“Was the gate open or closed?”
“Closed. Susanna would open it with her key.”
“So we can also hypothesize that Susanna, having leaned her motorbike against the gate, was reaching for her key when somebody came up to her on foot, someone she’s seen a few times along that road, some commuter. The man pleads with her to take him on her motorbike to the dirt road, making up some bullshit story or other—say, that his wife felt sick in the car on her way to Vigata and called him on her cell phone for help, or that his son got hit by a car . . . something like that.
Susanna feels she can’t refuse, so she has him get on the back of her bike and sets out. And in this case as well, we have an explanation for the positioning of the motorbike. Another possibility . . .” Montalbano suddenly broke off.
“Why don’t you go on?”
“Because I’m bored. Don’t kid yourself: It doesn’t matter that much exactly what happened.”
“It doesn’t?”
“No, because, if you think about it . . . The more we examine the details that seem essential to us, the fuzzier, the more out-of-focus they become. Take you, for example. Didn’t you come to me to find out what ever happened to Susanna’s helmet?” “Her helmet? Yes.”
“As you can see, the more our discussion progressed, the more the helmet receded into the background. In fact it became so unimportant that we stopped talking about it. The real question is not the ‘how,’ but the ‘why.’ ” Francesco was opening his mouth to ask another question when the door burst open and crashed loudly against the wall, sending him flying out of his chair in fear.
“What was that?” he asked.
“My ’and slipped,” Catarella said contritely from the doorway.
“What is it?” Montalbano asked in turn.
“Seeing as how you said you din’t wanna be disturbed by any disturbers, I hadda come ax you a question in poisson.”
“Go ahead.”
“Is Mr. Zito the newsman one of them that youda call disturbers, an’ if he in’t, in’t he?”
“No, he’s no disturbance. Put him on.”
“Hi, Salvo, it’s Nicolo. Sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to tell you I just came into my office—”
“What the hell do I care what your work hours are? Tell it to your employer.”
“No, Salvo, this is serious. I just got in and my secretary told me that . . . well, it’s about that girl who was kidnapped.”
“Okay, tell me what she said.”
“No, I’d rather you came here.”
“I’ll drop by as soon as I can.”
“No, right now.”
Montalbano hung up, stood up, and shook Francesco’s hand.
o o o
The Free Channel, the private television station where Nicolo Zito worked, had their studios in an outlying district of Montelusa. As he was driving there in his car, the inspector tried to guess what could have happened that would make his journalist friend so anxious to tell him about it. And he guessed right.
Nicolo was waiting for him at the entrance to the building, and as soon as he saw Montalbano’s car pull up, he went out to greet him. He looked upset.
“What is it?”
“This morning, right after the secretary came in to work, there was an anonymous phone call. A man asked her if we had the equipment to record a telephone call and she said yes.
He told her to get it all ready, because he was going to call back in five minutes. Which he did.”
They went into Nicolo’s office. On his desk was a portable but professional-looking tape recorder. The journalist turned it on. As he’d anticipated, Montalbano heard the exact same recording he’d heard at the Mistretta home, not one word more or less.
“It’s scary. That poor girl . . .” said Zito.
Then he asked:
“Did the Mistrettas get this call? Or do the bastards want us to act as go-betweens?”
“They called late last night.”
Zito breathed a sigh of relief.
“Well, I’m glad for that. But then why did they also send it to us?”
“I’ve got a very good idea why,” said Montalbano. “The kidnappers want everyone, not just the father, to know that the girl is in their hands. Normally a kidnapper has everything to gain from silence. These guys, however, are doing everything under the sun to make noise. They want the sound of Susanna begging for help to scare as many people as possible.” “Why?”
