13

He picked up the receiver and rang Fazio.

“Have you got the keys to Elena’s store?”

“Yeah, Chief.”

“Did you remember to remove the seals?”

“Yep.”

“Then give the keys to Catarella. Oh, and another thing: Summon Lillo Scotto to my office for nine o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“Okay,” replied Fazio.

Montalbano set down the receiver and looked at Meriam without saying anything. The amazing thing was that there was no need to open his mouth, because Meriam did so first:

“Tell me what you’re thinking.”

“Would you feel up to coming with me to Elena’s shop?”

The woman’s face suddenly changed, assuming an expression bordering on fear, and she quickly replied:

“No, no, no . . .”

“I understand perfectly,” Montalbano said, standing up. “I’ll see you again soon.”

He shook her hand by way of good-bye.

Meriam tried to justify herself.

“You must understand, Inspector. For me, going back there . . .”

“It’s not a problem,” said Montalbano, cutting her off.

Meriam squeezed his hand, headed for the door, opened it, went out, and closed it behind her.

The inspector sat there staring at the door.

Naturally, Meriam would have been of help to him, but he could also manage without her.

Somebody knocked lightly.

“Come in,” he said.

The door opened and Meriam reappeared.

“I think I can come with you,” she said.

Without saying a word, Montalbano put on his jacket. When passing Catarella’s station, he asked him for the keys to Elena’s shop.

“Am I coming in your car?” asked Meriam.

“No,” said Montalbano. “It’s better for each of us to take his own car, because I think I’m going to stay there a while.”

There was one parking spot in Via Garibaldi, and Montalbano signaled to her to take it. He drove on a little farther and finally found another spot for himself.

Backtracking, he caught up with Meriam and together they walked the remaining ten or so steps to Elena’s front door.

But then Montalbano froze, as still as a statue, to the point that Meriam, who was a step behind him, crashed into his back.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Look,” the inspector said under his breath.

On the stair before the front door, sitting motionless on its haunches with forelegs perfectly straight like some Egyptian statue, was a white cat.

“Rinaldo!” Meriam said in astonishment.

The animal must have escaped from wherever Catarella had put him and had known the way home, following that mysterious trail of scents that cats leave.

When Montalbano drew near to him, Rinaldo didn’t shy even one millimeter away. The inspector bent down, stroked his head, and moved him slightly to the side. Then he slipped the key in the lock and had no sooner pushed the door open a crack than the cat vanished fast into the gap. Entering, Montalbano and Meriam saw him already positioned outside the door of the apartment, and when this was opened, Rinaldo was again the first to go in, disappearing who-knew-where.

What most struck both Meriam and Montalbano was an unbearable smell of rot. As the woman dug through her purse for a handkerchief to put over her nose, the inspector ran into the kitchen and opened the window wide. Forensics had looked inside the garbage pail but hadn’t emptied it.

“Let’s go downstairs,” said the inspector. “There’s nothing to see here.” As they were descending the stairs, Montalbano asked:

“Where did Elena keep her computer?”

“Let me show you,” said the young woman.

She took three steps and pointed to a small table pushed up against the wall in the hallway with a telephone on it.

“She had one in the desk in her bedroom, and another, smaller one here, inside this drawer. She also had a strongbox in which she would put money for payments she needed to make, or for receipts from the business.”

Montalbano made a mental note to have a look at it later.

When they entered the large workroom their noses were assailed by yet another odor: the sickly-sweet smell of blood. Meriam made another expression of disgust, but luckily didn’t realize what she was smelling. But then she blanched and staggered when she saw the dark stains beside the silhouette outlined on the floor in chalk.

Montalbano held her up, led her to one of the armchairs, and set her down in it. He sat down in the other.

He let a little time go by for Meriam to get hold of herself. Then he asked her:

“Feel like answering a question?”

“All right, go ahead.”

“Look carefully around this room, especially the area around the table and the shelves. Do you see anything different from the way you left it?”

Meriam scanned the room carefully with her eyes and said:

“There was a large pair of scissors on the table, but nothing else.”

“Are you sure that piece of cloth wasn’t there?” Montalbano asked.

“I’d put everything away before leaving.”

“Would you do me a favor? Could you go and look at that piece of cloth closely without touching it?”

“Why?”

“I want to know whether it’s a scrap from the fabrics that came in the day before yesterday.”

The woman stood up and went over to the table, on the side opposite to where the outline of the corpse was. Montalbano came up beside her.

Meriam looked at the piece of cloth for a few moments and then said:

“Could I take something off the shelf?”

“Go ahead.”

Meriam turned, took the longest route to the stacks of fabric to avoid stepping on the chalk silhouette, and, leaning forward, stuck a hand into one of the shelves, pulled out a bolt, and came back to the table.

“Here, look. This is the one most like that scrap, but it’s not the same. They’re both blue but very different in tone.”

Montalbano noticed that the first part of the bolt had been torn.

“Meriam, why is this fabric ripped?”

“Signora Elena did that. I told you she was very upset that afternoon and tore up some of the new rolls with her hands. But I can assure you, Inspector, this scrap wasn’t from any of the new orders. I can even add that this piece of fabric is, well, already worn out. In fact, it looks old to me.”

“Thank you,” said Montalbano. “That’ll be enough for today.”

Meriam put the bolt back on the shelf, and as soon as she’d laid it down she burst out crying so desperately she could barely stand up.

Montalbano embraced her and, almost by force, led her out of the room. Holding her by the waist, he had her climb the stairs, guided her into the living room, and sat her down. Running into the kitchen, he poured a glass of water, ran back, and gave it to her. Meriam drank it as if she was dying of thirst.

“I’ll be okay in a second,” she said.

“I’m in no hurry,” replied Montalbano, taking the glass.

When he returned from the kitchen, Meriam was on her feet.

“If you don’t need me anymore . . .”

“I’ll see you out,” said Montalbano. “You’ve no idea what a big help you’ve been to me.”

“Thank you, Inspector.”

“One last thing, Meriam: Where will the funeral be held?”

“At the Chiesa Matrice, tomorrow morning at eleven.”

Montalbano followed her with his eyes as she descended the stairs, and stood outside the door to the apartment until he heard the front door close downstairs.

Then, walking slowly, he made his way back into the big room and sat down in the usual armchair, eyes fixed on the piece of cloth.

Some questions started to come to mind. Where did that scrap come from, if it wasn’t part of the new deliveries? And the follow-up: Why had it been pulled out and left on the table?

He stood up, went over to the large table, and opened the two large drawers located under the top. There he found all manner of scissors, needles, threads, shoulder pads, and measuring tapes, but no scraps of fabric.

Then he went back out into the corridor, stopping at the little table. He opened the drawer. He immediately noticed that the computer was gone, whereas to one side was the small strongbox, which had not been opened. Apparently the killer wasn’t interested in money.

At that point he heard a sound coming from the apartment, pulling him out of his thoughts. It was a soft, muffled sound, but constant. Then it suddenly stopped, and he distinctly heard a plaintive meow.

It was surely Rinaldo. But what was he doing?

Montalbano sprang to his feet and went upstairs into the apartment.

The cat was outside the closed door to Elena’s bedroom, scratching the wood and complaining.

He wanted to go inside.

Montalbano opened the door. Rinaldo scampered quickly across the room, jumped up onto the bed, and remained standing there, as though inviting the inspector to come in.

Montalbano took a few steps forward, until he was standing in the middle of the room.

The cat was now looking in another direction.

The inspector followed the animal’s gaze and his eyes landed on the blue desk. The surface was completely empty.

He grabbed a chair, sat down, and opened the first drawer on the left. It was full of receipts, payments, notes, invoices, packing slips: all business-related stuff.

He closed the first drawer and opened the second: the same things, except that these were documents from the previous year, gathered together in so many folders.

He opened the third and last drawer on the left: more work-related documents. He went over to the right side. The first and uppermost drawer contained an assortment, this time, of personal documents: expired passports, ID cards, health-care cards, old checkbooks, bank withdrawal slips, and so on.

He closed it and opened the second. He rummaged a bit through the papers, these ones also personal. Postcards, letters, a few photos, and above all two large envelopes shut with rubber bands. He opened them and found a sort of detailed documentation of Elena and Osman’s love affair. Feeling almost ashamed, Montalbano cast a quick, superficial glance at it all, as if he had no right to pry into the private life, not so much of the victim—since he would have only been doing his duty—but of Dr. Osman.

He opened the third and last drawer.

It was completely empty. No computer here, either.

He then pulled the drawer entirely out of the desk, slid the chair back a bit, and rested the drawer on his lap.

Elena had covered the bottom with a piece of wrapping paper. He lifted this. Underneath he found only a tiny triangle of thick paper. He picked this up and looked at it closely. It was clearly photographic paper. But he couldn’t quite make out the image. Looking harder, he became convinced that what he was seeing was a child’s shoe with its little foot inside. He put it back in its place, laid the paper back on top, slipped the drawer back into its slot, and sat there thinking.

He came to a conclusion, but one which had nothing to support it. Namely, that that same drawer had also contained personal papers and photos of Elena’s, which, if he was right, had been taken away by the killer.

He was about to stand up when Rinaldo suddenly leapt into his lap, as if to tell him it was too early for him to leave that spot.

And so Montalbano picked up the cat and set him down on the desktop, then crouched back down and pulled the empty drawer entirely out again. He stood up, knelt down, and looked deep inside the hollow left behind by the drawer. Way down at the bottom there was something whitish.

He bent farther down, reached out with one arm, felt around, grabbed the piece of paper with two fingers, and pulled it out. The small scrap was rolled up from the opening and closing of the drawer. It looked like part of a letter. There were a few words written on it: The fever is gone now. The pediatrician says that . . .

It was clearly a woman’s handwriting.

He stuck the piece of paper into his jacket pocket, then put everything back in place and sat down to think.

How could there not be any trace of Elena’s prior life anywhere in that apartment? He had to keep searching.

He stood up and went over and opened the big armoire. It was stuffed full of clothes. Beneath them, however, were six large drawers. He opened them one by one. All he found in them was intimate apparel, stockings, socks, camisoles. Nothing else.

A strange sort of frenzy came over him. He grabbed a chair, pushed it up against the armoire, climbed onto it, and felt around on top of the armoire, but his fingers encountered only dust.

Stepping down from the chair, he went over and opened both nightstands. Nothing.

As he walked into the sitting room, he felt discouraged. There were too many magazines and books to sort through. Once again, he had come up empty-handed. He had found nothing.

He went back downstairs to the great room. He searched everywhere, in every imaginable place, and finally realized that he was wasting his time in there.

Climbing the stairs again, he walked down the hall, descended the other stairs, opened the front door, went out into the street, locked the door behind him, and headed for his car.

He was opening its door when his cell phone rang. It was Fazio, confirming the appointment with Lillo Scotto.

He bent down to get in and then froze.

Matre santa! He’d forgotten Rinaldo!

He called the station to talk with Catarella. But a voice he didn’t recognize answered the phone.

“Montalbano here. Who are you?”

“Officer De Vico, sir.”

“Where’s Catarella?”

“I’m sorry, sir, but Catarella went back home this afternoon to check on the cat, and when he saw that it wasn’t there, he practically lost his mind and is now looking for it all over town.”

“Okay, thanks,” said the inspector.

He rang Catarella on his cell phone.

“No, no, no, sir,” Catarella said at once. “Ya shou’n’t be callin’ me, Chief, ’cuz I’m not woity to talk t’yiz.”

“Cat . . .”

“Nah, nah, Chief, f’hivven’s sake, don’ talk to me! I did a wicket ting! I let Rinaldi get aways an’ now I don’ know where to find ’im. An’ until I get ’at cat an’ my honor back, I’m too disgraced to set foot inna p’leece station!”

“Cat! What is this, the puppet theater or something? I found Rinaldo myself.”

At the other end the inspector heard a shout that sounded like a cross between a Tarzan yell and a horse’s whinny.

“Y’er a reggler Moilin the Wizzid, Chief!”

Then, voice cracking with joy:

“Bu’ didja rilly find ’im, Chief?”

“Yes.”

“Y’er a magishin, Chief! Ya woik magickal mirakles! An’ where’d ya find ’im?”

“He went back home.”

“Bu’ I looked fer ’im all over the place a’ my house, e’en downna drain! An’ inside the oven! An’ even inside the warshin’ machine—”

“Lemme speak for a minute, Cat. The cat went back to his own home, where Signora Elena lived.”

“On Via Calibardo?”

“That’s right.”

“Man, ’a’ss so lucky! I’m juss rounna corner. I’ll be over in a sec.”

Montalbano turned around, went back to Elena’s front door, sat down on the step, and set fire to a cigarette. He’d smoked half of it when he saw Catarella appear at a run, holding the cat carrier in one hand.

“’Ere I am, Chief,” he said, stopping in front of the inspector and panting heavily.

Montalbano handed him the house keys and said:

“You go and get him yourself. I’m going home.”


The first thing he did when he entered his house was take off his clothes and get into the shower.

Not that he was particularly dirty, but he felt sticky all over, as though the aura of Elena’s life, which he had profaned by poking his hands into her memories and thoughts, had remained attached to his skin.

He got dressed again as best he could and, since it was a cozy evening, sat down on the veranda and started smoking, thinking back on every move he’d made in front of Meriam in the tailoring shop, and then after she’d left.

Well in the background inside his brain, there was a small detail he’d noticed and momentarily formed an opinion about, but which had later slipped his mind.

He saw himself moving about in the shop, as though watching a film.

But he still had that same feeling of discomfort.

He decided to watch the film one more time, and all at once the cause of his malaise appeared clear as day.

He glanced at his watch.

Surely Leanza was no longer in his office at that hour. He would have to call him on his cell phone, and it might even be too late, but his urgent need for an answer to the question spinning around in his head won out.

He dialed the number.

“Sorry to bother you, Fernà. Montalbano here.”

“No problem. What is it?”

“Listen, do you remember seeing a piece of blue cloth on the large worktable in the tailor’s shop?”

“Yes, the one the killer used to clean the scissors.”

“Well, Elena’s assistant has told me that it’s actually a piece of old cloth. Did you notice that it had been torn?”

“Yeah, sure, I remember quite clearly.”

“My question is this: Would it be possible for the forensics lab to determine whether that rent is recent or as old as the scrap itself?”

“Of course. At least, I think so. And there may be a logical explanation for it.”

“For what?”

“For the rent. If it turns out to be recent, the killer could have made it while wiping off the scissors.”

“Yes, of course, that’s certainly likely,” said Montalbano. “Thank you, and my apologies for the disturbance.”

“What the hell does that mean?” asked Leanza. “How do we leave things? Shall I go and get the scrap of cloth myself or will you send it to me?”

“I’ll bring it to you personally in person.”

“Then I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.”

While he was at it, he might as well call Livia.

As he was about to dial her number, the phone rang.

“Oh, Inspector, Inspector . . .” said a desperate voice. It was Meriam.

“What’s wrong, Meriam? Has something happened?”

“I just now found out from Nicola that Lillo tried to kill himself. He’s been taken to the hospital in Montelusa.”

“So how did that happen?”

“This afternoon Nicola got a call from Lillo’s mother, pleading with him to come to their house. Lillo was beside himself: yelling, bashing his head against the wall, drooling! He seemed to be having an epileptic fit. Do you remember that you asked Fazio to summon him to your office?”

“Of course.”

“Well, ever since that moment, he’s gotten worse, if that was possible. When Nicola arrived, Lillo’s mother went out to the pharmacy to get some tranquilizers. But Nicola wasn’t able to see Lillo because he’d locked himself in the bathroom and wouldn’t open the door.”

“And then what?”

“And then he tried to talk to Lillo through the door, but when Lillo stopped answering, his mother returned and together they forced the door open and found him in the tub with his wrists slashed. But he was still conscious, and he managed to whisper to Nicola, ‘Without Elena my life has no meaning.’”

Montalbano listened to Meriam’s words with astonishment. This was one turn of events he hadn’t even vaguely expected.

He didn’t know what to say.

“Thank you, Meriam. If you find out anything else, call me, no matter the hour. Don’t hesitate.”

He didn’t know what to think.

Lillo’s act could, of course, be considered an admission of guilt, but it could equally be taken for the opposite.

The inspector had taken one step towards the French door when the phone rang again.

“Sorry to call, Chief, at such a late hour, but something nasty has happened.”

“What is it, Fazio?”

“I’ve just been told that Lillo Scotto tried to kill himself this evening. He’s been admitted to Montelusa Hospital.”

“Already taken care of,” said Montalbano.

“Huh?” said Fazio, confused.

“Nothing, sorry. I just meant to say I already knew.”

“What do you say I hop over to the hospital and then give you a call and tell you how things stand?”

“Okay.”

He hung up and made a move towards the veranda, when the phone, which apparently was determined to be a pain in the ass, started ringing again.

“Salvo! What’s new?”

At the sound of this simple question, Montalbano felt overcome by a doglike rage and, more than speak, he barked:

“What’s new??? I’ll tell you straightaway: Elena’s last lover is in the slammer because the public prosecutor, who’s in cahoots with Mimì Augello, decided beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is the culprit. Lillo, the boy who would have liked to be her lover, has just tried to kill himself and is in the hospital. And I’m in deep shit up to my neck. Her computers have vanished, her cell phone can’t be found, and there’s no trace of anything. The only clues are: a piece of torn fabric, a piece of a photo with a small child’s foot, and a piece of a letter with a sentence I can’t make heads or tails of. Elena’s body is in the morgue; the funeral is tomorrow at eleven o’clock sharp at the Chiesa Matrice. And what else? Ah, yes. Catarella lost the cat, but then I found it.”

“Good night,” said Livia, ending the conversation.