The inspector picked up the phone.
“Catarella, tell Inspector Augello I’d like to see him.”
Mimì showed up at once.
“Yesterday I went to Fiacca,” Montalbano began,“where there was a horse race. Signora Esterman was one of the people running in it, on a horse lent to her by Severio Lo Duca. This same Lo Duca spoke to me at length. In his opinion, the whole affair is a vendetta by a certain Gerlando Gurreri, a former groom in his employ. Have you ever heard his name before?”
“Never,” Fazio and Augello said in a single voice.
“Whereas we ought to know more about him. Apparently he’s taken up with some crooks.You want to look into it, Fazio?”
“All right.”
“Are you going to tell us what Lo Duca told you, and in minute detail?” asked Mimì.
“Coming right up.”
“It’s not really such a far-fetched hypothesis” was Mimì’s comment when the inspector had finished talking.
“I feel the same way,” said Fazio.
“But if Lo Duca is right,” said Montalbano,“do you realize that the investigation ends here?”
“Why’s that?” asked Augello.
“Mimì, what Lo Duca told me, he has not told and will never tell our colleagues in Montelusa. All they have is a generic report of the theft of two horses.They don’t know that one of them was bludgeoned to death, because we haven’t told them. Besides, Signora Esterman never even filed a report with us. And Lo Duca told me explicitly that he knew we were not in contact with Montelusa on this issue. Therefore, whatever way you look at it, we have no card in hand that tells us how to proceed.”
“And so?”
“And so there are at least two things we need to do.The first is to find out more about Gerlando Gurreri. Mimì, you reproached me for believing Signora Esterman’s story without checking it out. Let’s try to check out what Lo Duca told me, starting with his clubbing Gurreri in the head. Surely he must have been treated in some hospital in Montelusa, no?”
“I get it,” said Fazio. “You want proof that Lo Duca’s story is true.”
“Right.”
“Consider it done.”
“The second thing is that there’s one element of particular importance in Lo Duca’s hypothesis. He told me that nobody actually knows, at present, which of the two horses was killed—whether it was his or Esterman’s. Lo Duca maintains this was done to make him stew in his own juices for a while. But one thing is certain, and that is that nobody really knows which horse it was. Lo Duca also told me that his horse is called Rudy. Now, if there is a photograph of this horse, and if Fazio and I could see it . . .”
“I think I may know where to find one,” said Mimì, who chuckled and then continued, “Certainly for somebody who’s supposedly lost his wits, this Gurreri, based on what Lo Duca told you, can think very clearly.”
“In what sense?”
“Well, first he kills Esterman’s horse to put Lo Duca on tenterhooks concerning his own horse’s fate, and then he phones Esterman so that Lo Duca can no longer hide from her the fact that her horse was stolen . . . To me he sounds sharp as a knife, this guy, and not like some poor brainless bastard!”
“I pointed that out to Lo Duca,” said Montalbano.
“And what’d he say?”
“He said that most probably Gurreri is being advised by some of his accomplices.”
“Hmph,” said Mimì.
10
He was about to leave to go home when the telephone rang.
“Chief ? Chief? ’At’d be the lady Esther Man for you.”
“On the phone?”
“Yessir.”
“Tell her I’m not here.”
The instant he set down the receiver, the phone rang again.
“Chief, ’at’d be summon says ’e’s Pasquale Cirribbicciò onna tiliphone.”
It must be Pasquale Cirrinciò, one of Adelina the housekeeper’s two sons, both of whom were thieves constantly in and out of jail. Montalbano was made godfather of Pasquale’s’s son at the baptism.
“What is it, Pasquà? Are you calling from prison?”
“No, sir, Inspector, I’m on house arrest.”
“Is something wrong?”
“Inspector, my mother called me this morning and told me wha’ happened.”
Adelina had told her son that burglars had broken into Montalbano’s house. The inspector didn’t say a word, but waited to hear the rest.
“I wanted ’a tell you I called up a few o’ my friends.”
“Did you find anything out?”
“Just that my friends got nothing to do with it. One of ’em told me they wasn’t so stupid to go breakin’ into a cop’s house. So either it was done by outsiders or by a different circuit.”
“Maybe a higher circuit?”
“I wouldn’t know, sir.”
“Very well, Pasquà.Thanks.”
“Much obliged.”
So, it was pretty clear now that burglars had nothing to do with this. And he didn’t think it was outsiders, either. It had to be somebody else, who wasn’t part of the “circuit,” as Pasquale called it.
He set the table on the veranda, warmed up the pasta with broccoli, and started eating. And as he was regaling himself, he had the distinct impression that he was being watched. Oftentimes another person’s gaze has the same effect as hearing your name called: you hear the call, but you don’t know where it came from, and so you start looking around.
He didn’t see a living soul on the beach, aside from a limping dog.The morning fisherman had returned to land, his boat pulled ashore.
The inspector got up to fetch the sole in the kitchen and at that moment was nearly blinded by a flash of light that immediately vanished. Surely it must have been a reflection of sunlight on glass. It had come from the direction of the sea.
But there were no windows or houses or cars on the sea, he thought.
Pretending to pick up the dirty dish, he leaned forward, looking up to see what he could see. At some distance from shore there was a stationary boat, but he was unable to tell how many men were on it. Once upon a time, however, when he was younger, he could have even said what color their eyes were. Well, maybe not quite, but he surely would have seen better.
He kept a pair of binoculars in the house, but surely those who were spying on him from the boat also had binoculars and would immediately realize he had discovered them. It was best to act as if he hadn’t noticed anything.
He went inside and, a few minutes later, came back out on the veranda with the soles. He sat down and began eating them.
Little by little, he became convinced that that boat had been out there ever since he first opened the French door to set the table. He had paid no mind to it, at the time.When he finished eating, it was already past two o’clock. He went into the bathroom to freshen up.Then he went back out on the veranda with a book in his hand, sat down, and lit a cigarette.The boat hadn’t moved.
He began reading. Fifteen minutes later, he heard a siren approaching. He kept reading as if it had nothing to do with him.The sound grew louder until it stopped in the parking area in front of his house. From their position on the water, the people in the boat could see both the veranda and the parking area. He heard the doorbell ring.
He got up and went to open the door. Fazio had kept the light flashing on the roof of the car.
“Chief, there’s an emergency.”
Why was he hamming it up so much when there were just the two of them? Maybe Fazio thought there were some hidden microphones nearby? Come on!
“I’ll be right with you.”
Clearly the people on the boat had witnessed the whole scene.The inspector locked the French door with the dead bolt, came outside, locked the front door, and got in the car.
Fazio turned the siren back on and screeched the tires loud enough to make Gallo envious.
“I figured out where they’re watching me from.”
“And where’s that?”
“From a boat.Think we ought to tell Galluzzo?”