Death at Sea: Montalbano's Early Cases Read online

  For the first time in his life, Montalbano didn’t know how to respond.

  DOUBLE INVESTIGATION

  1

  Ernesto Guarraci, forty-five years old, a surveyor by trade and official consultant to city hall for urban development and to the provincial government for large public land projects, was in reality a do-nothing with no desire whatsoever to do anything. Actually, no. There was one thing he never tired of doing: playing poker from morning till night, and vice versa, and almost always losing.

  He was also a have-nothing. But he got by just fine, in that he’d been married for ten years to Giovanna Bonocore, a rich woman who made sure he always went around with a full wallet that sang in the morning and wept in the evening.

  One day, a Wednesday, Signora Giovanna announced to her husband that she wanted to go and visit her sister Lia, who lived in Caltanissetta, on Saturday. Ernesto replied that he couldn’t drive her there because on Saturday afternoon he needed the car to go to Fiacca.

  Giovanna replied that she would take the train that left Vigàta at six in the morning and would be home by eight that evening. Ernesto would have to drive her to the station to catch the train and then pick her up on her return.

  As he later declared to Montalbano, when filing a missing persons’ report, Ernesto Guarraci had not dropped his wife off directly outside the station, since some ongoing construction work made that too complicated; rather, he’d left her at the entrance to the underpass in Via Lincoln. And then he’d gone home.

  At around nine-thirty he’d received a phone call from his worried sister-in-law, Lia.

  “I’ve been waiting at the station for Giovanna since seven this morning. Why isn’t she here yet?”

  “What do you mean? She never got there?! But she definitely left! I drove her to the station myself!”

  “Ernè, I’m in no mood for joking. Let me talk to Giovanna.”

  “But I tell you she left!”

  Wasting no time, Ernesto Guarraci dashed off to the train station. At the only open booth, behind the glass, was a fiftyish woman, Signora Sferlazza, who knew Giovanna well. She swore up and down to the surveyor that she had not seen his wife that morning, and that she certainly hadn’t come in and bought a ticket.

  Therefore Signora Giovanna must have disappeared in the underpass, which had two exits in addition to the one that came out at the station: one which led to Via Crocilla and the other to Via Vespucci.

  This underpass was a public works project of utterly no use to the public, like so many that were undertaken during those years. In fact they were useful only to the politicians who’d wanted them in order to line their pockets, and to the contractors who built them so they could skim off the profit from the cheap materials they used.

  And indeed, just a few months after completion, thanks to leaks and poor workmanship, the underpass had turned into a cross between a small lake and a latrine.

  Hardly anyone ever used it.

  Fazio reported to Montalbano that there was a persistent rumor around town that Signora Giovanna had disappeared of her own volition.

  The signora, who was a fine-looking woman of about forty and quite appetizing, had supposedly been the mistress of a certain Dr. Curatolo, and the gossips said that the two had decided to run away and live together. But there was one fact that undermined this widespread opinion, which was that Dr. Curatolo had never left Vigàta, not even for a day.

  So how can two people live together if one is here and the other is over there?

  Weighing his options, Montalbano quietly summoned the doctor. He was a handsome, distinguished-looking man, but with nerves as taut as violin strings.

  “Thank you, Doctor, for accepting my invitation to come and see me,” said the inspector. “I understand how hard it must be for you to talk about such a delicate matter . . .”

  “Actually, it is I who must thank you, Inspector. This way I can finally clear things up. Giovanna and I were lovers, but neither of us had any serious intention to abandon our respective families to go off and live in another town. If she hadn’t disappeared, our relationship would have quietly continued.”

  “So you’re telling me you had nothing to do with her disappearance?”

  “That’s correct. It took me by surprise, too. I tried to explain that to Ernesto—”

  “You met?!”

  “He came to my medical office on his own initiative. And he made a big scene right in front of my patients. That was how everyone in Vigàta came to know of our affair.”

  “Can you tell me who it was that informed her husband?”

  “He said he’d received an anonymous letter, but in fact he’d known about it for at least a year—Giovanna told me herself—and looked the other way. Anyway, he had a lover, too, Giovanna told me, a certain Giuliana.”

  “Please don’t be offended by what I’m about to ask you.”

  “Don’t worry about that.”

  “Isn’t it possible that Giovanna, aside from you, had another man?”

  “I would tend to rule that out.”

  “Why?”

  Dr. Curatolo seemed embarrassed.

  “In the last few months, our relationship underwent—how shall I put it?—a profound transformation.”

  “Meaning?”

  The doctor cleared his throat before answering.

  “For Giovanna, our affair became something serious. Let’s just say she . . . she fell in love with me.”

  “And how about you?”

  “No.”

  Sharp and dry, like a rifle shot.

  “Sorry to insist, but how in love was she?”

  “She’d started hinting at the possibility of leaving her husband.”

  “And how did you react?”

  “I talked her out of it. And it didn’t take much on my part because I could tell she wasn’t terribly determined . . . More than anything else, I think it was a manifestation of an unattainable desire, actually.”

  “And what do you yourself make of her disappearance?”

  “I would certainly rule out any kind of amnesia or lapse of memory.”

  “And so?”

  “Didn’t Guarraci tell you why Giovanna was going to see her sister that Saturday?”

  “No. I had the sense she went there often.”

  “That’s true. But that Saturday there was a precise reason, and Giovanna told it to me in confidence. Lia had asked her for a large sum of money for her husband, whose business was in trouble.”

  “Do you know how much?”

  “About twenty million lire.”

  Montalbano balked. Not exactly peanuts.

  “And Giovanna was inclined to comply . . .”

  “She was more than inclined. They’re twins and care the world for each other.”

  * * *

  Montalbano got in his car and went to see Signora Lia. Her husband, Gaspare Guarnotta, was also there. Through her tears Lia confirmed what the doctor had said. And she pointed out that the exact amount was eighteen million lire. But it had to be in cash.

  Montalbano didn’t understand.

  “I’m sorry, but wouldn’t it have been better just to wire the money or write a few checks?”

  Signora Lia looked at her husband and said nothing. Signor Guarnotta made a face that looked half-embarrassed and half-offended.

  “You know how it is . . .”

  “No, I don’t know how it is.”

  “I’m forced to steer clear of the local banks. My accounts are in the red. The risk is that they might seize the money as a partial reimbursement of my debt.”

  “I see. So Signora Giovanna, when leaving the house, had eighteen million lire in the large handbag that disappeared with her?”

  “No, no,” said Signora Lia. “I think she only took out a million on Friday morning, which
would have let Gaspare pay a bill whose deadline was Monday. Shortly thereafter, she was going to give us another three or four. On Saturday she was going to bring us more money and find out how much the next payments should be and how to get them to us. She was supposed to meet with Gaspare so that my brother-in-law wouldn’t find out.”

  “So Guarraci was in the dark as to—”

  “Yes . . . My sister had no reason to tell him what she did with her money. They sometimes quarreled over this.”

  “She didn’t trust her husband?”

  “I don’t think it was a lack of trust. Giovanna’s always been that way, even as a little girl. Her things were hers, and nobody else had any say in the matter.”

  * * *

  Guarraci, the surveyor, was taken aback.

  “Eighteen million, to her sister Lia? She’d never said anything to me about that! Because, if she had . . .”

  “You would have prevented her?”

  “I would have tried! That’s throwing money away! Guarnotta’s a born loser!”

  “But where did your wife keep her checkbooks, balance sheets, and cash?”

  “In a small wall safe hidden behind a picture hanging in the entrance hall.”

  “Do you have the key or the combination?”

  “Never have.”

  “Do you know whether they’re somewhere in the house?”

  “They’re not. My wife used to carry the key around her neck, on a little chain.”

  The inspector went to have a look at the safe. It had a double lock, one that opened with a key, and the other with a combination. Later, with the prosecutor’s permission, he had the safe opened by a technician from Forensics.

  Between checking and savings accounts and Treasury bonds, Signora Giovanna had about sixty million lire. The judge impounded it all.

  Fazio, who’d been keeping busy, had found a witness, the street sweeper, Totò Faticato, who said that he’d seen Guarraci’s car stop outside the underpass at fifteen minutes to six that morning. Signora Giovanna had stepped out of the car, a large purse slung across her shoulders, and started going down the stairs, and the car had immediately started to turn around. He even remembered that, while making this maneuver, the surveyor had practically run over Tano Alletto, who had just got off work from his job as a night guard.

  Six days later, Alletto was still in a rage about it.

  “He nearly killed me, the fucking idiot! He got out of the car, apologized, told me he was Guarraci, the surveyor, and that he’d nodded off for second.”

  The street sweeper, who’d kept on working in the area for another fifteen minutes, swore that he hadn’t seen anyone come out of the exit of the underpass onto Via Vespucci. He couldn’t say anything about the other exit, which came out on Via Crocilla, because he couldn’t see it from where he was. Via Crocilla was a short street with ten houses on either side. And two factories at the end. It was on the distant outskirts of town, where the countryside began. Montalbano and Fazio questioned practically everyone who lived in those twenty houses. Nobody had seen anything.

  Only Signora Annunziata Locascio, who lived on the ground floor of the building closest to the underpass, had heard anything.

  “Since I always get up around five-thirty every morning, about ten minutes after I got out of bed I heard a car drive up really fast and then screech to a halt. So I looked out the window and saw two men get out of the car and go down into the underpass.”

  “Did you notice whether there was a third man still at the wheel?”

  “No, sir, there were just those two.”

  “Do you remember what kind of car it was? And did you get a look at the license plate?”

  “I don’t know the first thing about cars, and I didn’t see the license plate. It was a big car, bottle green and all banged up. One of the rear fenders was half-missing.”

  “Then what?”

  “Then I heard it drive off again, even faster than when it arrived; it must have been about five or ten minutes to six, but in any case it was definitely before six, ’cause that’s when I wake up my husband and bring him coffee.”

  This, more or less, was where the investigation had stood when it ground to a halt.

  2

  On the other hand, an investigation into a band of thieves specializing in burgling the shops of watchmakers and jewelers had gone well and come to a satisfying conclusion.

  Montalbano had assigned the case to Mimì Augello, who might well be an indolent skirt chaser, but when he put his all into an investigation, he showed what an excellent cop he really was. After three months’ work he’d managed to arrest all eight members of the gang and recover most of the stolen goods.

  * * *

  The same day the case was closed, a Thursday, Commissioner Burlando phoned the inspector.

  “Could you bring your second-in-command, Augello, to my office tomorrow evening around seven-thirty? I’d like to congratulate him.”

  At seven the following evening Montalbano headed off to Montelusa with Augello at his side. Those had been torrid days, and the heat still hadn’t let up. Most people had already left for the weekend, and the roads were nearly deserted.

  At a certain point, as they were chatting, a motorcycle with two men on it passed them at a moderate speed. As soon as it overtook them, the motorbike slowed down, made a U-turn, and came back towards them.

  “Look at those assholes!” Montalbano said.

  Moments later the motorcycle came up beside them again, passed them, and slowed down again.

  The man sitting in back turned around.

  “Salvo, watch out!” Augello shouted.

  And at that same moment the man fired a gun. Four shots. As the windshield exploded, Montalbano skidded, running off the road, with half the car ending up in a ditch.

  He felt a strong pain in his chest, but saw no wound. The motorcycle had meanwhile driven away. When he looked at Mimì he got scared. His face was covered in blood, and he was either dead or had fainted. Then he saw that the blood was coming from a cut in his forehead and felt reassured.

  The first to deliver first aid was a municipal cop from Vigàta who happened to drive past.

  Ten minutes later two ambulances arrived. Augello in the meantime had recovered. They were taken to Montelusa Hospital and put in the same room.

  The doctors said that Montalbano had cracked two ribs crashing against the steering wheel, while Augello had a wide but not deep wound caused by a shard of glass from the windshield. It really couldn’t have gone any better for them . . .

  The first to arrive was the commissioner. He was upset and emotional, embracing both Montalbano and Augello and saying that he was assigning the investigation of the attack to Inspector Cusimato, chief of the Flying Squad.

  Then Pasquano arrived.

  “I so would have loved to perform your autopsy!” he said to Montalbano.

  Then the entire Vigàta police department arrived, with Fazio leading the way.

  Meanwhile the TV news programs reported the attack.

  The following morning, the doctors examined the patients and told them they could go home. Gallo came to pick them up in a squad car. Augello had his head wrapped in bandages that looked like a grand vizier’s turban. Montalbano was taken home to Marinella. He found Adelina there, in tears.

  “My Gah, I’s so a-scared!”

  She brought an armchair out onto the veranda, had him sit down, set the table, and then served him.

  Around four, Livia arrived. Adelina, who couldn’t stand the sight of her, said good-bye and left. Around half past five, Fazio arrived, and at six Cusimato phoned, asking if he could drop by. Half an hour later he was knocking at the door. Montalbano told Fazio to stay.

  Cusimato was an intelligent man, so intelligent, in fact, that instead of asking any questions, he said to Montalbano:
>
  “You go ahead and talk.”

  “The journalists are all convinced it was a Mafia hit.”

  “You don’t agree.”

  “No. For a very simple reason. If it had been the Mafia, I wouldn’t be here talking to you. At this point, you would all be making funeral arrangements.”

  “But the fact remains that they followed you from the moment you came out of headquarters . . .”

  “No! Nobody followed me. It wasn’t even a premeditated act.”

  “How can you say that?”

  “The two guys on the motorbike were not following us. They were going their own way. When they passed my car, they recognized me. Wanting to be sure it was me, they made a U-turn and only then did they pass me again in order to shoot me. We’d crossed paths by accident, I’m convinced of it. But tell me something, did you have a look at my car?”

  “Of course.”

  “Where did the shots end up?”

  “One punctured the left fender, another went through the radiator, and the third hit the windshield right in the middle.”

  “And the fourth?”

  “There was a fourth shot?”

  “Yes, and it didn’t even hit the car. You can’t really say the guy was a good shot.”

  “Did you manage to see his face?”

  “He was wearing a helmet. And what have you got to tell me?”

  “What should I have? I’m going to talk to Augello now. Maybe he’ll remember the license number.”

  “Mimì? You’ve gotta be kidding!”