Voice of the Violin Read online

  A sudden, loud thunderclap gave him a way out.

  “What was that?”

  “Thunder. There’s a terrible stor—”

  He hung up and pulled out the plug.

  He couldn’t sleep. He tossed and turned, snarling himself up in the sheets. Around two o’clock in the morning, he realized it was useless. He got up, got dressed, grabbed a leather bag given to him some time ago by a house burglar who’d become his friend, got in his car, and drove off. The storm was raging worse than ever, lightning bolts illuminating the sky. When he reached the Twingo, he slipped his car in under some trees and turned off the headlights. From the glove compartment he extracted a gun, a pair of gloves, and a flashlight. After waiting for the rain to let up, he crossed the road in one bound, went up the driveway, and flattened himself against the front door. He rang and rang the doorbell but got no answer. He then put on the gloves and pulled a large key ring with a dozen or so variously shaped picklocks out of the leather bag. The door opened on the third try. It was locked with only the latch and hadn’t been dead-bolted. He entered, closing the door behind him. In the dark, he bent over, untied his wet shoes and removed them, remaining in his socks. He turned on the flashlight, keeping it pointed at the ground. He found himself in a large dining room that opened onto a living room. The furniture smelled of varnish. Everything was new, clean, and orderly. A door led into a kitchen that sparkled like something one might see in an advertisement; another door gave onto a bathroom so shiny it looked as if no one had ever used it before. He slowly climbed the stairs to the upper floor. There he found three closed doors. The first one he opened revealed a neat little guest room; the second led into a bigger bathroom than the one downstairs, but unlike it, this one was decidedly messy. A pink terrycloth bathrobe lay rumpled on the floor, as though the person wearing it had taken it off in a hurry. The third door was to the master bedroom. And the naked, half-kneeling female body, belly resting against the edge of the bed, arms spread, face buried in the sheet that the young, blond woman had torn to shreds with her fingernails in the final throes of her death by suffocation, must have belonged to the owner of the house.

  Montalbano went up to the corpse and, removing a glove, touched it lightly: it was cold and stiff. She must have been very beautiful. The inspector went back downstairs, put his shoes back on, wiped up the wet spot they had made on the floor, went out of the house, closed the door, crossed the road, got in his car, and left. His thoughts were racing as he drove back to Marinella. How to have the crime be discovered? He certainly couldn’t go and tell the judge what he’d been up to. The judge who’d replaced Lo Bianco—on a leave of absence to pursue his endless historical research into the lives of a pair of unlikely ancestors—was a Venetian by the name of Nicolò Tommaseo who was always talking about his “irrevocable prerogatives.” He had a little baby face that he hid under a Belfiore martyr’s mustache and beard. As Montalbano was opening the door to his house, the solution to the problem finally came to him in a flash. And thus he was able to enjoy a brief but godlike sleep.

  2

  He arrived at the office at eight-thirty the next morning, looking rested and crisp.

  “Did you know our new commissioner is noble?” was the first thing Mimì Augello said when he saw him.

  “Is that a moral judgment or a heraldic fact?”

  “Heraldic.”

  “I’d already figured as much from the little dash between his last names. And what did you do, Mimì? Did you call him count, baron, or marquis? Did you butter him up nice?”

  “Come on, Salvo, you’re obsessed!”

  “Me? Fazio told me you were wagging your tail the whole time you were talking on the phone to the commissioner, and that afterward you shot out of here like a rocket to go see him.”

  “Listen, the commissioner said, and I quote: ‘If Inspector Montalbano is not available, come here at once yourself.’ What was I supposed to do? Tell him I couldn’t because my superior would get pissed off?”

  “What did he want?”

  “He wasn’t alone. Half the province was there. He informed us he intended to modernize, to renovate. He said anyone unable to come up to speed with him should just hang it up. Those were his exact words: hang it up. It was clear to everyone he meant you and Sandro Turri of Calascibetta.”

  “Explain to me how you knew this.”

  “Because when he said ‘hang it up’ he looked right at Turri and then at me.”

  “Couldn’t that mean he was actually referring to you?”

  “Come on, Salvo, everybody knows he doesn’t have a high opinion of you.”

  “And what did his lordship want?”

  “To tell us that in a few days, some absolutely up-to-date computers will be arriving. Every headquarters in the province will be equipped with them. He wanted each of us to give him the name of an officer we thought had a special knack for computer science. Which I did.”

  “Are you insane? Nobody here knows a goddamn thing about that stuff. Whose name did you give him?”

  “Catarella,” said an utterly serious Mimì Augello.

  The act of a born saboteur. Montalbano stood up abruptly, ran over to his second-in-command, and embraced him.

  “I know all about the house you were interested in,” said Fazio, sitting down in the chair in front of the inspector’s desk. “I spoke with the town clerk, who knows everything about everyone in Vigàta.”

  “Let’s have it.”

  “Well, the land the house was built on used to belong to a Dr. Rosario Licalzi.”

  “What kind of doctor?”

  “A real one, a medical doctor. He died about fifteen years ago, leaving the plot to his eldest son, Emanuele, also a doctor.”

  “Does he live in Vigàta?”

  “No. He lives and works in Bologna. Two years ago, this Emanuele Licalzi married a girl from those parts. They came to Sicily on their honeymoon. The minute the lady saw the land she got it into her head that she would build a little house there. And there you have it.”

  “Any idea where the Licalzis are right now?”

  “The husband’s in Bologna. The lady was last seen in Vigàta three days ago, running around town trying to furnish the house. She drives a bottle-green Renault Twingo.”

  “The one Gallo crashed into.”

  “Right. The clerk told me she’s not the kind of woman to go unnoticed. Apparently she’s very beautiful.”

  “I don’t understand why she hasn’t called yet,” said Montalbano, who, when he put his mind to it, could be a tremendous actor.

  “I’ve formed my own theory about that,” said Fazio. “The clerk said the lady’s, well, really friendly—I mean, she’s got a lot of friends.”

  “Girlfriends?”

  “And boyfriends,” Fazio said emphatically. “It’s possible she’s staying with a family somewhere. Maybe they came and picked her up with their own car and she won’t notice the damage till she gets back.”

  “Sounds plausible,” concluded Montalbano, continuing his performance.

  As soon as Fazio left, the inspector called up Clementina Vasile Cozzo.

  “My dear lady, how are you?”

  “Inspector! What a lovely surprise! I’m getting along all right, by the grace of God.”

  “Mind if I drop in to say hello?”

  “You are welcome to come whenever you like.”

  Clementina Vasile Cozzo was an elderly paraplegic, a former elementary-school teacher blessed with intelligence and endowed with a natural, quiet dignity. The inspector had met her during the course of a complex investigation some three months back and remained as attached to her as a son. Though Montalbano didn’t openly admit it to himself, she was the sort of woman he wished he could have as a mother, having lost his own when he was too young to retain much memory of her beyond a kind of golden luminescence.

  “Was Mama blond?” he’d once asked his father in an attempt to explain to himself why his only image of her consisted of a
luminous nuance.

  “Like wheat in sunlight,” was his father’s laconic reply.

  Montalbano had got in the habit of calling on Signora Clementina at least once a week. He would tell her about whatever investigation he happened to be involved in, and the woman, grateful for the visit, which broke the monotony of her daily routine, would invite him to stay for dinner. Pina, the signora’s housekeeper, was a surly type and, to make matters worse, she didn’t like Montalbano. She did, however, know how to cook some exquisite, disarmingly simple dishes.

  Signora Clementina, dressed rather smartly with an Indian silk shawl around her shoulders, showed him into the living room.

  “There’s a concert today,” she whispered, “but it’s almost over.”

  Four years ago, Signora Clementina had learned from her maid, Pina—who for her part had heard it from Yolanda, the violinist’s housekeeper—that the illustrious Maestro Cataldo Barbera, who lived in the apartment directly above hers, was in serious trouble with his taxes. So she’d discussed the matter with her son, who worked at the Montelusa Revenue Office, and the problem, which had essentially arisen from a mistake, was resolved. Some ten days later, the housekeeper Yolanda had brought her a note that said: “Dear Signora. To repay you, though only in part, I will play for you every Friday morning from nine-thirty to ten-thirty. Yours very sincerely, Cataldo Barbera.”

  And so every Friday morning, she would get all dressed up to pay homage to the Maestro in turn, and she would go and sit in a small sort of parlor where one could best hear the music. At exactly half past nine, on the floor above, the Maestro would strike up the first notes.

  Everyone in Vigàta knew about Maestro Cataldo Barbera, but very few had ever seen him in person. Son of a railwayman, the future Maestro had drawn his first breath sixty-five years earlier in Vigàta, but left town before the age of ten when his father was transferred to Catania. The Vigatese had had to learn of his career from the newspapers. After studying violin, Cataldo Barbera had very quickly become an internationally renowned concert performer. Inexplicably, however, at the height of his fame, he had retired to Vigàta, where he bought an apartment and now lived in voluntary seclusion.

  “What’s he playing?” Montalbano asked.

  Signora Clementina handed him a sheet of squared paper. On the day before the performance, the Maestro would customarily send her the program, written out in pencil. The pieces to be played that day were Pablo de Sarasate’s “Spanish Dance,” and the “Scherzo-Tarantella,” op. 16, of Henryk Wieniawski. When the performance was over, Signora Clementina plugged in the telephone, dialed a number, set the receiver down on a shelf, and started clapping. Montalbano joined in with gusto. He knew nothing about music, but he was certain of one thing: Cataldo Barbera was a great artist.

  “Signora,” the inspector began, “I must confess that this is a self-interested visit on my part. I need you to do me a favor.”

  He went on to tell her everything that had happened to him the previous day: the accident, going to the wrong funeral, his secret, nighttime visit to the house, his discovery of the corpse. When he had finished, the inspector hesitated. He didn’t quite know how to phrase his request.

  Signora Clementina, who had felt by turns amused and disturbed by his account, urged him on.

  “Go on, Inspector, don’t be shy. What is it you want from me?”

  “I’d like you to make an anonymous telephone call,” Montalbano said in a single breath.

  He’d been back in the office about ten minutes when Catarella passed him a call from Dr. Lattes, the commissioner’s cabinet chief.

  “Hello, Montalbano, old friend, how’s it going? Eh, how’s it going?”

  “Fine,” Montalbano said curtly.

  “I’m so happy to hear it,” the chief of the cabinet said snappily, true to the nickname of Caffè-Lattes that someone had hung on him for the dangerously cloying warmth of his manner.

  “At your service,” Montalbano egged him on.

  “Well, not fifteen minutes ago a woman called the switchboard asking to speak personally with the commissioner. She was very insistent. The commissioner, however, was busy and asked me to take the call. The woman was in hysterics, screaming that a crime had been committed at a house in the Tre Fontane district. Then she hung up. The commissioner would like you to go there, just to make sure, and then report back to him. The lady also said that the house is easy to spot because there’s a bottle-green Twingo parked in front.”

  “Oh my God!” said Montalbano, launching into the second act of his role, now that Signora Clementina had recited her part so perfectly.

  “What is it?” Dr. Lattes asked, his curiosity aroused.

  “An amazing coincidence!” said Montalbano, his voice full of wonder. “I’ll tell you later.”

  “Hello? Inspector Montalbano here. Am I speaking with Judge Tommaseo?”

  “Yes, good day. What can I do for you?”

  “Your Honor, the chief of the commissioner’s cabinet just informed me that they received an anonymous phone call reporting a crime in a small house on the outskirts of Vigàta. He ordered me to go have a look. And I’m going.”

  “Might it not be some kind of tasteless practical joke?”

  “Anything is possible. I simply wanted to let you know, out of respect for your prerogatives.”

  “Yes, of course,” said Judge Tommaseo, pleased.

  “Do I have your authorization to proceed?”

  “Of course. And if a crime was indeed committed, I want you to notify me at once and wait for me to get there.”

  He called Fazio, Gallo, and Galluzzo and told them to come with him to the Tre Fontane district to see if a murder had been committed.

  “At the same house you asked me for information about?” asked Fazio, dumbfounded.

  “The same one where we crashed into the Twingo?” Gallo chimed in, eyeing his superior in amazement.

  “Yes,” the inspector answered both, trying to look humble.

  “What a nose, Chief!” Fazio cried out in admiration.

  They had barely set out when Montalbano already felt fed up. Fed up with the farce he would have to act out, pretending to be surprised when they found the corpse, fed up with the time he would have to waste on the judge, the coroner, and the forensics team, who were capable of taking hours before arriving at the crime scene. He decided to speed things up.

  “Pass me the cell phone,” he said to Galluzzo, who was sitting in front of him. Gallo, naturally, was at the wheel.

  He punched in Judge Tommaseo’s number.

  “Montalbano here. Listen, Judge, that was no joke, that phone call. Sorry to say, we found a dead body in the house. A woman.”

  There were different reactions among those present in the car. Gallo swerved into the oncoming lane, brushed against a truck loaded with iron rods, cursed, then regained control. Galluzzo gave a start, opened his eyes wide, twisted around and looked at his boss with his mouth agape. Fazio visibly stiffened and stared straight ahead, expressionless.

  “I’ll be right there,” said Judge Tommaseo. “Tell me exactly where the house is.”

  Increasingly fed up, Montalbano passed the cell phone to Gallo.

  “Explain to him where we’re going. Then call Pasquano and the crime lab.”

  Fazio didn’t open his mouth until the car came to a stop behind the bottle-green Twingo.

  “Did you put gloves on before you went in?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” said Montalbano.

  “Anyway, now that we’re going in, touch everything as much as you want, just to be safe. Leave as many fingerprints as you can.”

  “I already thought of that,” said the inspector.

  After the storm of the previous night, there was very little left of the scrap of paper tucked under the windshield wiper. The water had washed away the telephone number. Montalbano didn’t bother to remove it.

  “You two have a look around down here,” the inspector said to Gallo and Ga
lluzzo.

  Then, followed by Fazio, he went upstairs. With the light on, the dead woman’s body upset him less than the night before, when he’d seen it only by the beam of the flashlight. It seemed less real, though certainly not fake. Livid white and stiff, the corpse resembled those plaster casts of the victims of Pompeii. Facedown as she was, it was impossible to see what she looked like, but her struggle against death must have been fierce. Clumps of blond hair lay scattered over the torn sheet, and purplish bruises stood out across her shoulders and just below the nape of her neck. The killer must have had to use every bit of his strength to force her face so far down into the mattress that not a wisp of air could get through.

  Gallo and Galluzzo came upstairs.

  “Everything seems in order downstairs,” said Gallo.

  True, she looked like a plaster cast, but she was still a young woman, murdered, naked, and in a position that suddenly seemed unbearably obscene to him, her most intimate privacy violated, thrown open by the eight eyes of the policemen in the room. As if to give her back some semblance of personhood and dignity, he asked Fazio:

  “Did they tell you her name?”

  “Yes. If that’s Mrs. Licalzi, her name was Michela.”

  He went into the bathroom, picked the pink bathrobe up off the floor, brought it into the bedroom, and covered the body with it.

  He went downstairs. Had she lived, Michela Licalzi would still have had some work to do to fix up the house.

  In the living room, propped up in a corner, were two rolled-up rugs; the sofa and armchairs were still factory-wrapped in clear plastic; a small table lay upside down, legs up, on top of a big, unopened box. The only thing in any kind of order was a small glass display case with the usual sorts of things carefully arranged inside: two antique fans, a few ceramic statuettes, a closed violin case, and two very beautiful shells, collector’s items.