“But think about it for a second, Mr. Commissioner. How many pseudo–purse snatchers are there running around trying to dissuade all the little old ladies of Montelusa and its province from going to early morning Mass?”
“You yourself used the expression ‘pseudo–purse snatchers’ just now, Montalbano. You will admit, I hope, that we’re not looking at a typical purse snatcher’s MO here. The guy just pulls out a gun and fires! For no reason! All he has to do is reach out and take the purse at his leisure. What reason could there be to try to kill those poor women?”
“Mr. Commissioner,” said Montalbano, who suddenly felt like fucking with his boss’s head, “pulling out a weapon, a gun, in no way spells certain death for the person threatened; very often the valency of the threat is not tragic but cognitive. At least that’s what Roland Barthes argues.”
“And who’s that?” the commissioner asked, mouth agape.
“An eminent French criminologist,” the inspector lied.
“Montalbano, I don’t give a damn about any French criminologist! This guy doesn’t just pull out a gun, he shoots it!”
“Yes, but he never actually hits his victims. I think the cognitive valency is the predominant one.”
“Just get busy,” said Bonetti-Alderighi, cutting things short.
“In my opinion,” said Mimì Augello, “it’s classic drug-addict mischief.”
“But can’t you see, Mimì? All the guy’s managed to rob is forty-five thousand and fifty lire! He could get more just by selling the bullets in his gun! Speaking of which, have you found them?”
“We looked but couldn’t find anything. Who knows where they ended up?”
“But why does this asshole shoot at the old ladies after they’ve already given him their purses? And why does he miss?”
“What does it mean?”
“It means he misses, Mimì. Period. Look, the first time we might have thought he reacted instinctively when Signora Todaro’s husband started yelling out the window. What’s not clear is why, instead of shooting at the man who was yelling, he shot at the woman, who was barely a foot and a half away from him. You don’t miss from a foot and a half away, Mimì. The second time, with Signorina Mandracchia, he shot her as he was grabbing her purse with his other hand. They were probably about three feet away from each other. But he missed again. And you know what, Mimì? I don’t think he missed either time.”
“Oh, yeah? So how do you explain that neither of the women was even injured?”
“It’s because both shots were blank, Mimì. Here’s something you can do: Have the dress Signora Erminia was wearing that morning analyzed.”
He was right on the money. The following day, the Forensics lab in Montelusa informed them that even a superficial analysis of Signora Todaro’s dress at chest level showed a large spot of residual gunpowder.
“So he’s a madman,” said Mimì Augello.
The inspector said nothing.
“You don’t agree?”
“No. And if he is a madman . . . there’s a lot of method in his madness.”
Augello, who hadn’t read Hamlet—or if he had, he’d forgotten it—didn’t catch the allusion.
“And what method is that?”
“Mimì, that’s for us to find out, don’t you think?”
Very quietly, when people in town had almost forgotten about the two muggings and were no longer talking about them, the purse snatcher (how could you call him anything else?) was heard from again. At seven o’clock one Sunday morning, he demanded the purse of one Signora Gesualda Bommarito, was given it, and then shot her. In the right shoulder, but the bullet only grazed her. Upon closer examination, the wound proved to be nothing. But it did send the inspector’s theory of a gun filled with blanks up in smoke. Maybe the gunpowder residue found on Signora Todaro’s dress was due to a sudden twist of the gunman’s wrist, caused by an unexpected remorse for what he was about to do. This time the bullet was recovered and the Forensics lab informed Montalbano that the weapon was probably of antediluvian date. The purse of Signora Gesualda, who’d suffered more fright than harm, had eleven thousand lire in it. But how was it possible that this purse snatcher (or whatever he was) went around robbing only old ladies on their way to early morning Mass? A serious, professional purse snatcher, first of all, doesn’t carry a weapon and, second, waits around for old ladies coming out of the post office after cashing their pension check, or else preys on smart-looking dames on their way to the hairdresser’s. No, there was something about the whole business that didn’t add up. And after the wounding of Signora Gesualda, Montalbano started to get worried. If the idiot kept on shooting real bullets, sooner or later he would end up killing some poor old lady.
And indeed, one morning Signora Antonia Joppolo, fifty years old and married to Giuseppe Joppolo, a lawyer, was awakened from her sleep by the ring of the telephone. It was seven o’clock. She picked up the receiver and instantly recognized her husband’s voice.
“Ninetta darling,” said the lawyer.
“What’s wrong?” asked Signora Antonia, immediately alarmed.
“I had a little car accident just outside of Palermo. I’m in a hospital. I wanted to tell you personally myself, before anyone else did. But don’t be alarmed, it’s nothing.”
His wife, however, got alarmed.
“I’m getting in the car and coming,” she said.
This brief exchange was recounted to Montalbano by Giuseppe Joppolo when the inspector paid him a visit at the Sanatrix clinic.
It was therefore logical to assume that the signora got dressed in a hurry, went out, and rushed to the garage, which was about a hundred meters away. After taking a few steps, she was passed by a small motorbike. Annibale Panebianco, who at that moment was stepping out the front door of the building he lived in, had managed to see the woman handing her purse to the man on the motorbike, hear a shot, and witness, petrified, the woman falling to the ground and the motorbike driving off. When he could move again, he ran up to Signora Joppolo, whom he knew quite well—but there was nothing more to do. She’d been shot square in the chest.
In his hospital bed, her husband, Giuseppe, was like Mary at the foot of the cross in his despair.
“It’s all my fault! And to think I told her not to come, to stay at home, because it was nothing serious! Poor Ninetta! She loved me so much!”
“Had you already been in Palermo a long time?”
“Not at all! She was still asleep when I left Vigàta and headed for Palermo in my car. Two and a half hours later I had the accident, so I called her and she insisted on coming to Palermo. And what happened happened.”
He was unable to go on, as he was sobbing so hard he could hardly breathe. The inspector had to wait five minutes before the man was in a condition to answer his final question.
“I’m sorry, sir, but did your wife normally carry large sums of money in her purse?”
“Large sums? What do you mean by ‘large sums’? We have a safe at home in which we always keep about ten million lire in cash. But she would only take what she needed. Anyway, nowadays, what with cash machines, credit cards, and checkbooks, who needs to carry a lot of money around? Of course, maybe this time, having to come to Palermo and thinking she’d probably have some unexpected expenses, she probably did take a couple of million with her. And she probably took some jewelry as well. It was a habit of hers, poor Ninetta; she would put some items of jewelry in her purse when she had to leave town, even for just a day or two.”
“And how did your accident happen?”
“Well, I must have nodded off, and I drove straight into a pole. I wasn’t wearing my seat belt, and I broke two ribs, but nothing else.”
His chin started trembling again.
“And for something so stupid, Ninetta lost her life!”
“It’s true,” noted TeleVigàta’s politica
l commentator, still harping on the same point “that the victim was not on her way to church, since she was headed for the garage.” But who could say with any assurance that, before leaving for Palermo to comfort her husband, she would not have stepped into a church, even if for just a few minutes, to say a prayer for her dear husband, who lay in pain in a hospital bed? In which case it would all make sense, and this crime could also be ascribed to that same sect that sought to terrorize the faithful into deserting the churches. Worse than in the days of Stalin. What we were witnessing, therefore, was a frightening escalation of atheist violence.
Commissioner Bonetti-Alderighi, in a fit of rage, used the same term.
“It’s an escalation, Montalbano! First he fires blanks, then he grazes someone, then finally kills someone! So much for the cognitive valencies of your French criminologist—what was his name—ah, yes, Marthes! Do you know who the victim was?”
“To be honest, sir, I haven’t had the time yet to—”
“Well, let me save you some time, then. Signora Joppolo, aside from being one of the richest women in the province, was the cousin of Undersecretary Biondolillo, who has already phoned me. And she had some important friends—extremely important friends—in Sicilian political and financial circles. Do you know what that means? Look, Montalbano, here’s what we’re going to do—but don’t take it the wrong way: The investigation’s going to be led—with, of course, the agreement of the assistant prosecutor—by the chief of the Flying Squad. And you’ll be working alongside him. Is that all right with you?”
For once, this was quite all right with the inspector. At the very idea of having to answer the inevitable questions of Undersecretary Biondolillo and all the political and financial circles in Sicily, he’d started sweating—not in fear, of course, but from the unbearable nausea he felt towards the world of Signora Joppolo and her ilk.
The investigation conducted by the Flying Squad, which Montalbano took great care not to work alongside (since, among other things, nobody from the squad had asked him to work alongside them), led to the arrest of two drug-addicted young punks who owned small motorbikes. But the investigating magistrate refused to uphold the arrest, and the two youths were released. This brought the investigation to a halt, despite Commissioner Bonetti-Alderighi’s anxious reassurances to Undersecretary Biondolillo and Sicilian political and financial circles that the killer would soon be found and arrested.
Naturally, Inspector Montalbano conducted his own parallel investigation, entirely submerged but just under the surface of the water. And he came to the conclusion that very soon there would be another mugging. He took care not to mention this to the commissioner, but did say something to Mimì Augello.
“What the hell!” Mimì exploded. “You’re sitting there all calm and collected and you tell me the guy’s gonna kill another woman? If you’re so sure of what you’re saying, we need to do something!”
“Calm down, Mimì. I said the guy would mug and shoot another woman, I didn’t say he would kill her. There’s a difference.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because he’ll fire blanks this time, the way he did the first two times. Because it’s no use telling me the killer didn’t fire blanks but changed his mind at the last second and pointed the gun away . . . That’s bullshit. There was an escalation, as the commissioner put it. Carefully and intelligently thought out. He’ll fire blanks this time, I’d bet the house on it.”
“Let me get this straight, Salvo. Since we’ll be lucky to catch the gunman, you’re saying that there will be two more women shot with blanks, another grazed by a bullet, and a fourth one killed, in that order?”
“No, Mimì. If I’m right, there will only be one more old lady shot with blanks who’ll have a terrible fright. Let’s hope her heart holds up. But that’ll be the end of it; there won’t be any more muggings.”
About two months after the solemn funeral of Signora Joppolo, one morning around seven o’clock, with Montalbano still asleep, having gone to bed at four, his telephone rang, waking him up. Cursing the saints, the inspector yelled:
“Who is it?”
“You were right,” said the voice of Mimì Augello.
“What are you talking about?”
“He shot another little old lady.”
“Did he kill her?”
“No. It was probably a blank.”
“I’ll be right over.”
In the shower Montalbano sang, at the top of his lungs, “O toreador ritorna vincitor.”
A little old lady, Mimì had said over the telephone. Signora Rosa Lo Curto was sitting in front of Montalbano, her back straight as a board. Fat, ruddy, and expansive, she looked ten years younger than the sixty she’d admitted to.
“Were you on your way to church, Signora?”
“Me?! I haven’t set foot in a church since I was eight years old.”
“Are you married?”
“My husband died five years ago. We got married in Switzerland, a civil ceremony. I can’t stand priests.”
“Why did you go out so early this morning?”
“I got a call from a friend, Michela Bajo. She’s sick and had a bad night. So I said I’d come and see her. I even brought along a bottle of good wine, the kind she likes. But I couldn’t find a plastic bag to put it in, so I carried it in my hand, since Michela lives only about a five-minute walk away.”
“And what happened, exactly?”
“The usual thing. A small motorbike drove past me, made a U-turn, and came back. He stopped about two steps in front of me, pulled out a gun and pointed it at me. ‘Give me your purse,’ he said.”
“And what did you do?”
“I said, ‘No problem.’ And I held my purse out for him. And as he was taking it, he shot his gun. But I didn’t feel anything. I knew immediately he hadn’t shot me. So, with all my might, I smashed the bottle over his hand holding the purse, which he had on the handgrip with the throttle so he could drive off in a hurry. Your men picked up the pieces of broken glass afterwards. They’re all covered with blood. I must have broken the bastard’s hand. He still made off with my purse, but I had barely ten thousand lire in it.”
Montalbano stood up and held out his hand.
“You have my sincere admiration, Signora.”
Since, upon being interviewed by Pippo Ragonese, Signora Lo Curto declared that the thought of going to church on the morning of the assault was the furthest thing from her mind, the TeleVigàta political commentator let slide his personal theory concerning a forced desertion of the churches.
The person who didn’t let anything slide was Bonetti-Alderighi.
“No, no, no! Are we back to square one or something? Look, public opinion will revolt if we sit still any longer! Actually, not ‘we,’ Montalbano: you!”
The inspector couldn’t refrain from grinning, which enraged the commissioner even more.
“And what are you smiling about, for God’s sake?!”
“Give me two days, and I’ll have the two here in front of you.”
“What two?”
“The instigator and the material executor of the assaults and the murder.”
“Are you joking?”
“Not at all. I’d predicted this last assault, you know. I just did the math, so to speak.”
Bonetti-Alderighi felt bewildered, his throat dry. He called the usher.
“Bring me a glass of water, please. Would you like one too?”
“No,” said Montalbano.
“Inspector! What a lovely surprise! What are you doing in Palermo?”
“I’m here on an investigation. I’ll be staying just a few hours before I head back to Vigàta. I hear you’ve already sold all your late wife’s properties in Vigàta as well as Montelusa.”
“Well, you know, Inspector, I just couldn’t live any longer amidst a
ll those sad reminders. So I bought this villa in Palermo, and I’ll carry on from here. I brought the few things that didn’t bring back painful memories with me, and I, well, alienated the rest, as we say in the legal profession.”
“Did you alienate the cat, too?” asked Montalbano.
“What cat?”
“Dudù. The cat your poor wife was so fond of. She also had a goldfinch. Did you bring them here with you?”
“Actually, no. I would have liked to, but unfortunately, in all the confusion of moving out of the old house . . . the cat ran away, and the bird flew away. Unfortunately . . .”
“Your wife was so fond of them, both the cat and the goldfinch.”
“I know, I know. The poor thing had these kinds of childish—”
“Excuse me, sir,” Montalbano interrupted him, “but I didn’t realize that there was a ten-year age difference between you and your wife. I mean, that you were ten years younger than her.”
Giuseppe Joppolo, the lawyer, bolted up out of his chair and made an indignant face.
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Nothing, you’re right. When there’s love . . .”
The lawyer glared at the inspector with eyes half-closed and said nothing. Montalbano continued:
“When you got married, you were practically destitute, weren’t you?”
“Leave this house at once.”
“I will, in just a minute. Now, however, with your inheritance, you’ve become very rich. At a glance I’d say you inherited about ten billion lire. It’s not always a misfortune when a loved one dies.”
“What are you insinuating?” the lawyer asked, pale as a corpse.
“Only this: that you had your wife murdered. And I even know by whom. You conceived a brilliant plan. My compliments. The first two assaults were aimed at establishing a false purpose; the real purpose was the third—the fatal assault on your wife. It was never a question of snatching purses, but of using phony muggings to conceal the true purpose: to murder your wife.”
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