The Potter's Field

by Andrea Camilleri

  Mimì

  He handed the note to Fazio, who read it and gave it back without saying a word.

  “What do you make of it?”

  “Chief, I already told you I don’t think it’s a good idea to assign a case like this to Inspector Augello. But you’re the one who gives the orders around here.”

  Montalbano put the note and envelope in his jacket pocket.

  “What did you want to tell me?”

  “Chief, would you please explain to me what it is you need to think over?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You said you needed a day to think things over with regard to Giovanni Alfano.”

  “So?”

  “What’s to think over? It all seems so clear to me!”

  “You mean it seems clear to you that Giovanni Alfano was killed on orders from Balduccio?”

  “Matre santa, Chief, you said it yourself!”

  “I said that the facts that we have come to know lead us inevitably to this conclusion.”

  “Why, could there be any other conclusion?”

  “Why not?”

  “But what are your doubts based on?”

  “I’ll give you an example, okay? Don’t you think there’s a certain inconsistency in Balduccio’s way of going about things?”

  “And what would that be?”

  “Can you explain to me why Balduccio would blithely let Giovanni Alfano leave for Gioia Tauro? The only possible answer is that he didn’t want him killed here in Vigàta, where he would have almost immediately been implicated in our investigation, but far from his territory. And that’s probably what happened.”

  “So where’s the inconsistency?”

  “The inconsistency is in bringing the body back here—that is, back into his own territory.”

  “But he couldn’t have done otherwise, Chief!”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he had to set an example, so that other potential traitors in the family would think twice about betraying him!”

  “Right. But then he might as well have him killed here and be done with it!”

  Fazio remained a little doubtful.

  “And there’s more,” Montalbano continued. “You want to hear it?”

  “Sure.”

  “Let’s imagine that Balduccio sends a real professional to Gioia Tauro, someone who knows his trade and never makes mistakes.”

  “And in fact he left no fingerprints whatsoever,” said Fazio.

  “Yeah. But he left a little cocaine inside a shoebox in the crawl space. Does that seem to you like an insignificant fuckup? For us, the cocaine means a direct connection to Balduccio. So, in short, this so-called professional fails to do the very thing he’s supposed to do, remove the very notion that any cocaine has ever passed through the place. Doesn’t that seem strange to you?”

  “So it does . . .”

  “And shall I throw down my ace while we’re at it?”

  “Might as well . . .” said Fazio, resigned.

  “Why leave a pair of trousers in plain view on the bed? It’s clear they belong to Giovanni Alfano—you can even see the initials on the belt buckle. Not only that, but there was no reason for Alfano to change his trousers. All they had to do was put those trousers back in their place in the armoire, and we never would have known that Alfano went back to Via Gerace. So what, then, is the purpose of those trousers? Is it to let us know that Alfano, by force or by his own choosing, returned to his apartment? And who benefits from such information? If it was a mistake, it was a huge one, because Signora Dolores noticed immediately that the apartment was not the way she left it. There was even shit in the toilet bowl! Can you tell me what need there was for the professional to return to the apartment with Giovanni? Wouldn’t it have been better to get rid of him while he was on his way to board the ship? The only possible explanation is that he went back to the apartment to eliminate any trace of a possible connection with Balduccio. But that’s exactly what he didn’t do! So why, then, go back there with Alfano? There’s something here that doesn’t make sense to me.”

  “Enough. I surrender,” said Fazio, who got up and left.

  “Chief ? ’At’d be a Mr. Lambrusco.”

  “What’s he want?”

  “ ’E says you summonsed ’im fer tomorrow mornin’.”

  “So, let him come tomorrow morning.”

  “ ’E don’t got the possibility, Chief. Says how tomorrow mornin’ ’e can’t ’cuz tomorrow mornin’ he gotta go to Milan emergently tomorrow mornin’.”

  “All right then, put him on.”

  “I can’t put ’im on in so much as ’at this Lambrusco’s ’ere poissonally in poisson.”

  “Then send him in.”

  He was a fortyish man with beard, mustache, and eyeglasses, tiny in stature and all polished and shiny, from his hair to his shoes.

  “Hello, I’m Carlo Dambrusco. I’m sorry, I know you summoned me for tomorrow morning, but since tomorrow I have to—”

  “What was this in reference to?”

  “Well, I . . . I believe I gathered that . . . well, in short, I’m a friend of Giovanni Alfano.”

  “Ah, yes. Please sit down.”

  “Has something happened to Giovanni?”

  “He was supposed to board a ship and never showed up.”

  “He didn’t show up?”

  “No. His wife has filed a report.”

  Dambrusco seemed genuinely stunned by the news.

  “He didn’t board the ship?” he asked again.

  “No.”

  “So where did he go?”

  “That’s what we’re trying to find out.”

  “The last time I saw him...”

  “When was that?”

  “Let me think . . . The first of September.”

  “Go on.”

  “He said goodbye to me because he was going to set sail two or three days later . . . He made no indication to me that he didn’t intend to . . . He takes his work very seriously.”

  “Does he confide in you much?”

  “Good heavens . . . we were very good friends in childhood, before he left for Colombia . . . Then we got back in touch, later on, but it was different. We were friends, but we weren’t so close that...”

  “I see. But did he confide in you?”

  “In what sense?”

  “In the way that a friend confides in a friend. For example, did he ever talk to you about his relations with his wife? Did he ever mention whether, in his travels, he met any other women . . . ?”

  Dambrusco shook his head emphatically and repeatedly.

  “I really don’t think so. He’s a serious person, not the kind to take love affairs lightly. In any case, he is very much in love with Dolores. In fact he’s confided to me that he misses her very much when he’s at sea.”

  “And what about Dolores?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Does Dolores miss her husband very much when he is at sea?”

  Carlo Dambrusco thought about this a moment.

  “I honestly can’t say. Every time I’ve met Dolores she’s been with Giovanni. I’ve never had a chance to talk to her when he wasn’t there.”

  “Fine, but that really wasn’t what I meant.”

  “I realize that. But, to answer your question, no, I’ve never heard any malicious gossip about Dolores’s behavior.”

  “One last question. As far as we know, Giovanni, when at home in Vigàta, had only three friends with whom he socialized, you being one of them. I’ll be talking to the other two tomorrow morning. Which of the three was he closest to?”

  Dambrusco did not hesitate.

  “Michele Tripodi. Who’s waiting outside.”

  “You mean he’s here?”

  “Yes. He brought me here in his car. I have to take mine to Milan tomorrow, and it’s still at the mechanic’s.”

  “Would you do me a favor? Could you ask him if he would come in to see me now instead of tomorrow m
orning ? It shouldn’t take but five minutes.”

  “Of course.”

  13

  Michele Tripodi also looked to be about forty but, unlike Dambrusco, who was diminutive and skinny, he was tall, athletic, and affable, a handsome specimen.

  “Carlo told me Giovanni has disappeared. Is it true? Does Dolores know?”

  “It was Mrs. Alfano herself who got things moving.”

  “But when would he have disappeared? When she got back from Gioia Tauro, Dolores told me Giovanni had taken ship.”

  “That’s what Giovanni led her to believe, or was forced to have her believe.”

  Michele Tripodi’s face darkened.

  “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “You don’t like the sound of what?”

  “What you just said. Giovanni never deceives Dolores, nor would he have any reason to make her believe something that wasn’t true.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “About what?”

  “About both things.”

  “Listen, Inspector. Giovanni is so taken by Dolores, I mean physically taken, that he’s not sure, he told me, that he could even make love to another woman.”

  “Does he have any enemies?”

  “I don’t know whether during the long sea voyages . . . at any rate, I think he would have mentioned it to me.”

  “Listen, this is a delicate subject, but I have to ask you about it. If Giovanni has been kidnapped, couldn’t this be a sort of vendetta by proxy?”

  Michele Tripodi understood at once.

  “You mean a vendetta against the Sinagras?”

  “Yes.”

  “You see, Inspector, Giovanni felt very indebted, and grateful, to Don Balduccio, who helped him out when his father died . . . But Giovanni’s an honest man; he has no truck with the Sinagras’ business . . . And he always felt ashamed of what his father, Filippo, did in Colombia . . . It’s true, of course, that whenever he comes to Vigàta he pays a call on Don Balduccio, no doubt about it, but it’s not as if they’re so close that—”

  “I understand. As far as you know, has Giovanni ever used cocaine?”

  Michele Tripodi started laughing. A hearty, full-bellied laugh.

  “Are you kidding? Giovanni hates drugs of any kind! He doesn’t even smoke! And he even made Dolores give it up! Remember how his father was killed? Well, that fact marked him for life, and he has behaved accordingly.”

  “I’m sorry, but I have another delicate question to ask you. It’s about Dolores. It seems there are two conflicting opinions about her in town.”

  “Inspector, Dolores is a beautiful woman who is forced to remain alone too often and for too long. And perhaps she’s a bit too impulsive, and a bit too expansive, and this can sometimes give rise to misunderstandings.”

  “Tell me one.”

  “One what?”

  “Give me an example of one such misunderstanding.”

  “Well, I don’t know . . . After she’d been in Vigàta for about a year, a boy, an eighteen-year-old from a good family, started serenading her, literally singing serenades to her, and then started harassing her on the phone, and one time even tried to enter her apartment . . . Dolores had to call the carabinieri . . .”

  “Only eighteen-year-olds? No adults?”

  “Well, about two years ago there was a more serious episode where a butcher lost his head over her . . . doing ridiculous things like sending her a bouquet of roses every day . . . Eventually he had to move to Catania, and poor Dolores’s persecutions ended there, fortunately.”

  Montalbano laughed.

  “Yes, I’d heard that story of the love-smitten butcher before . . . His name was Pecorella, if I’m not mistaken...”

  “No, Pecorini,” Tripodi corrected him.

  Was it important to know that the butcher who rented his house to Mimì for his amorous trysts had also fallen in love with Dolores Alfano two years before? At first glance, it appeared not. But there was another question that had come into the inspector’s head the moment Tripodi had told him the story of the butcher. Tripodi said that to rid herself of the boy who was bothering her, Dolores had called the carabinieri. But he didn’t say what action Dolores had taken in the butcher’s case. She certainly hadn’t asked the carabinieri for help on that occasion. The butcher, however, had resolved the problem by moving to Catania. And this was where the question arose: Why, from one day to the next, had he moved away from Vigàta if he was so in love with Dolores? What could have happened to him?

  “Fazio! Into my office, quick! Fazio!”

  “What is it, Chief?”

  “You remember Pecorini?”

  “The butcher? Yes.”

  “I want to know, by tomorrow morning at the latest, why he left Vigàta two years ago and opened a butcher shop in Catania.”

  “All right, Chief. But what did this Pecorini do, sell meat with mad cow disease or something?”

  It was now late, and the inspector felt mighty hungry. Just as he was standing up, the telephone decided to ring. He hesitated a moment, wondering whether or not he should answer, but a goddamned sense of duty got the better of him.

  “Chief ! Ahh Chief! That’d be Mr. Giacchetta.”

  The inspector remembered that Giacchetti had asked for him.

  “Show him in.”

  “I can’t, Chief, seeing as how he’s in telephonic communication.”

  “Then put him through.”

  “Inspector Montalbano? This is Fabio Giacchetti, the bank manager who . . . Do you remember me?”

  “Of course I remember you. How are your wife and child?”

  “Very well, thanks.”

  And Giacchetti stopped talking.

  “So?” the inspector prodded him.

  “Well, now that I’m on the phone and talking to you, I’m not sure if I really ought to...”

  Geez, what a pain! The inspector also remembered that the bank manager was someone who was always taking one step forward, two steps back, a ditherer born and bred, an expert in the art of shilly-shallying. He didn’t feel like wasting any more time.

  “Let me be the judge of whether you ought to or not. What did you want to tell me?”

  “But it may be something of no importance...”

  “Listen, Mr. Giacchetta—”

  “Giacchetti. All right, I’ll tell you, even though it’s not . . . Well, I saw the car again, I’m sure of it.”

  “What car?”

  “The one that tried to run the woman over... Remember?”

  “Yes. You’ve seen it again?”

  “Yes, yesterday. It was right in front of me at a stoplight. This time I took down the license number.”

  “Now, are you quite sure that it was the same car, Mr. Giacchetti?”

  A careless question, in which Giacchetti got lost and drowned.

  “Quite sure, you ask? How could I possibly be one hundred percent sure? Sometimes I’m sure, and other times no. At certain moments I could swear to it, and at others I feel I really can’t. How could I? . . .”

  “Let’s pretend this is one of the moments when you feel absolutely certain.”

  “Well, all right . . . On top of everything else, I have to tell you that the car from the other night had a broken left taillight, and this one did, too.”

  “You should know, Mr. Giacchetti, that nothing else has come of the episode you witnessed the other night.”

  “Oh, really?” Giacchetti asked, disappointed.

  “Yes. So, if you want, you can go ahead and give me the license plate number, but I don’t think it will serve any purpose.”

  “So, what should I do? Give you the number or not?”

  “Please do.”

  “BG 329 ZY,” Mr. Giacchetti said rather listlessly.

  “A kiss for the baby.”

  Had everyone finally finished breaking his balls? Could he now go home and think quietly about everything he had just learned, sitting on the veranda as the hissing surf slowly untied
the knot of thoughts in his brain?

  He closed the door to his office.

  “I’ll be seeing you, Cat.”

  “ ’Ave a g’night, Chief.”

  He went outside and headed to his car. Mimì Augello must have come back to the office, since his car was parked so close to the inspector’s that Montalbano had to turn sideways to squeeze between them. He got in the car, turned on the ignition, and drove off. He had gone barely ten yards down the street when he slammed on the brakes, eliciting a riot of curses and horn blasts behind him.

  He had seen something. And half of his brain wanted to bring what he had seen into focus, while the other half refused, not wanting to believe the information his eyes had transmitted to it.

  “Get out of the way, asshole!” yelled an angry motorist, passing close by.

  Montalbano threw the car into reverse though he couldn’t see a thing, a sudden deluge of sweat pouring down from his brow and forcing him to keep his eyes half shut. At last he was back in the police station’s parking lot. He stopped, ran his arm over his face to wipe away the sweat, opened the car window, and looked. And there was the broken taillight, there the license plate BG 329 ZY.

  The car belonged to Mimì Augello.

  A violent cramp like the stab of a knife seized his entrails and twisted them, triggering a gush of acidic, sickly sweet liquid that rose up into his throat. He got out of the car in a hurry and, leaning on the trunk, started vomiting, throwing up his very soul.

  Back home in Marinella, he realized that not only had his appetite completely vanished, but he also no longer felt like thinking. He opened the French door to the veranda. The evening was too cold for a swim. He grabbed a bottle of whisky and two glasses, unplugged the telephone, went into the bathroom, took off his clothes, filled up the tub, and got in.

  It was a good remedy. Two hours later, he had nearly emptied the bottle, the water had turned cold, but he had closed his eyes and was sleeping.

  He woke up around four in the morning, freezing to death in the tub. So he took a scalding hot shower and drank a big mugful of espresso coffee.

  Now he was ready to do some thinking, even though he could still feel a bit of nausea lurking at the back of his throat. He took a sheet of paper and pen, sat down at the diningroom table, and started writing a letter to himself to put his thoughts in order.