Death at Sea: Montalbano's Early Cases Read online

  Hadn’t Ciulla told him that room number 2 was not occupied? He decided not to mention this to Custonaci.

  “I see. But why do you imply you would have been in greater danger in room number two?”

  “Because it’s adjacent to the storeroom where the fire started. The smoke might have suffocated me in my sleep.”

  “Have you been told that the fire chief thinks it was arson?”

  The inspector wasn’t expecting the answer that Custonaci gave him, nor the almost indifferent tone in which he said it.

  “That’s not such a far-fetched surmise.”

  “So you agree?”

  “Why, don’t you, Inspector Montalbano? If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be wasting time talking to me.”

  “Am I wasting time talking to you?”

  “That depends on what you want to know from me. If, to use an example, or just for the sake of argument, you want to know whether the fire was intended to kill me, you are just wasting your time.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “From the simple fact that my mediation led to a resolution that met with the full satisfaction of both parties in question.” He smiled. “They were both in full agreement; there were no objections of any sort. Have I made myself clear?”

  “Quite clear.”

  Montalbano considered their discussion over, and was about to get up and go, when Custonaci stopped him with a hand gesture.

  “May I ask a question myself?”

  “Of course.”

  “You were in the hotel when we came downstairs on our way out. I saw you and recognized you in spite of the smoke and confusion. Do you remember how many customers we were in all?”

  “Six.”

  “Precisely. That’s how many I remember, too. And counting you and Ciulla, that makes eight of us.”

  He paused. Now he was no longer smiling.

  “But then things don’t add up.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because if room number two was occupied, there should have been seven customers in all. These are numbers, Inspector. They’re not opinions or theories. As far as I could tell, you seem to have arrived as soon as Ciulla started shouting. Did you see anyone come out of that room?”

  “No.”

  “Nor did I. Which means there wasn’t anyone staying in that room.”

  “And so?”

  “And so why did Ciulla tell me it was occupied? You see, when I stay at that hotel, I pay duly and don’t even ask for a discount. What reason could he have had to say I couldn’t stay in room two? If I were you, I would try to find an explanation.”

  * * *

  The following morning was crucial, because of three phone calls. One outgoing, and two incoming.

  The first thing Montalbano did was to tell Fazio what Custonaci had said and to get Ciulla on the phone.

  He didn’t feel like wasting time with him and so got straight to the point.

  “Last night I met Custonaci, the mediator, entirely by chance in Trapani, and we talked about the fire. Why did you tell him room number two was rented out when you told me the opposite?”

  Ciulla replied at once.

  “It’s a delicate matter, Inspector.”

  “Delicate or not, answer my question first. Was room number two occupied or not?”

  “Absolutely not, as I already told you. On the other hand, if it was rented out and nobody came out of the room, logically speaking the firemen should have found a corpse in there.”

  “Why did you tell Custonaci it was taken?”

  “Inspector, Custonaci had come to my hotel three times in the last few months, and I always gave him room two, as he wanted. But the people he would receive there scared me just to look at them. So this time I asked myself: Why would I want people like that in my house? So I gave him an excuse. And as a result they had to meet wherever the hell they chose, but not at my place.”

  The explanation made sense, and Montalbano hung up.

  “But how is it this man always finds a plausible excuse?”

  He answered his own question.

  “Either he’s someone who never strays an inch from the straight and narrow path, or else he’s a great big son of a bitch, even though he doesn’t seem like one.”

  Fazio reported that he’d received news from Palermo first thing that morning about the traveling salesman, whose name was Pasquale Sanvito. The information said he was a man with a spotless reputation.

  It said he was a serious, law-abiding citizen, a responsible provider for his family who earned his living honestly.

  There was no reason in heaven or on earth to think anyone would want to start a fire to kill him.

  Half an hour later, as they were still talking, Fazio’s contact in Caltanissetta called him to tell him what he’d found on Guido Lopresti, the land surveyor.

  “Look, Fazio, speaking from a professional point of view, this Lopresti is the kind of person you could say is irreproachable,” said Detective Truscia. “And he’s never out of work, because everyone thinks very highly of him.”

  “How about from the private point of view?”

  “That’s where things change radically.”

  “In what sense?”

  “In the sense that he’s a scoundrel. He’s got a wife who’s like a flower, young and beautiful, but that’s not enough for him. He has another three women here, and another two or three in nearby towns. And since everybody knows this, sometimes things turn nasty between these women. And there you have it.”

  As Fazio hung up, he and Montalbano looked at each other in disappointment.

  Clearly all these people were to be ruled out. There was only one of the hotel’s customers left: the lawyer from Montelusa.

  “Who should deal with this gentleman, you or me?” asked the inspector.

  “I’ll take care of it,” said Fazio.

  There was a knock at the door, and Mimì Augello came in.

  4

  “Good Lord, what happened to you two? You should see your faces! What happened? Did somebody die?”

  “We’ve reached a dead end in the arson investigation,” Fazio replied.

  And since Mimì wanted to be filled in, the inspector told him the whole story.

  “So there’s only one of the six left?” Augello asked.

  “Yes, a lawyer from Montelusa.”

  “A lawyer who lives in Montelusa?”

  “Yes. What, have you gone deaf or something?”

  “How odd!”

  “Why? In your opinion there shouldn’t be any lawyers living in Montelusa?”

  “Come on, gimme a break!” said Mimì, offended. “It’s you who said it. I’m trying to think seriously about this.”

  “Then let’s hear your serious thoughts.”

  “My question is: Why, after taking care of business in Vigàta, didn’t this lawyer just go on home to Montelusa after working hours? Even if he doesn’t own a car and takes a cab home, he’s still spending a lot less than a night at the hotel will cost him.”

  A solid argument, no two ways about it.

  “Maybe he has a customer who works all day and can only see him late in the evening,” ventured Fazio.

  “No, that doesn’t hold up,” said Montalbano. “Mimì’s right.”

  “What’s this lawyer’s name?” asked Augello.

  “Ettore Manganaro,” said Fazio.

  “Aha!” exclaimed Mimì.

  “What’s ‘aha’ supposed to mean? Do you know him?”

  “By name and by sight. He’s one of the top criminal lawyers in Montelusa. He’s about forty-five, rather elegant and well-mannered, and a bachelor. Which reinforces my suspicion and raises another question.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “Why would a man who earns
as much as he does want to stay in a fourth-rate hotel? And on that note, I gotta go.”

  He got up and left.

  “It’s certainly true that a criminal lawyer like this Manganaro must have more than a few enemies,” Fazio commented.

  “By tomorrow evening I want you to tell me everything there is to know about this guy,” the inspector ordered him. “So you should probably start right away.”

  Without a word, Fazio also left the room.

  * * *

  The information Fazio brought back was utterly generic in nature. Except for two details, one public, the other private. The former was that one of Manganaro’s clients, Totuccio Gallinaro by name, a mafioso from the Sinagra clan who had been sentenced to thirty years, blamed Manganaro for the harsh penalty, accusing the lawyer of having made a deal with the prosecution. And Totuccio had publicly sworn he would make him pay for it.

  The other detail was that the lawyer, after living for three years with the sister of a colleague of his, had thrown her out one month ago with no explanation, creating a kind of rift in the Order of Montelusan Lawyers.

  “Did your friends tell you whether Totuccio’s threat was anything to be taken seriously?”

  “Oh, it’s serious, all right.”

  “But do you really think the Sinagras would be ready to back Gallinaro up? I don’t.”

  “Nah, I don’t, either. But they can’t do much to prevent some hothead friend of Gallinaro’s from doing something stupid.”

  “Isn’t it possible that Manganaro went to that hotel because he had an appointment with someone from the Sinagras? And he maybe even took advantage of the presence of the mediator, Custonaci, to get some kind of reassurance that Gallinaro’s threat would be neutralized?”

  “Sure, it’s possible. But the question still remains: Why set fire to the hotel?”

  At that exact moment an idea, still rather sketchy, began to stir in the inspector’s brain.

  “And what if we were wrong about everything?”

  “What do you mean?” Fazio asked, taken aback.

  “Wrong in the way we’re conducting the investigation.”

  “Explain.”

  “Rather than investigate who was at the hotel, it might be better to find out who wasn’t there.”

  Fazio gave him a confused look.

  “Chief, except for those seven people—owner included—the rest of the world was outside. What are you saying?”

  “That’s not what I meant. I was conjecturing that maybe Ciulla sang us only half the Mass.”

  “I don’t understand anything anymore.”

  “Try to follow my reasoning. Ciulla tells Custonaci that room number two is occupied. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “Whereas he tells us it was free. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “And what if he was telling the truth in both cases?”

  “That’s not possible! It was either free or it wasn’t! There’s no two ways about it!”

  “But in fact there are two ways about it! Because at the moment Custonaci asks him about it, the room is reserved but the customer hasn’t arrived yet; and when we ask him about it, the room is free because the customer has come and gone after a visit of only a few minutes.”

  “But you never saw that customer come out!”

  “Do you know whether the back door, the one that gave onto the parking lot, was always locked or unlocked?”

  “It was always locked. The customers had to ring the buzzer to enter.”

  “So it’s possible that as soon as the fire broke out, this mystery customer went out the back door, which was also closer to where he was than the main door in front.”

  “Chief, your hypothesis doesn’t hold water.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the back door, being right next to the storeroom, was unusable.”

  “That doesn’t matter. I want to continue down this path.”

  “How?”

  “Call all six customers and have them tell you, in this order, what day and at what time of day they got to the hotel, at what hour they came in on the night of the fire, and anything, no matter how minor, they managed to see or hear in the minutes preceding the outbreak of the fire.”

  Two hours later, the inspector had their answers. The conscientious Fazio had written them all down on a sheet of paper that he’d left on Montalbano’s desk.

  1. Ignazio Scuderi, mechanic.

  Arrived two days before the fire, came back to the hotel at 10:30 p.m. on the night of the fire. Saw and heard nothing unusual.

  2. Filippo Nuara, grain merchant.

  Arrived the day before, came back to his room at 10:00 p.m. Saw and heard nothing.

  3. Saverio Custonaci, mediator.

  Arrived at 9:00 on the morning of the same day and went out half an hour later. Returned at 11:00 p.m. and went right to sleep. Saw and heard nothing.

  4. Pasquale Sanvito, traveling salesman.

  Arrived three days earlier, came back at about 10:00 p.m. Heard and saw nothing.

  5. Ettore Manganaro, lawyer.

  Arrived the evening of the fire, at about 11:30 p.m. Though awake and still dressed when the fire broke out, he saw and heard nothing.

  6. Guido Lopresti, surveyor.

  Arrived the day before, got back to the hotel at about 11:30 p.m.***

  “What are the three asterisks supposed to mean?”

  “They mean that Lopresti told me a whole lot of things that were too complicated to write down.”

  “Tell me now.”

  “Well, he said that when he got back to the hotel at eleven-thirty he wanted to ask Ciulla for a wake-up call at six the following morning, but he had to wait a good five minutes because Ciulla was busy chatting with Manganaro, the lawyer, whom he recognized by sight and who must have arrived just before that because he still had his overnight bag in his hand. The lawyer then went upstairs to his room, and after talking with Ciulla, Lopresti himself went to bed.”

  “That doesn’t seem like such a—”

  “Wait. I haven’t come to the best part yet. Lopresti’s room was the one directly above the sitting area of room number two. He’d just gotten undressed—so it was about ten minutes to twelve—when he heard a car pull up in the lot outside, then about a minute later the doorbell to the back door rang. It was clearly a customer who’d just arrived. Not fifteen minutes later, he heard the window of the sitting area of room two being opened violently, and almost immediately afterwards, he heard Ciulla’s voice shouting: ‘Fire!’”

  Montalbano slapped himself hard on the forehead.

  “The window!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean the customer who was so briefly in room number two left through the window! It’s all clear to me now!”

  “Then please make it clear to me, too.”

  “Later. First I want you to find out something of capital importance to me: What kind of relations does Ciulla have, or has Ciulla had, with Manganaro, the lawyer? I want to know within the hour. Now get out of here.”

  Fazio must have broken some kind of record. An hour and fifteen minutes later, he was back.

  Twenty years earlier, Ciulla’s younger brother, Agostino, was charged with taking part in an armed robbery in which someone had died. Agostino had always claimed his innocence, and Manganaro, still cutting his teeth at the time, defended him and won him a full acquittal, earning Ciulla’s endless gratitude.

  “Go get him and bring him here to me!”

  “Who?”

  “Ciulla.”

  * * *

  Ciulla was as calm and collected as usual.

  “Please listen to me,” said the inspector, “and I’ll tell you what I think happened. On the morning of the day of the fire, you g
et a phone call from Manganaro, the lawyer, who tells you he needs to meet with a fugitive in the safest place possible. You reserve room number two for the fugitive, and another room upstairs for the lawyer. Manganaro arrives with his car at eleven-thirty that evening, probably tells you that the fugitive will be arriving shortly, also by car, and will buzz at the back door. Which is exactly what happens. But the lawyer doesn’t have time to meet the fugitive, because, in the meantime, the fire breaks out. You rush to room number two to let the fugitive escape through the window in the sitting room. The fire itself was probably started by someone who didn’t want that meeting to take place. Have you followed me?”

  “Yes, perfectly.”

  “Do you realize that I can throw you in jail on two very serious charges?”

  “I realize that. But, if you’ll allow me, I’d like to tell you a story I like a lot better than yours. A hotel manager gets a phone call from a lawyer whom he worships. A month earlier, this lawyer fell madly in love with a woman separated from her husband but whose ex-mate is still extremely jealous. That evening, the two finally have an opportunity to spend the night together in peace. And so the hotel manager leaves room number two available to them. The lawyer arrives, talks to the manager, and retires to his room. Five minutes later, the back-door buzzer rings. The manager opens the door and sees the woman there. The manager closes the door and shows her to her room. The lady is nervous and asks for a bottle of water and a glass. The manager goes and gets these for her. When he returns, the woman informs him that there’s no running water in the bathroom sink. While the manager is doing his best to accommodate her, the woman comes into the bathroom and tells him there’s a strong smell of smoke. The manager leaves the room and sees that the storeroom has caught fire and it’s not the sort of thing a small extinguisher can handle. And so he has the woman escape out the window and starts shouting. What do you think?”

  “I think you’re right, your story’s a lot better than mine. So, in your opinion, it was the lady’s ex-husband who set fire to the place?”

  “In the lawyer’s opinion, too. And he went and talked to the husband. Who says he was desperate. He’d followed his wife and when he realized she was going to meet with the lawyer, he lost his head. He had a newspaper in his jacket pocket, and so he lit it and threw it in through the storeroom window. He’s willing to pay for the damages. He’s willing to do anything. It was just a moment of madness, he said. He’s a good man. He didn’t realize he could have caused a massacre. He just wanted to break up that meeting. The lawyer’s not going to press charges, and I’m not, either. What are we going to do, Inspector?”