IM10 August Heat (2008) Read online

  “You’re going to the club around nine, right?”

  “Yes.Why?”

  “Because around ten I’m going to show up at the club with a couple of uniformed men and raise such a stink that I’ll fuck up your poker game.”

  Montalbano heard him chuckle.

  “So, what do you say?”

  “I can confirm that she wasn’t more than sixteen years old.”

  “And?”

  “The killer slit her throat.”

  “With what?”

  “With one of those knives you carry around in your pocket, but which are sharp as razors. Like the Opinel brand.”

  “Could you tell if he was left-handed?”

  “Yes, if I look into a crystal ball.”

  “Is that so hard to establish?”

  “Hard enough. And I don’t feel like bullshitting.”

  “I do it all the time! Let me have the satisfaction of hearing you bullshit just once.”

  “Look, it’s just a hypothesis, mind you, but in my opinion the murderer was not left-handed.”

  “On what do you base that statement?”

  “I got a certain sense of the position.”

  “What position?”

  “Haven’t you ever happened to leaf through the Kama Sutra?”

  “Explain what you mean.”

  “Look, let me repeat my disclaimer that this is just a theory. The man persuades the girl to follow him into a part of the house that is now almost entirely covered in dirt. Once he’s got her inside, he has only two thoughts in his head.The first is to fuck her, the second is to find the right moment to kill her.”

  “So you think it was premeditated murder, not temporary insanity or something similar?”

  “I’m merely explaining my own conjecture.”

  “But why did he want to kill her?”

  “Maybe they’d had prior relations, and the girl had asked him for a lot of money to keep quiet.You have to bear in mind that she was a minor, and it’s quite possible the man was married. Don’t you think that’s a good motive?”

  “Yes, in fact.”

  “Can I go on?”

  “Of course.”

  “The man has her take all her clothes off, he does the same, and then has her bend down in front of him, bracing herself with her hands against the wall, as he fucks her from behind.When the time is right—”

  “Will the autopsy be able to establish if there were sexual relations?”

  “Six years later? Are you crazy? Anyway, I was saying, when the time is right—”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “As the girl is reaching orgasm and is therefore not in a position to react promptly.”

  “Go on.”

  “He grabs the knife.”

  “Stop.Where does he grab it from, if he’s naked?”

  “How the fuck should I know where he gets it from! Look, if you keep interrupting me, I’m going to change the story and tell you about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs instead.”

  “Sorry. Please continue.”

  “He grabs the knife—you can figure out yourself where from—and cuts her throat and, shoving her forward, he jumps backwards. He waits for her to bleed to death, then spreads a big sheet of plastic across the floor. After all, there are so many lying about—”

  “Wait a second. Before grabbing the sheet of plastic, he puts on latex gloves.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there are no fingerprints on that plastic. Arquà told me. Nor on the adhesive tape.”

  “You see? It was all premeditated. He even had the gloves in his pocket! Shall I go on?”

  “Yes.”

  “He wraps up the body and puts it in the trunk. When he’s finished, he gets dressed. He probably hasn’t got a single drop of blood on his clothes.”

  “What about the girl’s clothes, underwear and shoes?”

  “Nowadays girls go around very lightly dressed. All the man would have needed was a plastic bag to make off with it all.”

  “Okay, but why did he make off with it instead of putting it inside the trunk?”

  “I don’t know. It could have been an irrational move. Murderers don’t always behave rationally. You know that better than I do. Is that enough for you?”

  “Yes and no.”

  “Or else he might be a fetishist who every now and then pulls out the girl’s clothes, sniffs them to smell her scent, and jacks himself off to his heart’s content.”

  “But how did you arrive at this conclusion?”

  “About the jacking off, you mean?”

  Pasquano was in a playful mood.

  “I was referring to your reconstruction of the murder.”

  “Oh, that? By looking closely at how and where the tip of the knife went in, and by considering the line of the cut. Among other things, the girl kept her head down, with her chin touching her chest, and this helped me figure out the way things went, given the fact that the murderer also slashed her right cheek as he was pulling the knife out of her throat.”

  “Any distinguishing marks?”

  “For identification? She had an appendectomy scar and a rare congenital malformation on her right foot.”

  “Namely?”

  “Varus in the big toe.”

  “In plain words?”

  “It was bent inwards.”

  All of a sudden he remembered something he should have done at once but had forgotten. It was certainly not old age that had made him forget it, he reassured himself, but the heat, which had the same effect as three sleeping pills.

  “Catarella? Come into my office.”

  He materialized a quarter of a second later.

  “Your orders, sir.”

  “I need you to do a search on the computer.”

  “ ’Ats what I’m here for, Chief.”

  “You must see if you can find if anyone ever reported the disappearance of a sixteen-year-old girl. If so, it would have been around the thirteenth or fourteenth of October 1999.”

  “I’ll get on it straightaways.”

  “And what about that fan?”

  “Chief, I called four diffrint shops. The fans’re all sold out. One guy told me alls he had was balls.”

  “What kind of balls?”

  “The kind you attach to the ceiling. I’ll go try a few other stores.”

  The inspector waited half an hour, and since there was still no sign of Fazio, he went out to eat. Merely getting into his car and driving the short stretch of road to the trattoria was enough to drench his shirt by the time he arrived.

  “Inspector,” said Enzo, “it’s too hot to eat hot food.”

  “So what have you got?”

  “How about a few big platters of antipasto di mare with shrimp, prawns, baby octopus, anchovies, sardines, mussels, and clams?”

  “Sounds good. And for the second course?”

  “Mullet in onions: served cold, they’re a delight.Then, at the end, to cleanse the palate, my wife made some lemon sorbet.”

  Either because of the heat or because of his stomach, which felt very heavy, he skipped his customary walk along the jetty and went straight home.

  Opening all the windows and doors in the vain hope of creating even the slightest of drafts, he lay down naked in bed, on top of the sheets, for an hour’s nap. Then, when he awoke, he put on his bathing suit and went for a swim, risking heart failure.

  He cooled himself off nicely and, once back in the house, felt like hearing Livia’s voice.

  What to do? He decided to set aside his pride and call her.

  “Oh, it’s you?” said Livia, sounding neither surprised nor glad.

  Actually—let’s admit it—she was downright antarctic.

  “How was the drive back?”

  “Horrendous. Hot as hell. The car’s air-conditioning broke.Then, when we stopped at an Autogrill after Grosseto, Bruno disappeared.”

  “The kid has a gift for it.”

  “Please, don’t start
in with your wisecracks.”

  “I was merely stating a fact.Where did he end up?”

  “We lost two hours looking for him. He’d gone and hidden himself inside the cab of a tractor-trailor.”

  “What about the driver?”

  “He hadn’t noticed a thing. He was sleeping.Well, I have to go.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “My cousin Massimiliano is waiting for me downstairs. You caught me purely by chance; I’d come up to get some clothes.”

  “Where have you been?”

  “With Guido and Laura, at their villa.”

  “And now you’re leaving?”

  “Yes, with Massimiliano. We’re going on a little cruise with his boat.”

  “How many of you are there?”

  “Just him and me. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  And where the hell did her dear cousin Massimiliano find the money to maintain a cruiser, considering that he didn’t work and spent his days counting flies? Montalbano would have done better not to call.

  He was about to leave the house when the telephone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Most of all, you’re a man who doesn’t keep his word!”

  It was Livia, apparently spoiling for a fight.

  “Me?!”

  “Yes, you!”

  “Mind telling me when I didn’t keep my word?”

  “You swore to me that there were no murders in Vigàta during the summer.”

  “How can you make such a statement! I swore? At the most, I probably said that with the summer heat, anyone planning on killing somebody would decide to postpone it till autumn.”

  “So how is it that Guido and Laura ended up sharing their bed with a murder victim in the middle of August?”

  “Livia, stop exaggerating! Sharing their bed!”

  “Well, practically.”

  “Listen carefully. That murder dates from the month of October, six years ago. October, did you get that? Which means, among other things, that my theory was not just hot air.”

  “What matters to me is that, all because of you—”

  “All because of me?! If that little imp Bruno hadn’t given in to the temptation to emulate Houdini—”

  “Houdi who?”

  “Houdini, a famous magician. If Bruno hadn’t gone and disappeared underground, nobody would have known there was a corpse downstairs, and your friends could have gone right on sleeping soundly.”

  “Your cynicism is repugnant.”

  She hung up.

  When he got back to the station, it was almost six o’clock.

  He had wanted to go earlier, but when he stepped outside the door to his house, he was assailed by a blast of heat so intense that he went back inside.Taking his clothes off, he filled the tub with cold water and lay in it for an hour.

  “Ahhh, Chief, Chief ! I found ’er. I idinnificated the girl!”

  Arms extended away from his body, fingers stretched and spread out, he was strutting like a peacock.

  “Come into my office.”

  Catarella followed him with a sheet of paper in hand and an attitude so exultant that one could almost hear, in the background, the triumphal march from Aïda.

  8

  Montalbano glanced at the file that Catarella had printed out for him.

  MORREALE, Caterina, known as “Rina”

  daughter of Giuseppe Morreale and Francesca Dibetta

  born in Vigàta July 3, 1983

  residing in Vigàta, at via Roma 42

  disappeared October 12, 1999

  reported missing by father on October 13, 1999

  Height: 5 ft. 9 in.

  Hair: blond

  Eyes: blue

  Build: slender

  Distinguishing marks: small scar from appendectomy and varus of right big toe

  NOTE: Bulletin issued by Fiacca Central Police

  He pushed away the sheet of paper, buried his face in his hands.

  Throat slashed worse than if she’d been a sheep, or any kind of animal at all.

  Now that he’d seen, from the accompanying photo, what she looked like, he felt sure, for no apparent reason, that Dr. Pasquano was simultaneously right and wrong.

  He was right about how she’d been killed, but wrong about why she’d been killed. Pasquano had advanced the hypothesis of blackmail, but Rina Morreale, with her serene blue eyes, would never have been capable of blackmail.

  Even if she had consented to making love with the man who would later kill her, how could she ever have followed him underground of her own accord, into an illegal apartment that one entered through a narrow, even dangerous opening? Above all, it must have been pitch-dark down there. Had the murderer perhaps brought a flashlight with him?

  But wasn’t there a better place? Couldn’t they have done it in a car? Pizzo was a secluded spot; it wouldn’t have been a problem.

  No, Rina Morreale was definitely forced by the killer to enter what would become her tomb.

  Catarella had come up beside him to look at the photograph of the girl. Maybe he hadn’t paid much attention to it before.

  “She was so beautyfull!” he said softly, moved.

  The photo was consistent with the description and showed a girl of rare beauty. Her neck looked like it could have been painted by Botticelli.

  There was no need to do any more searches. He had only to inform the family so that somebody could go to Montelusa to identify the body.

  Montalbano felt his heart ache.

  “She was so beautyfull!” Catarella repeated in a low voice.

  Looking up, the inspector caught him turned three-quarters away, drying his eyes with the sleeve of his jacket.

  Better change the subject at once.

  “Is Fazio back?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Could you go call him for me?”

  Fazio, too, had a sheet of paper in his hand when he came in.

  “Catarella told me the girl’s been identified. Can I see her?”

  Montalbano handed him the printout. Fazio looked at it, then gave it back to him.

  “Poor kid.”

  “When we catch him—because we will catch him, of that much I am certain—I’m going to smash his face in,” the inspector said quietly.

  A thought had just come to him.

  “How is it,” he continued, “that the girl’s parents reported her missing to the Fiacca police?”

  “I don’t understand it, Chief, even though it happened during the period of cooperation between all the different commissariats regardless of territorial boundaries. Remember all the confusion?”

  “How could I forget? Since we had to deal with everything, we couldn’t deal with anything. Anyway, let’s not forget to ask the parents.”

  “Speaking of which, who’s going to tell them?”

  “You are. But inform Tommaseo first. In fact, do it right now, from this phone.That way we won’t have to think about it anymore.”

  Fazio spoke with the prosecutor, who wanted the file sent to him by e-mail. But before alerting the parents, the inspector wanted to talk with Pasquano and be absolutely certain of the identification.

  “Catarella!”

  “Here I am, Chief.”

  “Take the girl’s file and send it immediately to Prosecutor Tommaseo.”

  After Catarella took it away, Montalbano went on the attack.

  “How did it take you all morning to find those names?”

  “It wasn’t my job to find them, Chief, it was Spitaleri’s.”

  “But haven’t they got a computer or some other sort of filing system?”

  “They have, but they keep only the information from the last five years in the office, and since that house was built six years ago . . .”

  “And where do they keep the rest of it?”

  “At the house of Spitaleri’s sister, who, it turns out, went to Montelusa this morning, so we had to wait till she got back.”

  “I don’t understa
nd why he keeps these documents at his sister’s house.”

  “I do.”

  “Then tell me.”

  “Because of the Finance Police. In the event of an unannounced visit by the auditors.That way, Spitaleri has time to forewarn his sister.Who has been instructed beforehand and knows which documents to bring and which not to bring to the office. Does that explain it?”

  “Perfectly.”

  “Anyway, the masons who were working—” Fazio began.

  “Wait a minute. We still haven’t had a chance to talk about Spitaleri.”

  “Concerning the girl’s murder—”

  “No. For now I want to talk about Spitaleri the real estate developer. Not the Spitaleri who likes underage girls.We can talk about him afterwards.What did you make of him?”

  “Chief, the guy smells fishy to me. When we made up the story about the autopsy not finding any alcohol in the Arab’s blood but only on his clothes, he didn’t react. Not a peep.Whereas he should have either been surprised or said it couldn’t be true.”

  “Therefore they must have drenched the poor bastard in wine after he died, so people would think he was drunk.”

  “So what do you think happened, Chief ?”

  “When you were out with Spitaleri, I called in the foreman, Dipasquale, and interrogated him. In my opinion, the Arab fell off the unprotected scaffolding and none of his comrades noticed. Maybe he was working alone in some concealed area of the structure. Then the worksite’s watchman, whose name is Filiberto Attanasio, finds the body after everybody’s gone home and calls up Dipasquale, who informs Spitaleri in turn.What’s wrong? Are you listening to me?”

  Fazio looked lost in thought.

  “What did you say the watchman’s name was?”

  “Filiberto Attanasio.”

  “Would you excuse me for a minute?”

  He got up, went out, and returned five minutes later with a printout in hand.

  “I remember him well,” he said.

  He handed Montalbano the printout. Filiberto Attanasio had been convicted several times for larceny, aggravated assault, attempted homicide, and armed robbery. The photo showed a fiftyish man with an oversized nose and nary a hair on his head. He was classified as an habitual offender.