Treasure Hunt (19 page)

“What is it, Chief?”

“Listen, Fazio, I’m going to give you a present for you to relish to your heart’s content. I want all the personal particulars of a young man of twenty, Arturo Pennisi. I also want to know where he lives in Vigàta, and anything else that might prove useful to me.”

“Useful for what, Chief?”

He pretended not to have heard.

“I’ll be at the station around six.”

The telephone rang the moment he set down the receiver. It was Ingrid.

“It’s all set for tonight. But I should warn you: I have no intention whatsoever of sleeping with him.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“So you just have those two hours we’ll be at the restaurant. There won’t be any extensions.”

“Fine, fine. What time’s your appointment?”

“Eight-thirty, in front of my place.”

“But can I ask a question? I’m curious.”

“Go ahead.”

“Why wouldn’t you sleep with him?”

“Bah, I dunno, it’s just an impression . . . he’s certainly a nice-looking boy, very bright and all, but . . . I dunno, I have this fear . . . I think he might be a repressed sadist, actually.”

Repressed, if you say so! At any rate, the upshot was that one should always trust feminine intuition.

“One last thing. When Arturo rings your buzzer outside, call me at home.”

“Okay.”

“Is Dr. Pasquano in?”

“Sure, I’ll let him know you’re here.”

Then, after ringing him, the custodian turned and said:

“He’s in his office.”

He went down the usual long corridor and knocked on the door.

“Come in.”

Pasquano was standing in front of the window, hand behind his back, contemplating the landscape. He didn’t greet the inspector with the usual string of expletives he normally held in store for him. Without looking at him, he said:

“I just now finished the autopsy on that poor girl. That’s what you’re here for, right?”

“Yes.”

Pasquano wasn’t in one of his typical moods. Actually he seemed tired and melancholy. Turning around, he went and sat down behind his desk, signaling to Montalbano to sit down as well.

“You’re not in charge of the investigation.”

“No.”

“But you can tell me: are you conducting one on the sly?”

“Yes.”

“Are you just spinning your wheels, or have you got an idea?”

“I’ve got one.”

“Good. I really hope you catch him. I wish I could have him right here, under the knife. In all the years I’ve been working, I’ve never seen anything so horrifying . . . It’s not unusual, it’s . . . unique.”

“And unrepeatable,” said Montalbano.

“He made her look exactly like that doll that was mistaken for a corpse. He must have worked very hard at it, you know.”

“I know. And the doll in the dumpster, which you saw yourself, was itself a sort of dry run, using the doll I’d found in the old man’s bed as a model.”

Dr. Pasquano sat there for a moment, thinking, and looking more and more melancholy. Then he said:

“I’ve figured it out.”

“Figured what out?”

“Why he poisoned her.”

“He poisoned her?”

“Yes. And I know why. He couldn’t very well kill her by shooting or stabbing her. It would have left too many obvious signs on her body. Signs the model didn’t have. Therefore the only way was poison. He’s a subtle one, a real son of a bitch. And you know what? He poisoned her right after he kidnapped her.”

“So he didn’t abuse her, then.”

Pasquano sneered.

“Are you kidding? Wherever and however, and repeatedly, but . . .”

It was the first time Montalbano had ever seen Pasquano so upset and shaken.

“But? . . .”

“Postmortem, know what I mean? He didn’t want a living person, but an inflatable doll.”

Montalbano normally thought of himself as sufficiently hardened by now, but this time he needed a couple of minutes to get over his vertigo and horror.

“I’ve already thrown up,” Pasquano said, eyeing him. “If you feel the urge, the bathroom’s the next door over. Don’t be shy.”

“Did he use surgical instruments to . . . ?”

“Not a chance! This was a do-it-yourself job! The eye he gouged out with a spoon, the wounds he made with an awl, for the hair he used a simple razor . . . Then he carefully bled her, spread makeup foundation all over her body, then made up her—”

“How’d he get her breast to droop?”

“He made do with some kind of home liposuction kit, which only half worked.”

The doctor gazed out the window.

“And you know what else? She was a virgin. And that monster . . .”

The inspector had never heard that word before on Pasquano’s lips. The doctor had never expressed personal opinions of any sort about the bodies he cut up or their killers.

“. . . since he couldn’t manage on his own—he must’ve been half impotent or something—he cleared the way with a broom handle or something similar.”

He turned and looked again at Montalbano.

“Catch him. Otherwise, if he gets away, I’ll bet the family jewels he’ll come up with some other bright idea even worse than the one he’s already carried out.”

“I’ll catch him,” Montalbano replied calmly.

He’d held up pretty well in Pasquano’s office, but as soon as he saw a bar, he stopped, got out of the car, and knocked back a cognac. He really needed it. Then he headed for the station.

“Ahh Chief Chief!”

“What is it?”

“Your collie called Seminario by the name o’ Seminario called tree times! ’E says as how ’e’s gotta talk t’yiz straightaways emergently!”

“And you’re going to tell him you can’t find me.”

“An’ wha’ if ’e reports it t’a’a C’mishner?”

“He won’t, don’t worry. Where’s Fazio?”

“Jess got back.”

“Send him to me.”

He wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. He was worried he might get roped into something at the last minute that would prevent him from being free at eight-thirty.

Fazio appeared.

“Did you get it?”

“I got everything.”

“Sit down and talk.”

Fazio was going to have his long-awaited revenge, a revenge years in the making. Settling into the chair, he wasted a little time properly adjusting his trousers, stuck a hand in his pocket, extracted a sheet of paper folded in two, looked at it as if he’d never seen it before, opened it, and smoothed it out. All very slowly. Then he looked Montalbano in the eye and, seeing that his boss was keeping quiet so as not to give him the satisfaction, he smiled triumphantly and started reading.

“Pennisi, first name Arturo, son of Carlo Pennisi and Alessandra Cavazzone, born in Montelusa on September 12, 1988, unmarried, legally a resident of Montelusa at number 129, Via Gioeni, but domiciled in Vigàta at 21, Via Bixio, in a house belonging to his maternal grandfather, Girolamo Cavazzone. Currently enrolled at the University of Palermo as a student in the department of—”

“Wait a second. Does Via Bixio by any chance run parallel to Via dei Mille?”

“Yessir. But the part of the street higher up, by the cemetery, actually leads directly into Via dei Mille.”

The wild beast always moves on familiar ground.

“Now fold up that piece of paper and put it back in your pocket. You’ve gotten enough out of your system for now, I’d say.”

Fazio obeyed. He’d had his revenge, after all, and with that extra sprinkle of sugar on it, it was sweet.

“Wha’d you say his grandfather’s name was?”

“Cavazzone, first name Girolamo.”

“Where have I heard that name before?”

And suddenly there was light: Girolamo Cavazzone!

The shabbily dressed, eighty-year-old albino, nephew of Gregorio Palmisano, the one who’d come to ask whether the Palmisanos, having been certified as insane, could be considered to all intents and purposes dead, so he could get his hands on the inheritance!

This was the final, missing link, the unhoped-for connection that dispelled all the inspector’s remaining doubts. It closed the circle perfectly, sealing it shut.

Arturo had surely found the inflatable doll in his grandfather’s attic; and surely Gregorio and Girolamo, when they still spoke, had bought two exactly the same.

This was what had enabled Arturo to do a test run on the doll that he later threw into the dumpster. Otherwise there would be no telling how or where he might find one.

The inspector stood up, smiling, walked around the desk and came to a stop right in front of Fazio, who was looking at him with a bewildered expression.

“Stand up.”

Fazio obeyed, and Montalbano embraced him.

“Thanks for everything. You can go now.”

Fazio didn’t move, but only stared at him as though wanting to bore a hole through his eyes.

“Chief, what’s going through your head?”

“Nothing. Why?”

“Then why did you want to know about that kid?”

“Look, it’s something totally insubstantial, a pure fantasy. I’m going to do a little check tonight. If there’s anything to it, I’ll let you know. All right?”

Fazio went out, still doubtful.

To eat or not to eat? That was the question.

Not eating beforehand might mean not eating again until lunchtime the following day; eating right away would mean doing it far too early and hurriedly.

He decided against it. He remained seated on the veranda, smoking one cigarette after another, trying not to think about what he should do. In the end he concluded that it was best to have no plan of action at all and just wing it on the spot, depending on how the situation unfolded.

At twenty past eight, the phone rang.

“He’s just rung the buzzer,” said Ingrid. “He’s waiting outside.”

“All right.”

“Don’t forget that you have two hours, and not a minute more.”

Before starting out, he made sure he had his more powerful flashlight in the car. Then he took his revolver out of the glove compartment and put it in his jacket pocket. The set of picklocks and skeleton keys a retired burglar friend had once given him lay on the passenger’s seat beside him. He drove off.

The game of truth had just begun.

He had no trouble finding Via Nino Bixio. When he pulled up in front of a two-story house with the number 21 in front, it was five minutes to nine. The house had a little garden in front and an iron fence around it, but only in front. The inspector circled around the house in his car. There were two entrances in back: a small wooden door, perhaps a service entrance, and another larger one sealed shut behind a remote-controlled rolling shutter. That had to be the garage, which must lead in some way to the living area.

Arturo hadn’t needed to take Ninetta out of the car to bring her inside. He’d slipped straight into the garage with the SUV and then could do whatever he wanted without being seen.

Just to be sure, Montalbano went around one more time. This time he noticed that on the front of the house, at ground level, there were four windows with iron gratings over them. So there must be also a spacious cellar as large as the foundations of the building itself.

It wasn’t a good idea to enter the house through the front door. There were too many cars driving by on Via Bixio. Better to use the little door in back, since the street it gave onto, Via Tukory, was much calmer.

He parked, got out of the car, fired up a cigarette, started walking like someone moseying around with nothing to do. He stopped briefly in front of the little door and had a look at the lock. It was one of those simple locks you open with a long key. A picklock should make pretty quick work of it.

He waited until there were no more cars passing, checked to make sure there was no one looking out of the windows of the houses opposite, pulled out his set of keys, and on the third try found the right one, opened the door, went inside, closed the door behind him, and lit his flashlight.

It took him three minutes to realize he’d got it all wrong. He’d entered a big room that must have once been a storeroom and was now a dump for things no longer needed: chairs without legs, worm-eaten furniture, chests of drawers . . . And worst of all, the storeroom was not connected with the living area.

Montalbano consoled himself with a couple of curses, turned off the flashlight, reopened the door, went out, and closed the door. There was no getting around it: willy-nilly, he would have to come in through the gate and the front door. And so he walked back around the house and returned to Via Bixio.

He glanced at his watch. Twenty past nine. His fuckup with the wrong door had cost him too much time, and he didn’t have much to spare.

And there were still too many cars driving by. It was really the only problem, since the road was wide enough that the houses opposite presented no danger.

He decided that the wisest course was to wait another ten minutes or so. Around nine-thirty the flow of traffic should let up a bit.

Ten minutes later, he had the front gate open in a flash. The main door, however, immediately gave him trouble and, to top it off, a car pulled up in front of the house next door, catching him square in the glare of its headlights.

Then the car left, and a minute later the door let itself be coaxed open.

Lighting his way with the flashlight, he began to explore.

On the ground floor there was a dining room, a kitchen with a door leading to the basement, a small bathroom, and a living room. All in perfect order.

Directly opposite the door was a fine staircase leading upstairs. Montalbano went up. A very large bedroom, a fancy bathroom, a small study, and another room, locked. But not with the usual sort of lock you put on an inside door; this was a Yale lock and had been put in place rather recently. Which meant that there must be something very important in that room.

It took him another ten minutes to get it open, but he immediately realized that he hadn’t wasted his time. It was another bedroom with a double bed with only a mattress, over which had been spread a large sheet of cellophane, now crumpled and stained. With blood.

There was a nightstand beside the bed with an empty glass on top. The window had been walled up from the inside, and the walls were all covered, like the inside of the door, with slabs of Styrofoam about seven inches thick, to make the room soundproof. The stale air in there stank unbearably of sweat, sperm, piss, and blood. In the corner, a broom. The upper end of the handle was dark. Montalbano went and got a better look at it. Clotted blood. Pasquano was right.

A cold shudder suddenly came over him, and he felt like throwing up but managed to hold back.

On the floor, pieces of brown adhesive tape, the kind used for packaging, and a still full roll.

It was clear that as soon as he’d kidnapped Ninetta, he brought her in here and made her drink the poison that killed her.

But he hadn’t disfigured her in there. The bloodstains on the cellophane were too small. No, she was already dead when he laid her down on that bed to use her as he would an inflatable doll. The bloody broomstick was proof of that.

Montalbano left the room, closed the door, and went into the bathroom to wash his face. But he didn’t want to use the towel. He found it too disgusting. A faint sort of current was running through his whole body, and he was trembling slightly all over. He went into the study, which was stuffed with books. On the desk was a computer, a Polaroid camera, and a cardboard box, which he opened. There were dozens of photographs inside.

The first photos his eye fell on showed Ninetta laid out on the bed fully clothed, but with her mouth sealed with the same tape in which her wrists and ankles were bound. Other photos showed the rubber doll that she’d been turned into, with legs spread, or variously, on her tummy. The remainder documented the gradual transformation her corpse had been subjected to.

Montalbano put them in his jacket pocket. Those photos were more than enough to screw Arturo. He could leave now.

He looked at his watch. Ten-twenty-five. He realized that, assuming Ingrid’s and Arturo’s dinner ended at ten-thirty sharp, the kid would still take at least fifteen minutes to get home.

He went downstairs, into the kitchen, and opened the door. Five broad steps led down to the cellar.

A large room with only four old barrels and a great many dust-covered wall shelves that had once served to hold bottles of wine. And there was a door, which he opened.

And here everything changed. In the middle of the room there was a proper operating table, all covered with blood, with a small table on wheels beside it. On this were a spoon, an awl, several rolls of adhesive bandage, two large rolls of the same packaging tape, a razor, a glass of water with something bloody inside it, probably Ninetta’s eye. In one corner were a pair of shoes and some woman’s clothing. The girl’s. In another corner, a plastic garbage can. But it was full of blood. The blood Arturo had drained from her body before painting her up.

And near the operating table, another small table with a video screen and a disc player. By some miracle the inspector managed to make it work. On the screen appeared the images of Gregorio Palmisano’s inflatable doll that had been broadcast on TeleVigàta. Apparently Arturo had wanted the recording ready at hand, first for practicing on his grandfather’s doll, and then to work on Ninetta’s body.

But there was another door, and Montalbano opened it. This third room was smaller than the other two. Here, too, the window was walled up from the inside. On two small tables sat at least four computers and other electronic equipment whose exact purpose wasn’t clear to the inspector. What was certain, however, was that it was with this setup that Arturo had downloaded and printed all the still shots with which he had papered the walls of the wooden shack.