The Potter's Field

by Andrea Camilleri

  Montalbano hung up.

  The inspector’s first thought was that Giovanni Alfano had bolted on the sly from the domestic hearth, to use an expression dear to Dr. Lattes. Sailing, sailing, day in, day out, putting into port after port, the guy must certainly have met another woman in some faraway town. Maybe a platinum Vikingess who smelled of soap and water, after tiring of dark, cinnamon-flavored Colombian flesh.

  By now he was probably cruising blissfully through the fiords of the North Sea. With a fond farewell and best wishes. Who was ever going to track the guy down?

  He’d planned his scheme pretty well, had Mr. Captain of the High Seas.

  He’d failed to show up for embarkation, sent Camera a note with the bogus story that he’d found a better deal somewhere else, given his cell phone to a friend, saying that if his wife called he should pretend he’s him, and asked him to send Dolores a phony postcard two months down the line. And so he’d gained a good leg up before his wife even realized he’d fled the coop and started her futile search.

  What to do now?

  Go at once to Via Guttuso 12, knock on the door, and inform the leopardess that she’s become a widow, if only by forfeit?

  How do leopardesses react when they learn their leopard has left them? Do they scratch? Do they bite? And what if, by chance, she started crying, threw herself into his arms, and wanted to be comforted?

  No, it was a rather dangerous idea.

  Perhaps it was best to phone her.

  But aren’t there certain things you just can’t say over the telephone? Montalbano was certain that, once he got to the heart of the matter, he would get tongue-tied. No, it was safer to write her a note. And advise her, before filing a missing persons report, to talk to the people at Missing, the TV program where they look for, and often find, missing persons before the police even get started.

  But wasn’t it perhaps better to put it all off till tomorrow?

  One day more or less wasn’t going to make any difference. On the contrary. This way, Signora Dolores would actually gain an extra night of peace.

  Till tomorrow, he concluded, till tomorrow.

  He was about to leave his office and head home when Fazio came in. From the face he was wearing it was clear he had something big up his sleeve. He was about to open his mouth when he noticed the scratches on the inspector’s forearms and changed expression.

  “Wha’?? How’d you scratch yourself like that? Have you disinfected them?”

  “I didn’t scratch myself,” said Montalbano, annoyed, rolling down his shirtsleeves. “And there’s no need to disinfect them.”

  “So how’d you get them, then?”

  “Geez, what a pain! I’ll tell you later. Talk to me.”

  “So. First of all, Pecorini didn’t use any agency to rent out his house. I called them all. However, a certain Mr. Maiorca, owner of one of the agencies, when he heard me mention Pecorini over the telephone, said, ‘Who, the butcher?’ ‘Do you know him?’ I asked. And he said, ‘Yes.’ So I went and talked to him in person.”

  He pulled out a little piece of paper from which he was about to read something, but a homicidal glance from Montalbano stopped him dead.

  “Okay, okay, Chief, no vital statistics. Just the bare essentials. The Pecorini of interest to us is a fifty-year-old from Vigàta, first name Arturo, who lived in Vigàta until two years ago and worked as a butcher. Then he moved to Catania, where he opened an enormous butcher shop at the port, near the customs house. Fits the bill, no?”

  “Seems to. Is the summer house the only thing he kept in Vigàta?”

  “No. He’s got another house, in town, that had always been his main residence, in Via Pippo Rizzo.”

  “Do you know where that street is?”

  “Yeah, in that same rich neighborhood I said I didn’t like. It runs parallel to Via Guttuso.”

  “I see. And he only comes back here in the summer?”

  “Who ever said that? He kept his butcher shop here and got his brother, named Ignazio, to look after it. And he comes here every Saturday to see how the business is going.”

  Maybe—thought Montalbano—Mimì got to know the butcher from buying meat at his shop and found out, or already knew, that Pecorini had an empty house to rent. That might explain it.

  “Did you also talk with your friend at the Antimafia Commission, Morici?”

  “I did. We’re meeting tomorrow morning at nine in a bar in Montelusa. Now will you tell me how you got those scratches?”

  “Dolores Alfano did it.”

  Fazio was taken aback.

  “Is she as beautiful as they say?”

  “Very beautiful.”

  “She came here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she come to report the person who tried to run over her?”

  “The subject never even came up.”

  “Then what did she want?”

  Montalbano had to explain the whole matter to him, including the disappearance of Giovanni Alfano.

  “And how did she scratch you?”

  A little embarrassed, Montalbano explained.

  “Be careful, Chief. That lady bites.”

  10

  He had just finished savoring the melanzane alla parmigiana when Livia called.

  “I’ve been on the phone for the last half hour with Beba. She’s desperate and can’t stop crying.”

  “But why?”

  “Because Mimì is treating her very badly. He screams and yells and it’s not at all clear what he wants. This morning he made a terrible scene. Beba thinks these nighttime stakeouts are wearing him out.”

  “Did you tell her they’ll be over soon?”

  “Yes, but in the meantime . . . poor Beba . . . But, tell me something, Salvo. Has Mimì done any stakeouts like these in the past?”

  “Sure, dozens.”

  “And he’s never reacted this way before?”

  “Never.”

  “So, why is it that now . . . Bah! Couldn’t it be that something else is going on in his life?”

  An alarm bell went off in the inspector’s head.

  “Like what?”

  “I dunno . . . maybe he’s fallen in love with someone else . . . Mimì used to fall in love so easily . . . Maybe, between the exhaustion from his stakeouts and the uneasiness he feels around Beba...”

  For heaven’s sake, that idea wasn’t supposed to even graze Livia’s consciousness! It could compromise everything!

  “I’m sorry, Livia, but when could he have met this other woman? He hasn’t got the time for it. Think about it. At the moment, he spends his nights on stakeouts or at home, and during the day he’s at the office...”

  “You’re right. But why suddenly all these stakeouts, and all on Mimì’s shoulders?”

  Shit! Livia was becoming dangerous. Guided by her feminine sense of smell, she was getting close to the truth. There were two ways to throw her off the scent: either start yelling like a madman that the rise in crime was not his fault, or else try to reason with her calmly. If he did the former, the conversation would end in a blowout, and Livia would simply harden her position; whereas, with the latter, maybe...

  “Well, the situation here has practically become a state of emergency, you know . . . There’s a band of fugitives roaming the countryside . . . We’ve already caught one person, thanks to Mimì, in fact. And it’s not true that it’s all on Mimì’s shoulders. He’s been going out every other night, more or less. On his nights off, he’s replaced by someone else.”

  All lies. But Livia seemed to have been convinced.

  Before going to bed, he turned on the television. The purse-lipped mouth of Pippo Ragonese’s chicken-ass face was saying something related to him.

  “. . . and I certainly am not referring to possible developments in the investigation of the dismembered murder victim found in the area called ’u critaru. To be perfectly frank, I am, unfortunately, quite certain that that case will eventually be closed without the killer’s or
the victim’s names ever being discovered. No, I am referring to what might happen later, in the investigation of some future crime of great importance. Will the Vigàta Police be able to work as a unit on a complex case, without internal misunderstandings that could undermine their solidarity? This, in fact, is our fear. And you can count on my coming back to this subject in the very near future.”

  Those words disturbed the inspector greatly as they began to sink in. Internal misunderstandings. Clearly Ragonese had got wind, in one way or another, of what was happening in the department because of Mimì. He knew only half the story. And it was absolutely crucial to stop him before he knew all of it. But how? The inspector would have to think about this.

  The following morning he got dressed up, even putting on a tie. It didn’t seem right to go see Dolores Alfano dressed casually, having, as he did, to give her news that, no matter how you looked at it, was bad.

  But since it was still too early—a few minutes to nine—to pay her a call, the inspector dropped by the station first.

  “Ahh Chief Chief! Y’look so fancy when y’get dressed up all fancy!” Catarella commented in admiration.

  “Anyone here?”

  “Yessir. Fazio.”

  “Send him to me.”

  Fazio came in, looked at him, and asked:

  “You on your way to see Signora Alfano?”

  “Yeah, in a little bit. And you’re coming too.”

  Fazio was unprepared for this.

  “But . . . why? Aren’t you enough?”

  “Didn’t you say yourself that she bites? If you’re there too, you might help keep her still and prevent her from biting me.”

  “Whatever you say, Chief. Meanwhile, I’ve already seen Morici.”

  “So soon?”

  “Yeah, Chief. Yesterday he was told he had to go to Palermo for a week, and so he phoned me and moved the appointment up to seven o’clock this morning.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “Well, something strange. He said they’d received a tip that turned out to be a red herring.”

  “Meaning?”

  “About two months ago, they received an anonymous letter.”

  “For a change!”

  “But this one seemed different, like it might contain a grain of truth.”

  “What did it say?”

  “That Don Balduccio Sinagra had somebody killed.”

  “Don Balduccio? The guy’s over ninety years old! Hasn’t he retired from the family business?”

  “I don’t know what to tell you, Chief. That’s what the letter said. It explained that Don Balduccio intervened in that particular instance because he had felt personally offended.”

  “I see. And who was it that offended him and got liquidated?”

  “The letter didn’t give his name. But it did say the guy was a courier who instead of delivering some merchandise had sold it himself.”

  “And then?”

  “The Antimafia people got moving right away. If they could get their hands on even a little proof, it would be a major coup. And they didn’t ask for any help from Narcotics—you know how these things are. But if they had, they would have saved themselves some time.”

  “Why?”

  “After four frantic days of investigation, Inspector Musante happened to run into Inspector Ballerini from Narcotics, who, in the course of the conversation, told him that Don Balduccio Sinagra was in a coma in a Palermo hospital. And so they decided that Balduccio couldn’t have given the order to have anyone killed. And, at any rate, they hadn’t found anything, not even the courier’s dead body.”

  “And what was their conclusion?”

  “That someone had taken them for a ride, Chief.”

  “Or someone wanted to make trouble for Don Balduccio, not knowing he was in a coma.”

  “. . . and so, to conclude, your husband never boarded the Ruy Barbosa.”

  Dolores Alfano froze like a statue.

  She was standing in front of Montalbano and Fazio, who were sitting in two armchairs in her living room, and about to serve them coffee. Her left arm remained raised in midair, perhaps to brush her hair back, while her right arm reached downwards.

  For a split second, the inspector felt as if he were looking at a sugar doll of a dancing girl, which were almost always Spanish dancers. Even the scent of cinnamon, which immediately grew stronger, added to this impression. He felt a terrible desire to stick out his tongue and lick her neck, so he could taste her skin, which must surely be sweet.

  The lady then came back to life. Saying nothing, she completed the movements she had begun. She brushed the hair away from her eyes, bent forward to pour the coffee into the two cups with a steady hand, asked them how much sugar they took, put this in the cups, which she then handed them, and sat down on the sofa.

  Montalbano was watching her. She hadn’t lost color, and showed no surprise or agitation at the news. The only outward sign was a deep, straight furrow cutting horizontally across her brow. She waited until the two men had finished their coffee before she spoke.

  “You’re not joking, are you?”

  No drama in her tone, no cracking in her voice from pent-up tears. A simple, flat question.

  “No, unfortunately,” said Montalbano.

  “What do you think could have happened to him?” she asked in the same tone, as if she were talking about someone without the slightest connection to her.

  Sugar doll? She was a woman of marble and steel, was Signora Dolores! A contradictory woman, though: able to control herself, as she was at this moment, but also liable to abandon herself to acts of passion, as when she scratched his arm.

  “Well, the most likely scenario is a voluntary disappearance.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because Mr. Camera told me that a few days after not showing up for boarding, your husband sent him a note saying he’d found a better offer.”

  “But that could be a forgery, like the postcard I received the other day,” Dolores replied readily.

  Intelligent woman, no doubt about it, whose brain still functioned in spite of the blow she’d just received.

  “That’s precisely why I would like to get my hands on that note, provided Camera still has it.”

  “Why don’t you try?”

  “Before I can make any moves, I need a formal missing persons declaration from you.”

  “All right, then, I’ll do that. Should I come with you?”

  “There’s no need. Fazio can take down your declaration right here, after I leave. I would, however, like to ask you a few more things.”

  “So would I.”

  “All right, then, after you.”

  “But first, please, if you have other questions to ask me, come sit on the sofa beside me. I can’t . . .”

  For a millionth of a second, Fazio’s and Montalbano’s eyes met. Then Montalbano did as asked.

  “Is that better?” he said, settling in.

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “Have you got a recent photo of your husband?”

  “As many as you like. There are even some we took a few days before he left. I’d gone along with him to say goodbye to a distant relative of his . . .”

  “All right, you can show me them later, and I’ll select one to take with me. But now I have to ask you something I already asked you yesterday, which I’m sure will be unpleasant for you. I’m sorry, but...”

  Dolores raised a hand and placed it on Montalbano’s knee. It was hot and trembling ever so slightly. Apparently only now was what the inspector had told her beginning to sink in. And it was becoming harder for her to control herself.

  “From the letter you kindly showed me yesterday, it was clear that your relationship with your husband was very . . . well, very intense. Would you say that’s true?”

  Fazio suddenly leaned forward, closer to the notebook on his leg, and pretended to take notes.

  “Yes. Very intense,” said Dolores.

  �
�And, during your husband’s last stay here, would you say—and I want you to think this over very carefully—would you say that this . . . this intensity had perhaps diminished a little? Was there maybe a cooling, however minor, that might . . . What I mean is, was anything at all different from the other times he...”

  She squeezed his knee tight. And the heat of her hand traveled straight as an arrow from that point and up his thigh just enough to reach a rather delicate spot in the inspector’s anatomy. He gave a start, barely able to contain himself.

  “Something was very different,” she said so softly that Fazio had to lean forward to hear her.

  “But the last time we spoke, you said the opposite,” the inspector was quick to point out.

  “Well . . . because Giovanni was . . . different . . . which isn’t really the right word, not in the sense that you think...”

  “How, then?”

  But why didn’t she take her goddamn hand off his knee?

  “In fact, he had become . . . it was like he was starving. Nothing was ever enough. Two or three times, when we had just finished eating, he couldn’t even wait for me to get to the bedroom . . . And he would ask me to do things which before . . .”

  Having become suddenly nearsighted, Fazio raised his notebook directly in front of his eyes, to hide his blushing face. The palm of Dolores’s hand, for its part, had started sweating at the memory of those recent connubial exploits, to the point that Montalbano could feel the dampness through the fabric of his trousers.

  “Perhaps if I give you a few details, you’ll better understand the degree—”

  “No! No details!” Montalbano nearly yelled, suddenly standing up.

  He couldn’t stand it any longer. That hand was driving him out of his wits.

  She looked at him as if baffled. Was it possible she had no idea of the effect her hand and voice had on a man?

  “All right, signora,” Montalbano continued. “Let’s consider this chapter closed. Tell me, does your husband have any enemies?”

  “Inspector, all I know about my husband’s life is what he chooses to tell me, in person or in writing. He’s certainly never mentioned anything about enemies. It’s true he’s talked a few times about some arguments he’d had with other officers or crew members, but those were all things of no importance.”