.

  “Here you go.”

  He’d written the phone number under the address. Montalbano turned on the speakerphone and dialed it.

  A male voice answered on the first ring and poured out a string of words among which the inspector thought he heard the lawyer’s surname.

  “I’d like to speak with Rudolf Sterling.”

  “I am he,” the man replied in Italian.

  “Ah, good. This is Inspector Montalbano of the Italian police speaking. Good afternoon.”

  “Goot aftanoon. Vot vould you like to know?”

  “Was it you who phoned Signor Terrazzano in Vigàta this morning on behalf of your client Inge Schneider?”

  “Yes.”

  “I would like to know if I could ask you a few questions about this woman.”

  The lawyer hesitated a few moments before answering.

  “You may do so, but I may not answer.”

  “I certainly won’t ask you anything that would remotely require you to violate your oath of professional secrecy . . .”

  “Not because secret.”

  “Then why?”

  “Because I know fery little about this voman. Inge Schneider come to my office the first time chust tree days ago.”

  “So that was the first time you ever saw her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you been able to verify in any way that this woman was actually Inge Schneider?”

  “I don’t understant.”

  “Did you ask her to show any documents confirming her identity?”

  “No. Why shouldt I to dat? She saidt me her name, gave me telephone numper . . .”

  From his perspective, the lawyer was right.

  “Could you describe her for me?”

  “Vell . . . She hadt nothing unusual about her . . . Tall, blont, about tirty years olt . . .”

  How many millions of tall, blond, thirty-year-old women were there in Germany, anyway?

  “A final question, sir. Could you give me the telephone number she left with you?”

  “Yes, of course. One moment.”

  Fazio grabbed a sheet of paper and a pen. The lawyer dictated the number, and Fazio wrote it down.

  “Can I ask why questions?” the lawyer asked.

  Montalbano pretended not to have heard.

  “Thank you for your courtesy. Have a good day.”
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br />   And he hung up.

  He sat there, lost in thought.

  Fazio handed him the sheet.

  “If you want to call her . . .”

  But the inspector seemed doubtful.

  “It’s not so easy. Say she lives in a boardinghouse, and they answer in German. I won’t understand a thing.”

  “Want me to get Martorana for you?” Fazio suggested.

  He was an officer who’d lived in Germany with his father up to the age of thirteen.

  “Okay.”

  “I explained everything to him,” said Fazio, returning with Martorana.

  “Go ahead and dial,” said Montalbano, putting the speakerphone back on, in case it was Inge who answered.

  But the voice they heard was a man’s.

  He and Martorana spoke a little, then the officer, while remaining on the line, explained to the inspector that the number they’d been given corresponded to a bar where Inge Schneider had come by to know whether there’d been any calls for her. And so the guy at the bar wanted their telephone number so he could give it to Inge, in case she wanted to call back.

  “No,” said the inspector. “Thank him and hang up.”

  Martorana said good-bye and left.

  11

  “Would you please explain why you didn’t want to give him our number?”

  “Because, seeing that the country code is for Italy, and the area code is for Vigàta, Inge wouldn’t take long to figure out that we’re the ones looking for her.”

  “Wouldn’t that be better?”

  “Better for us, perhaps, but not for her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If Inge somehow managed to get away from her kidnappers, the first thing she should have done was come here, to the police. Which she didn’t do. A sign that she wanted to remain at large. Why? There could be any number of reasons. For example, it might be a condition imposed on her by her kidnappers for setting her free: no contact with police. And that’s why I don’t want her to know we’re after her.”

  He paused, then added:

  “Assuming it’s the real Ingrid.”

  Fazio looked a little surprised.

  “You have doubts?”

  “Just think along with me for a second. Before Terrazzano came here, we were overwhelmingly convinced that Inge was being held by the people who murdered her husband and torched her car. Right?”