"I ask you again:Why fake the heist? From where they'd hidden it, the truck could have easily gone back to the Crasticeddru without having to pass through Vig."
"But it did have to pass through Vig. If they'd been stopped by the carabinieri, the Customs Police, or whomever, with those fifteen crates aboard, unaccompanied by any delivery note, they would have aroused suspicion. Theyd have been forced to open one, and that would have been the end of that. They absolutely did have to take back the packages that Ingrassia had unloaded, and which he had every reason not to open."
"I'm beginning to understand."
"So, at a certain hour of the night, the truck returns to the supermarket. The night watchman is in no position to recognize either the deliverymen or the truck because he wasn't yet on duty when they came the previous evening. They load the still-sealed packages, head off to the Crasticeddru, unload the weapons crates, turn back around, ditch the truck in the lot behind the filling station, and their work is done."
"But can you tell me why they didn't simply get rid of the stolen merchandise and head back to Catania?"
"That's the stroke of genius. By leaving the truck behind with all the stolen merchandise inside, they throw us off their trail. We're automatically forced to assume some kind of flap a threat, a warning for not paying ones protection dues. In short, they force us to investigate at a lower level, the kind of stuff that is unfortunately an everyday matter in this part of Italy. And Ingrassia plays his part very well, absurdly calling it all a practical joke."
"A real stroke of genius," said the commissioner.
"Yes, but if you look closely enough, you can always uncover a mistake. In our case, they didn't realize that a piece of cardboard had slipped under the planks that served as the caves floor."
"Right, right," the commissioner said pensively. Then, as if to himself: "Who knows where the empty boxes ended up?" he queried.
Now and then the commissioner would pause in idiotic wonder over meaningless details.
"They probably loaded them into some car and burned them out in the country. Because some accomplices brought at least two cars to the Crasticeddru, perhaps to take the driver away after he'd ditched the truck behind the gas station."
"So without that piece of cardboard we would never have discovered anything," the commissioner concluded.
"Well, not exactly," said Montalbano. "I was following another path that would eventually have led me to the same conclusions. They were forced, you see, to kill a poor old man."
The commissioner gave a start, darkening.
"A murder? Why was I not informed of this?"
"Because it was made to look like an accident. I only ascertained a couple of nights ago that the brakes on his car had been tampered with."
"Was it Jacomuzzi who told you?"
"For the love of God! Jacomuzzi, bless his soul, is certainly competent, but mixing him up in this would have been like issuing a press release."
"One of these days I'm going to give that Jacomuzzi a good dressing down ...I'm going to skin him alive," said the commissioner, sighing. "Now tell me the whole story, but slowly, and in chronological order."
Montalbano told him about Misuraca and the letter the cavaliere had sent him.
"He was murdered needlessly," he concluded. "His killers didn't know he'd already written to me and told me everything."
"Listen, explain to me what reason Ingrassia had for being near his supermarket while the phony robbery was taking place, if were to believe Misuraca."
"If there were any other snagsan untimely visit, for examplehe could jump out and readily explain that everything was all right and they were sending the merchandise back because the people at Brancatos had got the order wrong."
"And what about the night watchman in the freezer?"
"He was no longer a problem. They would have bumped him off."
"How should we proceed?" the commissioner asked after a pause.
"Tano the Greek has given us a tremendous gift, even without naming any names," Montalbano began, "and we shouldn't waste it. If we go about this carefully, we could get our hands on a network the size of which we can't even imagine. But we've got to be cautious. If we immediately arrest Ingrassia or someone from the Brancato firm, we'll come up empty for all our effort. We need to aim for the bigger fish."
"I agree," said the commissioner. "I'll call Catania and tell them to put a tail on.."
He broke off with a grimace, painfully remembering the mole who'd talked in Palermo and brought about Tanos death. There might well be another in Catania.
"Let's start at the bottom," he decided. "We'll put only Ingrassia under surveillance."
"All right. I'll get the court order from the judge," said the inspector.
As he was heading out the door, the commissioner called him back inside.
"By the way, my wife is feeling much better. How would Saturday evening do for you? We have a lot to discuss."
...
He found Judge Lo Bianco in an unusually good mood, his eyes sparkling.
"You look well," the inspector couldn't help saying.
"Yes, yes, I'm quite well, in fact." He then looked around, assumed a conspiratorial air, leaned towards Montalbano, and said in a low voice: "Did you know that Rinaldo had six fingers on his right hand?"
Montalbano faltered a moment, befuddled. Then he remembered that the judge had been working devotedly for years on a ponderous book entitled The Life and Deeds of Rinaldo and Antonio Lo Bianco, Masters of Law at the University of Girgenti at the time of King Martin the Younger (1402-1409). Lo Bianco had got it into his head that the two ancient barristers were his ancestors.
"Oh, really?" Montalbano asked with jovial surprise. It was best to humor him.
"Yes, indeed. Six fingers, on his right hand."
Jerking off must have been heaven, Montalbano was about to say sacrilegiously, but managed to restrain himself.
He told the judge everything about the weapons traffic and Misuracas murder. He even detailed the strategy he wanted to follow and asked him for a court order to tap Ingrassias phone lines.
Normally, Lo Bianco would have raised objections, created obstacles, imagined problems. This time, delighted with his discovery of Rinaldos six-fingered hand, he would have granted Montalbano an order to torture, impale, or burn someone at the stake.
He went home, put on his bathing suit, went for a long, long swim, came back inside, dried himself off, but did not get dressed again. There was nothing in the refrigerator, but in the oven sat, as on a throne, a casserole with four huge servings of pasta n casciata, a dish worthy of Olympus. He ate two portions, put the casserole back in the oven, set his alarm clock, slept like a rock for one hour, got back up, took a shower, put his already dirty jeans and shirt back on, and went to the station.
Fazio, German and Galluzzo were waiting for him in their work clothes. As soon as they saw him, they grabbed their shovels, pickaxes, and mattocks and struck up the old day laborers chorus, shaking their tools in air:
"Give land to those who work! Give land to those who work!"
"Fucking idiots," was Montalbanos only comment.
Prest Galluzzo's newsman brother-in-law, was already there, at the entrance of the Crasticeddru cave, along with a cameraman who had brought along two large battery-powered floodlights.