The Potter's Field (32 page)

Authors: Andrea Camilleri

BOOK: The Potter's Field

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“Better not bring Catarella into this,” Montalbano said quickly. “Everyone who comes into headquarters passes by his workstation. We should be more careful. Why don't you do the research at home, on your own computer?”

“You're right, Salvo.”

And he was off like a rocket. Dolores was sure to waste some of his time before pretending to remember the name of a newspaper from twenty or thirty years before. And then MimÃ¬ would be completely taken up with his research. It was essential that he didn't get any brilliant ideas about moving in on Balduccio in the three or four days ahead.

Adelina had prepared him a special dish. Four slices of freshgrilled tuna, not overly done, with a side dish of tiny shelled shrimp, all of it topped with a salmoriglio sauce. With his belly satisfied, and his spirit, too, he sat down at the table and began to write:

Dear Macannuco,

As I feel that the situation is about to tip in our favor, I am writing to explain to you what I think actually happened in the
critaru
case. I've already told you, over the phone, about Giovanni Alfano and his father Filippo, who is said to have been bumped off by orders of the Vigatese boss Balduccio Sinagra. After Giovanni and his wife, a Colombian by the name of Dolores, had been living for a while in VigÃ ta, a local butcher, Arturo Pecoriniâa violent man previously suspected of homicideâgot sweet on the Latina girl and began to woo her. To make a long story short, the two became lovers when the husband was away at sea. At this point Don Balduccio intervened to defend the absent Giovanni's honor. Balduccio was very fond of Giovanni. Word around town has it that he had his father killed because he thought he had betrayed him, only to realize afterward that he had made a terrible mistake. But these are all rumors, of course. There is no proof that Balduccio ordered Filippo Alfano's murder. At any rate, Balduccio orders Dolores to return to Colombia for a while and forces Pecorini, by means of threats, to move to Catania. Pecorini opens another butcher shop there, while keeping the one in VigÃ ta, which he put in his brother's care. Some time later, Dolores returns to VigÃ ta, and Pecorini too is allowed to come back on Saturdays and Sundays. The love affair between the two appears, to all observers, to be over. In reality, however, this is not the case. The two lovers continue to meet, in spite of the danger. Bear in mind that Pecorini's house in VigÃ ta is less than fifty yards away from the Alfanos'. When Giovanni comes home for long stays, Dolores becomes exasperated. Giovanni is very much in love with her, and when he is with her he makes up for his compulsory absences, sexually above all. The woman can no longer stand it. And so Dolores and her lover decide to do away with Giovanni, and to have the blame fall on Balduccio Sinagra. It must have been the butcher's idea, a way to have his revenge. Bear in mind that Giovanni knows nothing of the affair between Pecorini and his wife, since Balduccio, at the time, not wanting him to suffer, warned Giovanni's friends not to mention it to him. And so on the morning of Friday, September 3 of this year, Giovanni and his wife leave for Gioia Tauro in her car. Dolores tells her husband that the day before, a friend from Catania, having found out they were on their way to Gioia Tauro, has invited them to lunch. This last point, incidentally, is all conjecture on my partâit's possible Dolores found a different excuse. The important thing is that she convinced her husband to stop in Catania and go to the butcher's place. Don't forget that Giovanni doesn't know that Pecorini was and still is his wife's lover. And so, Pecorini takes them to his house and, after lunch, kills Giovanni with a pistol shot to the base of the skull. What you need to do now is ascertain whether Pecorini has a garage. I think that's where the murder took place. And have Forensics check it very carefully. I am convinced they will find traces of Giovanni's blood there. Because that is where Pecorini chopped the victim into thirty pieces, with Dolores's help. Why? Because Dolores has told him the story of Giovanni's father, who was killed with a shot to the base of the skull and then cut up into thirty piecesâwhich in Mafia ritual correspond to the thirty silver pieces of Judas, the betrayer. And so they do the same, so that everyone will see this as the signature, the cipher, of Don Balduccio, who has had his disloyal courier, Giovanni, executed in exactly the same fashion as his father. After dismembering the corpse, Pecorini stuffs the body parts into a large garbage bag and heads to VigÃ ta. He then buries the remains at
'u critaru
âin other words, the potter's field, the place where Judas hanged himself. Which is another stroke of genius in the effort to make it look like a Mafia ritual. Dolores, feeling rather exhausted by the whole ordeal, rests for a few hours at her lover's house and then continues on to Gioia Tauro, where she arrives that night. For proof of this, ask Signora Esterina to tell you about the bouquet of roses. Then, on Saturday morning, Dolores pretends to leave for VigÃ ta. I say “pretends” because she decides that it's better to do what she needs to do in the afternoon, when the concierge's desk is closed and there's no risk of any bothersome visits by the concierge. At the bypass for Lido di Palmi she runs her car off the road and, while waiting for it to be repaired, checks into a motel (I'll give you all the details later). In the afternoon she tells the hotel's owner she's going down to the sea, when in fact she returns to Gioia Tauro on one of the many buses that run during the summer months. When she gets to the Via Gerace apartment, she soils the toilet bowl, opens a bottle of wine and a can of beer, empties these into the sink, then leaves them in full view on the counter. From Catania she's brought along her husband's trousers, a syringe full of his blood, and a little cocaine. She leaves the trousers in full view on the bed, sprinkles a few drops of blood around the bathroom sink and then covers them (as you yourself told me) with the movable soap dish. Lastly, she opens the trapdoor to the crawl space over the bathroom, where she knows there is an empty shoebox; she takes this and dusts it with cocaine inside, puts it back overhead, shuts the trap, and then heads back to Lido di Palmi, taking the bouquet of flowers, which she gets rid of as soon as she can. In her haste, however, she makes three mistakes.

1) She throws the syringe, which still contains a great deal of blood, into the garbage bin;

2) She forgets to clean the dust off the little table in the entranceway (she said she had left the place clean and in perfect order before leaving);

3) She fails to pick up an electric bill, and actually pushes it under the little table.

When she gets back to the motel, she goes to sleep, then leaves for VigÃ ta the following morning. A few days later, the butcher sends an anonymous letter to the Antimafia office accusing Balduccio Sinagra of the murder of a courier who supposedly betrayed him. In this way he hopes to prompt an investigation. But Antimafia and Narcotics know this can't be true, because of the business of the letter Balduccio himself gave to Giovanni, which the two killers know nothing about and destroy along with Giovanni's other things. I realize you may have trouble understanding all this; I promise to explain it all to you when it's over. Two months after the murder, heavy rains (aided also, in my opinion, by Pecorini) bring the remains of an unknown murder victim to the surface. Dolores then comes into VigÃ ta police headquarters to cast the first doubt on whether her husband ever actually boarded his ship. And, indeed, the representative of the shipping company informs us that he never did take ship. I succeed in identifying the corpse by means of a dental bridge that Giovanni swallowed as he was being killed. Incidentally, in my opinion they disfigured him so that he could only be identified through DNA testing, thus giving temporal plausibility to Dolores's phony concerns over her husband's likely disappearance. In short, as of that moment, it is Dolores herself directing our investigation, adroitly steering it (especially after I turned it over to my deputy) towards Balduccio Sinagra.

It was the Antimafia's Musante (whom you know) who convinced me that this was the wrong track. And so I went to Gioia Tauro to inspect the scene myself (I didn't have much time, and didn't come to see you, sorry), which gave rise to some doubts and suspicions.

I think what I've told you so far should be enough for now. If Dolores reacts the way we hope, the game is over. You'll have everything you need to interrogate her. And let me repeat again, my friend, that you must never mention my name, for any reason whatsoever, even if you are subjected to torture.

This is what I ask of you in exchange for having given you the solution to a complex case. You can take all the credit yourself, but you must repay me with your silence. I shall fax you this letter to the private number you gave me.

Please call me at home, not at headquarters. The best time would be after ten p.m.

Affectionately,

Salvo

Is it an honest letter? he wondered, rereading it.

Is it a dishonest letter? he wondered, rereading it a second time.

It is useful to the purpose for which it is intended, and no more, he concluded as he started getting undressed to go to bed.

The following evening, around ten o'clock, came Macannuco's first phone call.

“Montalbano? This morning I got a phone call from Forensics.”

“Yes, and?”

“You hit the nail on the head. The blood at the bottom of the garbage bin was the same as what was found in the sink.”

“You mean
you
hit the nail on the head, MacannÃ¹. Congratulations.”

The next evening, Macannuco called again.

“I got your anonymous letter and forwarded it to youknow-who,” he said.

The third night after the inspector had made the decisive move, he was so nervous he didn't sleep a wink. He was getting too old to put up with this level of tension. When the sun finally appeared, Montalbano found himself looking out on a beautiful December morning, cold and bright, without a cloud in the sky. He realized he had no desire either to go to the office or to stay at home. Cosimo Lauricella, the local fisherman, was busying himself with his boat on the beach.

“Cosimo!” the inspector called from the window. “Could I come out with you in the boat?”

“But I'll be out till the afternoon!”

“That's not a problem.”