“Yes.”
“Could you be more precise?”
“It’s not easy, Inspector. He didn’t have a fixed income or monthly salary. His earnings varied. There was a guaranteed minimum revenue, as well as the reimbursement of expenses and a percentage on the products he managed to sell. Naturally, what really affected things, and in a positive way, was the commission percentage. And now and then there were also performance bonuses. But I wouldn’t know how to translate all that into figures.”
“I have to ask you a delicate question. You told me Angelo used to give Elena very expensive gifts. This was confirmed to me by—”
“By the whore?” Michela finished his sentence.
“Now, now!” said Paola, laughing.
“Why shouldn’t I call her that?”
“It doesn’t seem to be the case.”
“But for a while she actually was one! Inspector, when Elena was still a minor, she ran away to Milan—”
“I know the whole story,” the inspector cut her short.
Though Elena might have confided in Angelo about the errors of her youth, it was unlikely Angelo had communicated them to his sister. Apparently it was not beneath Michela to hire some private agency to dig up information on her brother’s lover.
“In any case he never gavemeany gifts,” Paola said at this point. “Actually, no. One time he did buy me a pair of earrings at a sidewalk booth in Fela. Three thousand lire, I remember. “We didn’t have the euro yet.”
“Let’s get back to the subject I’m interested in,” said Montalbano. “To buy these gifts for Elena, did Angelo take the money from your joint account?”
“No,” Michela said firmly.
“So where did he get it?”
“Whenever he got checks for incentives or bonuses, he would cash them and keep the money at home. Once he had a certain amount, he would buy a present for that …”
“So you rule out the possibility that he could have had a personal account in some bank without your knowledge?”
“Absolutely.”
Prompt, firm, decisive. Maybe too prompt, too firm, too decisive.
How was it she never had the slightest doubt? Or maybe she had, and it was not so slight, but since it might cast some suspicion, some shadow, on her brother, she figured it was better to deny it.
Montalbano tried to outflank her defenses. He turned to Paola.
“You just said Angelo once bought you a pair of earrings in Fela. Why in Fela, of all places? Had you accompanied him there?”
Paola gave a little smile.
“Unlike Elena, I used to go along with him on his rounds in the province.”
“He didn’t bringheralong because she was already following him!” Michela let fly.
“When I was free of commitments at school, of course,” Paola continued.
“Did you ever see him go into a bank?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“Was he very friendly with any of the doctors or pharmacists he used to visit?”
“I don’t understand the question.”
“Were there any of his…let’s call them clients, with whom he was a little friendlier than with others?”
“You know, Inspector, I didn’t know them all. He used to introduce me as his girlfriend. And it was sort of true. But it seemed to me like he treated them all the same way.”
“When he brought you along with him, were you present at all his meetings?”
“No, sometimes he would ask me to wait in the car or to take a walk.”
“Did he ever tell you the reason?”
“Well, he used to joke about it. He would say he had to go see a young and handsome doctor and he was afraid that…Or else he would explain that the doctor was a very devout, narrow-minded Catholic who might not approve of my presence—”
“Inspector,” Michela cut in, “my brother clearly distinguished his friends from the people he did business with. I don’t know if you noticed, but in his desk he kept two datebooks, one with the addresses of friends and family, the other with—”
“Yes, I noticed,” said Montalbano. Then, still speaking to Paola: “You apparently teach at theliceoof Montelusa?”
“Yes. Italian.”
She gave another little smile.
