“How did Marisa get those love letters?” she asked Signora Cocuzza. “By post?”
“Of course not, her parents would have found out. The couple had a dead letter box where her admirer left the letters.”
Poldi’s theory crystallized.
“Do you know where this dead letter box was?”
“Of course. It was I who had to collect the billets-doux for her.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me, Signora Cocuzza?”
The sad signora lowered her eyes a trifle coquettishly, Poldi noticed. “Of course I told the police all this at the time, but the letters had gone. Would you like to see it?”
“The dead letter box? You mean it still exists?”
Where, in Bavaria and Sicily alike, do people still deposit spare keys, prayer requests, lottery tickets and secret messages? With the Virgin Mary, of course. Every respectable household possesses a statuette of the Virgin, and old houses even have a small niche to accommodate one. But statues of the Madonna can also be found outside one’s own four walls, for instance at crossroads, in fishing ports, taverns, and places in special need of divine protection. A mineral-water spring, for example. The patron saint of Torre Archirafi is the Madonna del Rosario, a blue-robed Madonna with a rosary in her hand. This large figure, which looks so poignant, is stationed beside the altar in the church. A smaller copy can be found in the side wall of the Acqua di Torre mineral-water factory, just beside the public bottling taps in an old shrine of volcanic rock and glazed tiles.
“The Belfiore family donated it in the nineteenth century,” Signora Cocuzza informed Poldi on the way there.
My aunt noticed that a small stage had been set up in the church square. Banners were hanging from many windows and the streets were overarched with colourful streamers and festoons. Padre Paolo, who was supervising two youths engaged in setting off another rocket, bade the two women a jovial “good day”. Already intent on the shrine, Poldi waved back absently.
She knew the little shrine but had hitherto paid it scant attention. Flush with the wall of the bottling plant, it took the form of a squat tabernacle. Mounted on a small marble base behind a cast-iron grille, the painted plaster Madonna was draped with plastic rosaries and surrounded by votive candles and artificial flowers.
“Ecco,” said Signora Cocuzza. “Marisa’s admirer had given her a key to the padlock. But you’re wondering where the letters were, aren’t you?”
Poldi looked closely at the shrine. The lava stone base appeared to be solid and there was not enough room inside the shrine to secrete a letter, far less a whole bundle.
“Look closer,” whispered the sad signora.
Then Poldi saw it. “Madonna mia. Well, I’ll be damned.”
She could just make out a fine, rectangular crack in the marble base on which the Madonna stood. The tiny knob of the perfectly fitting stone drawer was concealed by a small vase.
“That’s where the Belfiore family used to leave their prayer requests,” Signora Cocuzza explained. “They alone possessed a key to the grille.”
Poldi examined the padlock, which looked fairly new and displayed no traces of rust. “Who has the key these days?”
“Padre Paolo, and he was kind enough…”
Signora Cocuzza produced a small key from the pocket of her apron and held it under Poldi’s nose. No grin, not even a smile. The sad signora was utterly poker-faced. My Auntie Poldi was beginning to like her more and more.
While the signora kept watch, Poldi opened the grille, pushed the plastic flowers a little to one side and slid out the small marble drawer beneath the Virgin. Cautiously but without hesitation, she removed its contents. Then she closed the drawer, rearranged the plastic flowers and locked the grille again.
“What do you plan to do now?” asked the sad signora.
“Go to the police.”
But that was only a half-truth, because Poldi’s first step was to go home, spread out her haul on the table in the courtyard and examine it carefully. Lying in front of her was everything Valentino had been able to secrete in the small drawer: four small, pale-blue envelopes addressed in ornate handwriting to someone by the name of Diotima, together with a ringlet of dark hair tied up with cheap ribbon. This could only have belonged to Marisa Puglisi, but Poldi was puzzled by the name Diotima on the envelopes. She laid out the four letters side by side. Small sheets of very thin paper, neatly folded and written on in the same ornate, almost illegible handwriting. The letters were dated, but the dates were several weeks apart, so Poldi surmised that Valentino had fished them out at random from a bigger pile before hiding them under the Madonna – as a nest egg, so to speak. From the look of them they consisted of poems with a personal addition at the end. And then, Diotima-wise, the penny dropped. Poldi needed no translation. Two clicks, and she found the original on the Internet. The author of the letters had botched up Hölderlin’s celebrated Ode to Diotima and adapted it to his own libidinous requirements.
Thy heav’nly bosom me arouses,
makes me yearn to play love’s game.
Slip thy hand inside my trousers,
and I to thee will do the same.
For Diotima, my goddess of the Temple of Pleasure.
Meet me on the mole at eleven tonight.
D.
“‘D’?” I asked, rather at a loss, when Poldi was revealing the full details of the case.
“Yes, of course. ‘D’ for Domenico. Domenico Pastorella di Belfiore, aka Mimì, butcher of Hölderlin and double murderer. I mean, I’m no fan of Hölderlin’s stuff, but that was a really tasteless piece of horseshit.”
“Aren’t you being too hard on him?” I countered. “The man was besotted, after all, and lovers make monkeys of themselves.”
“A fat lot you know about it. At all events, that doggerel of Mimì’s gave me an insight into his state of mind. I realized that he must have killed Marisa as well as Valentino; Marisa out of jealousy and wounded vanity, Valentino on account of blackmail.”
“I see. And what sparked that revelation?”
“Why, the lion. The lion, get it?”
“The lion?”
“The plastic lion, of course. The toy dog I took from Totti at the mine and threw away. It was exactly like the one Mimì’s Dobermann is always chewing.”
“So what? There must be hundreds of the things.”
“Don’t be such a smarty-pants. Good God, you’ve got to admit it couldn’t have been a coincidence. That little plastic lion at the mine was quite new – Totti found it near the cistern. Cistern, plastic lion, Hölderlin, Valentino, Mimì, bingo. Follow me? It was clear as daylight.”
“Then you ought to have called Montana.”
“Jesus Christ Almighty. I wanted to solve the case all by myself, and I still didn’t have any solid evidence.”
“What about a lock of Marisa’s hair and maybe some DNA on the letters?”
“Yes, yes, very clever, professor. Congratulations, cento punti. But at that moment I was in the grip of something.”
“The hunting instinct?”
“Now we understand each other.”
My Auntie Poldi was one of the most fearless people I know. She wanted a confession, obviously, and that required her to set a little trap for Mimì Pastorella.
Summoning up all her courage, she telephoned Mimì and informed him, politely but point-blank, that she had established his guilt and could prove it. She would, however, be prepared to keep her mouth shut and hand over all her evidence if Mimì were willing to pay her an appropriate quid pro quo of fifty thousand euros, which she needed in order to renovate her roof.
Giving the startled man no time to respond or prevaricate, Poldi invited him to settle the matter at the Via Baronessa that same night, or she would take her evidence to the police. Then she hung up. Fifty thousand euros for her leaky roof struck Poldi as an affordable but realistic sum for which it wouldn’t be worth committing a third murder. She estimated that, if Mimì consented to the
deal, it would be tantamount to a confession. She prepared to document their meeting in a thoroughly professional manner by attaching a tape recorder to the underside of her sofa table with sticky tape. She also loaded the Bavarian infantry musket and propped it against the sofa, well within view, in case Mimì showed up with a sawn-off lupara.
“Just a moment,” I broke in at that point. “I thought the old blunderbuss was unusable. Officially deactivated and so on.”
Poldi sighed. “Of course not. My father never collected any useless weapons.”
I stared uneasily at the muskets and pistols hanging on the opposite wall. “You mean they’re all, er… potentially lethal?”
“They’re all in working order, let’s say. All right, I admit there was a certain risk involved because it’s a muzzle-loader, and they aren’t easy to load – you have to take care. But in the first place my old man showed me how, and secondly I didn’t load a bullet, just a small powder charge with a wad of paper on top, understand?”
“You simply wanted to make a big bang, right?”
“Dead right, professor. I wanted to be prepared for all eventualities, leave nothing to chance. It was all planned in an ultra-professional way.”
But, as is the way with plans that leave nothing to chance, my Auntie Poldi found herself in a tight spot.
For what she hadn’t taken into account – or criminally neglected, one might also say – was the fact that the festival in honour of the Madonna del Rosario, Torre Archirafi’s patron saint, was taking place on that of all nights. In addition to whizzbangs all day long, this included a grand firework display in the evening, a church service and an ensuing religious procession through the streets, and a party for the young people of Torre with a band from Riposto – in other words, the usual thing where a town’s patron saint was concerned. People splashed out on such occasions, especially when they lived beside the sea and needed protection from tempests and tidal waves. The whole of Torre Archirafi was out and about. Summoned by bells and whizzbangs, everyone was flocking into the church. And that, stupidly enough, meant there were no neighbours within hailing distance.
Mimì turned up on the dot, impeccably dressed as ever in a three-piece suit. And accompanied by Hölderlin. The dog was something else Poldi hadn’t considered, and no wonder, alas, because she was slightly tipsy by the time Mimì arrived. In spite of all her good resolutions, she had already downed a stiff one for her nerves’ sake. Not exactly the best preparation for such a crucial encounter, but that was my Auntie Poldi. Mimì appeared to be unarmed, though. He certainly hadn’t brought a lupara with him.
Poldi initially hesitated to invite the old gentleman and his Dobermann inside. She wondered whether she shouldn’t simply slam the front door and call Montana. Although she might have been better advised to, she pulled herself together. Stepping aside, she ushered Hölderlin and his master into the house. Mimì surveyed his surroundings while Hölderlin took off on his own, roaming around and sniffing like a cop with a search warrant. Or a professional killer.
“You have a nice house, Donna Isolde, but you say the roof needs fixing already? That certainly wouldn’t have happened in Germany. You might have done better to stay there.”
Poldi ignored this. “A glass of wine, Don Mimì?”
“Very civil of you, Donna Isolde, but no thanks.”
“A Coke? Some water?”
“No, please don’t bother.”
“I trust you won’t object if I pour myself a glass?”
“Of course not, Donna Isolde.”
Mimì was playing the respectable signore, a man of integrity from his gout-ridden toe to his few remaining wisps of hair, his voice soft and tremulous. He looked somewhat more bent-backed than usual – more preoccupied, too. And no wonder, thought Poldi, when you’ve done such things and carried a burden of guilt around with you for decades, and now everything threatens to blow up in your face. On the other hand, she thought he seemed surprisingly calm.
“An heirloom of your father’s, I gather,” Mimì said softly, pointing to the musket propped against the sofa.
“Er, yes… it needed cleaning. Please.”
Poldi nervously indicated an armchair.
Without taking his eyes off my aunt, Mimì sank back against the cushions and clicked his fingers. Hölderlin came trotting up and sat down obediently at his side.
Poldi noticed with a touch of uneasiness that the Dobermann, too, was eyeing her fixedly. She sat down on the edge of the sofa, pushed the musket aside and poured herself another Scotch. Her hand was trembling, and she hoped the recording machine beneath the table between her and Mimì was picking up every word.
“I had honestly hoped we could be friends, Donna Isolde.”
Poldi refused to be intimidated. “Friends don’t leave dead cats outside each other’s doors.”
Mimì made a dismissive gesture. “What does a cat matter? A dog, on the other hand…” – he fondled Hölderlin’s head – “a dog is a divine creature, and closer to man than any other, woman included.”
“Really? I think you must have got the wrong end of the stick in biology or religious education.”
A touch of annoyance furrowed Mimì’s brow, but he recovered himself at once. “Well now… about these outrageous accusations of yours —”
“Which I can prove, Don Mimì. You killed Valentino Candela and – forty years ago – Marisa Puglisi.”
Another feeble, dismissive gesture. “In that case, would you kindly show me this alleged evidence of my alleged guilt?”
“Do you have something for me too?”
Another sigh. Mimì felt in his breast pocket and brought out a wad of 500-euro notes. He fanned them out on the table. “Want to count them?”
“That won’t be necessary.”
Poldi took a padded envelope from under a sofa cushion, extracted the four letters and the lock of hair, and put them down beside the money.
Mimì nodded. “Ah, the lock of hair. I knew Valentino still had it. If you hadn’t included it, I wouldn’t have trusted you.”
“These are all the letters I found. I don’t think Valentino had any more.”
“No, I had to burn the others, alas.”
“Before or after you shot him?”
This was precisely the moment at which Poldi meant to begin her rigorous interrogation. Unfortunately, events took a different turn.
For one thing, the Madonna del Rosario procession set off from the church square to a deafening accompaniment of whizzbangs, tolling bells and universal pandemonium; for another, Mimì was startled into dropping his senile romantic’s pose. Seemingly jolted out of a pleasant daydream into vile reality, he stared at Poldi for a moment as if realizing for the first time who he was up against. Quick as a flash, more nimbly than Poldi would have believed and before she herself could react, he snatched up the letters and the lock of hair. Then he shouted, “Hölderlin, attack!” In German, mark you.
Hölderlin needed no second bidding. He seemed to have been waiting for that moment, and no wonder, after a life spent worrying cashmere sweaters, terry towels and plastic lions – and occasionally, perhaps, being allowed to inflict an experimental bite on the leg of a Moroccan manservant or the arm of a clumsy child in the Corso. He hadn’t even been permitted to touch Valentino, because that would have left telltale marks, so it was only understandable that Hölderlin’s innocent Dobermann psyche had developed a certain pent-up pressure, a bloodlust fantasy, a war cry of the wild which he now obeyed with alacrity.
In response to Mimì’s command and without any superfluous barking or growling, he flew at my Auntie Poldi. It was nothing personal; Hölderlin was a pro. My aunt, on the other hand, was somewhat short-winded and not as quick on her pins as she used to be. Nor, as already mentioned, was she entirely sober. Situations of this kind are eternally surprising, however, for she reacted with undreamt-of, Matrix-like agility, as if time had slowed down for her.
“I saw Hölderlin spring at me in slow mo
tion,” she told me later. “It was like my last hour had come and I’d entered another space–time continuum.”
Be that as it may, a person’s reflexes take over at such moments. Poldi spun round, grabbed the musket and, while Hölderlin was still in mid-air, clouted him on the head. The Dobermann uttered a yelp and landed with a crash on the coffee table. There was another crash as the old musket simultaneously went off. The powder charge erupted from the muzzle with plenty of smoke and flame, blowing a hole in the ceiling and generating a recoil that tore the weapon from Poldi’s grasp. Profoundly shocked by both occurrences – the crash and the detonation – Mimì shied like a startled horse, then froze. Although the blow with the musket had not been enough to put Hölderlin completely out of action, it did at least gain Poldi some time. Still moving with unwonted agility, she dived over the back of the sofa and ran up the stairs to the roof – a typically irrational thing to do, because she could easily have reached the front door instead. That, however, would have entailed dodging past Mimì and the dazed Dobermann, which formed a kind of optical-psychological barrier. Meanwhile, Mimì unfroze and Hölderlin scrambled to his feet.
“After her.”
Breathing heavily, Poldi reached the roof terrace.
“Help. HEEEEELP.”
But no one could hear her. Everyone in town was joining in the procession. Skyrockets, brass band and fervent singing combined to produce a din that reverberated around the streets and rose into the night sky, which was tinged with the glow of torches and candles.
“HEEEEELP.”
Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions Page 25