IM11 The Wings of the Sphinx (2009)

by Andrea Camilleri

  “So you don’t deposit your Friday and Saturday receipts till Monday morning?”

  “R-right.”

  “Therefore one can assume that on Saturday evenings there’s always a large sum of money in your apartment?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where do you usually keep the money? Do you have a safe?”

  “No, I keep it in a desk drawer.”

  “Do you live alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who does your housekeeping for you?”

  “Well . . . you see . . . since I have a cleaning company come do the store, we made an agreement . . .”

  The effort of having to talk so much had worn him out. He started panting, as though out of breath.

  “Mr. Morabito, I can see that you’re tired, and so I’d like to wrap things up. You can answer my questions with a simple yes or no. So you’ve ruled out arson?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Therefore you’ve ruled out any involvement on the part of the Stellinos?”

  “Yes.”

  “The fire was accidental, in your opinion?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Very well. Then there remains only one more thing for me to do.”

  “Wh-what’s that?”

  “Summon you to appear here tomorrow morning at nine o’clock.”

  “Again? Why?”

  “For a confrontation between witnesses.”

  “Wha-what witnesses?

  “The Stellino brothers. I’m going to have them arrested this very evening.”

  Great big tears started rolling down Morabito’s face again. His chin was trembling. The tremor in his body had become so visible that he looked as though he had an electrical current running through him.

  “Mr. Morabito, I can see that this fire has been a very trying experience for you. I don’t want to tire you out any further. Very well. I think I’ve finished for this evening. Now we go to your place to have a look at that revolver.”

  “But . . . we . . . can’t!”

  “Why not?”

  “The Fire Brigade put—”

  “Don’t worry, we’ll get their permission. Did you come here in your car?”

  “No.”

  “But you’ve got one?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “Where do you keep it?”

  “In a gagagarage adjajajacent to the stostore.”

  “Has it got a big trunk?”

  “Pretty big.”

  “Can’t you be more precise than that? No? Let me give you an example. Is it big enough to hold a body?”

  “But . . . what . . .”

  “Don’t get upset. There’s no reason. Later we’ll go have a look, at your car, that is. At the trunk, in particular. Fazio, before we leave, do you have any questions?”

  The inspector prayed to God that Fazio would make the right move.

  And Fazio, realizing that the inspector had passed him the ball, kicked it straight at the goal.

  “I beg your pardon, but do you sell purpurin?”

  He scored. Morabito stood up, spun halfway around himself, and fell to the floor like an empty sack. Fazio lifted him bodily and put him back in the chair, but no sooner was he sitting than he slid back down. A rag doll.

  “Just leave him there. Call Sanfilippo and tell him to have Di Nardo come here at once,” said Montalbano. “This moron most certainly killed the girl. Too bad!”

  “Why too bad?”

  “Because now the investigation goes over to Di Nardo, and Di Nardo will pass it on to Homicide. Territorial jurisdiction.”

  “So from this moment on, we’re out of the picture?”

  “Completely. In fact, you know what I say? I say I’m gonna call a taxi and go straight home to Marinella. I’ll see you in the morning and you can tell me the rest of the story.”

  But he already knew the rest of the story and didn’t need to wait till the following morning to find out. He played it out in his head as he was driving back to Vigàta.

  One Saturday night Morabito is awakened by a noise. He pricks up his ears and is convinced there is a burglar in the house. So he opens the drawer of the nightstand, grabs his revolver, and quietly gets out of bed. And he sees that the burglar, having come in through the front door by using a skeleton key or something similar, is trying to open the desk drawer in which the proceeds of the previous two days are kept. The burglar, however, hears him and flees.

  Most certainly the thief has somehow learned the layout of the flat and runs down the stairs that lead to the store. He had probably noticed, when reconnoitering the premises before entering the house, that the window in the paints section was open. In a flash he’s in that part of the store, climbs up some shelving to reach the window, which is high, but then slips and falls straight into the little bags of purpurin, breaking a few of them open. When he turns around to see how far behind his pursuer is, Morabito shoots him.

  The proprietor probably didn’t mean to kill him, but the shot was right on target. The bullet, however, must have somehow moved the black wool ski mask covering the person’s face, and thus Morabito realizes that the burglar is a woman.

  And he loses his head.

  It’s true that with the new law on self-defense, he should get off without any problem, but—he wonders—does the law also apply if the thief is a woman? And, what’s more, an unarmed woman?

  As his initial moment of fright passes, he starts to think rationally.

  And he begins to glimpse a way out. Since nobody heard the shot, wouldn’t it be better to take himself out of the picture? To have nothing to do with it all?

  He continues to think about it all night and the following day, Sunday. And he arrives at what he thinks is the right decision.

  He strips the corpse and washes it, because the upper parts of the body are soiled with purpurin. Then he places it naked in the trunk of his car. This presents no problem because the garage communicates with the interior of the store, and therefore nobody can see him.

  In the middle of the night between Sunday and Monday, he gets in his car and unloads the body at the Salsetto.

  And there you have it.

  But why, a few days later, did he decide that it was best to set fire to his business?

  That was indeed something he would have to wait for Fazio to tell him in the morning.

  When he got back to Marinella he was in such a dark mood that he didn’t even want to eat.

  He felt disappointed by the outcome of the case.

  An idiotic crime committed by an idiot. On the other hand, how many intelligent homicides had he come across that had been committed by people with brains in their skulls? In his entire career, he could count them on one hand. Okay, but this last one was even stupider than the norm.

  And once they had proof that Morabito had killed the girl, would Di Nardo, or the chief of Homicide, take things any further? Would they manage at least to give the murder victim a name? Or, once they realized that the case was in no way as simple as it seemed, would they simply withdraw?

  And wasn’t it his duty to inform his colleagues as to just how far he had gone in his investigation?

  Because by this point there was no longer any doubt that at least two of the Russian girls with the sphinx moth tattoo were thieves. And it was proved that three of these girls had been associated with Benevolence.

  Benevolence, therefore, was starting to look like pretty dangerous terrain, a veritable minefield when you came right down to it. Would Di Nardo, or someone in his place, feel like running the risk of being blown to bits? How many politicians with powerful connections in Rome, and all of them, whether of the right or left, with their wheels greased by priests, would “take the field” in defense of Monsignor Pisicchio and Benevolence? And would the public prosecutor have the courage to fulfill his responsibilities? After all, it took only a handful of questions to Cavaliere Piro to unleash a deluge of phone calls of protest to the commissioner.

  Better not get any bright
ideas. Sit tight. Leave the initiative to Di Nardo. If the commissioner’s office started making noise and asking questions about the investigation he had conducted up to that point, he would tell them everything he had to tell. Otherwise, zip it, Montalbano, and stand pat.

  As he sat out on the veranda, smoking and sipping whisky on a night that seemed made to dispel bad thoughts, the combination of disappointment and mild anger he had felt when he realized that the investigation had slipped out his hands began to dissolve.

  Ah, well. It wasn’t the first time this had happened to him.

  Meanwhile, there was a positive side to all this, namely that he now had several trouble-free days ahead of him.Yes, he could take advantage of them to—

  To do what? Montalbano One suddenly asked. Would you please tell me exactly what you know how to do other than your job? You eat, shit, sleep, read a few novels, and every now and then you go to the movies. And that’s it.You don’t like to travel, you don’t go in for sports, you have no hobbies, and when you come right down to it, you don’t even have any friends with whom to spend a few hours . . .

  What is this bullshit, anyway? Montalbano Two intervened polemically. He goes for longer swims than an Olympic champion, and you’re telling me he doesn’t go in for sports?

  Swimming doesn’t count. What counts are genuine, serious interests, the kind that enrich and give meaning to a man’s life.

  Oh, yeah? Give me one example of these “interests”! Gardening? Collecting stamps? Discussing with friends whether Juventus deserved the championship more than Milan?”

  Would you let me finish? said Montalbano, butting in. I was simply saying that I could take advantage of the free days ahead to have Livia come down. And you know what I say to you two? I’m going to pick up the phone and call her right now.

  He got up, went into the house, grabbed the telephone, dialed the number, and, at the first ring, hung up.

  No, when he really thought about it, he wasn’t exactly free at the moment.

  The business of Picarella’s disappearance was still hanging. It had completely slipped his mind. How had it turned out? Had he admitted to faking it or not? The inspector looked at his watch. Too late to phone Mimì. He might wake up the kid and trigger a revolution.

  Perhaps it was best to wait till the following evening to call Livia, when he would be absolutely, or relatively, certain not to have any more hassles distracting him. He winced at the thought that a piddling matter like the Picarella disappearance could so affect his life. And so he made himself a solemn vow: By the evening of the following day, he would prove that Picarella had staged the whole thing and send the guy to jail for simulating a crime. Immediately after which he would call Livia.

  He went to bed and slept six hours straight.

  16

  Almost straight, that is. Because he had a strange dream, after which he briefly woke up before going back to sleep.

  He was with Livia in the Bahamas (he knew it was the Bahamas, even though he was certain at the same time that he had never been there before). They were on a beach utterly jam-packed with people, all in bathing suits: gorgeous topless women in G-strings, youths like the boy in Death in Venice, fat potbellied men, cuddling gays, lifeguards who were all muscle, like the ones in American movies. Livia, too, was in her bathing suit. He, however, was not. He was all dressed up, and even wearing a tie.

  “Couldn’t we have gone to a less crowded beach?”

  “This is the least crowded one on the whole island. Why don’t you take your clothes off?”

  “I forgot to bring my swimsuit.”

  “But you can buy one right here! See that airplane down there? They sell everything there: swimsuits, towels, bathing caps . . .”

  There was an airplane parked on the beach with people all around it, buying things.

  “I left my wallet in the hotel room.”

  “You find every possible excuse not to go in the water! Well, I’ll show you!”

  Suddenly they were no longer in the Bahamas.

  Now they were in the bathroom of somebody’s house, and Livia was his aunt while still being Livia.

  “No, you’re not going to school until you get undressed and take your bath!”

  As he was taking his clothes off, feeling a little embarrassed, his Aunt Livia stared at a large black stain over his heart.

  “What’s this?”

  “I dunno.”

  “How did you get that?”

  “Dunno.”

  “Well, wash it off and call me before you get dressed, so I can check. And don’t come out of the tub until that stain is gone.”

  Try as he might to wash it off, rubbing with soap and scrubbing with the sponge, the stain wouldn’t go away. In despair, he started crying.

  He opened his eyes and saw Adelina before him with a cup of coffee, the very aroma of which was restorative.

  “D’I do right, signore? Maybe you wannata sleep s’more?”

  “What time is it?”

  “Almos’ nine.”

  He got up, took a shower, got dressed, and went into the kitchen.

  “Signore, I wannata tell you thet early this a mornin’ I gotta phone call from the lawyer for my boy Pasquali, who you went a see yesterday in jail. The lawyer tol’ me thet my boy tol’ him to tell me an address thet I’m a sposto tell to you.”

  Montalbano felt slightly dizzy trying to follow the meaning of Adelina’s last sentence.

  “And what’s this address?”

  “Iss Via Palermo 16, in Gallotta.

  It must be the address where Peppi Cannizzaro was living. Apparently he’d moved with Zin from Montelusa to Gallotta. But at this point it didn’t matter anymore. The investigation was no longer his concern.

  “When are they going to let him go home?”

  “Mebbe in a coupla days.”

  “Thank him for the address. And gimme another cup of coffee, while we’re at it.”

  “Ah Chief Chief! I hadda go all day yisterday witout seein’ yiz!”

  “Did you miss me? You’re gonna see so much of me the next few days, you’ll probably get sick of me.”

  “I never get sick o’ you, Chief!”

  A proper declaration of love. Uttered by anyone else, it would have been, at the very least, embarrassing.

  “Who’s here?”

  “Everyone’s here, Chief.”

  “Send me Augello and Fazio.”

  They were in the middle of an intense discussion when they arrived.

  “Congratulations,” said Mimì. “Fazio told me your performance with Morabito yesterday was one of your best.”

  “In all modesty . . . Listen, Fazio, don’t tell me anything of what Morabito said. There’s only one thing I want to know: why he set fire to his store.”

  “It was Ragonese’s fault.”

  “The editorialist at TeleVigàta?”

  “You bet. The day after the body was found, Ragonese, discussing on TV the murder of the girl with no name—that’s what he calls this investigation, the ‘case of the corpse with no name’—”

  “Sounds like the title of a movie,” said Mimì.

  “A B movie,” added Montalbano.

  “—revealed a detail mentioned by Pasquano.”

  “The purpurin?”

  “No, sir, Pasquano didn’t talk about the purpurin. But he did mention that the shot had blown away the girl’s upper teeth. And so Morabito thought some of the teeth must be scattered around the spot where he killed her. As soon as he closed up the store, he spent the night looking for them but never found them. The cleaning team was supposed to come the next day, but he invented an excuse and told them not to come. And he continued to look, but to no avail. Finally, nearly out of his mind, he decided to torch his store.”

  “He should get off pretty easy,” Montalbano commented.

  “I don’t think so,” said Fazio. “The prosecutor was beside himself. Concealment and desecration of a corpse, arson—”

  “D
id Di Nardo by any chance tell you if he intended to get in touch with me to find out how far we’d got with the case?”

  “No, but he couldn’t stop singing your praises to the prosecutor. Aside from that—”

  “Good. And you, Mimì, what’d you do with Picarella?”

  “What do you think? The guy’s an even better actor than you. I found him lying down, with his wife beside him, comforting him and holding his hand. Dr. Fasulo was also there, having just paid a house call and finding him in a ‘deranged’ mental state. I did manage, however, to ask Picarella a question: Could he please show me his passport?”

  “Good for you, Mimì!”

  “Thanks. He said the kidnappers had confiscated his passport.”

  “Of course! He could never show you the passport with the visits to Cuba stamped on it! He said ‘kidnappers’?”

  “Yes. Said there were two of ’em, even though Mrs. Picarella claims she only saw one.”

  “Did you talk about the photograph?”

  “Of course. Both he and his wife covered me with insults and curses. They didn’t come right out and say that it was a fake made by us, but they came close.”

  “So you think it’s going to be a long, drawn-out affair with Picarella.”

  “Afraid so. Picarella will hold the line more because of his wife than for our sake. Bear in mind that it’s the wife who has the money; he’s pretty poor on his own. If his wife leaves him, he’ll find himself crazy and broke. But at the moment we haven’t got anything on him, except a highly contestable photograph.”

  “What are you going to do next?”

  “In the meantime, I’m going to go back there with Fazio this afternoon at three. The prosecutor will also be there for formal questioning. And as concerns those names you gave me—”

  “The ones from Benevolence? Forget about it, Mimì. Haven’t you realized yet that we’re out of the loop? Can I suggest a few things that you should ask Picarella in the presence of the prosecutor?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “The prosecutor, naturally, will try to get details about the kidnapping: where they hid him, how they treated him, that sort of crap. And you can be sure Picarella will be very well prepared for such questions. You, instead, should ask him, first: Do you have any idea why the kidnappers never demanded a ransom? Second: And if you weren’t kidnapped for money, what other reason could there be? Third: Who might have known that you had withdrawn a large sum of money and were keeping it at home for only one night, the very night when you were kidnapped?”