“Why don’t you try the emergency ward?”
Of course. The medic might have been mistaken when he diagnosed her with a fracture. Maybe the woman had only a sprain, and there’d been no need to hospitalize her.
In the emergency ward, none of the three men who’d been on duty the previous evening remembered seeing a black woman with a broken leg and three small kids.
“Who was the doctor on call?”
“Dr. Mendolìa. But today’s his day off.”
By dint of effort and cursing, he managed to get the doctor’s phone number. Dr. Mendolìa was courteous, but had not seen any non-European woman with a fractured leg. No, not even a sprain. So much for that.
Once out of the hospital square, he saw some parked ambulances. A few steps away stood some people in white smocks, talking. As he drew near, he immediately recognized the gaunt medic with the mustache. The man recognized him as well.
“Last night, weren’t you—?”
“Yes. Inspector Montalbano’s the name. Where did you take that woman with the three children, the one who’d broken her leg?”
“To the emergency room here. But I was wrong, her leg wasn’t broken. In fact, she got out of the ambulance by herself, though it took some effort. I saw her go into the emergency room.”
“Why didn’t you accompany her?”
“Inspector, we’d just received an emergency call from Scroglitti. There was a huge mess over there. Why, can’t you find her?”
6
Seen in the light of day, Riguccio was pale and unshaven, with bags under his eyes. Montalbano got worried.
“Are you sick?”
“I’m tired. My men and I can’t take it anymore. Every night there’s another boatload, every night another twenty to one hundred and fifty illegals. The commissioner’s gone to Rome just to explain the situation and ask for more men. Good luck! He’ll return with a lot of sweet promises. What do you want?”
When Montalbano told him about the disappearance of the black woman and her three kids, Riguccio didn’t make a sound. He merely looked up from the papers piled up on his desk and stared at the inspector.
“Take your time, while you’re at it,” the inspector blurted out.
“And in your opinion, what should I do?” Riguccio snapped back.
“Bah, I dunno, do a search, send out a bulletin . . .”
“Have you got something against these wretched people?”
“Me?!”
“Yeah, you. Seems to me you want to hound them.”
“Hound them? Me? You’re the one who agrees with this government!”
“Not always. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Listen, Montalbà: I’m someone who goes to church on Sunday because I believe in it. End of story. Now let me tell you how things went the other night, because it wasn’t the first time. That woman, you see, took you all for a ride, you, the ambulance men—”
“You mean she faked that fall?”
“Oh yes. It was all an act. She wanted to go the emergency room, where they can basically come and go as they please.”
“But why? Did she have something to hide?”
“Probably. In my opinion, she was part of some kind of family reunion outside the law.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her husband is almost certainly an illegal who nevertheless managed to find work on the local black market. And he probably summoned his family here, with the help of people who make money from this kind of thing. If the woman had gone through the proper procedures, she would have had to declare that her husband was an illegal immigrant in Italy. And with the new law they would have all been kicked out of the country. So they took a shortcut.”
“I see,” said the inspector.
He pulled the three slabs of chocolate out of his jacket pocket and laid them on Riguccio’s desk.
“I bought them for those little kids,” he muttered.
“I’ll give them to my son,” said Riguccio, putting them in his pocket.
Montalbano gave him an uncomprehending look. He knew that his colleague, after six years of marriage, had given up hope of having a child. Riguccio understood what was going through his head.
“Teresa and I managed to adopt a little boy from Burundi. Oh, I almost forgot. Here are the glasses.”
Catarella was puttering away at the computer, but the moment he saw the inspector, he dropped everything and ran up to him.
“Ah, Chief, Chief!” he began.
“What were you doing at the computer?” Montalbano asked.
“Oh, that? I’s workin onna idinnification Fazio axed me to do. Of the dead guy who was swimmin when you was swimmin.”
“Good. What did you want to tell me?”
Catarella got flustered and stared at his shoes.
“Well?” asked Montalbano.
“Beggin’ pardon, Chief, I forgot.”
“That’s all right, when it comes back to you—”
“It’s back, Chief! Pontius Pilate called again! And so I tol’ him as how you tol’ me to tell him that you’s meeting with Mr. Caiphas and Sam Hedrin, but he made as like he din’t unnastand, and so he tol’ me to tell you as how he got something he gotta tell you.”
“Okay, Cat. If he calls back, tell him to tell you what he has to tell me, so you can tell me yourself.”
“Chief, sorry, but I’m curious ’bout something. Wasn’t Pontius Pilate the guy?”
“What guy?”
“The guy that washed ’is hands inni olden days?”
“Yes.”
“So he was the ansister of this guy that called?”
“When he calls back, you can ask him yourself. Is Fazio around?”
“Yessir, Chief. Got back just now.”
“Send him to me.”
“Can I sit down?” asked Fazio. “With all due respect, my feet are smoking from all the walking I’ve been doing. And I’ve only just started.”
He sat down, pulled a small stack of photographs out of his jacket pocket, and handed these to the inspector.
“My friend in forensics got them to me fast,” he said.
Montalbano looked at them. They showed the face of an ordinary forty-year-old, with long hair in one, a mustache in another, a crewcut in another, and so on. But they were all, well, totally anonymous, inert, not personalized by any light in the eyes.
“Still looks dead,” said the inspector.
“What did you expect, for them to bring him back to life?” snapped Fazio. “That’s the best they could do. Don’t you remember the state of the guy’s face? For me they’ll be an enormous help. I gave Catarella copies for comparison with the photo archives, but it’s going to be a long haul, a real pain in the neck.”
“I’m sure it will,” said Montalbano. “But you seem a little on edge. Anything wrong?”
“What’s wrong, Chief, is that the work I’ve been doing, and the work still left for me to do, might be all for nothing.”
“Why?”
“We’ve been searching the towns along the coast. But who’s to say the man wasn’t killed in some inland town, put in the trunk of a car, driven to some beach, and dumped into the sea?”
“I don’t think so. Usually when somebody is killed in the countryside or some inland town, they end up inside a well or buried at the bottom of a mountain ravine. In any case, what’s to prevent us from first checking the towns along the coast?”
“My poor feet, Chief, that’s what.”
Before going to bed, he phoned Livia. She was glum because she couldn’t come to Vigàta. Montalbano wisely let her vent her feelings, occasionally clearing his throat to let her know he was listening. Then, without a break, she asked:
“So, what did you want to tell me?”
“Me?”
“Come on, Salvo. The other night you said you had something to tell me, but you preferred to wait until I got there. Since now I can’t come, you have to tell me everything over the phone.”
Montalbano cursed his big mouth. If he’d had Livia right in front of him when telling her of the little boy who’d tried to escape on the wharf, he could have weighed his words, tone, and gestures appropriately, to keep Livia from getting too sad thinking about François. At the slightest change in her expression, he would have known how to steer the drift of the conversation. Over the phone, on the other hand . . . He tried a last-ditch defense.