The Terra-Cotta Dog (28 page)

He was telling the truth, and the old couple realized this.

“I could stop here,” he continued. “I've managed to satisfy my own personal curiosity. I'm still missing some answers, it's true, but the ones I've found are probably enough for me. As I said, I could stop here.”

“They may be enough for you,” said Signora Angelina, “but I would like to see Lisetta's killer before me.”

“If you see him, it'll be in a photograph,” her husband said wryly, “because by now it's ninety-nine percent certain that the killer is dead and buried.”

“I'll leave it up to you two,” said Montalbano. “You tell me:What should I do? Should I continue? Should I stop? It's your decision, since these murders are no longer of any interest to anyone. You are perhaps the only link the two dead lovers still have to this world.”

“I say you should go ahead,” said Mrs. Burgio, bold as ever.

“Me too,” said the headmaster, seconding her after a pause. When he arrived at the exit for Marinella, instead of turning and heading home, he let the car continue along the coastal highway as if of its own will. There was little traffic, and in just a few minutes he was at the foot of the Crasto mountain. He got out of the car and climbed up the slope that led to the Crasticeddru. A stone's throw from the weapons cave, he sat down on the grass and lit a cigarette. He remained seated, watching the sunset while his brain was whirring: he had an obscure feeling that Lillo was still alive. But how would he ever flush him out? As darkness began to fall, he headed back to the car, and at that moment his eye fell on the gaping hole in the side of the mountain, the entrance to the unused tunnel, boarded up since time immemorial. Right near the mouth, there was a pile of sheet metal and, beside it, a sign on two stakes. His legs took off in that direction before his brain had even given the order. He arrived out of breath, his side smarting from the dash. The sign said: GAETANO NICOLOSI & SON CONSTRUCTION CO.—PALERMO—VIA LAMARMORA, 33—PROJECT FOR THE EXCAVATION OF A HIGHWAY TUNNEL—WORKS MANAGER, COSIMO ZIRRETTA, ENG.—ASST. MANAGER, SALVATORE PERRICONE. This was followed by some other information of no interest to Montalbano.

He made another dash to his car and sped like a bullet back to Vigàta.

23

At the Gaetano Nicolosi & Son Construction Co. of Palermo, whose number Montalbano had got from directory assistance, nobody was answering the phone. It was too late in the day; the company's offices must have been deserted. Montalbano tried and tried again, eventually losing hope. Having cursed a few times to let off steam, he then requested the number of the engineer Cosimo Zirretta, assuming that he, too, was from Palermo. He'd guessed right.

“Hello, this is Inspector Montalbano from Vigàta. How did you manage the expropriation?”

“What expropriation?”

“The land that the road and tunnel you were building cuts through, outside of Vigàta.”

“Look, that's not my domain, I'm only responsible for the construction. That is, I was responsible until an ordinance put a halt to the whole project.”

“So who should I talk to?”

“Somebody from the company.”

“I phoned there but nobody answered.”

“Then try Commendatore Gaetano or his son Arturo. When they get out of Ucciardone.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes. Extortion and bribery.”

“So there's no hope?”

“Well, you can hope that the judges will be lenient and let them out in five years. Just kidding. Actually, you could try the company's lawyer, Di Bartolomeo.”

 
 
“Listen, Inspector, it's not the company's job to deal with expropriation procedures. That's up to the City Council of the district in which the expropriated land is located.”

“Then what are you people doing there?”

“That's none of your business.”

And the lawyer hung up. A little touchy, this Di Bartolomeo. Maybe his job was to cover the asses of Nicolosi father and son from the repercussions of their frauds, except that this time he hadn't succeeded.

 
 
The office hadn't been open five minutes before the company land surveyor Tumminello saw Inspector Montalbano standing in front of him, looking somewhat agitated. And, in fact, it had been a restless night for Montalbano; he'd been unable to fall asleep and so stayed up reading Faulkner. The surveyor, whose troubled son—who was mixed up with hoodlums, brawls, and motorcycles—once again hadn't come home that night, turned pale, and his hands began to shake. Montalbano, noticing the other's reaction upon seeing him, imagined the worst.

This guy's trying to hide something
.

He was still a cop, no matter how well read.

“Is anything wrong?” asked Tumminello, expecting to hear that his son had been arrested. Which, in fact, would have been a stroke of luck, or the least of all evils, since he might as easily have had his throat slit by his little friends.

“I need some information. About an expropriation.”

Tumminello visibly relaxed.

“You over your scare now?” Montalbano couldn't resist asking him.

“Yes,” the surveyor admitted frankly. “I'm worried about my son. He didn't come home last night.”

“Does he do that often?”

“Yes, actually. You see, he's mixed up with—”

“Then you shouldn't worry,” Montalbano cut him off. He didn't have time for the problems of youth. “I need to see the bill of sale or expropriation for the land used to build the Crasto tunnel. That's your area, isn't it?”

“Yes, it is. But there's no point in taking out the documents; I know all the information. Tell me specifically what it is you want to know.”

“I want to know about the land that belonged to the Rizzitano family.”

“As I expected,” said the surveyor. “When I heard about the weapons being discovered, and then about the two dead bodies, I thought: Didn't those places belong to the Rizzitanos? And so I went and looked at the documents.”

“And what do the documents say?”

“First, there's something you should know. There were a lot of proprietors whose land stood to be damaged, so to speak, by the construction of the road and tunnel. Forty-five, to be exact.”

“Jesus!”

“There's even a little postage stamp of land, two thousand square meters, which, because it was divided up in an inheritance, has five owners. The note of transfer can't be made out collectively to the heirs; it must be made out individually to each one. Once our order was granted by the prefect, we offered the proprietors a modest sum, since most of the land in question was farmland. For Calogero Rizzitano, who was a presumed proprietor, since there's no piece of paper confirming his ownership—I mean there's no deed of inheritance, since his father died without leaving a will—for Calogero Rizzitano we had to resort to Article 143 of the Code of Civil Procedure, which concerns rightful claimants who cannot be found. As you probably know, Article 143 states—”

“I'm not interested. How long ago did you make out this note of transfer?”

“Ten years ago?”

“Therefore, ten years ago, Calogero Rizzitano could not be found.”

“Nor after that, either. Because out of the forty-five landowners, forty-four appealed for a higher figure than the sum we were offering. And they got it.”

“And the forty-fifth, the one who did not, was Calogero Rizzitano.”

“Exactly. And we put the money due him in escrow. Since for us, to all intents and purposes, he's still alive. Nobody asked for a declaration of presumed death. So when he reappears, he can pick up his money.”

 
 
When he reappears, the land surveyor had said. But everything pointed to the conclusion that Lillo Rizzitano was in no mood to reappear. Or, more likely, was no longer in any condition to reappear. Headmaster Burgio and Montalbano had taken for granted that the wounded Lillo, carried on board a military truck and driven who-knows-where on the night of July 9, had survived. But they had no idea how serious his wounds might have been. He could well have died in transit or in hospital, if they'd even brought him to a hospital. Why keep conjuring visions out of nothing? It was very possible that, at the moment of their discovery, the two corpses in the Crasticeddru were in better shape than Lillo Rizzitano had been in for some time. For fifty years and more, not a word, not a line. Nothing. Not even when they requisitioned his land and demolished the remains of his house and everything else that belonged to him. The meanders of the labyrinth the inspector had willingly entered led him straight into a wall. But perhaps the labyrinth was being kind to him by preventing him from going any further, stopping him in front of the most logical, most natural solution.

 
 
Supper was light, yet cooked, in every regard, with a touch the Lord grants only very rarely to the Chosen. But Montalbano did not thank the commissioner's wife; he merely looked at her with the eyes of a stray dog awarded a caress. The two men then retired to the study to chat. For Montalbano the commissioner's dinner invitation had been like a life preserver thrown to a man drowning not in a stormy sea, but in the flat, unrippled calm of boredom.

The first thing they discussed was Catania, and they concurred that informing the Catania police of their investigation of Brancato had led, as its first result, to the elimination of the very same Brancato.

“We're like a sieve,” the commissioner said bitterly. “We can't take one step without our enemies' knowing about it. Brancato had Ingrassia killed because he was getting too nervous, but when the people pulling the strings learned that we had Brancato in our sights, they took care of him as well. And so the trail we were so painstakingly following was conveniently obliterated.”

He was gloomy. The idea that moles were planted everywhere offended him; it embittered him more than a betrayal by a family member.

Then, after a long pause during which Montalbano did not open his mouth, the commissioner asked:

“How's your investigation of the Crasticeddru murders coming along?”

From the commissioner's tone of voice, Montalbano could tell that his superior viewed this investigation as mere recreation for the inspector, a pastime he was being allowed to pursue before he returned to more serious matters.

“I've managed to find out the man's name, too,” he said, feeling vindicated in the eyes of the commissioner, who gave a start, astonished and now interested.

“You are extraordinary! Tell me how.”

Montalbano told him everything, even mentioning the theatrics he'd performed for De Dominicis, and the commissioner was quite amused. The inspector concluded with an admission of failure of sorts. It made no sense to continue the search, he said, since, among other things, nobody could prove that Lillo Rizzitano wasn't dead.

“All the same,” the commissioner said after a moment's reflection, “if somebody really wants to disappear, it can be done. How many cases have we seen where people apparently vanish into thin air and then, suddenly, there they are? I don't want to cite Pirandello, but let's take Sciascia at least. Have you read the little book about the disappearance of Majorana, the physicist?”

“Of course.”

“I am convinced, as was Sciascia himself, that in the end Majorana wanted to disappear, and succeeded. He did not commit suicide. He was too religious.”

“I agree.”

“And what about that very recent case of the Roman university professor who stepped out of his home one day and was never seen again? Everybody looked for him—police, carabinieri, even his students, who loved him. It was a planned disappearance, and he also succeeded.”

“True,” Montalbano concurred. Then he thought about what they were saying and looked at his superior. “It sounds to me as if you're encouraging me to continue the investigation, though on an another occasion you reproached me for getting too involved in this case.”

“So what? Now you're convalescing, whereas the other time you were on the job. There's quite a difference, I think,” the commissioner replied.

 
 
He returned home and paced from room to room. After his meeting with the surveyor, he had decided to screw the whole investigation, convinced that Rizzitano was good and dead. Now the commissioner had gone and resurrected him, so to speak. Didn't the early Christians use the word
dormitio
to mean death? It was quite possible Rizzitano had put himself “in sleep,” as the Freemasons used to say. Fine, but if that was the case, Montalbano would have to find a way to bring him out of the deep well in which he was hiding. That would require something big, something that would make a lot of noise, something the newspapers and television stations all over Italy would talk about. He had to unleash a bombshell. But what? He needed to forget about logic and dream up something fantastic.

It was eleven o'clock, too early to turn in. He lay down on the bed, fully dressed, and read
Pylon
.

 
There were only a few lines left until the end of the novel, but the inspector sat up in bed with a wild look in his eyes.

“It's insane,” he said, “but I'm going to do it.”