Having said good-bye to their friends, then, Livia and the inspector headed back to Marinella.
The moment Livia went to take a shower, Montalbano, from the terrace, called Fazio on the cell phone, keeping his voice down.
“Fazio? Montalbano here.”
“What’s wrong, Chief?”
“I haven’t got time to explain. In ten minutes, I want you to call me back at home and say you urgently need me to come in to the station.”
“Why, what’s happened?”
“Don’t ask questions. Just do as I say.”
“Then what do I do afterward?”
“You hang up and go back to sleep.”
Five minutes later Livia emerged from the bathroom and Montalbano went in. As he was brushing his teeth, he heard the telephone ring. As expected, Livia went to pick up. This would make the whole scene he had staged more credible.
“Salvo, it’s Fazio on the phone!”
He went into the dining room with his toothbrush still in his mouth, lips frothing with toothpaste, muttering to himself for Livia’s benefit, as she glared at him:
“Can’t anyone get a little peace and quiet around here, even at this hour?”
He grabbed the phone gruffly:
“What is it?”
“You’re needed down at the station at once.”
“Can’t you guys handle it yourselves? No? Okay, okay, I’ll be right there.”
He slammed the receiver down hard, feigning anger:
“Won’t those guys ever grow up? Do they always need Daddy’s help? I’m sorry, Livia, but, unfortunately I—”
“I understand,” said Livia in a tone straight from the polar ice caps. “I’m going to bed.”
“Will you wait up for me?”
“No.”
He got dressed, went out, got in the car, and headed to Marina di Montereale.
He drove extremely slowly, because he wanted to waste as much time as possible, to be more or less certain that Laura and Guido had gone to bed.
When he got to Pizzo, he went as far as the second house—the uninhabited but well-maintained one—stopped, and got out, bringing the flashlight with him. He traveled the remaining stretch of the dirt road on foot, afraid that if he came any closer with the car, the sound, in the stillness of the night, might wake up his friends.
No light shone in any of the windows, a good sign that Laura and Guido were well on their way to dreamland.
With a light step he sidled up to the window that served as a door, climbed through, and went in.When he was inside, he turned on the flashlight and headed towards the living room.
He lifted the trunk’s lid. The corpse was barely visible, having been wrapped several times over in the same kind of plastic sheets that had been used to seal off the secret apartment, and then bound in brown packing tape wound many times around the bundle.The corpse looked like a cross between a mummy and a giant parcel ready for shipping.
He shone the flashlight closer and realized, at least from what he was able to see, that the body was fairly well preserved. Apparently all that plastic had created a sort of hard vacuum, not allowing even a trace of the terrible stench of death to leak out.
Forcing himself to look harder, he noticed a great mass of long blond hair on and around the head.The face, on the other hand, he couldn’t make out, because it had been wrapped twice around with the brown adhesive tape.
It was a woman, that much was clear.
There was nothing more to see or do. He closed the trunk, exited the apartment, got back in his car, and drove home.
He found Livia in bed but still awake. She was reading a book.
“Darling, I got back as quickly as I could. I’ll just take the shower I wasn’t able to—”
“Go on, hurry. Don’t waste any more time.”
When Livia came out of the bathroom at nine o’clock the following morning, she found Montalbano sitting on the veranda.
“What, are you still here? You told me you had to go to the station to deal with that business of last night.”
“I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to take a half day’s vacation. I’m coming with you to Pizzo to spend the morning with you and your friends.”
“Oh, goody!”
By the time they got there Laura, Guido, and Bruno were ready to go down to the beach. Since they had decided they would spend the whole day outside, Laura had filled some baskets with food.
But how and when—the inspector anxiously wondered in the meantime—was he going to break the good news to them?
As luck would have it Guido helped him out.
“Did you call the people at the agency to tell them about the illegal apartment?”
“No, not yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m afraid they might raise your rent, since you now have another apartment at your disposal.”
He was trying to make a joke of it, but Livia intervened.
“Come on, what are you waiting for? I want to see the look on the face of the guy that rented it to you.”
And I can’t wait to see yours, in a few minutes!
thought Montalbano.
But he said instead:
“Well, there’s a major complication.”
“What?”
“Could you send Bruno away for a minute?” Montalbano asked Laura under his breath.
She gave him a puzzled look, but did as he said.
“Bruno, do Mommy a little favor. Go in the kitchen and get another bottle of mineral water from the refrigerator.”
The others stared at him, their curiosity aroused by his question.
“So?”
“The fact is, I found a dead body. A woman.”
“Where?” Guido asked.
“In the apartment downstairs. In the living room. Inside a trunk.”
“Are you joking?” asked Laura.
“No, he’s not joking,” said Livia. “I know him well. Did you discover it last night, when we went down there?”
Bruno returned carrying a bottle.
“Go get another!” they all said in unison.
The child set the bottle down on the floor and ran out.
“And you,” said Livia, who was beginning to understand what was happening, “you let my friends spend the night here with a dead body in the house?”
“Come on, Livia! It’s downstairs! It’s not contagious!”
All of a sudden, Laura let out her siren wail, which had become her specialty.
Ruggero, who had been sunning himself on the little wall, hightailed it away. Bruno returned, set the second bottle on the floor, and ran to get another without anyone’s having asked him.
“You’re such a jerk!” Guido said angrily, following after his wife, who had run weeping into the bedroom.
“But I did what I thought was best!” said Montalbano, trying to justify himself in Livia’s eyes.
She only looked at him in disdain.
“When Fazio phoned you last night, you had already arranged with him to provide you with an excuse to go out, hadn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And did you come back here to have a better look at the corpse?”
“Yes.”
“And afterwards you made love to me! You are an animal! A brute!”
“But I took a shower so that—”
“You’re a repulsive creature!”
She got up, leaving him standing there, and went into her friends’ bedroom. She returned about five minutes later, cold as ice.
“They’re packing their bags.”
“They’re leaving? What about the plane tickets?”
“Guido decided not to wait any longer.They’re going to go by car.Take me back to Marinella. I need to pack, too, because I’m going with them.”
“Oh, Livia, try to be reasonable!”
“I don’t want to hear another word!”
It was hopeless. On the drive back to Marinella, she didn’t open her mouth and Montalbano didn’t dare. As soon as they got there, Livia threw her things helter-skelter into her suitcase, then went out and sat on the veranda with a long face.
“You want me to fix you something to eat?”
“You only think of two things.”
She didn’t say what those two things were, but Montalbano understood anyway.
Around one o’clock, Guido arrived to pick up Livia. Also in the car was Ruggero, with whom Bruno had apparently refused to part. Guido handed the house keys over to Montalbano, but did not shake his hand. Laura kept her head turned away, Bruno gave him a Bronx cheer, and Livia wouldn’t even kiss him good-bye.
Rejected and abandoned, Montalbano watched them leave with a heavy heart. But also, deep down, with a sense of relief.
The first thing he did was phone Adelina.
“Adelì, Livia had to go back to Genoa. Could you come tomorrow morning?”
“Yes, signore. I can even come in a couple a hours.”
“That’s all right, there’s no need.”
“No, signore, Ima gonna come anyways. I can just imagina mess Miss Livia lefta house in!”
There was a little bit of hard bread left in the kitchen. Montalbano ate it with a slice of tumazzo cheese that was in the fridge.Then he lay down in bed and fell asleep.
When he woke up it was four o’clock. He could hear from the tinkle of plates and glasses in the kitchen that Adelina had already arrived.
“Could you bring me a cup of coffee, Adelì?”
“Right away, signore.”
She brought the coffee with a scowl on her face.
“
Madonna mia!
The plates was all covered with grease an’ I even foun’ a pair a dirty unnerpants in the batroom!”
Now, in reality, if there was a fanatically neat woman in the world, it was Livia. But in Adelina’s eyes, she had always seemed like someone whose ideal was to live in a pigsty.
“But I told you, she had to leave in a hurry.”
“You have a fight? You break up?”
“No, we didn’t break up.”
Adelina seemed disappointed and went back in the kitchen.
Montalbano got up to make a phone call.
“Aurora Agency? Inspector Montalbano here. I’d like to speak with Signor Callara.”
“I’ll put him on right away,” replied a woman’s voice.
“Inspector? Good afternoon, what can I do for you?”
“Are you in the office for the day?”
“Yes, I’ll be here till we close.Why?”
“I’ll be by in half an hour to return the keys to the beach house.”
“What? Weren’t they supposed to stay until—”
“Yes, but my friends were forced to leave this morning. A sudden death. Unfortunately they couldn’t stay the whole time.”
“Listen, Inspector, I don’t know if you read the contract.”
“I glanced at it.Why?”
“Because it states clearly that the client gets nothing back in the event of an early departure.”
“Who asked for anything back, Signor Callara?”
“Ah, okay.Well, then don’t bother coming here yourself. I’ll send someone down to the station to pick up the keys.”
“I need to talk to you and then show you something.”
“Come by whenever you like.”
“Catarella? Montalbano here.”
“I already rec’nize ya inasmuch as yer voice is all yours, Chief.”
“Any news?”
“No sir, Chief, nuttin. ’Xcept fer Filippo Ragusano, you know him, Chief, he’s a one wherats got a shoe store by the church, and ’e shot ’is brother-n-law Gasparino Manzella.”
“Did he kill him?”
“Nossir, Chief, jess grazed ’im.”
“Why’d he shoot him?”
“Says Gasparino Manzella was gettin on ’is noives since it was rilly hot ’n all an’ a fly was walkin on ’is head which rilly bugged ’im an’ so he shot ’im.”
“Fazio there?”
“Nossir, Chief. ’E went out by the iron bridge ’cuz some guy busted ’is wife’s head out that way.”
“Okay. I wanted to tell you—”
“But there’s somethin else happened.”
“Oh, yeah? I was somehow under the impression that nothing had happened.What happened?”
“What happened izzat Corporeal ’Tective Alberto Virduzzo went into a muddy locality and slipped wit’ both ’is legs in the mud that was there, breaking one o’ the legs aforesaid. Gallo took ’im to the hospitable.”
“Listen, I wanted to tell you that I’ll be late coming in.”
“You’re the boss, Chief.”
Signor Callara was busy with a client. Montalbano stepped outside to smoke a cigarette in the open air. It was so hot that the asphalt was starting to melt, making one’s shoes stick slightly to it. Once Callara was free, he came out in person to meet Montalbano.
“Please come into my office, Inspector. I’ve got air-conditioning.”
Which Montalbano hated. Never mind.
“Before I take you to see something—”
“Where do you want to take me?”
“To the house you rented to my friends.”
“Why? Is there anything wrong? Anything broken?”
“No, everything’s fine. But I think you should come.”
“As you wish.”
“I believe I remember you saying, when you took me to see the house, that it was a man who had emigrated to Germany that had the house built. A certain Angelo Speciale, who had married a German widow, whose son, Ralf, I think you said, had come here with his father-in-law and then mysteriously disappeared on their way back to Germany. Is that correct?”
Callara looked at him in admiration.
“Absolutely.What a memory you’ve got!”
“You, naturally, have the name, address, and telephone number of Signora Speciale?”
“Of course.Wait just one minute while I look for the information on Signora Gudrun.”
Montalbano wrote it all down on a scrap of paper. Callara became curious.
“For what purpose—”
“You’ll understand later. I seem also to remember that you gave me the name of the developer who designed the house and oversaw the construction.”