“Well, go on. Seek.”
Poldi wasn’t very hopeful. Suspecting that Totti had specialized too exclusively in Etna mushrooms, she was doubly gratified when he eventually trotted off and sniffed the ground here and there, giving at least the impression that he was a tracker who knew what he was doing.
In the knowledge that artists and detectives must not be disturbed at their work, Poldi and Uncle Martino followed Totti at an appropriate distance, urging him on with cries of encouragement. Aunt Teresa, by contrast, had sat down in the shade of the pithead frame and was hoping that they would all be able to leave this sinister place before long.
Despite his professional manner, Totti seemed to find it hard to pick up Valentino’s scent anywhere. The longer she criss-crossed the site in Totti’s wake, the more convinced Poldi became that this had been a thoroughly daft idea. She looked over at Aunt Teresa, who raised a limp hand in her direction, and took out her mobile phone. “That’s it; I’m going to call Montana. Not even the best-trained sleuthhound could find anything in this stench.”
But Totti, who was steadfastly continuing to sniff away, had begun to scrabble at the base of the old cistern.
“What’s he doing?”
Uncle Martino shrugged. “Improving his bella figura. He’s a Sicilian, after all.”
Poldi whistled through her fingers again. “Leave it, Totti. Knocking-off time.”
But Totti went on scrabbling at the cistern. He barked, looked over at Poldi and Martino, and barked again – loudly.
Aunt Teresa got to her feet and emerged from the shade.
Poldi looked at Martino. “What does that mean?”
“Sounds like mushrooms.”
Poldi hurried over. Totti, beside himself by now, was scrabbling at the cistern like a mad thing and barking excitedly. The circular coping, composed of rough-hewn stone that had once been rendered, came up to Poldi’s waist. The mouth of the old reservoir was sealed with a rusty iron plate secured with a padlock. Poldi made out some reddish-brown splashes on the iron plate and the part of the surround Totti was scratching. A lot of splashes. She didn’t need a lab report to be sure. She kissed and patted Totti and called Montana.
“Vito, it’s me. Can you come to Piazza Armerina? I’ve got something for you… The scene of the crime.”
It was evening by the time Montana got there. Streaky red clouds were glowing in the sky like a monstrous projection of Valentino’s blood spatter. Possibly a warning from higher authority that his death would not be forgotten or unavenged, thought Poldi. Namaste, cirrostratus.
The Polizia di Stato had already cordoned off the area around the cistern. Forensics officers in paper overalls were busying themselves with their brushes and sticky tape, scratching off blood samples, taking photographs while the light lasted, making plaster casts of the tyre tracks, and sticking little flags in the ground.
Poldi and Aunt Teresa were watching in silence from the sidelines when Uncle Martino returned from the town with panini and mineral water. They also ate in silence, depressed by their discovery, the mine, their own impotence and the sight of the policemen’s dispassionate professionalism. Only Totti looked cheerful and interested in everything, as if he’d just been dunked in a fountain of youth.
“Why don’t you go home?” Poldi suggested. “I’m sure Montana will give me a lift.”
“Out of the question,” said Aunt Teresa.
When Montana arrived – in his crumpled work suit as usual – Poldi rose, straightened her wig and patted the dust from her linen trousers.
“Salve.” Montana greeted Teresa and Martino with a handshake, Poldi with two perfunctory kisses on the cheek.
“Hello, Vito.”
Montana surveyed his surroundings. “So this is the place.”
Poldi said nothing.
“How did you hit on it, Poldi?”
“I put two and two together, that’s all.”
“Can you be more precise?”
“Valentino mentioned Femminamorta, you remember?”
“And?”
She spread out her arms in the direction of the mine. “Femminamorta.”
“There are two of them?”
“At least six,” Uncle Martino put in.
Montana groaned. “Madonna. What an idiot I am.”
“Don’t blame yourself. I didn’t hit on it by myself either.”
“But why this particular one?”
Poldi handed him the photograph of Valentino’s collection of bits and pieces and pointed out the sulphur crystal. “Crystal, sulphur, mine, Femminamorta. That’s the name of the mine. It was worth a try.” She felt in her bag and handed him the tea infuser containing Valentino’s price list. “I found that in the lion yesterday. It proves that Patanè is behind the thefts.”
Montana opened the infuser and glanced at the strip of paper, then rolled it up again and put it in an evidence bag together with the infuser.
Poldi was expecting a reprimand for having failed to report the discovery earlier, but Montana merely looked over at the policemen around the murder site. “Anything else I should know?”
Poldi shook her head.
“Okay, I’ll be back with you in a minute.” Montana sauntered over to the uniformed inspector in charge of the operation.
Poldi saw Montana show his ID, saw him receive a brief rundown from the inspector and accompany him over to the murder site – unhurriedly, with the professional arrogance and composure she found more and more exasperating.
“Let’s go,” she said to Teresa and Martino. “We aren’t needed here any more.”
It almost broke Totti’s heart to leave the scene of his criminalistic triumph in such an unobtrusive, unacknowledged way. He had to be dragged off.
“Poldi.” Montana beckoned her over to the cistern.
Sullenly and reluctantly, Poldi returned to the spot where Valentino had died.
“Well?”
“What’s that?” asked Montana.
“An old cistern, I guess.”
“I meant that.” Montana pointed to the rusty iron lid.
“A cover to prevent anyone from falling in.”
“Have you looked at the padlock?”
The sun had disappeared behind the hill long ago, flooding the mine with shadows and effacing all the light and colour from the dip in which it lay. Poldi had to bend down to see what Montana meant.
“It looks new.”
“Brand new, I’d say. A brand-new padlock on an old iron lid.”
Poldi stared at him.
Montana turned to the inspector. “I need some bolt cutters right away.”
Not long afterwards, when Montana lifted the iron lid, a smell of decay assailed them from the dark interior of the old reservoir. Montana shone a flashlight into it. Poldi could see little at first. An oblong, cement-lined water tank of indeterminate dimensions, the cistern was a good ten feet deep. It no longer contained any water, and the bottom was covered with dust and soil. The beam of the flashlight flitted to and fro until Poldi spotted something that looked like a bundle of clothes. Rotting, colourless articles of clothing, they were also covered in dust. When the beam came to rest on them, Poldi detected something else.
“Oh, my God, is that —?”
“Looks like it,” Montana said harshly.
Wrapped in those dusty articles of clothing on the bottom of the dried-up reservoir was a human skeleton.
Poldi heard nothing from Montana for the next two days. Then she’d had enough. Sleep was out of the question in any case, because the air above Torre Archirafi had been rent every half-hour from early in the morning onwards by monstrous whizzbangs fired from the nearby church square so as to explode – boom – just above the rooftops. Poldi was no stranger to this sort of thing. It was doubtless some local patron saint’s name-day, which had to be duly celebrated – boom – all day long. That evening there would probably be a concluding firework display and a little street festival in the church square. Until then �
�� boom – these half-hourly salutes would make the walls shake and make Poldi’s ears ring, so a quick exit from town was called for.
Poldi drove to Acireale, parked the Alfa in a no-stopping zone on the Corso Umberto, and strode resolutely towards the gloomy, neo-baroque building that housed police headquarters. Dapper policemen wearing shades and nursing coffees-to-go were lounging in front of the courtyard entrance as though recreating a scene outside precinct headquarters in Manhattan South. Confronted by this image of state police and carabinieri united in nonchalant self-importance, Poldi resisted the impulse to take a photo and strode past the uniformed youngsters without a word.
It was pleasantly cool in the prefecture’s inner courtyard. Populated by dolphins and nymphs and surrounded by parked patrol cars, a marble fountain sang its sibilant song of hidden beauty, a small orange tree stood to attention in each corner of the courtyard, and the scent of the jasmine on the walls competed with the stench of exhaust fumes. Poldi had seen numerous police stations and headquarters in her time, but never one like this. The prefecture of Acireale was one big apology in itself.
Seated in a glassed-in box at the entrance was a pallid young desk sergeant with sorrowful eyes and an outsize Adam’s apple gracing his scrawny neck.
“Commissario Montana,” said Poldi.
“Do you have an appointment, signora?”
“No, I don’t, but that doesn’t matter. The commissario will see me.”
A long look from those sorrowful eyes. Poldi saw the Adam’s apple slide up and down as if sawing its way out of that far too slender neck.
“Name?”
“Oberreiter, Isolde.” She spelt out her surname. “Otranto, Bologna, Empoli, doppia erre, Empoli, Imola, Torino, Empoli, Roma. Oh, just tell him Poldi wants a word with him.”
The pallid desk sergeant telephoned, covering his mouth and the mouthpiece with his hand.
“The commissario is coming right away.”
“Don’t bother, just tell me where to find his office.”
The Adam’s apple danced a tarantella. “Kindly wait here, signora.”
Montana appeared a few minutes later. He was looking exhausted, with dark smudges under his eyes, and a trifle nervous. There was a coffee stain on his suit. He nodded to the mournful desk sergeant, took Poldi by the arm and led her to the exit. No kiss.
“Let’s go and have a coffee. There’s a bar round the corner.”
“We could go to your office.”
“No, Poldi, we can’t.”
“Because your pretty young colleague is there, or because there are envelopes full of hush money lying around on your desk?”
“Very funny, Poldi. And she isn’t my colleague.”
“You’re welcome to tell me some more about her.”
Pursing his lips, Montana steered my Auntie Poldi gently but firmly past his colleagues and out of the gateway.
“I was going to call you this evening, in any case.”
“Oh yes?”
“Yes.” He looked stung.
In the bar round the corner he ordered two coffees and a marzipan mandarin and shepherded Poldi to the far end of the counter.
“I’ve got good news and bad news. Which do you want first?”
“The good news, of course.”
“The good news is, you’re still speaking to me.”
“Very funny.” Poldi tried to look sour but failed abysmally, because at that moment the hot flush of joy in her breast went surging through every part of her.
Montana grinned. “Patanè has confessed to the thefts.”
“Is that all?”
“Of course not. One thing at a time.”
“That’s what I always say.”
“Are you going to keep interrupting me, or do you want to hear how the investigation stands? Make up your mind, I must get back in a minute.”
“Calm down, Vito. Well?”
Montana swirled his espresso instead of stirring it with a spoon and gulped it down.
“Patanè has been sitting in an interview room since this morning. He was a bit uncooperative to begin with, but he’s been babbling like a brook ever since we confronted him with the evidence.”
“What evidence?”
“Traces of a dead body in his car.”
“Hallelujah,” Poldi cried delightedly.
“The tyre tracks at the mine fit his car,” Montana summarized. “So we searched it and found traces of a dead body in the boot, and also traces of Valentino’s blood identical to those at the crime scene.”
“Has he confessed?”
“Only to the thefts as yet, but he claims they weren’t thefts proper. Allegedly, everything had been agreed with the owner of the houses in question.”
“Mimì Pastorella di Belfiore. Have you questioned him?”
“What do you think? The noble signore didn’t deny it. To be honest, he seems a bit gaga – keeps talking about some German poet…”
“Hölderlin.”
“Is he well known?”
“A genius from Tübingen who went mad. Did Mimì say anything else about the case?”
“No. Where the thefts are concerned, there’ll be a separate investigation to determine whether they constituted a crime at all. In my opinion, Mimì Pastorella is just senile.”
“He did well out of the deal, though.”
“He can do what he likes with his own property. He’s guilty of tax evasion at most. Anyway, Valentino worked for Patanè, but Patanè denies that Valentino ever blackmailed him.”
Poldi thought for a moment. “Then why was he so keen on the gate lion?”
“A knee-jerk reaction, he claims, like the knockout drops in your wine. He wants to apologize to you, by the way.”
“Smarmy devil. Did he say what he and Russo were arguing about in the car park?”
“Outstanding bills for an extension he’d built. Russo has confirmed this.”
“He has, has he? Well, well. Be that as it may, with this level of evidence Patanè may as well give up.”
Montana spooned the remains of the sugar out of his espresso cup. “He vehemently denies having murdered Valentino.”
“Let him. The weight of the evidence is overwhelming.”
Montana evidently needed sugar. He bit off some of his marzipan mandarin. “Delicious, really fresh. Try some.”
“The evidence is overwhelming, Vito, isn’t it?”
“Pretty well. We’ll have to wait for the DNA comparison with the traces from the scene of the crime. The murder weapon is still missing. Patanè also claims that he lent the car to Valentino the day before his death. He found it back outside his house the next morning, so he assumed all was well.”
“And he said nothing all this time? I ask you, Vito. Does he have an alibi?”
“No.”
“There you are, then. Have you arrested anyone else for the thefts?”
“Should we?”
“I’m only asking.”
“Poldi?”
“I’m only asking. Has Patanè at least admitted killing the cat?”
Montana shook his head. “He denies that too.”
“He’s a liar. What about the skeleton in the cistern?”
“Hm, that’s the next thing. Clearly a young woman, but we haven’t managed to identify her yet. Forensics estimate that she could have been lying down there for thirty to fifty years. We’re going through all the missing persons records, but without a DNA comparison it won’t be easy.”
“A cold case,” Poldi exclaimed eagerly.
Montana pulled a face. “It’ll be difficult to nail anyone for murder after such a long time, but we discovered the dried-up remains of some flowers beside the skeleton.”
“Flowers?”
“Roses.”
“You mean someone knew the woman was lying down there and threw some roses onto her?”
“Yes, within the last few years, too. Some of the roses were relatively well preserved. Romantic, eh?”
“What does Mimì say about it? He owns the mine, after all.”
“He was flabbergasted. But he claims he never bothered about the mine – only ever went there once with his father as a child. Somehow, I don’t think there’s any connection with Valentino’s murder.”
“What about the new padlock? You think that’s a coincidence too, Vito?”
Montana sighed. “We’re working on it, okay?”
Poldi bit off some of the marzipan fruit, allowed the sweet almond paste to dissolve on her tongue and cogitated, troubled by a triviality as impalpable as the confectionery in her mouth. Just a triviality like a distant, irritating clicking sound one can’t locate or turn off, an unpleasant smell that pursues one throughout the day, or a question mark without a question. It meant she’d overlooked something. Only a triviality, but the vital piece in the puzzle.
Montana glanced at his watch. “I must go.”
“So what was the bad news?” asked Poldi.
“Oh yes, the bad news…” Montana drew a deep breath. “I believe him. Patanè, I mean.”
Poldi tried not to show that this didn’t surprise her somehow. “Why?”
He suddenly looked even wearier. “I can’t tell you. Call it instinct. There’s certainly enough evidence to charge him, even without a confession. Valentino’s body was transported in a car, Valentino put the squeeze on him, Patanè is a thief who drugged you and organized a break-in at your house. The chief wants the case closed as quickly as possible.”
“But you don’t believe Patanè is the murderer.”
“It’s just a feeling, as I say.”
“How long have you been doing this job, Vito?”
“Thirty-six years.”
“Has your instinct ever let you down?”
“Innumerable times.”
He ran a hand nervously over his face and beard as if trying to wipe off an annoying film of something. His bright green eyes looked dull, almost grey. Poldi could tell he hadn’t slept much in the previous two days.
“I really have to go now, Poldi.”
“And I’d really like to kiss you now.”
A little colour came back into the pale green eyes, but his smile remained pained. Poldi construed this as a crystal-clear sign of mixed feelings, and she knew a thing or two about those.
Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions Page 23