The inspector told Galluzzo, who had replaced Gallo, to bring the weapon and ammunition to headquarters.
“Then check to see if the pistol was registered.” A smell of stale perfume, burnt straw in color, hung aggressively in the air of the study, even though the inspector, upon entering, had thrown the window wide open.
The widow had gone and sat in an armchair in the living room. She seemed utterly indifferent, as if sitting in a railway station waiting room, awaiting her train.
Montalbano also sat down in an armchair, and at that moment the doorbell rang. Signora Antonietta instinctively started to get up, but the inspector stopped her with a gesture.
“Galluzzo, go see who it is.”
The door was opened, they heard some whispering, and the policeman returned.
“There’s somebody who lives on the sixth floor says he wants to talk to you. Says he’s a security guard.” Cosentino had put on his uniform; he was on his way to work.
“Sorry to disturb you, but seeing as how something just occurred to me—”
“What is it?”
“You see, after she got off the bus, Signora Antonietta, when she found out her husband was dead, asked us if he’d been murdered. Now, if somebody came to me and told me my wife was dead, I might think of the different ways she could have died, but I would never imagine she’d been murdered. Unless I’d considered the possibility beforehand. I’m not sure if that’s clear . . .” “It’s perfectly clear. Thank you,” said Montalbano.
He went back in the living room. Mrs. Lapècora looked as if she’d been embalmed.
“Do you have any children, signora?”
“Yes.”
“How many?”
“One son.”
“Does he live here?”
“No.”
“What does he do?”
“He’s a doctor.”
“How old is he?”
“Thirty-two.”
“He should be informed.”
“I’ll tell him.”
Gong. End of the first round. When they resumed, the widow took the initiative.
“Was he shot?”
“No.”
“Strangled?”
“No.”
“Then how did they manage to kill him in an elevator?”
“With a knife.”
“A kitchen knife?”
“Probably.”
The woman got up and went into the kitchen. The inspector heard her open and close a drawer. She returned and sat back down.
“Nothing missing here.”
The inspector went on the counterattack.
“Why did you think the knife might be yours?”
“Just a thought.”
“What did your husband do yesterday?”
“He did what he did every Wednesday. He went to his office. He used to go there Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.”
“What was his schedule?”
“He’d go from ten in the morning to one in the afternoon, then he’d come home for lunch, take a little nap, go back to work at three-thirty and stay there till six-thirty.” “What would he do at home?”
“He’d sit down in front of the television and not move.”
“And on the days when he didn’t go to the office?”
“Same thing, he’d sit in front of the TV.”
“So this morning, today being a Thursday, your husband should have stayed home.”
“That’s right.”
“Instead he got dressed to go out.”
“That’s right.”
“Do you have any idea where he was going?”
“He didn’t tell me anything.”
“When you left the house, was your husband awake or asleep?”
“Asleep.”
“Don’t you think it’s strange that, as soon as you went out, your husband suddenly woke up, got dressed in a hurry, and—”
“He might have got a phone call.”
A clear point in the widow’s favor.
“Did your husband still have many business relationships?”
“Business? He shut down the business years ago.”
“So why did he keep going regularly to the office?”
“Whenever I asked him, he’d say he went to watch the flies. That’s what he’d say.”
“Would you say that after your husband came home from the office yesterday, nothing out of the ordinary happened?”
“Nothing. At least till nine o’clock in the evening.”
“What happened at nine o’clock in the evening?”
“I took two Tavors. And I slept so soundly that the building could have collapsed on top of me and I still wouldn’t have woken up.”
“So if Mr. Lapècora had received a phone call or visitor after nine o’clock, you wouldn’t have known.”
“Of course not.”
“Did your husband have any enemies?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Any friends?”
“One. Cavaliere Pandolfo. They used to phone each other on Tuesdays and then go and chat at the Caffè Albanese.”
“Have you any suspicions as to who might have—” She interrupted him.
“Suspicions, no. Certainty, yes.”
Montalbano leapt out of the armchair. Galluzzo said
“Shit!” but in a soft voice.
“And who would that be?”
“Who would that be, Inspector? His mistress, that’s who.
Her name’s Karima, with a K. She’s Tunisian. They used to meet at the office, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The slut would go there pretending she was the cleaning woman.”
4 3
h2> The first Sunday of the previous year had fallen on the fifth, the widow said, and that fateful date remained forever etched in her mind.
Anyway, upon coming out of church, where she’d attended Holy Mass at midday, she was approached by Signora Collura, who owned a furniture store.
“Signora, tell your husband that the item he was waiting for arrived yesterday.”
“What item?”
“The sofa bed.”
Signora Antonietta thanked her and went home with a drill boring a hole in her head. What did her husband need a sofa bed for? Although her curiosity was eating her alive, she said nothing to Arelio. To make a long story short, that piece of furniture never arrived at their home. Two Sundays later, Signora Antonietta approached the furniture lady.
“You know, the color of the sofa bed clashes with the shade of the wall.”
A shot in the dark, but right on target.
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but he told me he wanted dark green, the same as the wallpaper.”
The back room of the office was dark green. So that’s where he had the sofa bed delivered, the shameless pig!
On the thirtieth of June that same year—this date, too, forever etched in her memory—she got her first anonymous letter. She had received three in all, between June and September.
“Could I see them?” Montalbano asked.
“I burned them. I don’t keep filth.”
The three anonymous notes, written with letters cut out from newspapers in keeping with the finest tradition, all said the same thing:Your husband Arelio is seeing a Tunisian jade named Karima, known by all to be a whore, three times a week, Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. The woman went there either in the morning or afternoon on those days. Occasionally she would buy cleaning supplies at a shop on the same street, but everyone knew she was meeting Signor Arelio to do lewd things.
“Were you ever able to . . . verify any of this?” the inspector asked tactfully.
“Do you mean did I ever spy on them to see when the trollop was going in and out of my husband’s office?”
“Well, that too.”
“I don’t stoop to such things,” the woman said proudly.
“But I managed just the same. A soiled handkerchief.”
“Lipstick?”
“No,” the widow said with some effort, turning slightly red in the face.
“And a pair of underpants,” she added after a pause, turning even redder.
o o o
When Montalbano and Galluzzo got to Salita Granet, the three shops on that short, sloping street were already closed.