Montalbano made a dark face.
“Did you mistreat the lady?”
As if reading from a script, Fazio pretended to be embarrassed.
“Well, since we were arresting her—”
“Who ever said you were arresting her? Please sit down, ma’am, I apologize for the unpleasant misunderstanding. I won’t keep you but a few minutes, only as long as it takes to draw up a report of your answers to a few questions. Then you can go home and that’ll be the end of it.” Fazio went and sat down at the typewriter, while Montalbano sat behind his desk. The widow seemed to have calmed down a little, although the inspector could see her nerves jumping under her skin like fleas on a stray dog.
“Signora, please correct me if I’m wrong. You told me, as you’ll remember, that on the morning of your husband’s murder, you got out of bed, went into the bathroom, got dressed, took your purse from the dining room, and went out. Is that right?” “Absolutely.”
“You didn’t notice anything abnormal in your apartment?”
“What was I supposed to notice?”
“For example, that the door to the study, contrary to custom, was closed?”
He’d taken a wild guess, but was right on the mark. Initially red, the woman’s face blanched. But her voice remained steady.
“I think it was open, since my husband never closed it.”
“No, it was not, signora. When I entered your home with you, upon your return from Fiacca, the door was closed.
I reopened it myself.”
“What does it matter if it was open or closed?”
“You’re right, it’s a meaningless detail.” The widow couldn’t help heaving a long sigh.
“Signora, the morning your husband was murdered, you left for Fiacca to visit your ailing sister. Right?”
“That’s what I did.”
“But you forgot something, and for that reason, at the Cannatello junction, you got off the bus, waited for the next bus coming from the opposite direction, and returned to Vigàta. What did you forget?” The widow smiled; apparently she’d prepared herself for such a question.
“I did not get off at Cannatello that morning.”
“Signora, I have statements from the two bus drivers.”
“They’re right, except for one thing. It wasn’t that morning, but two mornings before. The bus drivers got their days wrong.”
She was shrewd and quick. He would have to resort to trickery.
He opened a drawer to his desk and took out the kitchen knife in its cellophane bag.
“This, signora, is the knife that was used to murder your husband. With only one stab wound, in the back.” The widow’s expression didn’t change. She didn’t say a word.
“Have you ever seen it before?”
“You see so many knives like that.”
Very slowly, the inspector again slipped his hand into the drawer, and this time he withdrew another cellophane bag, this one with a small cup inside.
“Do you recognize this?”
“Did you take that yourselves? You made me turn the house upside down looking for it!”
“So it’s yours. You officially recognize it.”
“Of course I do. What use could you have for that cup?”
“It’s going to help me send you to jail.” Of all the possible reactions, the widow chose one that, in a way, won the inspector’s admiration. In fact, she turned her head towards Fazio and politely, as if paying a courtesy call, asked him: “Has he gone crazy?”
Fazio, in all sincerity, would have liked to answer that in his opinion the inspector had been crazy since birth, but he said nothing and merely stared out the window.
“Now I’ll tell you how things went,” said Montalbano.
“That morning, hearing the alarm clock, you got up and went into the bathroom. You necessarily passed by the door to the study, which you noticed was closed. At first you thought nothing of it, then you reconsidered. And when you came out of the bathroom, you opened it. But you didn’t go in, at least I don’t think you did. You waited a moment in the doorway, reclosed the door, went into the kitchen, grabbed the knife, and put it in your purse. Then you went out, you caught the bus, you got off at Cannatello, you got on the bus to Vigàta, you went back home, you opened the door, you saw your husband ready to go out, you argued with him, he opened the door to the elevator, which was on your floor because you’d just used it. You followed behind him, you stabbed him in the back, he turned halfway around, fell to the ground, you started the elevator, you reached the ground floor, and you got out. And nobody saw you. That was your great stroke of luck.” “But why would I have done it?” the woman asked calmly. And then, with an irony that seemed incredible at that moment and in that place: “Just because my husband had closed the door to his study?” Montalbano, from a seated position, bowed admiringly to her.
“No, signora; because of what was behind that closed door.”
“And what was that?”
“Karima, your husband’s mistress.”
“But you said yourself that I didn’t go into the room.”
“You didn’t need to, because you were assailed by a cloud of perfume, the very stuff that Karima wore in abun-dance. It’s called Volupté. It has a strong, persistent scent.
You’d probably smelled it before from time to time on your husband’s clothes. It was still there in the study, less strong, of course, when I went in that evening, after you came home.” The widow Lapècora remained silent; she was thinking over what the inspector had just said.
“Would you answer me one question?” she then asked.
“As many as you like.”
“Why, in your opinion, didn’t I go into the study and kill that woman first?”
“Because your brain is as precise as a Swiss watch and as fast as a computer. Karima, seeing you open the door, would have put herself on the defensive, ready for anything. Your husband, hearing her scream, would have come running and disarmed you with Karima’s help. Whereas by pretending not to notice anything, you could wait and catch him in the act a little later.” “And how do you explain, just to follow your argument, that my husband was the only one killed?”
“When you returned, Karima was already gone.”
“Excuse me, but since you weren’t there, who told you this story?”
“Your fingerprints on the cup and on the knife told me.”
“Not on the knife!” the woman snapped.
“Why not on the knife?”
The woman started biting her lip.
“The cup is mine, the knife isn’t.”
“The knife is also yours; it’s got one of your fingerprints on it. Clear as day.”
“But that can’t be!”
Fazio did not take his eyes off his superior. He knew there were no fingerprints on the knife. This was the most delicate moment of the trick.
“And you’re so sure there are no fingerprints on the knife because when you stabbed your husband you were still wearing the gloves you’d put on when you got all dressed up to go out. You see, the fingerprint we took from it was not from that morning, but from the day before, when, after using the knife to clean the fish you had for dinner, you washed it and put it back in the kitchen drawer. In fact, the fingerprint is not on the handle, but on the blade, right where the blade and the handle meet. And now you’re going to go into the next room with Fazio, and we’re going to take your fingerprints and compare them.” “He was a son of a bitch,” said Signora Lapècora, “and he deserved to die the way he did. He brought that whore into my home to get his jollies in my bed all day while I was out.” “Are you saying you acted out of jealousy?”
“Why else?”
“But hadn’t you already received three anonymous letters? You could have caught them in the act at the office on Salita Granet.”
“I don’t do that kind of thing. But when I realized he’d brought that whore into my home, my blood started to boil.”
“I think, signora, your blood started to boil a few days before that.”