ROOM NUMBER 2
1
They were talking about this and that, sitting out on the veranda, when out of the blue, Livia made a statement that took Montalbano by surprise.
“When you get old you’ll be so fixed in your habits, you’ll be worse than an old cat,” she said.
“Why do you say that?” the inspector asked, taken aback. And a little irritated. He didn’t like to think about getting old.
“You may not realize it, but you’re extremely methodical and orderly. If something is not in its proper place, you get upset. It puts you in a bad mood.”
“Oh, come on!”
“You can’t see it, but that’s how you are. At Calogero’s you always sit at the same table. And when you don’t eat at Calogero’s you always pick some restaurant to the west.”
“To the west of what?”
“To the west of Vigàta. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean. Montereale, Fiacca . . . It’s never, say, Montelusa or Fela . . . And yet there must be some nice places out that way. For example, I’ve been told that at San Vito, the Montelusa beach, there are at least two little restaurants that—”
“Did they give you their names?”
“Yes, the Anchor and the Skillet.”
“Which one would you prefer?”
“Well, on the spur of the moment, I guess it would be the Skillet.”
“I’ll take you there this evening.”
To Montalbano’s immense satisfaction, the food was pig swill. On second thought, pigs must surely eat better than that. The establishment prided itself on its fried fish platter. But the inspector had a strong suspicion that the oil they used was motor oil, while the fish, which should have been crispy, was squishy and watery, as if they had cooked it the day before. And when Livia apologized for her mistake, Montalbano started laughing.
Once they’d finished eating, they both felt a pressing need to cleanse their palates, and so they went to a bar right on the beach to have a drink—a whisky for him, gin and tonic for her.
And just to show Livia that he wasn’t as much a creature of habit as she said, on the drive back to Vigàta he took a different road from the usual one. They approached the first buildings in town from the elevated part, from where you could see the harbor and the calm sea below, reflecting a crescent moon.
“Look how beautiful! Let’s stop for a minute,” said Livia.
They got out of the car, and the inspector fired up a cigarette.
It was just past midnight, and the brightly lit mail boat for Lampedusa was putting about, ready to leave the harbor. A few fishing lamps flickered on the horizon.
Right behind them, a little detached from the other residences, was an old three-story building in rather dilapidated shape, with a bright neon sign on its crumbling façade that said: HOTEL PANORAMA. The front door was closed. Any late-arriving customers would have to ring the doorbell to get in.
Livia, enchanted by the clear, calm night, wanted to stay there and wait for the mail boat to reach the open sea before they left.
“I smell something burning,” she said as they were walking back to the car.
“Me, too,” said the inspector.
At that exact moment the front door of the hotel opened and somebody started shouting from inside:
“Fire! Fire! Everybody out! Quick! Everybody out!”
“You stay here,” Montalbano ordered Livia, running towards the hotel.
Somewhere he thought he heard the sound of a car starting and then driving off at high speed. But he wasn’t entirely sure, because there were also some strange crashing noises inside the hotel.
Upon entering the small, narrow entranceway, he saw, through the dense smoke, a great many tall and determined flames at the back of a short corridor. At the foot of the staircase in the middle of the hall, which led upstairs, stood a man in sleeveless T-shirt and underpants, still shouting:
“Come downstairs, all of you! Quick! Everybody outside!”
And, coming down the stairs at that moment—some in their underwear, others in pajamas, but all with shoes and clothes in hand and cursing—were three men, followed by another two, then yet another man. The latter was fully dressed and carrying a small suitcase. Apparently there were no women staying at that hotel.
The man at the foot of the stairs, who looked rather old, then turned to leave as well, when he spotted the inspector.
“Go out!”
“Who are you?”
“The owner.”
“Are all your customers out of danger now?”
“Yes. They’d all come in for the night.”
“Have you called the fire department?”
“Yes.”
Suddenly the lights went out.
Outside there was already a noisy crowd of about twenty, who’d come out, in various states of undress, from the nearby residences.
“Take me away from here,” said Livia, upset.
“They’re all out of danger,” said the inspector, to reassure her.
“I’m glad, but fires really scare me.”
“Let’s wait till we hear the firemen’s siren,” said Montalbano.
The following morning he decided to take the long way to work, the road that passed through the elevated part of town. He was suddenly dying of curiosity to find out how things had gone at the old hotel. Since the firemen had been late in arriving and taken a very long time to put out the flames, the building was now gutted. The inside had all burned up, leaving only the outer walls still standing, with holes that were once windows. Inside there were still a few firemen at work. The entire ruin was cordoned off. Four municipal cops were keeping the rubberneckers away. Montalbano gave them a dirty look. He hated the “disaster tourism” of those who rushed to witness the scene of a catastrophe or crime. And if someone had died during the fire, there would surely have been three times as many people trying to catch a glimpse of things.
A smell of burning still hung in the air. Overcome by a feeling of desolation, he left.
As he was parking the car in the station lot, he saw Augello race out of the building.
“Where are you off to?”
“I got a call from the fire chief, who told me they put out a fire last night . . .”
“I know all about it.”
“He says it was a clear case of arson.”
“Let me know when you get back.”
He told Fazio how he’d happened to be with Livia outside the hotel the night before at the moment the fire broke out, and had seen its six customers fleeing.
“Do you know the owner?” he asked.
“Of course. His name is Aurelio Ciulla; he’s a friend of my dad’s.”
“And that’s all?”
“Chief, that hotel earns Ciulla next to nothing. He only gets by with the help of subsidies from the city and regional governments . . .”
“Why doesn’t he shut it down?”
“He’s almost seventy now and he’s fond of the place. And if he shuts it down, how’s he gonna eat?”
“The firemen say it was arson. Do you think it could have been Ciulla himself who set the fire?”
“Bah! As far as I know, he’s an honest man, he’s never had any trouble with the law, he’s a widower, he’s never had any women, and has no vices, but I guess it’s possible that, in desperation . . .”
Mimì Augello got back about two hours later. He looked quite fed up.
“Total waste of time. In short, this fire chief, after looking at the thing from all angles, in the end wasn’t so sure that it was arson . . .”
“And why not?”
“The fire started in a rather large storeroom at the back of the hallway on the ground floor. It was used for storing bedclothes . . . And the fire chief found glass fragments of a bottle that had gasoline in it.”
“So, a Molotov cocktail?” asked Montalbano.
“That’s what it looked like to the fire chief.”
“Does this storeroom have a window?”
“Yes. And it was open. But Signor Ciulla, the owner, told him he always kept a bottle of gasoline in there, which he used as a stain remover.”
“And so?”
“And so there’s no explanation, since the fire certainly wasn’t started by a short circuit. But the fire chief still had his doubts.”
Montalbano thought about this for a moment. Then he said:
“Things for which there’s no explanation get on my nerves.”
“Mine, too,” said Augello.
“You know what I say? I say call up Ciulla and tell him to be here at four o’clock this afternoon.”
Augello went out and came back five minutes later.
“He says he’ll be here at six, ’cause he has to talk with the insurance agent about the fire.”
“What number did you call him at?”
“The one he gave me. He said it was his home number.”
“So why was he sleeping at the hotel last night?”
“How should I know? You can ask him when he comes.”
Aurelio Ciulla, now modestly dressed, was the man Montalbano had spoken to the night before, as the hotel was catching fire.
“Please sit down, Signor Ciulla. You’ve already met Inspector Augello and Detective Fazio. And you and I also met last night.”
“Really? When?”
“I was near your hotel when the fire broke out, and so I went inside, and we spoke.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t remember anything.”
“That’s understandable. But tell me something. How come you were spending the night at your hotel?”
Ciulla looked at him in confusion.
“But it’s my hotel!”
“I know that, but since you gave Inspector Augello your home phone number in Vigàta, I was just wond—”
“Ah, okay, I get it. I do that often, I’m not sure why. Sometimes I just feel like spending the night at the hotel, maybe ’cause it’s too hot, or just because. Then at other times I don’t feel like it.”
“I see. Is your hotel insured?”
“Of course. And I’m all up to date on my payments. But today the insurance people called me to tell me they received the fire station’s report, which says they think it was a case of arson, so they have to make sure it wasn’t first.”
“And that’s exactly the reason I called you in. So we can try to understand together what—”
“But there’s very little to understand, Inspector. Since the hotel earns nothing—actually, it loses money—everyone thinks I set the fire myself to get the insurance money.”
“Well, you must admit . . .”
“At any rate I told the insurance people it’s not up to me to prove that I had nothing to do with it.”
“You’re right; it’s up them, and to us. And if it all went well, how much insurance would you get?”
“A pittance. About twenty million lire.”
“Well, it’s not exactly a pittance.”
“But I can prove that I had nothing to do with burning down the hotel.”
“How?”
“Do you know Curatolo, the engineer?”
Montalbano looked over at Fazio.
“He’s the biggest real estate developer in the province,” said Fazio.
“Last week he phoned me personally, wanting me to sell him the hotel. He offered me thirty million. He’s interested in the fact that the area’s suitable for building. So why would I want to set fire to the hotel and risk going to prison? If you don’t believe me, you can call up Curatolo himself and see whether or not I’m telling the truth.”
2
His argument was airtight. And this cleared him of any suspicion that he might be the culprit.
Still, the story of the engineer deserved at least to be checked out. With the current lust there was for buildable areas, one could not rule out the possibility that someone had resorted to dangerous measures.
“So how did you respond to Curatolo’s offer?”
“I didn’t say yes, and I didn’t say no.”
“So you waffled?”
“No, sir. He didn’t want an immediate answer. He gave me fifteen days to think about it . . .”
“And now you’ll accept his offer?”
“What else can I do?”
“If there hadn’t been a fire, what would you have told him?”
“I probably would have said no. But . . .”
“But?”
“If you’re thinking it was Engineer Curatolo who did it, to force me to sell the lot, you’re dead wrong. He’s not that kind of man.”
The inspector looked at Fazio, who nodded at him, as if to confirm what Ciulla had said. Discarding that hypothesis, he immediately thought of another. He decided to broach the question head-on, without beating around the bush.
“The area where your hotel stood is Sinagra turf. Do you pay the racket?”
Ciulla didn’t seem the least bit shocked by so direct a question.
“No, sir, I don’t.”
Montalbano reacted harshly.
“Don’t you lie to me!”
“Inspector, the Mafia knows who has money and who doesn’t. But now and then they do ask me to do them a favor, and I oblige them.”
“What does that mean?”
“They’ll ask me if someone can stay at the hotel for a night or two, free of charge.”
“But do you take down their names?”
“Always. The terms of our arrangement are clear, and they’ve always respected them. I’ve never hidden any fugitives or people like that.”
At this point Montalbano remembered something he’d seen the night before.
“Why were all your customers on the upper floors? Aren’t there any rooms on the ground floor?”
“I can explain that. The ground floor consisted of a kitchen and a dining room that we closed years ago, then a small sitting room for customers, the office, two bathrooms, room number one, room number two, and the small room that caught fire. The two guest rooms are big and each has its own sitting area. I stay in room number one, while number two is almost always vacant, because it costs more than the others. The customers were all staying on the second floor for the simple reason that it’s easier that way for the housekeeper to clean the rooms.”
“Is there a parking lot?”
“Yes, behind the building, and it’s pretty big.”
“Is there a guard?”
“No. And since it’s not guarded and out in the open, sometimes the neighbors park there, too. I just look the other way and don’t say anything.”
“Is there a back entrance to the hotel?”
“Yessir. It gives onto the parking lot.”
“Let me get this straight. So any passerby on the street could just walk across the parking lot and come right up to the window of the storeroom without anyone stopping him?”
“That’s exactly right.”
“Were the registers and guest cards destroyed?”
“Yessir.”
“Were the people who were there last night regular customers?”
“Four of them were; two were not.”
“Do you by any chance remember their names?”
“Of course. I have a list for reimbursements from the damages. Only one doesn’t want to be reimbursed, because he didn’t lose anything, but I still know his first and last names.”
“Please do me a favor and get Detective Fazio a copy of this list before the day is out.”
“I can dictate it to him right now. I have an excellent memory.”
“Where were the customers finally lodged?”
“At the Hotel Eden.”
“Now just bear with me a little longer. Tell me exactly what was in that storeroom.”
“Sheets, pillowcases, towels, napkins, clothes . . . and toilet paper, rags, mops . . .”
“All flammable stuff?”
“Yes.”
“Was the door usually locked?”
“Of course not.”
“How many people used to take what they needed from the storeroom?”
“Just one person, the housekeeper Ciccina, who’s my only steady employee. She’s very reliable and has been working for me for ten years. When we need an extra hand, I summon another housekeeper, Filippa. But yesterday only Ciccina was around, and she always goes home in the evening.”
“Does Ciccina smoke?”
“No, sir.”
“And you don’t think that a customer, or perhaps a stranger, could have gone into that room?”
“Through the door?”
“Yes.”
“I would have noticed.”
“One last question: Was there anyone among your clients last night you weren’t supposed to charge?”
Ciulla immediately understood what he meant.
“Yes. One.”
“Is his name on the list?”
“Of course.”
“Please point it out to Fazio. Who was it that told you he should get special treatment?”
“I got a call from Elio Sanvito.”
“Signor Ciulla, for me that’s enough for now. Please go with Fazio into his office. Good-bye, and thank you for your cooperation.”
“What’s going through your head?” asked Augello.
“If the fire chief says there’s something that doesn’t add up, he must have a reason. After talking to Ciulla we can rule out Ciulla himself, Engineer Curatolo, and the Mafia from the list of possible suspects. You think that’s nothing?”
“It’s a start. But where do the customers come in?”
“Isn’t it possible that whoever set fire to the hotel might have had something against one of them?”
“It’s possible, but it seems a little crazy to me that someone would commit a massacre just to kill one person.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time that has happened.”
Fazio came back a few minutes later.
“Did he dictate the list to you?”
“Yes. But it’s not enough for me.”
“Why not?”
“Because Ciulla remembers their first and last names, but they’re all from out of town and he doesn’t know where any of them live. And he can’t remember their phone numbers, either. But all the details are on the list he drew up for the reimbursements. He’s bringing it to me in fifteen minutes, and I’ll have a copy made.”
“Who’s Elio Sanvito?”
“Somebody from the Sinagra family. A kind of business representative. He manages what we might call their legitimate businesses.”
“And who was the guy he brought to Ciulla’s attention?”
“His name is Ignazio Scuderi, but I don’t know him.”
The whole affair was going to take a while to untangle. Montalbano glanced at his watch.
“Listen, it’s getting late for me. We’ll talk more about this tomorrow morning.”
That evening Livia said nothing when the inspector took her out to eat at a restaurant west of Vigàta, the one on the beach at Montereale whose specialty was the quantity, variety, and excellence of their antipasti.
Only towards the end of the meal did Montalbano mention the possibility that the fire at the hotel might be a case of arson. She then asked the most logical and natural question.
“Do you suspect the owner?”
The inspector gave her a summary of what he’d been able to gather from his talk with Ciulla.
“So you’re imagining that someone set fire to the storeroom from outside, through the window?”
“It’s a possibility.”
“Something’s coming back to me,” Livia said then. “At the time I didn’t give it much importance, but now that you say . . .”
“Did you see something strange?”
“Well, you’d just gone into the hotel, and I was watching you from inside the car when a car came really fast down the street on one side of the hotel, drove straight towards me, then made a left turn.”
“You mean, in the direction of Montelusa?”
“Yes.”
“I also heard a car start up and then drive off really fast. It’s possible the guy who started the fire was inside.”
Livia looked uncertain.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know why, but I’m not sure it was a man at the wheel. But it’s just an impression.”
“I can’t see a woman starting a fire like that.”
“I must be mistaken.”
The following morning Fazio came into work a little late, but to make up for it he had some interesting news.
“Chief, I have to tell you immediately that of the six customers on Ciulla’s list, two are still in Vigàta and the others have left. However, I got the addresses and phone numbers for all of them.”
“All right, then, let’s start with those two. Who are they?”
“One of them’s Ignazio Scuderi and he’s a mechanic in Palermo; the other is Filippo Nuara, and he’s a grain merchant from Favara. Scuderi is the person Ciulla said was sent to the hotel by Elio Sanvito, the Sinagra guy.”
“We’re going to have to look into this Scu—”
“I’ve already gathered a lot of information, Chief. Scuderi is a specialist who works for a Palermo company dealing in refrigerator trucks. He came to inspect and overhaul the trucks the Sinagras use to transport fish. I don’t think he was involved in setting the fire.”
Montalbano looked disappointed.
“And what can you tell me about the grain merchant?”
“Here things are a little less clear. What’s a grain trader doing in a town like Vigàta, where nobody’s exported any grain for over thirty years?”
“Did you find an answer to that question?”
“I rang up Ciulla and he told me this Nuara is a sort of regular customer who comes at the same time every month and stays for three days. When I asked him whether he gets any phone calls or meets with people, Ciulla said no. Since Nuara hadn’t yet come out of his hotel, I told Gallo to stay close to him and report to me where he goes and who he meets with.”
“And the four who’ve left, what can we do about them?”
“Chief, one of these four is a commercial traveler from Palermo; the second is a land surveyor who lives in Caltanissetta; the third is a real estate agent from Trapani; and the fourth a lawyer from Montelusa. All we can do is write to their local police stations for information.”
“Are you kidding me? It’ll take ’em three or four months just to answer, and that would already be asking a lot!”
“So what do you plan to do?”
“You’ve got the names, haven’t you? And we’ve got friends all over Sicily, haven’t we? Then let’s turn to these friends privately. If we get any information worth taking seriously, we’ll go in person to check it out. But let’s not waste any time. In Palermo, I’ve got Inspector Lanuzza.”
“In Caltanissetta, I’ve got Detective Truscia,” Fazio countered.
Montalbano kept up his end.
“In Trapani there’s Lo Verde. And Montelusa’s no problem, there’s an embarrassment of riches there.”
There was a knock at the door. It was Gallo.
“Why’d you come back?” Fazio asked him.
“’Cause I did what I was supposed to do, and then I figured there was no point in continuing to tail the guy. I left Nuara as he was paying his hotel bill. He had a cab waiting for him and was about to leave.”
“What did he do over the course of the morning?”
“He went out, called a cab, was driven to a florist’s shop, bought a big bouquet of flowers, got back in the cab, went to the cemetery, put the bouquet down on a grave, said a prayer, and then went back to the hotel.”
“Did you look at the name on the tombstone?”
“Yes. Giovanna Nuara née Rossotto.”
“Call the church associated with it and ask the priest there whether they said a Mass yesterday for the soul of Signora Nuara.”
Fazio called and confirmed. The poor husband, explained the priest, came every month to visit his dead wife.
3
The first to answer Montalbano’s confidential request was Pippo Lo Verde of Trapani, who phoned at five p.m. the following day.
“Salvo, you wanted to know something about a real estate agent named Saverio Custonaci. Here’s what I found out.”
“Tell me.”
“To tell you over the phone exactly what Custonaci does would be a little complicated. All I can say is that he’s a person of interest, from your standpoint. Would you like to see with your own eyes what kind of man he is?”
“Very much.”
“He’s a methodical man and dines at the same restaurant every night. Where, among other things, one eats very well. All right if we meet at eight-thirty at the Bar Libertà?”
“Quite all right. Listen, would you mind if I brought my girlfriend along?”
“Not at all! On the contrary. That way I’ll get to meet her.”
Livia was very pleased to be invited. And she immediately hit it off with Lo Verde.
As they were walking to the restaurant, Lo Verde explained to Montalbano that Custonaci had been a skillful real estate agent in his youth, appreciated by everyone for his honesty and above all because during the negotiations over a sale, he knew how to remain neutral and impartial in his judgment.
So it was that one day, Sabato Sutera, a known mafioso who had an ongoing dispute with another mafioso, Ernesto Pilato, got the idea to ask Custonaci to serve as a kind of arbitrator to their quarrel. Custonaci accepted and brought his assignment to a conclusion that left both parties satisfied. Ever since that time, Custonaci had remained a mediator, but was no longer an agent. The interests for which he mediated no longer involved property but the sort of prickly disputes that arose between competing Mafia families and risked taking a bad turn.
And his fame grew so great that it spread beyond the confines of the province. By now he was summoned to every part of Sicily to work his magic.
“So he must certainly have gone to Vigàta to settle a dispute between the Sinagras and the Cuffaros,” Lo Verde concluded.
And maybe the Cuffaros were not so satisfied with the results and mounted a nice little attack on him, thought Montalbano.
But he said nothing.
Apparently Lo Verde had set things up so that the table he’d reserved would be right next to that of Custonaci, who was already seated, waiting for his first course and looking around at the other clients, when the three of them came in.
He was a chubby man of about sixty, with an open, cordial face and an affable air that inspired confidence in the person in front of him. He dressed like a peasant, in fustian jacket and trousers, but had the manners of the well-bred. To the greeting of a man who’d just come in, he replied with a smile that looked somewhere between episcopal and paternal. He was perfectly calm and at ease.
It wasn’t at all the attitude of someone who’d just been through an attack on his person.
“Is he alone?” Montalbano asked Lo Verde.
“Do you mean, does he have an escort?”
“Yes.”
“No, he never does.”
This confirmed the inspector’s impression. Custonaci was not the target of the fire.
Meanwhile, the mediator had started eating.
Montalbano kept an eye on him, while eating in turn. And when he realized that Custonaci, having finished his fruit course, was getting ready to leave, he shot to his feet and, before the amazed eyes of Lo Verde and Livia, went over to the man’s table.
“I’m sorry to trouble you.”
Custonaci showed no sign of surprise.
“No trouble at all, Inspector Montalbano.”
“Do you know me?”
“By sight, until a moment ago. Now I have the honor of knowing you in person. Please sit down.”
Montalbano sat down.
“What can I do for you, Inspector? Ask me anything you like,” said Custonaci, encouraging him with a smile.
“Thank you, you’re very kind. You were in Vigàta the other night, when the hotel you were staying in—”
“Yes, that was quite unpleasant. And it might have gone worse for me, had room number two not been occupied. That’s the one I usually ask for. It has a little sitting room that allows me to receive the people who come to meet me on so-called neutral ground.”
Montalbano felt slightly bewildered.
Hadn’t Ciulla told him that room number 2 was not occupied? He decided not to mention this to Custonaci.
“I see. But why do you imply you would have been in greater danger in room number two?”
“Because it’s adjacent to the storeroom where the fire started. The smoke might have suffocated me in my sleep.”
“Have you been told that the fire chief thinks it was arson?”
The inspector wasn’t expecting the answer that Custonaci gave him, nor the almost indifferent tone in which he said it.
“That’s not such a far-fetched surmise.”
“So you agree?”
“Why, don’t you, Inspector Montalbano? If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be wasting time talking to me.”
“Am I wasting time talking to you?”
“That depends on what you want to know from me. If, to use an example, or just for the sake of argument, you want to know whether the fire was intended to kill me, you are just wasting your time.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“From the simple fact that my mediation led to a resolution that met with the full satisfaction of both parties in question.” He smiled. “They were both in full agreement; there were no objections of any sort. Have I made myself clear?”
“Quite clear.”
Montalbano considered their discussion over, and was about to get up and go, when Custonaci stopped him with a hand gesture.
“May I ask a question myself?”
“Of course.”
“You were in the hotel when we came downstairs on our way out. I saw you and recognized you in spite of the smoke and confusion. Do you remember how many customers we were in all?”
“Six.”
“Precisely. That’s how many I remember, too. And counting you and Ciulla, that makes eight of us.”
He paused. Now he was no longer smiling.
“But then things don’t add up.”
“Why not?”
“Because if room number two was occupied, there should have been seven customers in all. These are numbers, Inspector. They’re not opinions or theories. As far as I could tell, you seem to have arrived as soon as Ciulla started shouting. Did you see anyone come out of that room?”
“No.”
“Nor did I. Which means there wasn’t anyone staying in that room.”
“And so?”
“And so why did Ciulla tell me it was occupied? You see, when I stay at that hotel, I pay duly and don’t even ask for a discount. What reason could he have had to say I couldn’t stay in room two? If I were you, I would try to find an explanation.”
The following morning was crucial, because of three phone calls. One outgoing, and two incoming.
The first thing Montalbano did was to tell Fazio what Custonaci had said and to get Ciulla on the phone.
He didn’t feel like wasting time with him and so got straight to the point.
“Last night I met Custonaci, the mediator, entirely by chance in Trapani, and we talked about the fire. Why did you tell him room number two was rented out when you told me the opposite?”
Ciulla replied at once.
“It’s a delicate matter, Inspector.”
“Delicate or not, answer my question first. Was room number two occupied or not?”
“Absolutely not, as I already told you. On the other hand, if it was rented out and nobody came out of the room, logically speaking the firemen should have found a corpse in there.”
“Why did you tell Custonaci it was taken?”
“Inspector, Custonaci had come to my hotel three times in the last few months, and I always gave him room two, as he wanted. But the people he would receive there scared me just to look at them. So this time I asked myself: Why would I want people like that in my house? So I gave him an excuse. And as a result they had to meet wherever the hell they chose, but not at my place.”
The explanation made sense, and Montalbano hung up.
“But how is it this man always finds a plausible excuse?”
He answered his own question.
“Either he’s someone who never strays an inch from the straight and narrow path, or else he’s a great big son of a bitch, even though he doesn’t seem like one.”
Fazio reported that he’d received news from Palermo first thing that morning about the traveling salesman, whose name was Pasquale Sanvito. The information said he was a man with a spotless reputation.
It said he was a serious, law-abiding citizen, a responsible provider for his family who earned his living honestly.
There was no reason in heaven or on earth to think anyone would want to start a fire to kill him.
Half an hour later, as they were still talking, Fazio’s contact in Caltanissetta called him to tell him what he’d found on Guido Lopresti, the land surveyor.
“Look, Fazio, speaking from a professional point of view, this Lopresti is the kind of person you could say is irreproachable,” said Detective Truscia. “And he’s never out of work, because everyone thinks very highly of him.”
“How about from the private point of view?”
“That’s where things change radically.”
“In what sense?”
“In the sense that he’s a scoundrel. He’s got a wife who’s like a flower, young and beautiful, but that’s not enough for him. He has another three women here, and another two or three in nearby towns. And since everybody knows this, sometimes things turn nasty between these women. And there you have it.”
As Fazio hung up, he and Montalbano looked at each other in disappointment.
Clearly all these people were to be ruled out. There was only one of the hotel’s customers left: the lawyer from Montelusa.
“Who should deal with this gentleman, you or me?” asked the inspector.
“I’ll take care of it,” said Fazio.
There was a knock at the door, and Mimì Augello came in.
4
“Good Lord, what happened to you two? You should see your faces! What happened? Did somebody die?”
“We’ve reached a dead end in the arson investigation,” Fazio replied.
And since Mimì wanted to be filled in, the inspector told him the whole story.
“So there’s only one of the six left?” Augello asked.
“Yes, a lawyer from Montelusa.”
“A lawyer who lives in Montelusa?”
“Yes. What, have you gone deaf or something?”
“How odd!”
“Why? In your opinion there shouldn’t be any lawyers living in Montelusa?”
“Come on, gimme a break!” said Mimì, offended. “It’s you who said it. I’m trying to think seriously about this.”
“Then let’s hear your serious thoughts.”
“My question is: Why, after taking care of business in Vigàta, didn’t this lawyer just go on home to Montelusa after working hours? Even if he doesn’t own a car and takes a cab home, he’s still spending a lot less than a night at the hotel will cost him.”
A solid argument, no two ways about it.
“Maybe he has a customer who works all day and can only see him late in the evening,” ventured Fazio.
“No, that doesn’t hold up,” said Montalbano. “Mimì’s right.”
“What’s this lawyer’s name?” asked Augello.
“Ettore Manganaro,” said Fazio.
“Aha!” exclaimed Mimì.
“What’s ‘aha’ supposed to mean? Do you know him?”
“By name and by sight. He’s one of the top criminal lawyers in Montelusa. He’s about forty-five, rather elegant and well-mannered, and a bachelor. Which reinforces my suspicion and raises another question.”
“And what’s that?”
“Why would a man who earns as much as he does want to stay in a fourth-rate hotel? And on that note, I gotta go.”
He got up and left.
“It’s certainly true that a criminal lawyer like this Manganaro must have more than a few enemies,” Fazio commented.
“By tomorrow evening I want you to tell me everything there is to know about this guy,” the inspector ordered him. “So you should probably start right away.”
Without a word, Fazio also left the room.
The information Fazio brought back was utterly generic in nature. Except for two details, one public, the other private. The former was that one of Manganaro’s clients, Totuccio Gallinaro by name, a mafioso from the Sinagra clan who had been sentenced to thirty years, blamed Manganaro for the harsh penalty, accusing the lawyer of having made a deal with the prosecution. And Totuccio had publicly sworn he would make him pay for it.
The other detail was that the lawyer, after living for three years with the sister of a colleague of his, had thrown her out one month ago with no explanation, creating a kind of rift in the Order of Montelusan Lawyers.
“Did your friends tell you whether Totuccio’s threat was anything to be taken seriously?”
“Oh, it’s serious, all right.”
“But do you really think the Sinagras would be ready to back Gallinaro up? I don’t.”
“Nah, I don’t, either. But they can’t do much to prevent some hothead friend of Gallinaro’s from doing something stupid.”
“Isn’t it possible that Manganaro went to that hotel because he had an appointment with someone from the Sinagras? And he maybe even took advantage of the presence of the mediator, Custonaci, to get some kind of reassurance that Gallinaro’s threat would be neutralized?”
“Sure, it’s possible. But the question still remains: Why set fire to the hotel?”
At that exact moment an idea, still rather sketchy, began to stir in the inspector’s brain.
“And what if we were wrong about everything?”
“What do you mean?” Fazio asked, taken aback.
“Wrong in the way we’re conducting the investigation.”
“Explain.”
“Rather than investigate who was at the hotel, it might be better to find out who wasn’t there.”
Fazio gave him a confused look.
“Chief, except for those seven people—owner included—the rest of the world was outside. What are you saying?”
“That’s not what I meant. I was conjecturing that maybe Ciulla sang us only half the Mass.”
“I don’t understand anything anymore.”
“Try to follow my reasoning. Ciulla tells Custonaci that room number two is occupied. Right?”
“Right.”
“Whereas he tells us it was free. Right?”
“Right.”
“And what if he was telling the truth in both cases?”
“That’s not possible! It was either free or it wasn’t! There’s no two ways about it!”
“But in fact there are two ways about it! Because at the moment Custonaci asks him about it, the room is reserved but the customer hasn’t arrived yet; and when we ask him about it, the room is free because the customer has come and gone after a visit of only a few minutes.”
“But you never saw that customer come out!”
“Do you know whether the back door, the one that gave onto the parking lot, was always locked or unlocked?”
“It was always locked. The customers had to ring the buzzer to enter.”
“So it’s possible that as soon as the fire broke out, this mystery customer went out the back door, which was also closer to where he was than the main door in front.”
“Chief, your hypothesis doesn’t hold water.”
“Why not?”
“Because the back door, being right next to the storeroom, was unusable.”
“That doesn’t matter. I want to continue down this path.”
“How?”
“Call all six customers and have them tell you, in this order, what day and at what time of day they got to the hotel, at what hour they came in on the night of the fire, and anything, no matter how minor, they managed to see or hear in the minutes preceding the outbreak of the fire.”
Two hours later, the inspector had their answers. The conscientious Fazio had written them all down on a sheet of paper that he’d left on Montalbano’s desk.
1. Ignazio Scuderi, mechanic.
Arrived two days before the fire, came back to the hotel at 10:30 p.m. on the night of the fire. Saw and heard nothing unusual.
2. Filippo Nuara, grain merchant.
Arrived the day before, came back to his room at 10:00 p.m. Saw and heard nothing.
3. Saverio Custonaci, mediator.
Arrived at 9:00 on the morning of the same day and went out half an hour later. Returned at 11:00 p.m. and went right to sleep. Saw and heard nothing.
4. Pasquale Sanvito, traveling salesman.
Arrived three days earlier, came back at about 10:00 p.m. Heard and saw nothing.
5. Ettore Manganaro, lawyer.
Arrived the evening of the fire, at about 11:30 p.m. Though awake and still dressed when the fire broke out, he saw and heard nothing.
6. Guido Lopresti, surveyor.
Arrived the day before, got back to the hotel at about 11:30 p.m.***
“What are the three asterisks supposed to mean?”
“They mean that Lopresti told me a whole lot of things that were too complicated to write down.”
“Tell me now.”
“Well, he said that when he got back to the hotel at eleven-thirty he wanted to ask Ciulla for a wake-up call at six the following morning, but he had to wait a good five minutes because Ciulla was busy chatting with Manganaro, the lawyer, whom he recognized by sight and who must have arrived just before that because he still had his overnight bag in his hand. The lawyer then went upstairs to his room, and after talking with Ciulla, Lopresti himself went to bed.”
“That doesn’t seem like such a—”
“Wait. I haven’t come to the best part yet. Lopresti’s room was the one directly above the sitting area of room number two. He’d just gotten undressed—so it was about ten minutes to twelve—when he heard a car pull up in the lot outside, then about a minute later the doorbell to the back door rang. It was clearly a customer who’d just arrived. Not fifteen minutes later, he heard the window of the sitting area of room two being opened violently, and almost immediately afterwards, he heard Ciulla’s voice shouting: ‘Fire!’”
Montalbano slapped himself hard on the forehead.
“The window!”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean the customer who was so briefly in room number two left through the window! It’s all clear to me now!”
“Then please make it clear to me, too.”
“Later. First I want you to find out something of capital importance to me: What kind of relations does Ciulla have, or has Ciulla had, with Manganaro, the lawyer? I want to know within the hour. Now get out of here.”
Fazio must have broken some kind of record. An hour and fifteen minutes later, he was back.
Twenty years earlier, Ciulla’s younger brother, Agostino, was charged with taking part in an armed robbery in which someone had died. Agostino had always claimed his innocence, and Manganaro, still cutting his teeth at the time, defended him and won him a full acquittal, earning Ciulla’s endless gratitude.
“Go get him and bring him here to me!”
“Who?”
“Ciulla.”
Ciulla was as calm and collected as usual.
“Please listen to me,” said the inspector, “and I’ll tell you what I think happened. On the morning of the day of the fire, you get a phone call from Manganaro, the lawyer, who tells you he needs to meet with a fugitive in the safest place possible. You reserve room number two for the fugitive, and another room upstairs for the lawyer. Manganaro arrives with his car at eleven-thirty that evening, probably tells you that the fugitive will be arriving shortly, also by car, and will buzz at the back door. Which is exactly what happens. But the lawyer doesn’t have time to meet the fugitive, because, in the meantime, the fire breaks out. You rush to room number two to let the fugitive escape through the window in the sitting room. The fire itself was probably started by someone who didn’t want that meeting to take place. Have you followed me?”
“Yes, perfectly.”
“Do you realize that I can throw you in jail on two very serious charges?”
“I realize that. But, if you’ll allow me, I’d like to tell you a story I like a lot better than yours. A hotel manager gets a phone call from a lawyer whom he worships. A month earlier, this lawyer fell madly in love with a woman separated from her husband but whose ex-mate is still extremely jealous. That evening, the two finally have an opportunity to spend the night together in peace. And so the hotel manager leaves room number two available to them. The lawyer arrives, talks to the manager, and retires to his room. Five minutes later, the back-door buzzer rings. The manager opens the door and sees the woman there. The manager closes the door and shows her to her room. The lady is nervous and asks for a bottle of water and a glass. The manager goes and gets these for her. When he returns, the woman informs him that there’s no running water in the bathroom sink. While the manager is doing his best to accommodate her, the woman comes into the bathroom and tells him there’s a strong smell of smoke. The manager leaves the room and sees that the storeroom has caught fire and it’s not the sort of thing a small extinguisher can handle. And so he has the woman escape out the window and starts shouting. What do you think?”
“I think you’re right, your story’s a lot better than mine. So, in your opinion, it was the lady’s ex-husband who set fire to the place?”
“In the lawyer’s opinion, too. And he went and talked to the husband. Who says he was desperate. He’d followed his wife and when he realized she was going to meet with the lawyer, he lost his head. He had a newspaper in his jacket pocket, and so he lit it and threw it in through the storeroom window. He’s willing to pay for the damages. He’s willing to do anything. It was just a moment of madness, he said. He’s a good man. He didn’t realize he could have caused a massacre. He just wanted to break up that meeting. The lawyer’s not going to press charges, and I’m not, either. What are we going to do, Inspector?”
For the first time in his life, Montalbano didn’t know how to respond.