IM10 August Heat (2008) (10 page)

Arquà let a few moments of silence pass. It was clear he was tempted to hang up, but then he made up his mind.

“What do you want?”

“Do you have anything to tell me?”

“Yes.”

“Then tell me.”

“You’re supposed to say ‘please.’ ”

“Please.”

“Question.”

“Where was she killed?”

“Where she was found.”

“In the exact same place?”

“Next to what would have been the French door in the living room.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Absolutely.”

“Why?”

“Because a pool of blood had formed there.”

“Anywhere else?”

“No, nothing.”

“Just that pool?”

“There were streaks from her being dragged from the pool over to a spot next to the trunk.”

“Did you find the weapon?”

“No.”

“Fingerprints?”

“A billion.”

“Even on the plastic wrapped around the body?”

“No, nothing there.”

“Find anything else?”

“The roll of packing tape.The same that was used for the fixtures.”

“No fingerprints there, either?”

“Nothing.”

“Is that all?”

“That’s all.”

“Fuck you.”

“Same to you.”

Nice exchange.Terse and crisp as a dialogue from one of Vittorio Alfieri’s tragedies.

One thing, however, had come out: that the killing had to have taken place on the masons’ last day of work.

 

 

 

He couldn’t stay in his office any longer. His brain felt reduced to a kind of dense marmalade in which his thoughts had trouble circulating and sometimes got stuck.

Was a chief inspector allowed to go bare-chested in his own office? Was there any rule prohibiting this? No, one needed only hope that no outsider came in unannounced.

He got up and closed the shutter to the window, through which no air was passing, only heat. He half-shut the inside blinds, turned on the light, and removed his shirt.

“Catarella!”

“Coming!”

When Catarella saw him, he said:

“Lucky youse that can do it!”

“Listen, don’t let anyone in without telling me first. I mean it. And another thing—call some store that sells fans and have a rather big one delivered here.”

 

 

 

Since there was still no sign of Fazio, he dialed another number.

“Dr. Pasquano? Montalbano here.”

“Would you believe it? I was just now regretting that no one was breaking my balls.”

“See? I sensed it and took immediate action.”

“What the fuck do you want?”

The usual refined, aristocratic courtesy from Pasquano.

“Don’t you know?”

“I’m going to work on that girl this afternoon. Call me tomorrow morning.”

“Not tonight?”

“Tonight I’m going to the club. I’ve got a serious poker game to attend, and I don’t want any—”

“I understand. So you didn’t give the body even a superficial glance?”

“Very superficial.”

From the way he said it, the inspector gathered that the doctor had arrived at some sort of conclusion.The problem was handling him the right way.

“You’re going to the club around nine, right?”

“Yes.Why?”

“Because around ten I’m going to show up at the club with a couple of uniformed men and raise such a stink that I’ll fuck up your poker game.”

Montalbano heard him chuckle.

“So, what do you say?”

“I can confirm that she wasn’t more than sixteen years old.”

“And?”

“The killer slit her throat.”

“With what?”

“With one of those knives you carry around in your pocket, but which are sharp as razors. Like the Opinel brand.”

“Could you tell if he was left-handed?”

“Yes, if I look into a crystal ball.”

“Is that so hard to establish?”

“Hard enough. And I don’t feel like bullshitting.”

“I do it all the time! Let me have the satisfaction of hearing you bullshit just once.”

“Look, it’s just a hypothesis, mind you, but in my opinion the murderer was not left-handed.”

“On what do you base that statement?”

“I got a certain sense of the position.”

“What position?”

“Haven’t you ever happened to leaf through the
Kama Sutra
?”

“Explain what you mean.”

“Look, let me repeat my disclaimer that this is just a theory. The man persuades the girl to follow him into a part of the house that is now almost entirely covered in dirt. Once he’s got her inside, he has only two thoughts in his head.The first is to fuck her, the second is to find the right moment to kill her.”

“So you think it was premeditated murder, not temporary insanity or something similar?”

“I’m merely explaining my own conjecture.”

“But why did he want to kill her?”

“Maybe they’d had prior relations, and the girl had asked him for a lot of money to keep quiet.You have to bear in mind that she was a minor, and it’s quite possible the man was married. Don’t you think that’s a good motive?”

“Yes, in fact.”

“Can I go on?”

“Of course.”

“The man has her take all her clothes off, he does the same, and then has her bend down in front of him, bracing herself with her hands against the wall, as he fucks her from behind.When the time is right—”

“Will the autopsy be able to establish if there were sexual relations?”

“Six years later? Are you crazy? Anyway, I was saying, when the time is right—”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“As the girl is reaching orgasm and is therefore not in a position to react promptly.”

“Go on.”

“He grabs the knife.”

“Stop.Where does he grab it from, if he’s naked?”

“How the fuck should I know where he gets it from! Look, if you keep interrupting me, I’m going to change the story and tell you about Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs instead.”

“Sorry. Please continue.”

“He grabs the knife—you can figure out yourself where from—and cuts her throat and, shoving her forward, he jumps backwards. He waits for her to bleed to death, then spreads a big sheet of plastic across the floor. After all, there are so many lying about—”

“Wait a second. Before grabbing the sheet of plastic, he puts on latex gloves.”

“Why?”

“Because there are no fingerprints on that plastic. Arquà told me. Nor on the adhesive tape.”

“You see? It was all premeditated. He even had the gloves in his pocket! Shall I go on?”

“Yes.”

“He wraps up the body and puts it in the trunk. When he’s finished, he gets dressed. He probably hasn’t got a single drop of blood on his clothes.”

“What about the girl’s clothes, underwear and shoes?”

“Nowadays girls go around very lightly dressed. All the man would have needed was a plastic bag to make off with it all.”

“Okay, but why did he make off with it instead of putting it inside the trunk?”

“I don’t know. It could have been an irrational move. Murderers don’t always behave rationally. You know that better than I do. Is that enough for you?”

“Yes and no.”

“Or else he might be a fetishist who every now and then pulls out the girl’s clothes, sniffs them to smell her scent, and jacks himself off to his heart’s content.”

“But how did you arrive at this conclusion?”

“About the jacking off, you mean?”

Pasquano was in a playful mood.

“I was referring to your reconstruction of the murder.”

“Oh, that? By looking closely at how and where the tip of the knife went in, and by considering the line of the cut. Among other things, the girl kept her head down, with her chin touching her chest, and this helped me figure out the way things went, given the fact that the murderer also slashed her right cheek as he was pulling the knife out of her throat.”

“Any distinguishing marks?”

“For identification? She had an appendectomy scar and a rare congenital malformation on her right foot.”

“Namely?”

“Varus in the big toe.”

“In plain words?”

“It was bent inwards.”

 

 

 

All of a sudden he remembered something he should have done at once but had forgotten. It was certainly not old age that had made him forget it, he reassured himself, but the heat, which had the same effect as three sleeping pills.

“Catarella? Come into my office.”

He materialized a quarter of a second later.

“Your orders, sir.”

“I need you to do a search on the computer.”

“ ’Ats what I’m here for, Chief.”

“You must see if you can find if anyone ever reported the disappearance of a sixteen-year-old girl. If so, it would have been around the thirteenth or fourteenth of October 1999.”

“I’ll get on it straightaways.”

“And what about that fan?”

“Chief, I called four diffrint shops. The fans’re all sold out. One guy told me alls he had was balls.”

“What kind of balls?”

“The kind you attach to the ceiling. I’ll go try a few other stores.”

 

 

 

The inspector waited half an hour, and since there was still no sign of Fazio, he went out to eat. Merely getting into his car and driving the short stretch of road to the trattoria was enough to drench his shirt by the time he arrived.

“Inspector,” said Enzo, “it’s too hot to eat hot food.”

“So what have you got?”

“How about a few big platters of
antipasto di mare
with shrimp, prawns, baby octopus, anchovies, sardines, mussels, and clams?”

“Sounds good. And for the second course?”

“Mullet in onions: served cold, they’re a delight.Then, at the end, to cleanse the palate, my wife made some lemon sorbet.”

Either because of the heat or because of his stomach, which felt very heavy, he skipped his customary walk along the jetty and went straight home.

Opening all the windows and doors in the vain hope of creating even the slightest of drafts, he lay down naked in bed, on top of the sheets, for an hour’s nap. Then, when he awoke, he put on his bathing suit and went for a swim, risking heart failure.

 

 

 

He cooled himself off nicely and, once back in the house, felt like hearing Livia’s voice.

What to do? He decided to set aside his pride and call her.

“Oh, it’s you?” said Livia, sounding neither surprised nor glad.

Actually—let’s admit it—she was downright antarctic.

“How was the drive back?”

“Horrendous. Hot as hell. The car’s air-conditioning broke.Then, when we stopped at an Autogrill after Grosseto, Bruno disappeared.”

“The kid has a gift for it.”

“Please, don’t start in with your wisecracks.”

“I was merely stating a fact.Where did he end up?”

“We lost two hours looking for him. He’d gone and hidden himself inside the cab of a tractor-trailor.”

“What about the driver?”

“He hadn’t noticed a thing. He was sleeping.Well, I have to go.”

“Where are you going?”

“My cousin Massimiliano is waiting for me downstairs. You caught me purely by chance; I’d come up to get some clothes.”

“Where have you been?”

“With Guido and Laura, at their villa.”

“And now you’re leaving?”

“Yes, with Massimiliano. We’re going on a little cruise with his boat.”

“How many of you are there?”

“Just him and me. Bye.”

“Bye.”

And where the hell did her dear cousin Massimiliano find the money to maintain a cruiser, considering that he didn’t work and spent his days counting flies? Montalbano would have done better not to call.

He was about to leave the house when the telephone rang.

“Hello?”

“Most of all, you’re a man who doesn’t keep his word!”

It was Livia, apparently spoiling for a fight.

“Me?!”

“Yes, you!”

“Mind telling me when I didn’t keep my word?”

“You swore to me that there were no murders in Vigàta during the summer.”

“How can you make such a statement! I swore? At the most, I probably said that with the summer heat, anyone planning on killing somebody would decide to postpone it till autumn.”

“So how is it that Guido and Laura ended up sharing their bed with a murder victim in the middle of August?”

“Livia, stop exaggerating! Sharing their bed!”

“Well, practically.”

“Listen carefully. That murder dates from the month of October, six years ago. October, did you get that? Which means, among other things, that my theory was not just hot air.”

“What matters to me is that, all because of you—”

“All because of me?! If that little imp Bruno hadn’t given in to the temptation to emulate Houdini—”

“Houdi who?”

“Houdini, a famous magician. If Bruno hadn’t gone and disappeared underground, nobody would have known there was a corpse downstairs, and your friends could have gone right on sleeping soundly.”

“Your cynicism is repugnant.”

She hung up.

When he got back to the station, it was almost six o’clock.

He had wanted to go earlier, but when he stepped outside the door to his house, he was assailed by a blast of heat so intense that he went back inside.Taking his clothes off, he filled the tub with cold water and lay in it for an hour.

 

 

 

“Ahhh, Chief, Chief ! I found ’er. I idinnificated the girl!”