A few people started to move away at once, while others had to be shoved by Galluzzo. But one could still hear moaning, a kind of sustained whimper. It was a woman of about fifty, dressed all in black; she was being restrained by two men to prevent her from throwing herself on the corpse, which lay belly-up on the sidewalk, face rendered unrecognizable by a gunshot wound between the eyes.
“Get that woman out of here.”
“But she’s his mother, Chief.”
“She can go cry at home. She’s only in the way here. Who informed her? Did she hear the shot and come running?”
“No, sir. She couldn’t have heard the shot, since she lives in Via Autonomia Siciliana 12. Apparently somebody informed her.”
“And was she just sitting there, all ready with her black dress on?”
“She’s a widow, Chief.”
“All right, be nice, but get her out of here.”
Whenever Montalbano talked this way, it was hopeless. Fazio approached the two men, muttered something to them, and they dragged the woman away
The inspector walked up beside Dr. Pasquano, who was crouching over the victim’s head.
“Well?” he asked.
“Not well at all,” the doctor replied. And he went on, even more rudely than Montalbano: “Do I really need to explain what happened? They shot him once. Bull‘s-eye, in the middle of the forehead. The exit wound took out half his cranium in the back. See those little clots? They’re bits of his brain. Satisfied?”
“When did it happen, in your opinion?”
“A few hours ago. Around four, five in the morning.”
A short distance away, Vanni Arqua, the new chief of forensics, was examining the most ordinary of stones with the eye of an archaeologist who’s just discovered a Paleolithic artifact. Montalbano wasn’t fond of Arqua, and his antipathy was openly returned.
“Did they kill him with that?” asked the inspector, indicating the stone, a look of seraphic innocence on his face.
Vanni Arqua looked at him with undisguised disdain.
“Don’t be ridiculous! It was a firearm.”
“Have you recovered the bullet?”
“Yes. It ended up embedded in the wood of the front door, which was still closed.”
“And the shell?”
“Look, Inspector, I’m not required to answer your questions. The case is going to be handled by the captain of the Flying Squad. Commissioner’s orders. You’re to play only a supporting role.”
“What do you think I’m doing? You don’t call this support?”
Judge Tommaseo, the assistant prosecutor, was nowhere to be seen. They would have to wait before they could move the victim’s body.
“Fazio, why isn’t Inspector Augello here?”
“He’s on his way. He spent the night with friends in Fela. We called him on his cell phone.”
Fela? It would take him another hour to get to Vigata. And in what condition! Dead tired and sleepless! Friends, right! He’d likely spent the night with some woman whose husband was out bumping his uglies somewhere else.
Galluzzo came up.
“Tommaseo just called. Asked if we could go pick him up in one of our cars. He crashed into a pole about three kilometers outside of Montelusa. What should we do?”
“Go get him.”
Nicolo Tommaseo rarely got where he wanted to go in his car. He drove like a dog on drugs. The inspector didn’t feel like waiting for him. Before leaving, he had a look at the corpse.
A kid barely twenty years old, in jeans and sport coat, with ponytail and earring.The shoes must have cost him his inheritance.
“Fazio, I’m going to the office. You wait for the judge and the Flying Squad captain. See you later.”
He decided to go to the port instead. Leaving the car on the wharf, he began walking slowly, one step at a time, along the eastern jetty, towards the lighthouse. The sun had risen bright red, apparently happy to have managed one more time. On the horizon were three black dots, motor trawlers returning late to shore. He opened his mouth wide and took a deep breath. He liked the smell of Vigata’s port.
“What are you talking about? All ports have the same stink,” Livia once said to him.
It wasn’t true. Every harbor had a different smell. Vigata’s combined, in perfect doses, wet cordage, fishing nets drying in the sun, iodine, rotten fish, dead and living algae, and tar. With, deep in the background, a hint of petroleum. Incomparable. Before reaching the flat rock under the lighthouse, he reached down and picked up a handful of pebbles.
