Death at Sea: Montalbano's Early Cases Page 6

“What’s his name?”

  “’E din’t say, Chief. ’E jess said as how ’e cou’n’t come to p’leece ’eadquatters cuz ’e’s layin’ in bed.”

  Montalbano decided to cut things short, had Catarella put him on, and then turned on the speakerphone.

  “This is Tano Alletto.”

  And who was that? He looked at Fazio, who said:

  “The night watchman who nearly got run over.”

  “What can I do for you?” said the inspector.

  “Since I gotta high fever, I can’t get outta bed, so if you could come here y’sself . . . I got somethin’ important to tell you ’bout that goddamn sonofabitch Guarraci.”

  Montalbano told Livia to go to Calogero’s, then dashed off with Fazio to Tano Alletto’s house.

  4

  “Last night, around two a.m., I felt bad and started throwin’ up. I realized my temperature was risin’. Maybe it was somethin’ I et. An’ so I called my son and told him to come to the factory in my place. He arrived half an hour later and I left to come back home. I’d taken about three steps when a car came up really fast an’ I was barely able to dodge it. Then I looked at the license plate. It was Guarraci’s car. I felt like I was goin’ crazy. What, does the guy have it in for me or somethin’? So I started followin’ him and saw him take the first road on the left, which goes out to the country. Since it was a dark night, you could see his headlights from far away. The car stopped after about a kilometer and turned off its lights, right around where the Sgarlato brothers live. I wanted to wait for Guarraci to come back so I could bust his face, but I couldn’t stand up anymore. Later, when I heard on TV that they found his wife’s dead body, I thought I’d better inform you guys.”

  “You did the right thing,” said the inspector. “Are you prepared to repeat what you’ve just said in court?”

  “Absolutely! With all my heart!”

  They left Alletto’s house.

  “Let’s go and have a look for ourselves,” said Montalbano.

  They got into the car and headed for Via Crocilla.

  “You know anything about these Sgarlato brothers?”

  “Yeah, they’re not really people. They’re animals. And they live with their sister, who sleeps with both of ’em.They’ve been arrested and convicted several times for robbery and brawling. They’re violent thugs. They’ve got a vegetable garden, chickens, and rabbits, which is enough for them to live on.”

  After Via Crocilla, they stopped where the three roads leading into the country began. Alletto was right. At night you could follow a car’s headlights a long way.

  “There’s a good view of the Sgarlato house from here,” said Fazio. “It’s the first house you cross when you take that road.”

  “Shall we go?” Montalbano suggested.

  “If you say so,” Fazio said in resignation.

  “Do we have two sets of handcuffs?”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I don’t know. But let’s not waste any time. Have you got a gun for me?”

  “No. I can give you mine.”

  “Lemme have it.”

  It took them ten minutes to get there. The Sgarlatos’ house was not a house but a nasty little two-floor shanty so badly maintained that it was falling apart. It was surrounded by barbed wire and the gate was made of tree branches. Beside the ramshackle structure a large, bottle-green car with only half the rear left fender was parked with its back to the road. It corresponded in every detail with the description given by the witnesses who had seen it drive up Via Crocilla at high speed.

  Montalbano and Fazio exchanged a glance. Now they were almost certain that it was the Sgarlato brothers who had kidnapped and murdered Signora Giovanna.

  Montalbano started honking the horn. In the doorway appeared a bear whose transformation into a human being hadn’t turned out well. He was a mass of beard, hair, and fuzz.

  “Got any fresh eggs?” the inspector asked, getting out of the car.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “I’ll take a half dozen.”

  The man went into the house. Fazio got out of the car.

  “Get the handcuffs ready,” the inspector said to him. “Then gag him and lock him in the car.”

  The man returned with the eggs wrapped in newspaper.

  He handed them to the inspector, who took them. The man was about to open his mouth and tell him how much they cost when Montalbano, smiling, flung the eggs in his face with all his might. And immediately the man found a gun barrel thrust deep into his belly.

  “Don’t breathe or you’re dead.”

  Fazio handcuffed him. Montalbano hurdled the low fence, ran towards the house, and, once inside, fired a shot into the air.

  There was a man and a woman seated at a small table. The man was the twin brother of the bear; the woman a fat, hairy, mustachioed forty-year-old. At one end of the room was a wooden staircase that led to the floor above.

  “Stop right where you are and don’t say a word!”

  Then Fazio, after locking up the bear in the car, arrived and handcuffed the second man as well.

  “All right, let me make this perfectly clear,” Montalbano then said. “Give me the million lire you took from the purse of the woman you were told to kill, and we won’t harm you. But if you don’t give it to me we’ll kill you both, just like we killed your brother.”

  Neither of the two said anything.

  “I’m sorry, but I have no time to waste,” said Montalbano.

  With the revolver he gestured to the woman to stand up. She obeyed.

  “Go upstairs.”

  The woman started climbing the stairs. Montalbano followed behind her. They came out in a bedroom consisting of three mattresses on the floor, each beside the other, and three pillows. The stench was unbearable. A den of wild animals would have been less filthy. Clothes strewn about randomly, dirty underwear everywhere. Montalbano bent down, picked up a pair of underpants, and stuffed them into the woman’s mouth. Then he tied her hands with whatever he could find. He didn’t stop until he figured the woman could no longer move. Then he stuck the barrel of his gun into a pillow and fired one shot. After which he went back downstairs.

  “You’re the only one left,” he said to the bear’s twin. “What should we do?”

  Despite his beard, the man was visibly pale and scared.

  Let’s scare him a little more, the inspector thought to himself.

  And he fired a shot that passed directly over the man’s head. The prisoner fell to his knees.

  “Stop! The money’s buried in the vegetable garden, in a metal box!”

  “Let’s go get it,” Montalbano said to Sgarlato.

  Then, going up to Fazio, he said under his breath:

  “You go and find the nearest phone and get some cars and officers here.”

  * * *

  Three hours later, following the Sgarlatos’ confession, Guarraci, the surveyor, was arrested. Commissioner Burlando covered the inspector’s rear by stating that it was he who had authorized them to burst into the killers’ house. Livia, on the other hand, raised the roof when Montalbano came home at seven that evening.

  “Left alone here for six hours without so much as a phone call!”

  After the waters grew calm again, they went out to eat and the inspector made up for missing lunch. When they got back, they sat out on the veranda for a spell, then went to bed. After Livia fell asleep, Montalbano quietly got up and went back out to the veranda to finish the Sciascia novel.

  He finished it at three in the morning. But then he stayed up for another hour thinking about it. The story had awakened a suspicion in him. To the point that he slept quite poorly. For this reason, he was already in his office by eight-thirty the next morning.

  “Fazio, do you know where Augello can be found?”

 
“Yeah, Chief. He left the number of a hotel in Taormina.”

  So the young gent was having a good time of it!

  “Ring him and then put me on.”

  Augello answered in a sleepy voice.

  “Mimì, I need you here by four o’clock this afternoon.”

  “But I’m on sick leave!”

  “I don’t give a flying fuck. You’ll have to leave your leave.”

  And he hung up. Fazio looked at him in shock.

  “I want you here at four, too,” the inspector said to him.

  That same morning they gave him back his car, all good as new again. And since his ribs hurt only a little, he could drive it.

  * * *

  Augello walked into his office at four o’clock sharp. Fazio was already there.

  Mimì was frowning darkly and quite upset. He mumbled a generic greeting and sat down.

  “I’d like to know the reason why you felt it necessary to bust my balls and—”

  “The reason is that I read a novel.”

  “And you had me rush all the way here just to tell me that?” said Augello, burning with rage. “You belong in a fucking loony bin!”

  “Mimì, I’m telling you for your own good: Calm down and listen to me very carefully. In this novel, a pharmacist receives an anonymous letter containing a death threat to him, and the whole town comes to know about it. Since he doesn’t have any enemies, the pharmacist becomes convinced it’s just a joke. And one day he goes hunting, as he always does, with his inseparable friend, Dr. Roscio. And both get killed—Roscio surely because he just happened to be there and would have become a dangerous witness. Then at a later point someone discovers that both the anonymous letter and even the murder of the pharmacist were red herrings, in that the real target all along had been Dr. Roscio. Do you like the story?”

  “Yes,” Augello said drily.

  Fazio, for his part, noticed that something in Mimì’s demeanor had changed.

  “So you’re no longer upset that I had you come all the way from Taormina to tell it to you?” asked the inspector.

  “Not really,” said Augello.

  “Well then, Mimì, do you remember the day we were shot at in the car while we were driving? Everyone thought it was me they wanted to kill, whereas that was not the case. When did you, for example, realize this?”

  “Not right away.”

  “When, exactly?”

  Augello didn’t reply. Then Fazio stood up.

  “Chief, you’ll have to excuse me,” he said, “but I have an important appointment.”

  “Okay, you can go.”

  Bravo, Fazio. He’d realized that Augello was having trouble talking with him around. As soon as he went out, Augello said:

  “I knew it for certain the day I got home from the hospital.”

  “What made you so certain?”

  “The very same man who shot at me told me.”

  Montalbano goggled his eyes.

  “He came to talk to you?!”

  “No, he called me up. In tears.”

  Montalbano felt more and more at sea.

  “And why was he crying?”

  “Because he regretted what he’d done, and also because he was happy he hadn’t killed or seriously injured anyone with his shots.”

  “Excuse me for just a minute,” said the inspector.

  He got up, left the room, and went into the bathroom. He felt as if he was going to explode. He’d turned into a wild beast and wanted to start pummeling Augello. Taking off his shirt, he washed himself all over and went back into his office.

  “Tell me everything from the beginning.”

  “While I was working on the case of the jewel theft, I met one of the jewelers’ wives. A good-looking, honest woman, but . . . I guess I did certain things that made her fall head over heels for me. And so she told me to come to her place one night when her husband was away. The only problem was that he came back much earlier than expected and I was barely able to escape about a minute before he entered the house . . . But he realized just the same what had been happening—his wife’s confusion and the unmade bed spoke rather clearly . . . He beat her badly and forced her to tell him my name. And he swore he would kill me. She managed to warn me, that same morning that we were supposed to go and see the commissioner . . . But what could I do?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me anything?”

  “Because you would have acted in accordance with the law and finished off a poor bastard who was already cuckolded and beaten down. And I just didn’t feel like it. The whole thing was my fault. But if you decide to press charges for attempted murder and ruin a family, the name of the guy who shot at me is—”

  “Don’t say it!” the inspector shouted.

  And he got up, left the room, and went for a walk in the parking lot, furiously smoking a cigarette. Slowly his rage subsided and he could reason more calmly.

  Already hardly anyone was talking about the attempted murder anymore. Another two or three days and it would slip forever under a veil of silence. And it was more than certain that Cusimato’s investigation would come to nothing.

  He went back to his office. Augello was sitting there bent completely forward, elbows on his knees, head in his hands.

  “Go back to Taormina,” said the inspector.

  Augello shot to his feet and held out his hand.

  “Thank you.”

  The inspector would not shake it.

  “Just get the fuck out of here,” he ordered him.

  DEATH AT SEA

  1

  It was a spring morning and Montalbano was drinking his customary mug of espresso when the telephone rang. It was Fazio.

  “What’s up?”

  “I got a call from Matteo Cosentino—”

  “Sorry, but who’s he?”

  “Matteo Cosentino is the sole owner of five fishing trawlers.”

  “And what did he want?”

  “He wanted to tell us that there was an accident on one of his boats, the Carlo III, in which somebody aboard died.”

  “What kind of accident?”

  “Apparently a crew member inadvertently killed the engineer.”

  “And where’s the boat now?”

  “On its way back to Vigàta. It should dock in about forty-five minutes. You can come directly to the port; I’m on my way there now. Should I alert the prosecutor, the forensics lab, and the rest of the crew?”

  “Let’s check out the situation first.”

  * * *

  As he was heading for Vigàta he wondered what mysterious reason Cosentino could have had for naming his fishing boat after a Spanish king, but couldn’t think of an answer. The area reserved for trawlers was at the far end of the central jetty, where there was a long row of refrigerated warehouses. It wasn’t yet time for the boats to return from their fishing runs, and so there were few people about.

  Montalbano spotted the squad car and pulled up beside it. Fazio was a short way off, talking to a squat, shabby-looking man of about sixty.

  Fazio introduced them. Matteo Cosentino immediately explained to the inspector that his fishing boat was late because it had engine problems.

  “How did you learn of the accident?”

  “From the ship’s radio. The crew chief called me at three o’clock in the morning.”

  “And what time was it when you called the police?”

  “Seven.”

  “Why did you wait so long?”

  “Inspector, the whole thing happened five hours out at sea from here. If I called you right away, what were you gonna do? Get on a boat and join them out on the open sea?”

  “Did the crew chief tell you how the accident happened?”

  “He summed it up for me.”

  “Well, then sum it up for me, too.�
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  “The ship’s mechanic, whose name is Franco Arnone, was in the motor compartment working on some malfunction, and Tano Cipolla, a crew member, was sitting on the edge of the hatch and talking to him as he was cleaning his pistol, when—”

  “Wait a second. Are the crews of your trawlers armed?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “So how do you explain that Cipolla had a pistol?”

  “How should I know? You can ask him when they get here.”

  “There’s a trawler coming in,” Fazio announced.

  Matteo looked out towards the harbor entrance.

  “It’s the Carlo III,” he confirmed.

  Montalbano couldn’t hold back his curiosity.

  “I’m sorry, but why did you give your boat that name?”

  “All my fishing boats are called Carlo and go from one to five. In memory of my only son, who died when he was twenty.”

  * * *

  As the trawler was docking, a number of idlers approached, curious at the boat’s unscheduled reentry.

  Once they learned there was a corpse aboard, the crowd would swell to a hundred or more and create tremendous confusion, making it difficult to work. Montalbano made a snap decision and turned to speak to Cosentino.

  “Don’t let any of the crew disembark. The three of us will go aboard, and then I want the boat to put out again.”

  “And where should I tell them to go?” asked Cosentino.

  “Right outside the harbor will be enough for me. Then they can stop wherever they want.”

  Ten minutes later the boat was rocking, engines off, about half a kilometer from the lighthouse that was the destination of Montalbano’s daily digestive walks. From the bridge, looking through the hatch to the engine compartment, one got a good view of the body of the man who’d been killed. He was in a strange position, kneeling in front of the engine, his right arm raised, held up by a handle in which his hand had become entangled. The back of his head was gone, the walls of the compartment stuck with scattered fragments of bone and brain matter.