Voice of the Violin Read online

  “His name is Aurelio Di Blasi. And now you must excuse me, I have to return to the operating room. I’ll be at your office tomorrow, around noon.”

  “One last question. Have you told this relative what happened?”

  “No. Why? Should I have?”

  4

  “Such an exquisite, elegant lady, and so beautiful!” said Claudio Pizzotta, the distinguished, sixtyish manager of the Hotel Jolly of Montelusa. “Has something happened to her?”

  “We don’t really know yet. We got a phone call from her husband in Bologna, who was worried.”

  “Right. As far as I know, Signora Licalzi left the hotel on Wednesday evening, and we haven’t seen her since.”

  “Weren’t you worried? It’s already Friday evening, if I’m not mistaken.”

  “Right.”

  “Did she let you know she wouldn’t be returning?”

  “No. But, you see, Inspector, the lady has been staying with us regularly for at least two years, so we’ve had a lot of time to become acquainted with her habits. Which are, well, unusual. Signora Michela is not the sort of woman to go unnoticed, you know what I mean? And then, I’ve always had my own worries about her.”

  “You have? And what would they be?”

  “Well, the lady owns a lot of valuable jewelry. Necklaces, bracelets, earrings, rings . . . I’ve asked her many times to deposit them in our safe, but she always refuses. She keeps them in a kind of bag; she doesn’t carry a purse. She always tells me not to worry, says she doesn’t leave the jewels in her room, but carries them around with her. I’ve also been afraid she’ll get robbed on the street. But she always smiles and says no. She just won’t be persuaded.”

  “You mentioned her unusual habits. Could you be more precise?”

  “Certainly. The lady likes to stay up late. She often comes home at the first light of dawn.”

  “Alone?”

  “Always.”

  “Drunk? High?”

  “Never. Or at least, so says the night porter.”

  “Mind telling me why you were talking about Mrs. Licalzi with the night porter?”

  Claudio Pizzotta turned bright red. Apparently he’d had ideas about dunking his doughnut with Signora Michela.

  “Inspector, surely you understand . . . A beautiful woman like that, alone . . . One’s curiosity is bound to be aroused, it’s only natural.”

  “Go on. Tell me about her habits.”

  “The lady sleeps in till around midday, and doesn’t want to be disturbed in any way. When she wakes up, she orders breakfast in her room and starts making and receiving phone calls.”

  “A lot of phone calls?”

  “I’ve got an itemized list that never ends.”

  “Do you know who she was calling?”

  “One could find out. But it’s a bit complicated. From your room you need only dial zero and you can phone New Zealand if you want.”

  “What about the incoming calls?”

  “Well, there’s not much to say about that. The switchboard operator takes the call and passes it on to the room. There’s only one way to know.”

  “And that is?”

  “When somebody calls and leaves his name when the client is out. In that case, the porter is given a notice that he puts in the client’s key box.”

  “Does the lady lunch at the hotel?”

  “Rarely. After eating a hearty breakfast so late, you can imagine . . . But it has happened. Actually, the head waiter once told me how self-possessed she is at table, when eating lunch.”

  “I’m sorry, I don’t follow.”

  “Our hotel is very popular, with businessmen, politicians, entrepreneurs. In one way or another, they all end up trying their luck. A beckoning glance, a smile, more or less explicit invitations. The amazing thing about Signora Michela, the headwater said, is that she never plays the prude, never takes offense, but actually returns the glances and smiles. But when it comes to the nitty-gritty, nothing doing. They’re left high and dry.”

  “And at what time in the afternoon does she usually go out?”

  “Around four o’clock. Then returns in the dead of night.”

  “She must have a pretty broad circle of friends in Montelusa and Vigàta.”

  “I’d say so.”

  “Has she ever stayed out for more than one night before?”

  “I don’t think so. The porter would have told me.”

  Gallo and Galluzzo arrived, flourishing the search warrant.

  “What room is Mrs. Licalzi staying in?”

  “Number one-eighteen.”

  “I’ve got a warrant.”

  The hotel manager looked offended.

  “Inspector! There was no need for that formality! You had only to ask and I . . . Let me show you the way.”

  “No, thanks,” Montalbano said curtly.

  The manager’s face went from looking offended to looking mortally offended.

  “I’ll go get the key,” he said aloofly.

  He returned a moment later with the key and a little stack of papers, all notices of incoming phone calls.

  “Here,” he said, giving, for no apparent reason, the key to Fazio and the message slips to Gallo. Then he bowed his head abruptly, German-style, in front of Montalbano, turned around and walked stiffly away, looking like a wooden puppet in motion.

  Room 118 was eternally imbued with the scent of Chanel No. 5. On the luggage rack sat two suitcases and a shoulder bag, all Louis Vuitton. Montalbano opened the armoire: five very classy dresses, three pairs of artfully worn-out jeans; in the shoe section, five pairs of Bruno Maglis with spike heels, and three pairs of casual flats. The blouses, also very costly, were folded with extreme care; the underwear, divided by color in its assigned drawer, consisted only of airy panties.

  “Nothing in here,” said Fazio, who in the meantime had examined the two suitcases and shoulder bag.

  Gallo and Galluzzo, who had upended the bed and mattress, shook their heads no and began putting everything back in place, impressed by the order that reigned in the room.

  On the small desk were some letters, notes, an agenda, and a stack of incoming-call notices considerably taller than the one the manager had given to Gallo.

  “We’ll take these things away with us,” the inspector said to Fazio. “Look in the drawers, too. Take all the papers.”

  From his pocket Fazio withdrew a nylon bag that he always carried with him, and began to fill it.

  Montalbano went into the bathroom. Sparkling clean, in perfect order. On the shelf, Rouge Idole lipstick, Shiseido foundation, a magnum of Chanel No. 5, and so on. A pink bathrobe, obviously softer and more expensive than the one in the house, hung placidly on a hook.

  He went back into the bedroom and rang for the floor attendant. A moment later there was a knock and Montalbano told them to come in. The door opened and a gaunt, fortyish woman appeared. As soon as she saw the four men, she stiffened, blanched, and in a faint voice said:

  “Are you cops?”

  The inspector laughed. How many centuries of police tyranny had it taken to hone this Sicilian woman’s ability to detect law-enforcement officers at a moment’s glance?

  “Yes, we are,” he said, smiling.

  The chambermaid blushed and lowered her eyes.

  “Please excuse me.”

  “Do you know Mrs. Licalzi?”

  “Why, what happened to her?”

  “She hasn’t been heard from for a couple of days. We’re looking for her.”

  “And to look for her you have to take all her papers away?”

  This woman was not to be underestimated. Montalbano decided to admit a few things to her.

  “We’re afraid something bad may have happened to her.”

  “I always told her to be careful,” said the maid. “She goes around with half a billion in her bag!”

  “She went around with that much money?” Montalbano asked in astonishment.

  “I wasn’t talking about money,
but the jewels she owns. And with the kind of life she leads! Comes home late, gets up late . . .”

  “We already know that. Do you know her well?”

  “Sure. Since she came here the first time with her husband.”

  “Can you tell me anything about what she’s like?”

  “Look, she never made any trouble. She was just a maniac for order. Whenever we did her room, she would stand there making sure that everything was put back in its place. The girls on the morning shift always ask for the Good Lord’s help before working on one-eighteen.”

  “A final question: Did your coworkers on the morning shift ever mention if the lady’d had men in her room at night?”

  “Never. And we’ve got an eye for that kind of thing.”

  The whole way back to Vigàta one question tormented Montalbano: If the lady was a maniac for order, why was the bathroom at the house in Tre Fontane such a mess, with the pink bathrobe thrown haphazardly on the floor to boot?

  During the dinner (superfresh cod poached with a couple of bay leaves and dressed directly on the plate with salt, pepper, and Pantelleria olive oil, with a side dish of gentle tinnirùme to cheer the stomach and intestines), the inspector told Mrs. Vasile Cozzo of the day’s developments.

  “As far as I can tell,” said Clementina, “the real question is: Why did the murderer make off with the poor woman’s clothes, underwear, shoes, and handbag?”

  “Yes,” Montalbano commented, saying nothing more. She’d hit the nail on the head as soon as she opened her mouth, and he didn’t want to interrupt her thought processes.

  “But I can only talk about these things,” the elderly woman continued, “based on what I see on television.”

  “Don’t you read mystery novels?”

  “Not very often. Anyway, what does that mean, ‘mystery novel’? What is a ‘detective novel’?”

  “Well, it’s a whole body of literature that—”

  “Of course, but I don’t like labels. Want me to tell you a good mystery story? All right, there’s a man who, after many adventures, becomes the leader of a city. Little by little, however, his subjects begin to fall ill with an unknown sickness, a kind of plague. And so this man sets about to discover the cause of the illness, and in the course of his investigations he discovers that he himself is the root of it all. And so he punishes himself.”

  “Oedipus,” Montalbano said, as if to himself.

  “Now isn’t that a good detective story? But, to return to our discussion: why would a killer make off with the victim’s clothes? The first answer is: so she couldn’t be indentified.”

  “That’s not the case here,” the inspector said.

  “Right. And I get the feeling that, by reasoning this way, we’re following the path the killer wants us to take.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “What I mean is, whoever made off with all those things wants us to believe that every one of those things is of equal importance to him. He wants us to think of that stuff as a single whole. Whereas that is not the case.”

  “Yes,” Montalbano said again, ever more impressed, and ever more reluctant to break the thread of her argument with some untimely observation.

  “For one thing, the handbag alone is worth half a billion because of the jewelry inside it. To a common thief, robbing the bag would itself constitute a good day’s earnings. Right?”

  “Right.”

  “But what reason would a common thief have for taking her clothes? None whatsoever. Therefore, if he made off with her clothes, panties, and shoes, we should conclude that we’re not dealing with a common thief. But, in fact, he is a common thief who has done this only to make us think he’s uncommon, different. Why? He might have done it to shuffle the cards. He wanted to steal the handbag with all its valuables, but since he committed murder, he wanted to mask his real purpose.”

  “Right,” said Montalbano, unsolicited.

  “To continue. Maybe the thief made off with other things of value that we’re unaware of.”

  “May I make a phone call?” asked the inspector, who suddenly had an idea.

  He called up the Hotel Jolly in Montelusa and asked to speak with Claudio Pizzotta, the manager.

  “Oh, Inspector, how atrocious! How terrible! We found out just now from the Free Channel that poor Mrs. Licalzi . . .”

  Nicolò Zito had reported the news and Montalbano had forgotten to tune in and see how the newsman presented the story.

  “TeleVigàta also did a report,” added the hotel manager, torn between genuine satisfaction and feigned grief.

  Galluzzo had done his job with his brother-in-law.

  “What should I do, Inspector?” the manager asked, distressed.

  “What do you mean?”

  “About these journalists. They’re besieging me. They want to interview me. They found out the poor woman was staying with us . . .”

  From whom could they have learned this if not from the manager himself? The inspector imagined Pizzotta on the phone, summoning reporters with the promise of shocking revelations on the young, attractive, and, most importantly, naked murder victim . . .

  “Do whatever the hell you want. Listen, did Mrs. Licalzi normally wear any of the jewelry she had? Did she own a watch?”

  “Of course she wore it. Discreetly, though. Otherwise, why would she bring it all here from Bologna? As for the watch, she always wore a splendid, paper-thin Piaget on her wrist.”

  Montalbano thanked him, hung up, and told Signora Clementina what he’d just learned. She thought about it a minute.

  “We must now establish whether we are dealing with a thief who became a murderer out of necessity, or with a murderer who is pretending to be a thief.”

  “For no real reason—by instinct, I guess—I don’t believe in this thief.”

  “You’re wrong to trust your instinct.”

  “But, Signora Clementina, Michela Licalzi was naked, she’d just finished taking a shower. A thief would have heard the noise and waited before coming inside.”

  “And what makes you think the thief wasn’t already inside when the lady came home? She comes in, and the burglar hides. When she goes into the shower, he decides the time is right. He comes out of his hiding place, steals whatever he’s supposed to steal, but then she catches him in the act, and he reacts in the manner he does. He may not even have intended to kill her.”

  “But how would this burglar have entered?”

  “The same way you did, Inspector.”

  A direct hit, and down he went. Montalbano said nothing.

  “Now for the clothes,” Signora Clementina continued. “If they were stolen just for show, that’s one thing. But if the murderer needed to get rid of them, that’s another kettle of fish. What could have been so important about them?”

  “They might have represented a danger to him, a way of identifying him,” said Montalbano.

  “Yes, you’re right, Inspector. But they clearly weren’t a danger when the woman put them on. They must have become so afterwards. How?”

  “Maybe they got stained,” Montalbano said, unconvinced. “Maybe even with the killer’s blood. Even though—”

  “Even though?”

  “Even though there was no blood around the bedroom. There was a little on the sheet, which had come out of Mrs. Licalzi’s mouth. But maybe it was another kind of stain. Like vomit, for example.”

  “Or semen,” said Mrs. Vasile Cozzo, blushing. It was too early to go home to Marinella, so Montalbano decided to put in an appearance at the station to see if there were any new developments.

  “Oh, Chief, Chief!” said Catarella as soon as he saw him. “You’re here? At lease ten people called, and they all wanted a talk to you in poisson! I didn’t know you was comin’ so I says to all of ’em to call back tomorrow morning. Did I do right, Chief?”

  “You did right, Cat, don’t worry about it. Do you know what they wanted?”

  “They all said as how they all knew the lady
who was murdered.”

  On the desk in his office, Fazio had left the nylon bag with the papers they’d seized from Room 118. Next to it were the notices of incoming calls that the manager Pizzotta had turned over to Gallo. The inspector sat down, took the agenda out of the bag, and glanced through it. Michela Licalzi’s agenda was as orderly as her hotel room: appointments, telephone calls to make, places to go. Everything was carefully and clearly written down.

  Dr. Pasquano had said the woman was killed sometime between late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning, and Montalbano agreed with this. He looked up the page for Wednesday, the last day of Michela Licalzi’s life—4:00 P.M., Rotondo’s Furniture; 4:30 P.M., call Emanuele; 5:00 P.M., appt. with Todaro gardeners; 6:00 P.M., Anna; 8:00 P.M., dinner with the Vassallos.

  The woman, however, had made other engagements for Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, unaware that someone would prevent her from attending them. Thursday, again in the afternoon, she was to have met with Anna, with whom she was to go to Loconte’s (in parentheses: “curtains”) before ending her evening by dining with a certain Maurizio. Friday she was supposed to see Riguccio the electrician, meet Anna again, then go out to dinner at the Cangelosi home. On the page for Saturday, all that was written down was: “4:30 P.M., flight from Punta Ràisi to Bologna.”

  It was a large-format agenda. The telephone index allowed three pages for each letter of the alphabet, but she’d copied down so many phone numbers that in certain cases she’d had to write the numbers of two different people on the same line.

  Montalbano set the agenda aside and took the other papers out of the bag. Nothing of interest. Just invoices and receipts. Every penny spent on the construction and furnishing of the house was fastidiously accounted for. In a square-lined notebook Michela had copied down every expense in neat columns, as if preparing herself for a visit from the revenue officers. There was a checkbook from the Banca Popolare di Bologna with only the stubs remaining. Montalbano also found a boarding pass for Bologna-Rome-Palermo from six days earlier, and a return ticket, Palermo-Rome-Bologna, for Saturday at 4:30 P.M.

  No sign whatsoever of any personal letter or note. He decided to continue working at home.