Death at Sea: Montalbano's Early Cases Read online

  “If you want to watch it right away,” said Fazio, “there’s a videocassette player in Augello’s office.”

  “Speaking of whom, when’s he getting back from his leave?”

  “In a week.”

  They went to Mimì’s office and sat down behind the desk, and Fazio set the tape going.

  Credits to a silent film called A Boundless Love appeared on the screen. It was Italian, and a rarity. It must have been a good seventy years old, or not much less. The images were faded, and the actors looked like ghosts.

  After a few minutes of this, Montalbano couldn’t take any more and stood up.

  “I don’t have time to waste on this bullshit,” he said.

  “Wait a second,” said Fazio. “I don’t think this film is so easy to find at a video rental shop.”

  “So what?”

  “Did you know that one of Cuffaro’s nephews, by the name of Carmelo Tito, is a well-known collector of silent movies?”

  Montalbano immediately sat back down. The film told the story of the love between a strong and handsome woodcutter and the beautiful young wife of the richest man in town, an ugly old codger who lived in a great house at the edge of the forest. The woodcutter and the girl exchange a great many furtive glances and yearn for each other from afar. Then opportunity arrives. The old man tells his wife he will be out all night making merry with his friends. So the girl sends her trusted chambermaid to inform the woodcutter, who at a prearranged hour slips into the great house, and at last the two can spend a night of love together.

  Meanwhile the old man, who is getting drunk with some twenty people, between friends and whores, decides to invite everyone to his house. When the two lovers hear voices approaching, they realize they are lost. So the woodcutter tells the girl to cry out, “Help! Thief!” and jumps out the window. They all rush after him in hot pursuit. At a certain point in his flight, however, the woodcutter steps into a trap. To save the girl’s honor, taking the axe he carries in his belt, he chops off his foot with one blow and drags himself to the edge of a deep lake. But when he realizes his pursuers are about to catch up with him, he throws himself into the lake, killing himself. And since his body will never be found, everyone will believe that it was a thief who had entered the young wife’s bedroom.

  4

  “Did you understand the deeper meaning?” Montalbano asked Fazio when it was over.

  “In part,” Fazio replied. “Why don’t you explain it a little better to me?”

  “This is a reply to Gianquinto’s press conference. The Cuffaros are telling me, first of all, that they fully realize that it was I who was behind the closure of the Labrador. And secondly, they’re saying that they’re not only ready to cut off one foot—that is, to shut down the Labrador for good—but also to lose something even more valuable rather than let someone be publicly shamed. In short, they’re telling me they can’t act otherwise, that this is a very big deal over which they’re prepared to lose men and money.”

  “And they’re saying something else, too,” said Fazio.

  “And what’s that?”

  “That in a deal as big as this, you, too, have to cover your rear.”

  “Yeah, I got that. As I was watching the movie, I started thinking about Davide Guarnotta. You were probably right when you said the only person who could have given the murdered girl the key to the building was none other than Guarnotta. It’s possible the asshole is taking us for a ride. It’s possible the Russian girlfriend who looks so much like the victim doesn’t even exist, and he invented her on the spot. Maybe it was the victim herself who used to go and visit him in the middle of the night. Let’s put the screws to him. Start looking for him and find out where he is.”

  After making a number of phone calls, Fazio was able to talk to Guarnotta.

  “He’s working at the TeleVigàta studios and will be busy until eight o’clock.”

  “Perfect. It’s six-thirty now. I want you to go to TeleVigàta immediately with two uniformed cops in a squad car with sirens blaring. You have to make a lot of noise, create some confusion. Even if they’re filming, just burst in and interrupt them anyway. As if you were going to arrest him. Then tell him I’ll be waiting for him at the office at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. And you must threaten him, saying he has no choice but to appear.”

  “And then what?”

  “And then I go home. Be seein’ ya.”

  * * *

  He had just woken up a few minutes before seven when the phone rang. It was Fazio.

  “Chief, about an hour ago somebody called in to report that a car had been found on the western beach with a dead body inside, and I went to check it out. It was Guarnotta. I’m here at the scene and have already alerted the circus. Are you coming?”

  “What good would that do? But how did he die?”

  “I haven’t opened the car. There’s no visible injury, no blood. He’s in shirtsleeves, leaning back in the driver’s seat, head thrown back, eyes bulging . . . Next to his feet on the floor is an elastic and a syringe. Maybe an overdose.”

  “How did he react yesterday when you informed him I was summoning him to the station?”

  “He turned pale, Chief, and just said, ‘Okay.’”

  “As soon as you’re done there, come to the office.”

  For whatever reason, the death of Guarnotta weighed on the inspector’s conscience.

  * * *

  “Chief, somebuddy jess call’ sayin’ as how durin’ the night—’at’d be lass night, bein’ at night durin’ the night o’ yisterday—’ere was a boiglery.”

  “Where?”

  “Same place azza moider: Via Pintacucuda, nummer eighteen. A’ Signor Guarnotti’s place.”

  Montalbano shot out of the office like a rocket, grabbed his car, and raced to Via Pintacuda. None of the tenants knew yet about the cameraman’s death. And Montalbano didn’t inform them. The person who’d noticed that thieves had entered his apartment was Signora Oliveri, who lived across the landing from him.

  “When I’s on my way out I saw the door was open, an’ so I went over an’ called out Signor Guarnotta’s name, but there was no answer. So I went in and saw that the place had been turned upside down.”

  The first thing Montalbano noticed was two keys on a ring lying on the floor at the front of the entranceway. He tried one in the door, and it worked. The other must have been to the front door of the building. The thieves had entered using the keys they took off Guarnotta’s corpse. Hanging from a nail on the doorjamb was another key. Montalbano took it and tried it. It was the extra key. And so the extra key to the front door was missing. What’s two plus two? The key the murdered girl had used clearly belonged to Guarnotta. There could be no doubt.

  Photos of naked women stuck on the walls were the apartment’s only embellishments. There was also a television set equipped with a videocassette player and a large screen on the wall. Beside it was a small article of furniture that must have once held the hundred or more porno film cassettes that were now strewn across the floor, as if they’d been checked one by one. It didn’t take long for Montalbano to become convinced that he wasn’t looking at a burglary. Neither the videocassette player nor the costly cameras, nor the television, had been stolen. Actually, what the intruders had done was perform a professional-quality search of the whole flat. There wasn’t a single nook or cranny that hadn’t been rifled through.

  Head filled with thoughts, Montalbano went back to the office. Upon arriving he told Catarella he didn’t want to be disturbed by anyone. Nobody but Fazio could come into his office, when he returned.

  The inspector sat there a long time, thinking. What does one go looking for in the home of a freelance cameraman? Something that has something to do with his job. In other words, some sort of video recording. Of something compromising. He thought again of the silent film. Something that would
compromise certain people who at all costs had to remain above suspicion . . . A thought flashed through his brain like lightning. Wait a second, Montalbà. What if it was Guarnotta himself who, as a cameraman, had shot some scene that would become dangerous if put into circulation? And what if he’d made copies of it? Maybe even to use as blackmail? And maybe this was something he’d been doing for a while? Blackmailing, that is. That would explain where the money came from. But what could he have filmed that was so dangerous that the Cuffaros were ready to pay so much to keep it secret? The moment when some honorable parliamentarian was putting a bribe directly into his pocket? Still, the honorable deputy could have wriggled out by saying the money was for some charitable organization. And so? For a second the dream he’d had flashed through his mind. Of course, if he’d filmed a politician buying a woman at the sex-slave market and it came to be known that those same women were later slated for “scrapping,” the whole thing would have another significance. Scrapping? What exactly did that mean, anyway? The answer that came to mind made him shudder. And what if those girls were “scrapped” in front of people who liked to see a beautiful girl get “scrapped”? And who paid astronomical sums to witness the spectacle? And what if they even participated in the “scrapping”? And what if the scene was filmed and all present were entitled to a free copy? No, that would be too . . . too . . . His brain didn’t want to accept it . . . “A tragic, indeed a perverse show of power,” he’d said during the interview. He hadn’t, at the time, been able to explain those words to himself. They’d come out by themselves, spontaneously. But they were perfect.

  At that moment Fazio walked in.

  “Dr. Pasquano immediately declared that Guarnotta was ‘suicided’ with an overdose. He said it in front of the journalists. You can imagine the splash that’ll make!”

  “How can he be so sure?”

  “Because there was no trace of any puncture wounds other than the one that killed him. And because there were bruises on his arms and legs, a sign that he was being held down by force as they were injecting him.”

  “Do you remember how in the film they had the guy commit suicide in the lake?”

  “You’re right. Oh, and I also wanted to tell you that they found nothing personal in the car, not even Guarnotta’s house keys.”

  “The keys were taken by the killers so they could go and search his apartment. I have them myself now: Here they are. I’m also almost certain that it was Guarnotta who gave the key to the girl.”

  Fazio gave him a puzzled look. Montalbano told him about the burglary and the extra set of keys that was missing the one to the front door.

  The telephone rang.

  “Chief, ’ere’d a happen a be a jinnelman present ’ere in poisson ’oose name I ferget assept ’at ’e’s got one o’ the names o’ the Tree Kings,” said Catarella.

  “Melchiorre?” Montalbano suggested.

  “’Ass it!”

  “Okay, send him in.”

  Actually it was one of the other Three Kings. Ragioniere Ballassare, in fact, the one from the funeral home. He looked even a little more disconsolate than usual.

  “I saw about poor Guarnotta’s awful death on TV. There are rumors he was murdered. Is it true?”

  “It seems to be,” said Montalbano.

  “Then it’s my duty to give you something. Two days ago, Guarnotta gave me an envelope, saying I should give it to you if he were suddenly to die violently. Here it is. Have a good day.”

  And he walked out, leaving the inspector and Fazio completely flummoxed. Montalbano then opened a large linen envelope and pulled out a sheet of paper and three VHS cassettes.

  The girl’s name was Olga Bernova, and she was nineteen years old. I can’t tell you any more than this. She came to my place three times. The idea of filming a gang rape culminating in murder in the presence of a few rich, paying spectators was the idea of Milko Stanic, one of the local importers of girls from Eastern Europe, under the protection of the Cuffaros. The idea was to put the copies of the tape on the market without the knowledge of the participants, who in any case are unrecognizable. The key must certainly have fallen out of my pocket during the filming, and Olga must have noticed. She then scooped it up after being left alone and, knowing she was dying, she came to my place to put you on my scent and on the organization’s. She succeeded. As for me, they’ll surely make me pay for the mistake of the key.

  “Feel up to watching them with me?” Montalbano asked Fazio.

  Resigned, Fazio threw up his hands.

  It took them three hours to watch them all. They were witness to three murders, three human sacrifices. The girls, poor things, would change, but the participants in both the rapes and the murders, who were ten in number, clearly were always the same people, even though they were always hooded and naked.

  “I’m gonna go drink a glass of water,” said Fazio, looking pale.

  “Bring me one, too, would you?” said the inspector.

  He didn’t feel like getting up. His legs were as though cut out from under him, and there was a weight pressing down on his chest. The tapes had confirmed his suspicions.

  But this gave him no sense of satisfaction. On the contrary. He drank down his water as though dying of thirst.

  “I wonder why we never found the bodies of the other two?” Fazio asked himself.

  “Maybe they dissolved them in acid,” said Montalbano. Then he added: “You know, I recognized one of those hooded men. The short, fat guy with the habit of bringing the thumb and index finger of his left hand together in a circle every five minutes or so.”

  “Who wouldn’t recognize that guy?” Fazio retorted. “He does it even when he appears on TV to talk about Christian values and the sanctity of the family.”

  “If we tried,” said Montalbano, “we could identify another three or four right now. One of them limps and is missing the little finger on his left hand . . .”

  “The president of the chamber of commerce, the former undersecretary,” Fazio said gloomily.

  “. . . another guy’s got a tattoo of an anchor on his right shoulder; a third’s got scars from a recent operation on his chest . . .”

  “One is the president of the Nautical Club; the other is the cultural councilor of the provincial government. I saw them once in bathing suits,” said Fazio in an almost plaintive tone.

  * * *

  Gaetano Mistretta, the public prosecutor, turned as red as a child’s ball when he heard the identifications. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he said:

  “Leave the cassettes here with me and don’t say anything about them to anybody. You will no longer be involved in the investigation. Nor will Inspector Gianquinto. Our homicide unit will take charge. That’s an order, and that’s final.”

  Montalbano got up and left without a word.

  He did not protest. It would have been pointless. He knew how it would have ended up.

  * * *

  Following standard procedure, Prosecutor Gaetano Mistretta catalogued the note and the videocassettes and put them in a file, to which he affixed the label, in accordance with standard procedure (and with the dictates of caution), “The State vs. Persons Unknown.”

  Before leaving the office after the day’s work, Prosecutor Gaetano Mistretta took the file, “The State vs. Persons Unknown,” and, following standard procedure, put it in a drawer of his desk, which he then locked with a key.

  And, once again in accordance with standard procedure, that night, two burglars entered Prosecutor Gaetano Mistretta’s office and, knowing exactly what they were looking for, made off with that file and nothing else.

  * * *

  Knowing, however, what was going to happen in accordance with standard procedure, Inspector Salvo Montalbano had also followed standard procedure. That is, before turning Guarnotta’s letter and the three cassettes over to the DA, he’d had Catarella make
him a copy of the letter as well as copies of the three tapes.

  And he hid them well, in hopes of better days to come.

  THE APRICOT

  1

  Livia was supposed to be landing at Punta Raisi airport on the eight-thirty p.m. flight, but Montalbano wasn’t able to embrace her until nine-thirty, because the plane came in an hour late. Since it was Saturday and he had nothing to do at the office, he’d decided to drive to Palermo to pick her up.

  It was a soft, late September evening, calm and inviting, the kind that makes you want to sleep outside, under the stars.

  “Do you want to go straight to Vigàta?”

  He had no idea how much he would regret having asked her this careless question.

  “Well, I think we won’t get back before eleven, and it’ll be too late to go and eat at Calogero’s. Don’t you have anything in the house?”

  “No.”

  “So what should we do?”

  “I don’t know. I wouldn’t mind driving around a little.”

  “Do you want to go into Palermo?”

  “Are you kidding! I want to breathe the air of the sea . . . Listen, why don’t we drive down the coastal road? It’s a longer route, but it’s not as if anyone’s waiting for us. And anyway . . .”

  “Anyway?”

  “If we felt like it, we could just check into the first hotel we come across and spend the night there.”

  They hadn’t been driving for half an hour when Livia said:

  “Man, am I ever getting hungry!”

  “Let’s wait until we get to where I have in mind to go.”

  Fifteen minutes later they were sitting down at a table in a trattoria almost at the water’s edge. Montalbano knew from personal experience that they served the freshest fish there.