IM10 August Heat (2008) (5 page)

“What do you mean, ‘different from the rest’?” asked Montalbano.

“Follow me,” the fire chief said.

He took some ten steps away from the house, with Montalbano and Guido following behind him.

“Look at the color of the soil here, then look how, ten yards up, near the house, it changes color. The soil we’re standing on is natural to the place; that other soil, which is lighter and yellowish, is sandy. It was brought here deliberately.”

“Why did they do that?”

“I have no idea,” said the fire chief. “Maybe to make the house stand out, make it look more elegant. Ah, finally, here comes the mechanical shovel.”

Before putting the excavator to work, however, the fire chief wanted to lighten the weight of the sandy soil lying over the path of the depression. So, shovels in hand, three firemen started digging along the side of the house, dumping the dirt into three wheelbarrows, which their colleagues then emptied about ten yards away.

After they had removed about a foot of soil, they had a surprise. At the point where the house’s foundations should have begun, there was a kind of second wall, perfectly plastered. To prevent the plaster from being damaged by humidity, sheets of plastic had been stuck to the wall to protect it.

In short, it was as if the house continued, all wrapped up, underground.

“All of you, dig down under the window of the smaller bathroom,” the fire chief ordered.

And, little by little, the upper part of another window, perfectly aligned with the one above it, began to emerge. It had no casing in it, but was only a rectangular aperture with double sheets of plastic over it.

“There’s another apartment down here!” said Guido in astonishment.

At this point, Montalbano suddenly understood everything.

“Stop digging!” he ordered.

Everyone stopped and looked at him questioningly.

“Has anyone got a flashlight?” he asked.

“I’ll go get one!” said one of the firemen.

“Break the plastic over the window,” the inspector further ordered.

Two jabs of the shovel sufficed. The firemen brought him the flashlight.

“You all wait here,” Montalbano said, straddling the window.

He immediately no longer needed the flashlight, since the light coming in through the opening was more than enough.

He found himself inside a small bathroom, identical with the one on the floor above it. It was, moreover, a perfectly finished bathroom, with tiled floors and walls, a shower, sink, toilet, and bidet.

As he was looking around, wondering what this all could mean, something grazed against his leg, making him jump into the air from fright.

“Mrrrow,”
said Ruggero.

“Nice to see you again,” said the inspector.

He turned on the flashlight and followed the animal into the room next door.

There, the weight of the water and soil had broken through the plastic over the window, turning the room into a bog.

And there was Bruno, standing in a corner, eyes shut tight. He had a cut on his forehead and was trembling all over as if he had malaria.

“Bruno, it’s me, Salvo,” the inspector said softly.

The little boy opened his eyes, recognized Montalbano, and ran to him, open-armed. The inspector embraced him, and Bruno started crying.

At that moment, Guido, who couldn’t wait any longer, burst into the room.

 

 

 

“Livia? Bruno’s all right.”

“Is he injured?”

“He has a cut on his forehead, but I don’t think it’s serious. In any case, Guido is taking him to the emergency room in Montereale. Tell Laura and, if it’s all right with her, you should accompany her there. I’ll wait for you all here.”

 

 

 

Straddling the window through which Montalbano had entered, the fire chief came out. He looked bewildered.

“There’s a whole apartment down here, exactly like the one upstairs. There’s even a terrace with a railing around it! All you’d have to do is install the internal and external casings, which are stacked in the living room, and you could move right in! There’s even running water! And the electrical system is all ready to be hooked up! What I don’t understand is why they buried everything underground.”

Montalbano, for his part, had a very precise idea of why they’d done it.

“I think I know why. I’m sure they were originally granted a permit for a house without an upstairs. But the owner, in league with the builder and the work foreman, had the house built exactly the way we see it now. Then he had the ground floor completely covered with sandy soil, so that only the upstairs remained visible, turning it into the ground floor.”

“Yes, but why did he do it?”

“He was waiting for amnesty on code violations. The moment the government approved it, he would remove all the dirt covering the other apartment overnight, then put in his request for amnesty. Otherwise he risked having the whole thing demolished, even though that’s very unlikely around here.”

The fire chief started laughing.

“Demolished? Around here there are entire towns built illegally!”

“Yes, but I found out that the owner lived in Germany. It’s possible he forgot about our wonderful ancient customs and thought that people respected the law here the way they do in Cologne.”

The fire chief looked unconvinced.

“Okay, but this government has granted one amnesty after another! Why, then—”

“I found out he died a few years ago.”

“What should we do? Put everything back the way it was?”

“No, leave everything just the way it is now. Could that create any problems?”

“For the upstairs, you mean? No, none whatsoever.”

“I want to show this fine handiwork to the owner of the agency that rented out the house.”

Left alone, the inspector took a shower, dried himself off in the sun, then got dressed. He grabbed another bottle of beer. He had worked up a serious appetite. What was taking the gang so long?

“Hello, Livia? Are you still in the emergency room?”

“No, we’re on our way. Bruno’s fine, there’s nothing wrong with him.”

He hung up and dialed the number of Enzo’s trattoria.

“Montalbano here. I know it’s late and you’re about to close, but if I came with a party of four plus a little kid, think we could still get something to eat?”

“For you, Inspector, we’re always open.”

 

 

 

As always happens, the narrow escape made everyone so giddy and ravenous that Enzo, hearing them laughing and eating nonstop as if they’d just broken a weeklong fast, asked what they were celebrating. Bruno acted as if he’d been bitten by a tarantula, continually jumping about, knocking first the cutlery off the table, then a glass that luckily didn’t break, and, last, spilling a bottle of olive oil all over Montalbano’s pants. For a brief moment the inspector regretted having been so quick to pull him out of that hole in the ground. But he immediately felt guilty for having the thought.When everyone had finished eating, Livia and her friends drove back to Pizzo. Montalbano, on the other hand, raced home to change his pants, then went to the office to work.

That evening, he asked Fazio if there was a squad car available to take him home.

“There’s Gallo, Chief.”

“Nobody else?”

He wanted to avoid another Indianapolis-style dash like the one he’d endured in the morning.

“No, sir.”

Once in the car, he admonished Gallo.

“Listen, Gallo.We’re in no hurry this time. Drive slowly.”

“Tell me how fast you want me to go, Chief.”

“Twenty miles per hour, max.”

“Twenty?! Chief, I don’t even
know
how to drive twenty miles an hour. I’m liable to crash into something. What do you say we go thirty-five, forty?”

“Okay.”

Everything went smoothly until they turned off the main road and onto the unpaved one leading to the house. Right in front of the rustic cottage, a dog dashed in front of them. To avoid him, Gallo swerved and nearly crashed into the cottage’s front door, shattering an earthenware jug that was beside it.

“You broke something,” said Montalbano.

As they were getting out of the car, the door to the cottage opened and the peasant of about fifty appeared, still wearing shabby clothes and a dirty beret on his head.

“What happened?” asked the man, turning on a small light over the door.

“We broke your jug and wanted to compensate you for the damage,” Gallo said politely.

Then something strange happened. The man looked at the squad car, turned around, extinguished the light, went back in the house and locked the door. Gallo looked puzzled.

“He saw the police car,” said Montalbano. “Apparently he doesn’t like us.Try knocking.”

Gallo knocked. Nobody came to the door.

“Hey! Anybody home?”

Nobody answered.

“Let’s get out of here,” said the inspector.

 

 

 

Laura and Livia had set the table on the terrace.The evening was so beautiful it was heartbreaking.The heat of the day had mysteriously given way to a restorative cool, and the moon floating over the sea was so bright that they could have eaten by its light alone.

The two women had prepared light fare, since they’d gone late to Enzo’s and had stuffed themselves into the bargain.

As they were sitting around the table, Guido told the others what had transpired that morning between him and the peasant from the rustic cottage.

“As soon as I said a little boy had disappeared, he said ‘Ohh no’ and ran and shut himself up in the house. I knocked and knocked, but he wouldn’t open.”

So it’s not just the police he has problems with
, thought the inspector. But he didn’t say anything about the nearly identical treatment he himself had received.

After they’d eaten, Guido and Laura suggested they all go for a walk on the beach in the moonlight. Livia declined, and so did Montalbano. Luckily Bruno chose to go with his parents.

After they’d been sitting for a while in the deck chairs, enjoying a silence broken only by the purring of Ruggero, who was luxuriating in the inspector’s lap, Livia said:

“Would you show me the place where you found Bruno? You know, ever since we’ve been back, Laura has forbidden me to go see where he fell.”

“All right. Let me get a flashlight.There’s one in the car.”

“Guido must also have one somewhere. I’ll see if I can find it.”

They met back up in front of the excavated window, each with a flashlight in hand. Montalbano climbed through the opening first, checked to make sure there weren’t any rats, then helped Livia inside. Naturally, Ruggero hopped in after them.

“Unbelievable!” said Livia, looking at the bathroom.

The air was damp and heavy.The only window through which any fresh air could enter was not enough to ventilate the space.They went into the room where the inspector had found Bruno.

“You’d better not go any further, Livia. It’s a swamp.”

“The poor boy! He must have been so scared!” said Livia, heading towards the living room.

In the beam of the flashlights they saw the window frames, all wrapped up in plastic. Montalbano noticed a rather large trunk pushed up against a wall. Overcome by curiosity, he opened it, since it wasn’t locked.

At that moment he looked exactly like Cary Grant in
Arsenic and Old Lace
. He quickly slammed the trunk shut and sat down on top of it.When the beam from Livia’s flashlight shone on his face, he automatically smiled.

“What are you smiling about?”

“Me? I’m not smiling.”

“So why are you making that face?”

“What face?”

“What’s in the trunk?” Livia asked.

“Nothing. It’s empty.”

How could he possibly have told her there was a corpse inside?

4

When Guido and Laura returned from their romantic stroll along the moonlit beach, it was past eleven.

“That was amazing!” Laura exclaimed enthusiastically. “I really needed that, after a day like today.”

Guido was a little less enthusiastic, given that halfway through their walk, Bruno had suddenly become very sleepy, and he’d had to carry him in his arms the rest of the way.

Ever since he’d sat back down in the deck chair after visiting the phantom apartment with Livia, Montalbano had been beset with a dilemma worse than Hamlet’s: to tell or not to tell?

If he did tell them there was a corpse downstairs, indescribable chaos would break out and the rest of the night would be hell, or almost. It was more than certain, in fact, that Laura would adamantly refuse to spend one minute more under the same roof as an unknown corpse and demand to sleep somewhere else.

But where? At Marinella there wasn’t even a guest room. They would have to camp out.And how would they do that? He imagined how they would work things out, with Laura, Livia, and Bruno in the double bed, Guido on the sofa, and himself in the armchair. He shuddered.

No, that was no solution. Better a hotel. But where, at midnight, inVigàta, were they going to find a hotel still open? Maybe Montelusa was a better bet. Which would mean phone call after phone call, back and forth in the car, to and from Montelusa, to keep their friends company, and, as icing on the cake, the inevitable all-night argument with Livia.

“But why did you have to choose
that
house?”

“Livia, darling, how was I to know there was a dead body in it?”

“How were you to know? What kind of policeman are you anyway?”

No, he decided, it was better, for now, to say nothing to anyone.

After all, God only knew how long the corpse had been in that trunk. One day more or one day less wasn’t going to make any difference. Nor would it affect the investigation in any way.