9

Upon hearing these words, Augello sidestepped like a horse. Then he sort of whinnied and looked at his friend with saucer eyes:

“What do you mean, your Elena?” he asked.

“I mean just that.”

Montalbano immediately realized that Trupia had no desire to talk in front of Augello. And so he said:

“Mimì, do me a favor and let me speak with Signor Trupia alone.”

Augello cast a scornful glance at Trupia and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Trupia sat down. He looked neither nervous nor afraid. He probably felt terribly uneasy, and in fact he looked Montalbano in the eye and said:

“I don’t know where to begin.”

“Then I’ll begin,” said the inspector. “How did you learn what happened?”

“Inspector, I live alone and am in the habit of having my breakfast in a bar next door, and when I was there this morning I heard two people saying that Elena had been murdered. I very nearly fainted. Then, after mustering up the courage, I raced over to Via Garibaldi and saw the seals outside her door. So I raced back home. I needed to be alone for a while, to think, to figure out the best way to . . .”

He stopped, unable to continue.

“To come here and tell us your situation?”

“Yes.”

“So you and Elena were a couple?”

“Yes.”

“Since when?”

“A little less than two years. It wasn’t something that was out in the open, but I figured it was best if I came here on my own, since sooner or later my name would have turned up.”

“You did the right thing.”

“I want to declare straightaway that I did not kill Elena.”

“Did the people in the bar say how she was killed?”

“No.”

“Stabbed to death with a pair of scissors.”

Trupia gave a start. He made a pained, troubled face, then brought a hand to his mouth but said nothing.

“When was the last time you saw her?” asked Montalbano.

“Three days ago, Inspector. I didn’t hear from her or see her after that,” replied the man, trying to regain his composure.

“Why not?”

“We’d had a quarrel.”

“What about?”

“I asked her to marry me.”

“And Elena said no?”

“Not only. She was very angry, and felt offended. And she said that if I kept insisting, our relationship would end right then and there.”

“Did she give you any explanation for refusing?”

“No, she only said she’d been married once and that was enough for her.”

“So when you said that your affair was not out in the open, did you mean that Elena wanted to keep it a secret?”

“No, actually, I myself had no problem with the arrangement. When I first met her I wasn’t with anyone else, and she wasn’t, either, or at least I hope she wasn’t. We enjoyed spending time together, and we always made sure that our encounters were something special. We were both worried about falling into a routine and taking things for granted.”

“So then why did you ask her to marry you?” queried Montalbano, who knew that kind of fear well.

“Now, this will sound ridiculous, but at first I didn’t want to get married. Lately, though, on several occasions, I sort of sensed that our fleeting nighttime encounters were no longer enough for Elena. I felt that she needed, well, a constant, committed presence, a sense of protection, reassurance. She was an extremely generous woman who never asked anyone for anything; she was always ready to give freely without expecting anything in return. But she was tired. I sensed that she could no longer bear the burden of life all alone, and so it seemed right to me to ask her to share this burden. Believe me, my marriage proposal came from what I perceived to be a need of hers, and not from any desire of my own to settle down.”

“Perhaps you were wrong, considering Elena’s refusal.”

“Inspector, I don’t want to seem presumptuous, but I believe her refusal was prompted by her inability to open herself up entirely. That was why she threw me out of her house so brusquely, and that was why I made a point of not calling her on the phone. But I don’t think I could have held out much longer. Already this morning when I woke up, she was very much on my mind. But never would I have imagined that that thought was so strong because she was dead.”

Montalbano liked the way this man reasoned.

At first he looked a bit like a gussied-up rich kid, but in fact he had a heart and a brain, and both seemed to work well.

“What do you do for a living?”

“I have a small publishing house. My grandfather left me a lot of money, and I’d just finished university with a degree in literature. I could have traveled round the world, and in fact I could have lived on that inheritance without ever having to work, but instead I put into practice what my grandfather had taught me: share everything with everyone. So, since he’d been a tremendous reader, and I a great admirer of contemporary literature, I decided to make books. A limited number, of very high quality, and fine editions. It’s not as if they bring in much money, but my hope is that they’ll give pleasure to those who buy them.”

Montalbano’s esteem of Trupia rose vertiginously. But there was still one gray area:

“I’m sorry, but how is it you’re friends with Augello?”

“I feel like I’ve known Mimì all my life. Just think, he even helped me distribute my first publications among the relatively limited number of Sicilian bookshops.”

“To get back to the subject,” said Montalbano, “unfortunately, I have to ask you a routine question.”

“You want to know where I was last night?” Trupia cut in.

“Yes, please tell me.”

“It’s a bit of a problem. Yesterday evening I went to eat at my usual restaurant. It was probably around nine. I came out at ten-thirty and went home to watch TV. Were you able to determine at what time Elena was murdered?”

Up to this point, the man had been cool and calm, but when he pronounced Elena’s name, tears welled up in his eyes.

Montalbano got up, went to get some water, filled up the glass, handed it to him, and said: “No later than midnight.”

Trupia drank the water. Setting the glass down, he threw up his hands.

“Then I have no alibi,” he said.

The telephone rang.

“Chief, Chief, the signura Marianna Ucrìa’d a happen a be—”

“All right, show her in.”

“Chief, I can’t show ’er in t’yiz insomuch as she in’t onna premisses but onna line.”

“Then put her on.”

Montalbano turned to Trupia, excusing himself for the interruption.

Then he heard Meriam’s voice.

“Inspector, I just got a call from Stefano, Teresa’s husband, asking me to come immediately to his house because he needs help.”

“Why, what happened?” Montalbano asked in alarm.

“Teresa went to the market after driving the kids to school and found out everything . . .”

Montalbano felt very bad that Teresa had learned of her sister-in-law’s death in such a fashion, but, deep down, he thanked fate for having spared him just this once the need to play the bird of ill omen.

“When do you think I could see her?”

“I’ll call you as soon as I get to their place.”

“Okay, I’ll wait for your call.”

Montalbano set down the receiver and said:

“Back to us. Had Elena been particularly agitated lately?”

“No. But as I said, I didn’t see her during her last three days. But up to that point she’d seemed normal, the way she always was.”

“Do you know whether she’d quarreled with anyone or had some unpleasant disagreement?”

“To my knowledge, no. Elena was extremely reserved, Inspector. Did you ever get a chance to meet her?”

“Yes. I think I was her very last customer,” said Montalbano.

“Then you probably noticed that she was very sociable and immediately friendly. But, in spite of this apparent openness, she was quite discreet and had trouble forming intimate relationships. She never really confided even in me.”

“Strange. I had the opposite impression.”

“It was probably just a façade. The apparent sociability was her way of protecting her real nature, which was solitary and bashful.”

“I’ve been told she had a close relationship with her sister-in-law, Teresa. Do you know her?”

“Yes, I do, I saw her a number of times at dinner parties with other friends, but I don’t think Teresa knew about my relationship with Elena.”

“Could you tell me the names of these friends of Elena?”

“Of course, Inspector. I don’t think they’ll know any more than me, but I can give you some names.”

“Did Elena ever talk to you about her marriage? Her family? Or her husband’s death?”

“Would you believe I only learned about her husband a few months ago?”

“What did she tell you?”

“Very little. She said they were two young fashion designers in the Veneto, if I recall. Who met at the Accademia della Moda, got married almost immediately, and then the husband died shortly thereafter. Maybe an illness. I didn’t have the courage to ask her, Inspector. She already seemed rather shaken for having told me the little she did.”

“Thank you,” said Montalbano. “For me, that’s enough for now.”

He stood up, went over to the door, said something, then sat back down.

Fazio immediately appeared.

“Signor Trupia, please go with Inspector Fazio, who will take down everything you have just said. And give him also the names and addresses of Elena’s friends, and tell him how and when you met her. Also, I would like you please to remain reachable at any moment, and therefore not to leave Vigàta for any reason.”

He held out his hand; Trupia shook it and then turned and followed Fazio.

The moment the door closed, the inspector felt overwhelmed by a sudden feeling of weariness.

A dark, dense cloud descended inside his head, which he laid down on his folded arms on the desk.

Closing his eyes, he began to slip slowly into a kind of tube stuffed full of jet-black cotton. Soon all movement ceased. He’d sunk into the Great Nothing . . .

Then, out of the silence of that Nothing, faint echoes began to reach his ears, first distant, then closer and closer, human sounds that little by little became fragments of words.

“. . . ief . . . ief! . . . ’oo? . . . Jesus! . . . alp! . . . ief . . . ief . . . wha’ss goin’ on?”

Montalbano realized that someone was violently shaking his shoulders. Finally, after repeated shakes, he managed with effort to resurface from the darkness.

One shake even more violent than the others made him strike his head on the wooden desktop.

He cursed the saints, opened his eyes, sat up, and saw Catarella standing beside him, pale and terrified.

“Cool it, Cat!” he managed to say.

“So you’s alive! My Gah! Whatta scare! My legs is all tremmlin’. I tought you was dead, Chief!”

“What the hell is going on?” said Montalbano. “All I did was doze off, Cat. What happened? What did you want?”

“Well, insomuch as the signura Marianna Ucrìa called onna tiliphone line ann’en I called yiz an’ ya din’t anser, I tol’ Signura Ucrìa to call later. So I came to yer premisses an’ when ya din’t anser me, I started shakin’ yiz all over an’ ya still wou’n’t anser. Jesus, I’s so scared!”

“Okay, okay,” said Montalbano. “What time is it, anyway?”

“Past ten, Chief.”

He’d slept for an hour and a half!

“I’m gonna go wash my face. You go back to the switchboard,” he said to Catarella.

He went into the bathroom, took off his jacket and shirt, leaving himself bare-chested, and washed himself all over. Then he dried himself off, put his clothes back on, and went to tell Catarella to make him a triple espresso. But he already felt quite a bit better, and so he called Meriam on her cell phone.

“Sorry about just now, I was out of the room. Where are you?”

“I’m at Teresa’s.”

“Can I come there?”

“Yes, Inspector, but I don’t know whether Teresa . . .”

“All right, I’m going to try anyway.”

He drank his triple espresso, got in his car, and was soon pulling up in Via della Regione.

The person who opened the door was a handsome man of about fifty.

“I’m Stefano Messina. Pleased to meet you.”

He showed the inspector into a small sitting room.

Montalbano summoned his courage and asked him whether, if need be, he could go and identify Elena’s body.

“Of course.”

“How is Signora Teresa?”

“What can I say, Inspector. For Teresa it’s as if Franco has died a second time.”

Franco must have been Elena’s husband’s name.

“Could I see her?”

“Excuse me just a second,” said the man, getting up and leaving the room.

He returned a few minutes later.

“Please follow me.”

In the bedroom Montalbano saw Teresa lying on the bed looking like an empty sack thrown down on the blanket.

She was all dressed up and wearing an overcoat and even shoes on her feet, her right hand still clutching the purse she’d taken to go shopping. Her eyes were closed.

Meriam was sitting beside her in a chair.

“Is she asleep?” the inspector asked softly.

“She’s sedated,” said Stefano.

The inspector realized it was all for naught.

Without a word, he turned around and went back into the sitting room.

Moments later, Stefano came in. He looked at the inspector and said:

“Thank you for understanding.”

Moments later Meriam came in as well.

“I think that even if we’d woken her up she wouldn’t have been in any condition to answer my questions. That only happens in movies.”

“Let’s do this,” said Meriam with a hint of a smile. “If Teresa has recovered by this afternoon, I’ll give you a call. Okay?”

“Okay, thanks, Meriam. You’re a rare jewel.”

He shook both their hands and headed back to the station.

---

He’d just gone into his office when Mimì Augello shot in like a rocket.

“I was reading Fazio’s transcript of Trupia’s statement,” he said, sitting down.

“And so?”

“What an asshole!”

“Mind telling me why?”

“Don’t you realize that it was I who introduced him to Elena? And I even told him I had my eye on her. And he betrayed me. He stole her from me, said nothing to me, and he may even have killed her!”

“Cut the shit, Mimì.”

“But why are you so certain he’s innocent?”

“At the moment I don’t know whether he’s innocent or guilty, but it’s not as if everyone who’s ever snatched a girl away from you has become a killer. And, anyway, wasn’t this Trupia a close friend of yours?”

“You said it right. He was a friend of mine. Anyone who betrays his friends in this fashion is capable of anything.”

“Do you realize you’re talking nonsense?”

“No, Salvo. Just think about it for a minute. He was her last lover. He comes here on his own initiative to tell us that they’d had a quarrel three days earlier. And the crime was one of passion. I’m totally convinced that Trupia went out to eat, then dropped by Elena’s, where they had a fight that ended the way it ended.”

“Well, so much for friendship, Mimì! Sure, that’s one possible hypothesis, even though in my opinion the killer dined with Elena. But do you know this Trupia to be a violent man?”

“No, but it’s you who taught me that it’s the opportunity that makes the thief. If I was in your shoes, there’s something I would do.”

“And what’s that?”

“All you need to do is check whether Elena received any phone calls from Trupia, or vice versa, on the day she was murdered.”

It wasn’t a bad idea. Montalbano picked up the phone and said to Catarella:

“Send me Fazio, would you, Cat?”

Fazio came in.

“Has Forensics got Elena’s cell phone?” Montalbano asked him.

“No, Chief, they haven’t got it ’cause they couldn’t find it. We looked everywhere for it, even inside the freezer. In my opinion—and Forensics agrees—the killer took it.”

“Wha’d I say?” Mimì said triumphantly. “So apparently Trupia did call her, and therefore he had to get rid of the phone.”

“Fazio, try, as soon as you can, to get a printout of Trupia’s phone records. But I have to tell you, there’s no doubt in my mind that this is the wrong track.”

Mimì stood up angrily.

“And now you’re gonna tell me I’m biased. Well, I’m outta here.”

He left the room, slamming the door behind him.

The echo of the crash segued into the ringing of the telephone.

“Chief, ’at’d be Dacter Pasquano onna line.”

Montalbano couldn’t believe his ears. Was it possible Pasquano had already performed the autopsy? And that he was being so kind as to take the trouble of phoning him to tell him the results? Whatever the case, the inspector turned on the speakerphone so that Fazio could also hear their conversation.

“Good morning, Doctor. I’m at your service. Do you need a poker partner?”

“From you I need nothing at all. It’s the other way around. It’s you who need something from me.”

“Then to what do I owe the pleasure of hearing your voice?”

“I thought you might be interested in the murder of the beautiful seamstress.”

“Of course I’m interested.”

“And don’t you want to know about the autopsy?”

So the world really was turning upside down.

“Well, yes . . . th-thanks,” Montalbano stammered, trying to recover from the shock.

“First of all, the lady had just eaten dinner and was murdered before her digestive processes had even begun.”

“Which confirms what I was already thinking.”

“Then your mind must be so farsighted, so razor-sharp, that I have no words, and so I’ll stop talking and you can feel free to listen to your own thoughts.”

“I’m sorry, Doctor, but did you by any chance get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning? I promise I won’t interrupt you again. I’m all ears.”

“The murder weapon,” Pasquano resumed, “was that pair of scissors that was found on the table. The wounds were perfectly consistent with that. And I should add that it would take great strength to plunge a pair of scissors like that so deeply into a body the way the killer did.”

Montalbano couldn’t restrain himself.

“So you think the killer was a rather powerful man?”

“No, no, there you go again. You’re not abiding by the rules. You’re doing the thinking instead of me. I swear that if you interrupt me again—”

“Sorry, sorry . . .”

“The first stab apparently caught her entirely by surprise. There’s no sign of any wounds on her hands from self-defense. The killer, who was standing behind her, aimed for her neck and cleanly severed her jugular, wounding her fatally. The woman should theoretically have fallen down face-forward, but she must have made some kind of movement to make her fall on her back. And now I beg your pardon, but I can’t help but ask: Given your advanced age, can I go on talking? Have you grasped everything I’ve said so far?”

He was clearly trying to provoke him, but Montalbano let it slide and played along.

“I hope so. Go on.”

“At this point the killer bent down and started stabbing the body wildly. This was how, given the close distance, he was able to avoid striking the breasts.”

“And so,” said Montalbano, “the fact that he spared the entire area of the breasts was not an accident?”

“No! Certainly not. It was clearly intentional.”

“And why do you think he acted that way?”

“You can finally start thinking again now, and you’ll see that with a little mental effort you, too, will, ever so slowly, manage to come up with an answer to that question.”

“Why, do you have an idea yourself?”

“Me, no. But the poets, yes. You’ve got an embarrassment of riches there. We could begin with Ariosto: her rotund bosoms were like milk . . . And surely you’ll recall the amorous sorrow of D’Annunzio when he wrote: Oh, but to seek, in the shadow that lay across her breast, as at the bottom of a tomb, Infinity . . . And how could we forget Cardarelli? Wretched woman of turgid breast, your only richness is your milk . . .”

Montalbano was slack-jawed, spellbound. He could never have imagined Pasquano would be a connoisseur of poetry.

“Mind putting that in plain language?” he ventured.

“No,” said Pasquano, hanging up.

“Shit!” said Fazio. “I wanna know if the doctor’s knowledge of poetry stops at the breasts or includes some of the other parts of the female body.”

“Fazio, what can I tell you? All I can say is that this blast of poetry has stirred up a hunger in me so powerful I can barely stand it any longer.”

And for once, perhaps owing to his fatigue, or his advanced age, or his fear of falling asleep while eating, he invited Fazio to come and have lunch with him at Enzo’s.

“But on one condition,” he added. “That we don’t talk about the case while we’re eating. Better yet, let’s not talk at all.”