The Pyramid of Mud Read online

  “Why not?”

  “Because it says here this guy is four-foot-eleven, whereas the clothes in the armoire were for a man of normal stature. So this confirms that the man is not one of the fugitives from this province.”

  “And therefore not someone on probation and under obligation to report to his officer,” said Augello.

  “So he wasn’t hiding out to avoid being arrested by us,” Fazio concluded.

  “Bear in mind, however,” said the inspector, “that he was hiding out only in a relative sense.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Augello.

  “I mean that there were people coming to visit him, as we know beyond the shadow of a doubt, and who came in broad daylight, taking no particular precautions. Friends or relatives who knew where he was staying.”

  “Now I’m wondering,” said Augello, “whether the guy wasn’t hiding out so much as merely in some kind of voluntary seclusion.”

  “Explain what you mean.”

  “I’m not sure how . . . Say somebody says he’ll bow out for a while, withdraw from the scene, if, in exchange, someone does something for him . . .”

  “That’s always possible. But then how do you explain the guns these guys were equipped with? Might there have been someone more than a little upset at the deal you say he might have made?”

  “Why not? Someone who’d wanted things to turn out differently.”

  “I feel a big headache coming on,” said Fazio.

  “Well, you can imagine how my head feels because of this guy,” said the inspector.

  The phone rang.

  “Chief, ’ere’d be Signor Gambabella onna line wantin’ a—”

  “Put him on.”

  “Inspector Montalbano?”

  “Yes. I’d tried to get in touch with you but—”

  “I know everything and I’d like to talk to you. This evening I could—”

  “Eight-thirty okay with you?”

  “Perfect, Inspector, thank you.”

  He hung up. The brief exchange with Gambardella had reminded him of something.

  “Do you know whether the water main worksite is still under a restraining order?” he asked Fazio.

  “No, Chief, not anymore.”

  “So have they resumed work?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “So what are they waiting for?”

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  “Well, it certainly is strange. Every day they remain closed represents a huge loss of money.”

  “I’ll try right away and see if I can find anything out.”

  “Inspector, what happened? Wha’d you do to your head?” asked Enzo as soon as Montalbano walked into the trattoria.

  “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it. I slipped and fell.”

  “Then how did you manage to injure both your nose and the back of your head?”

  Man, what a pain in the ass!

  “I knocked first the front of my head, and then the back.”

  There were no more questions. Except for:

  “What can I get you?”

  Exam over. Only four or five times in his life had he actually eaten against his will, but that day became the sixth time. And the fact that he couldn’t think of an explanation for it made things worse.

  Afterwards, to distract himself he decided to take his customary walk along the jetty to the lighthouse. The sun was hidden behind clouds and the sea was gray. The inspector’s dark mood got even darker.

  Sitting down on his usual flat rock, he fired up a cigarette.

  On the rock, right at the water’s edge, was the inevitable crab, which he liked to hassle by throwing little sea pebbles at it.

  “I don’t feel like playing today,” he said to the crustacean. “And you’d do me a big favor if you left me alone.”

  The crab politely obliged him, disappearing underwater.

  At that very moment, for no apparent reason, he realized why he felt in such a bad mood.

  He was conducting the investigation with the same enthusiasm with which he normally signed memos in his office.

  Sure, he was questioning people, visiting crime scenes, discussing the case with Fazio, and he very nearly got his head busted open, but it was as though the real Montalbano had gone away and delegated matters to a rough copy of himself, a stand-in devoid of hunches and ideas, unable to make connections and draw conclusions, lacking energy, passion, vitality . . .

  Why was this happening to him?

  Was it the weariness of age?

  No, that couldn’t possibly be the reason, because if it was, he would have realized it immediately, and his sense of honesty would have prompted him to resign at once.

  So then where was the real Montalbano?

  He got his answer, loud and clear, the moment he asked the question.

  The real Montalbano was in Boccadasse.

  At the side of a desperate, suffering woman, keeping her company, giving her comfort and love . . .

  It was this constant concern, ever present like a weight bearing down on his heart and brain, that prevented him from being intellectually lucid and quick to react, ready to seize upon so little as the trembling of a leaf, to realize when two plus two does not equal four . . .

  So, how are you going to get out of this, Montalbà?

  By making a solemn promise to myself. That’s how.

  I’ll grant myself one more day. Then, if I still feel this way, I’ll turn everything over to Mimì Augello. Without a second thought.

  And I’ll go off to Boccadasse. And stay there until Livia is back to the way she was before.

  “Chief, there are rumors going around town, and for once, they’re all saying the same thing.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “They’re saying that the work at the construction site was stopped by the authorities following a surprise visit from three inspectors of the regional administration.”

  “When was that?”

  “To be precise, on the afternoon of the day after the body was found in the tunnel.”

  “Wait a second. How could they have made an inspection when the worksite was still under sequester?”

  “Only the tunnel was under sequester. And it was enough for the inspectors to see the tunnel from the outside to conclude that it was in violation of the guidelines established in the ratification of the government contract.”

  “And how was it supposed to be?”

  “Did you see where the three pipes had been placed?”

  “They were buried.”

  “Exactly. They were put directly into the raw ground. And they shouldn’t have been. According to the contract, they were supposed to be placed inside a concrete tunnel of sufficient height to allow for repairs in the event of a break.”

  “And so now they’re supposed to pull the pipes out, build a concrete tunnel, and then put them back in?”

  “Exactly.”

  “So why aren’t they doing that?”

  “Because the Rosaspina people say it wasn’t their fault, but the regional administration’s, since they still hadn’t paid Rosaspina the amount promised at the halfway point of the project, but only forced them to make do, to avoid losing any more time. Now, since the cost of the materials has gone up in the meantime, if they want their tunnel in concrete, the estimate goes up. But the regional government has no desire to allocate any more money.”

  Montalbano remained silent for a moment, thinking, then said:

  “Well, it certainly is curious.”

  “What is?”

  “The timing of the inspection.”

  “You think there’s a connection between the murder of Nicotra and the arrival of the inspectors?”

  “I don’t really think it. It’s just a feeling.�
�

  “Care to tell us more?”

  “Say two competing groups reach a secret agreement allowing for one of the two to do a certain job. The agreement rests on a precarious balance, meaning neither can afford to slip up. But then something happens that throws everything out of whack. Everything must be worked out all over again, from square one, with new rules. The inspectors sent from Palermo have . . . How shall I put it? They’ve frozen the situation.”

  “And what, in your opinion, will happen if, say, they don’t reach a new agreement?”

  “The two groups will go back to being enemies. Didn’t I say I had the impression that some kind of negotiations were taking place? I’m convinced that in a few days we’ll know what really happened. And at that point we’ll start being able to make some moves of our own.”

  The telephone rang.

  “’Ere’d happen a be a soitan lawyer by the name o’ Nino Varbarera onna premisses, an’ ’e wants a talk t’yiz poissonally in poisson.”

  “Wait just a second.” Then, turning to Fazio: “Do you know some lawyer by the name of Nino Varbarera?”

  “It must be Nino Barbera, administrative counselor to the Rosaspina firm, the one who recommended—”

  “Yeah, I remember. Okay, Cat, bring him in.”

  Barbera the lawyer was a rather diminutive man, well-dressed and dapper, with a confident air.

  After the customary polite introductions, the inspector sat him down in front of his desk and with a friendly smile waited for him to start talking.

  “Inspector, I’m not sure whether you know that I am a member of the board of directors of Rosaspina Construction, the firm where the late Gerlando Nicotra worked.”

  Montalbano didn’t make a peep, but only kept on looking at him and smiling affably.

  “I should begin by saying that it was I who insisted that Nicotra, who was already working for the company that we replaced, should stay on and work for us. I have no reason to hide the fact that I was pressured considerably to do this by the Honorable Carratello, assessor of public works and a good friend of mine. Poor Gerlando immediately showed himself to be a conscientious employee, honest, devoted, and endowed with rare abilities . . . A truly irreparable loss.”

  Montalbano was still smiling and not saying anything. He looked as if he was under a spell; he didn’t move a muscle.

  “But I’ll get to the point. The company’s safe is in my office. We use it not so much to store cash as to hold important documents. The only people with the keys to this safe were me and the late Nicotra. I also kept a firearm in the safe, a Beretta. I have a permit for it. Well, yesterday, when I opened the safe for the first time since poor Gerlando’s death, I realized, to my great shock, that my gun was gone.”

  Montalbano remained immobile for a few more seconds. Then he roused himself.

  “Did you look carefully?” he asked in the most serious of tones.

  “Of course!”

  “And it wasn’t there?”

  “No, it wasn’t!”

  “Did you by any chance check whether it didn’t end up in some drawer?”

  “Yes, I did!”

  “And who could have taken it?”

  “I told you who had the keys, didn’t I?”

  But the inspector, who was having a ball, wanted to hear the lawyer himself say the name.

  “Yes, but that means nothing. You could have temporarily lent the keys to someone who—”

  “Out of the question.”

  “Then maybe the late Nicotra lent his.”

  “I would rule that out, too.”

  “Well, what is it, then?”

  Finally the lawyer, pulled by the reins, made up his mind.

  “I’m sorry to have to say this, but it could only have been Nicotra who took it.”

  “The late Nicotra,” Montalbano corrected him.

  “Yes, of course.”

  “To do what, in your opinion?”

  For the first time since he’d entered, the lawyer seemed a little less self-assured.

  “Well, maybe . . . and this is just something I’ve heard, mind you . . . anyway, there’s been an insistent rumor around town that Inge, his wife—a fine-looking woman, German—had a lover . . . and so it’s possible that he found out and went insane with jealousy and . . .”

  “I see. So, in your opinion, he took the gun to shoot her lover?”

  “I can’t imagine any other motive . . .”

  “Except that instead of killing his wife’s lover, it was his wife’s lover who killed him.”

  Barbera the lawyer threw up his hands and heaved a big sigh by way of resignation.

  “Unfortunately, that seems to be what happened.”

  “You know what, sir? Our Forensics team recovered a bullet shell just outside the front door of the late Nicotra’s house. They think poor Nicotra was killed with an Italian gun. It may in fact be your very own Beretta.”

  The lawyer made a dejected face.

  “If only I could have foreseen . . .”

  “What are you gonna do? That’s the breaks. It’s not your fault.”

  Montalbano started smiling affably again.

  “Listen, I want you to go into another office now with Inspector Fazio and file a report on the theft of your gun. And I thank you from the bottom of my heart for your cooperation.”

  It took Fazio hardly any time at all to draft the report, and he returned to the inspector’s office at once. There was something he wanted to ask him, a question he’d kept to himself all the while.

  “Why didn’t you tell him his story about the gun didn’t hold water, since Nicotra already owned one?”

  “Think for a minute, Fazio. Barbera came here as a kind of test, to float a trial balloon. He wanted to see how I would react, if I would swallow his story. And I pretended to do so. Now they’ll make another move. Because it’s clear that we’re still at the opening lines of a play they want to put on. Meanwhile, however, the lawyer, without wanting to, revealed something very important to us.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “That they didn’t know, and still don’t know, that both the old man and Nicotra were armed.”

  “And where does that get us?”

  “It gives us an important card to play at the right moment.”

  When he got home the first thing he did was phone Livia. He was afraid that if Gambardella stayed late, Livia would have already gone to bed before he had time to call her.

  The telephone rang for a long time with no answer. Maybe Livia’d had a bad day and gone and buried herself under the covers after unplugging the phone and the outside world. He’d just made up his mind to hang up when he heard:

  “Hello? Hello?”

  It was Livia, a bit out of breath, but louder and clearer than he’d heard her sound in quite a while.

  “I’m sorry, Salvo, but I was just unlocking the door when I heard the phone ring and—”

  “You were out?”

  “Yes. And I’m dead tired.”

  “Had you been out for a long time?”

  “Yes. For a good four hours . . .”

  He almost couldn’t believe his ears. For months if she went out for even half an hour it was already a lot!

  “. . . I was running every which way. Because of Selene.”

  “And who’s that?”

  “Oh, right, I never told you.”

  “You named the dog Selene?”

  “Yes.”

  “But Selene is a woman’s name!”

  “And Selene in fact is a female. She’s a little sick at the moment, and so I took her to see two veterinarians. I’m sorry, Salvo, but now that I think of it, do you really think I’m so stupid that I wouldn’t know the meaning of the name Selene?”

  Wonderful! What a magnifi
cent surprise! The particular note that signaled the start of a squabble had sounded again in Livia’s voice. Would to heaven that this Selene had granted her a reprieve! Just to check, he purposely provoked her.

  “If it had been me instead of Selene you certainly wouldn’t have taken me to see two different doctors.”

  “Are you some kind of moron or something, comparing yourself to a dog?”

  Moron! She’d called him a moron! A holy, blessed word!

  Livia had made a huge recovery, there was no doubt about it.

  “Just kidding, my love.”

  They couldn’t have ended on a better note.

  As soon as he hung up, the inspector was so happy he felt like doing cartwheels. Luckily he restrained himself. Otherwise, he surely would have ended up back in the hospital, needing a few more stitches in his head.

  He was on his way to the kitchen to see what Adelina had cooked up for him when the doorbell rang. He went to open.

  9

  They both agreed that, despite the pleasant evening weather, it would be imprudent to sit out on the veranda. Someone passing along the beach might see them.

  “What happened to you?” asked Gambardella after he saw his face.

  The inspector had no problem telling him everything that had happened at the hospital.

  “With these sorts of methods they’ve scared everyone to death and created a vacuum around me,” Gambardella commented. “My investigation is practically at a standstill, even though there’s still a great deal to be discovered, especially after something that happened the day before yesterday.”

  “I know nothing about that.”

  “A few months ago the Albachiara firm won the competition for the contract to build a district headquarters in the Riguccio area between Montelusa and Vigàta. Construction began fifteen days ago, but the day before yesterday work was halted.”

  “By whom?”

  “By the regional administration.”

  “What was the reason?”

  “No idea . . . Apparently an important clause, to be added by common agreement, was omitted, either by accident or on purpose, in Albachiara’s copy of the contract.”

  At that moment a thought flashed through Montalbano’s head like a falling star. But he was unable to stop it, and felt upset. This never used to happen to him.