Patience of the Spider

by Andrea Camilleri

  He immediately realized what it was, and in two strides he was in front of the bush. A motorcycle helmet. Small. Made for a woman’s head. It must not have been lying there very long, because there was only a very fine layer of dust on it. New, no scrapes. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket, wrapped it around his right hand, fingers included, crouched down, grabbed the helmet, and flipped it over. Then he flopped face-down on the ground to look carefully inside it. It appeared to be very clean. No bloodstains. Two or three long strands of blonde hair were snagged inside it and stood out against the black padding. He was absolutely certain the helmet belonged to Susanna.

  “Hey, Chief, where are you?”

  It was Gallo. He put the helmet back the way he’d found it and stood up.

  “Come here.”

  Gallo approached, his curiosity aroused. Montalbano pointed to the helmet.

  “I think that’s the girl’s.”

  “You really are one lucky asshole,” Gallo couldn’t help saying.

  “It’s your asshole that’s the lucky one,” said the inspector.

  “My compliments to its investigative skills.”

  “But if the helmet is here, it means the girl is being held somewhere nearby! Should I call for reinforcements?”

  “That’s what they want you to think, and that’s why they dumped the helmet here. They’re trying to throw us off the trail.”

  “So what should we do?”

  “Get ahold of Augello’s team and have them send somebody to stand guard here. Meanwhile, don’t you move from this spot until they arrive. I don’t want some passerby to find the helmet and make off with it. And move the car as well, because you’re blocking the way.” “Who is ever going to pass this way?”

  Montalbano, who had started walking away, didn’t answer.

  “And where are you going?”

  “I’m going to see if they really do have fresh eggs.” As he approached the cottage, the sound of clucking grew louder and louder, but he didn’t see any chickens. The coop must have been behind the house. As he entered the yard, a girl came out of the open front door of the cottage. She was thirtyish, tall, with black hair but fair skin, and a full, beautiful body. She was sort of dressed up and wearing high heels. For a moment Montalbano thought she was some lady who’d come to buy eggs. But the woman smiled at him and said in dialect: “Why’d you leave your car so far away? You could have parked it right here in front.”

  Montalbano made a vague gesture with his hand.

  “Please come in,” said the woman, going in first.

  A wall divided the small house’s interior into two rooms.

  The one in front, which must have been the dining room, featured a table in the middle with four baskets of eggs on top, as well as four cane chairs, a sideboard with a phone, a refrigerator, and a small gas stove in the corner. Another corner was hidden by a plastic curtain. The only thing that looked out of place in the room was a small cot that served as a sofa. Everything was sparkling clean. The young woman stared straight at him but said nothing. A few moments later she finally asked, in a whisper the inspector didn’t know what to make of: “Did you come for eggs, or . . . ?”

  What was “or . . .” supposed to mean? The only way to find out was to see what would happen.

  “Or . . .” Montalbano said.

  The woman got up, cast a quick glance at the back room, then closed the door. The inspector imagined there must be someone, perhaps a sleeping child, in the other room, obviously the bedroom. The woman sat down on the cot, took off her shoes, and started unbuttoning her blouse.

  “Close the front door. If you want to wash, you’ll find everything behind the curtain,” she said to Montalbano.

  So that was what she’d meant by “or . . .” He raised his hand.

  “That’s okay,” he said.

  08

  The woman gave him a puzzled look.

  “I’m Inspector Montalbano.”

  “Madonna biniditta!” she cried, turning red in the face and jumping up like a spring.

  “Don’t be afraid. Have you got a permit to sell eggs?”

  “Yessir. I’ll go get it.”

  “That’s the important thing. You don’t have to show it to me, but I’m sure my colleagues will ask to see it.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “First answer me. Do you live here alone?”

  “No, with my husband.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “In there.”

  Right there? In the other room? Montalbano’s jaw dropped.

  What? Her husband just sat there, cool as a cucumber, while his wife fucked the first man to walk by?

  “Call him.”

  “He can’t come.”

  “Why not?”

  “He got no legs. They had to cut ’em off after the accident,” she said.

  “What accident?”

  “Tractor flipped over when he was plowing the fields.”

  “When did this happen?”

  “Three years ago. Two years after we got married.”

  “Let me see him.”

  The woman went and opened the door, then stood aside.

  The inspector went in. His nose was immediately assailed by a strong smell of medication. In a large double bed, a man lay half asleep and breathing heavily. In one corner was a television with an armchair in front of it. The top of the dressing table was entirely covered by medicine bottles and syringes.

  “They also cut off ’is left hand,” the woman said softly.

  “He’s in terrible pain, day and night.”

  “Why don’t you put him in a hospital?”

  “Because I can take better care of him. The problem is the medications cost so much and I don’t want him to go without ’em. I’d sell my own eyes if I had to. That’s why I receive men here. Dr. Mistretta told me to give him a shot when the pain gets too bad. Just an hour ago he was crying like a baby, asking me to kill him. He wanted to die. So I gave him a shot.” Montalbano looked over at the dresser. Morphine.

  “Let’s go back in the other room.”

  They went back in the dining room.

  “Do you know that a girl has been kidnapped?”

  “Yessir. I seen it on TV.”

  “Have you noticed anything unusual around here the last few days?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Are you sure?”

  The woman hesitated.

  “The other night . . . but it was probably nothing.”

  “Tell me anyway.”

  “The other night I was lying awake in bed and I heard a car drive up . . . I thought maybe it was someone coming to see me, so I got up.”

  “You receive clients even at night?”

  “Yessir. But they’re nice men, respectable, and so they don’t want anybody to see ’em during the day. But they always call before they come. That’s why I was surprised this car came, ’cause nobody’d called. But then the car pulled up here and turned around, ’cause there’s no room anywhere else.” This poor woman and her wretched, bedridden husband couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the kidnapping.

  Their house, moreover, was out in the open and heavily fre-quented by outsiders day and night.

  “Listen,” said Montalbano, “near the spot where we left the car, we found something that might belong to the girl who was kidnapped.”

  The woman turned white as a sheet.

  “We got nothing to do with that,” she said firmly.

  “I know. But you’re going to be questioned. Tell them about the car, but don’t mention that people come to see you at night. And don’t let them see you dressed like that. Remove your makeup and those high-heeled shoes. And put the cot in the bedroom. All you sell here is eggs, got that?” He heard a car and went outside. The patrolman summoned by Gallo had arrived. But with him was also Mimì Augello.

  “I was about to come relieve you,” said Montalbano.

  “There’s no longer any need,” sa
id Mimì. “They’ve already sent Bonolis over to coordinate the search. I guess the commissioner didn’t want to put you in charge for even a minute. We can go back to Vigàta.” While Gallo was showing his colleague where the helmet was, Mimì, with Montalbano’s help, climbed into the other car.

  “What on earth happened to you?”

  “I fell into a ditch full of rocks. I must have broken a few ribs. Did you report that you’d found the helmet?” Montalbano slapped himself on the forehead.

  “I forgot!”

  Augello knew Montalbano too well not to know that when he forgot to do something, it meant he didn’t feel like doing it.

  “You want me to call?”

  “Yes. Ring Minutolo and tell him what happened.”

  o o o

  They had just started driving back when Mimì, with an air of indifference, said:

  “You know something?”

  “Do you do it on purpose?”

  “Do I do what on purpose?”

  “Ask me if I know something. That question drives me crazy.”

  “Okay, okay. About two hours ago, the Carabinieri reported that they’d found the girl’s backpack.”

  “Are you sure it’s hers?”

  “Absolutely. Her ID card was inside.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Nothing. Empty.”

  “Good,” said the inspector. “One to one.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “First we find one thing, then the Carabinieri find another. Tie game. Where was the backpack?”

  “On the road to Montereale. Behind the four-kilometer marker. It was pretty visible.”

  “In the very opposite direction from where we found the helmet!”

  “Exactly.”

  Silence fell.

  “Does your ‘exactly’ mean you’re thinking exactly the same thing I’m thinking?”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’ll try to translate your brevity into something a little clearer. Namely: All this searching, all this running around, is nothing but a waste of time, one big fuck-up.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’ll translate some more. The way we see it, the kidnappers, on the night of the kidnapping, got in their car and drove around, throwing various things belonging to Susanna out the window, to create a variety of phony leads. All of which means—” “—that the girl’s not being held anywhere near the places where her things have been found,” Mimì concluded, adding,

  “and we’re going to have to convince the commissioner of this, otherwise he’s liable to have us searching all the way to the Aspromonte.”

  o o o

  At the office he found Fazio waiting for him. He already knew about the objects they’d found. He was carrying a small suitcase.

  “Going away?”

  “No, Chief. I’m going back to the villa. Dr. Minutolo wants me to man the phone. I’ve got a change of clothes in here.”

  “Was there something you wanted to tell me?”

  “Yessir. After the special edition of TeleVigàta News, the phone at the villa started ringing off the hook. . . . Nothing of interest, though. Just interview requests, words of support, people saying prayers, that kind of thing. But there were two that were a little different in tone. The first one was from a former administrative employee at Peruzzo’s.” “What’s Peruzzo’s?”

  “I don’t know, Chief. But that’s what he called himself.

  He even said his name didn’t matter. And he told me to tell Mr. Mistretta that pride may be a good thing, but too much pride is bad. That was all.”

  “Hmph. What about the other one?”

  “Some old lady. She wanted to talk to Mrs. Mistretta.

  When I finally convinced her Mrs. Mistretta couldn’t come to the phone, she told me to repeat the following words to her:

  ‘Susanna’s life is in your hands. Remove the obstacles and take the first step.’ ”

  “What do you make of it?”

  “Nothing. Chief, I’m leaving. Are you coming by the villa?”

  “I don’t think so, not tonight. Listen, did you tell Minutolo about these phone calls?”

  “No, Chief.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I didn’t think he would consider them important. Whereas you, I thought, might find them interesting.” Fazio went out.

  Good cop. He’d realized that although those two phone calls might be incomprehensible, they had something in common. Not much, but a sure thing. Indeed, both the former Peruzzo’s employee and the old lady were advising Mr. and Mrs. Mistretta, husband and wife, to change their attitudes.

  The first advised the husband to be more flexible, while the second suggested that the wife actually take the initiative, by

  “removing the obstacles.” Maybe the investigation—which so far had been aimed entirely outwards—needed to change direction. That is, maybe they needed to look inside the kidnap victim’s family. At this point it became important to speak with Mrs. Mistretta. What sort of condition was she in, anyway? On the other hand, how would he justify his questions if the infirm woman was still unaware that her daughter had been kidnapped? He needed some serious help from Dr. Mistretta. He looked at his watch. Twenty minutes to eight.

  He phoned Livia to tell her he’d be late for dinner.

  “Not once can we eat dinner on time!”

  He took it in, didn’t react. He didn’t have time to squabble with her.

  The phone rang again. It was Gallo. They’d decided to keep Mimì in the hospital for observation.

  o o o

  The inspector arrived at the first filling station on the road to Fela at eight p.m. sharp, punctual as a Swiss watch. No sign, however, of Dr. Mistretta. Ten minutes and two cigarettes later, Montalbano started to worry. Doctors are never to be trusted. When they give you an office appointment, they make you wait an hour at the very least; when they give you an appointment outside the office, they still show up an hour late, with the excuse that a patient arrived at the last minute.

  Dr. Mistretta pulled up next to Montalbano’s car in his SUV, only half an hour late.

  “Sorry I’m late, but at the last minute, a patient—”

  “I understand.”

  “Will you please follow me?”

  They set out, the one in front and the other behind. And they went on and on, the one in front and the other behind, turning off the national road, then off the provincial road, taking dirt road after dirt road and leaving these behind as well.

  At last they arrived at an isolated spot in the open country, pulling up at the gate to a villa quite a bit bigger than the doctor’s geologist brother’s house, and in better condition. It was surrounded by a high wall. Did these Mistrettas feel somehow diminished if they didn’t live in country villas? The doctor got out of his car, opened the gate, and drove in, signaling Montalbano to do the same.

  They parked in the garden, which was not as ill-tended as the other one, but almost.

  To the right stood another large, low structure, probably the former stables. The doctor opened the front door to the villa, turned on the lights, and showed the inspector into a large salon.

  “I’ll be right back. I have to go close the gate.” It was clear he had no family and lived alone. The salon was handsomely furnished and well-maintained. One wall was entirely covered by a rich collection of painted glass. Montalbano felt spellbound as he studied the shrill colors and simultaneously naïve and refined strokes. Another wall was half covered with tall shelves containing not medical or scientific books, as he would have imagined, but novels.

  “Forgive me,” the doctor said upon returning. “Can I get you something?”

  “No, thank you. You’re not married, are you, Doctor?”

  “No, when I was young I never wanted to get married.

  Then one day I realized that I was too old to do so.”

  “And you live here alone?”

  The doctor smiled.

  “I know wh
at you mean. This house is too big for only one person. There used to be vineyards and olive groves . . .

  That building you saw next to the house still has wine vats, cellars, and winepresses that nobody uses anymore . . . And here the upstairs has been closed off since time immemorial.

  So the answer is yes, I’ve been living here alone for the last few years. For household matters, I have a maid who works morn-ings, three days a week. For my meals . . . I make do.” He paused.

  “Or else I go eat at the house of a lady friend. You would have found out sooner or later, anyway. She’s a widow I’ve been seeing now for over ten years. And there you have it.” “Thank you, Doctor, but my purpose, in coming to see you, is to learn a little more about your sister-in-law’s illness, provided, of course, that you’re able and willing—”

  “Look, Inspector, there’s no professional code of secrecy in this instance. My sister-in-law has been poisoned. The poison’s effect is irreversible, and it will inexorably lead to her death.” “Someone poisoned her?!”

  A blow to the head, a stone from the sky, a punch in the face. The sudden, violent shock of this revelation, uttered so placidly, almost without emotion, struck the inspector physically, to the point that his ears made a ringing sound. Or was that short ring actually real? Perhaps the bell of the gate had rung?

  Or else the telephone on the side table had made a brief ting?

  The doctor, however, gave no sign of having heard anything.

  “No need to be so vague,” the doctor said without changing expression, like a teacher pointing out a minor mistake in a student’s theme paper. “She wasn’t poisoned by just ‘someone,’ but by one man in particular.” “And do you know his name?”