Excursion to Tindari

“She’ll find him sooner or later. Listen, you want to know what was said at the meeting with that person?”

“Of course, Chief. I’m dying of curiosity.”

“Well, I’m not going to tell you. You can die for all I care. And you know why I won’t tell you? Because you disobeyed my orders. I told you not to move from headquarters, and you came and followed me anyway Satisfied?”

He turned off the light and left the Griffos’ home with the garbage bag slung over his shoulder.

8

He opened the fridge and let out a whinny of sheer delight. His housekeeper, Adelina, had made him two imperial mackerels in onion sauce, a dinner he would obviously spend the whole night wrestling with, but it was worth the trouble. To cover his rear, before starting to eat he made sure there was a packet of bicarbonate of soda in the kitchen, bless its little heart. Sitting on the veranda, he scrupulously scarfed down the whole dish. All that remained on his plate were the fishes’ skeletons and heads, picked so clean they could have been fossils.

Then, having cleared the table, he emptied out the garbage bag stuffed with the papers he’d taken from the Griffos’ home. Maybe a phrase, a line, a hint somewhere would reveal a reason, any reason, for the elderly couple’s disappearance. They’d saved everything—letters, greeting cards, photographs, telegrams, electrical and phone bills, income statements, invoices and receipts, advertising brochures, bus tickets, birth certificates, marriage certificates, retirement booklets, medical-service cards, expired cards. There was even a copy of the “certificate of living existence,” that nadir of bureaucratic imbecility. What might Gogol, with his dead souls, have concocted from such a document? Had a copy fallen into his hands, Franz Kafka would surely have come up with another of his anguishing short stories. And now that we had “self-certification,” how was one supposed to proceed? What was the “protocol,” to use a word dear to government offices? Did one simply write on a sheet of paper something like: “I, the undersigned, Salvo Montalbano, hereby declare myself to be in existence,” sign it, and turn it in to the appointed clerk?

At any rate, the papers telling the story of the Griffos’ living existence didn’t amount to much, barely a kilo of sheets and scraps. It took Montalbano till three in the morning to examine them all.

Nottata persa e figlia fimmina, as they say. He put the papers back in the bag and went to bed.

Contrary to his fears, the imperial mackerels placidly let themselves be digested without any flicks of the tail. Thus he was able to wake at seven, after four hours of restful, sufficient sleep. He stayed in the shower longer than usual, even if it meant wasting all the water he had left in the reserve tank. There he reviewed his entire dialogue, word by word, silence by silence, with Don Balduccio. He wanted to be sure he understood the two messages the old man had given him before taking any action. In the end he was convinced he’d interpreted them correctly.

“Inspector, I wanted to tell you Augello called half an hour ago,” said Fazio. “Says he’ll be in around ten.”

The sergeant braced himself—as was only natural, since it had happened many times before—for an angry outburst from Montalbano at the news that his second-in-command was once again taking things easy. But this time the inspector remained calm and even smiled.

“Yesterday evening, after you got back here, did the woman from Pavia call?”

“I’ll say she did! Three more times before giving up hope.”

As he was talking, Fazio was shifting his weight from one foot to the other, the way somebody does when he is about to dash off but is held back by something. But Fazio was not about to dash off anywhere; he was being eaten alive by curiosity, but didn’t dare open his mouth to ask what Sinagra had said to his boss.

“Close the door.”

Fazio sprang, locked the door, came back and sat down on the edge of a chair. Upper body leaning forward and eyes aglitter, he looked like a famished dog waiting for its master to throw it a bone. He was therefore a little disappointed by Montalbano’s first question.

“Do you know a priest named Saverio Crucilla?”

“I’ve heard him mentioned, but I don’t know him personally. I know he’s not from around here. If I’m not mistaken, he’s from Montereale.”

“Try to find out everything you can about him. Where he lives, what his habits are, what his church hours are, who he associates with, what people say about him. Get the whole lowdown. And after you’ve done this—which I want you to do before the day is out—”

“—I come and report back to you.”

“Wrong. You don’t report anything to me. You start to follow him, discreetly.”

“Leave it to me, Chief. He won’t see me, even if he’s got eyes in the back of his head.”

“Wrong again.”

Fazio looked stunned.

“Chief, when you’re tailing someone, the rule is that the person isn’t supposed to know. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

“Things are different in this case. I want the priest to know you’re following him. In fact, I want you to make it clear to him that you’re one of my men. It’s very important, see, that he realizes you’re a cop.”

“I’ve never done anything like that before.”

“Nobody else, however, under any circumstances, must know that you’re following him.”

“Can I be honest with you, Chief? I haven’t understood a word you said.”