Feeling reassured, he smiled. Then his smile turned to laughter. A spiderweb! There wasn’t a single cliche more used and abused to describe a scheme plotted in the shadows. He’d never employed it before. Apparently the cliche had wanted to get back at him for his disdain, becoming a reality and forcing him to take it into consideration.
2 1 0
16
Two hours later he was in his car on the road to Gallotta, eyes popping because he couldn’t remember where he was supposed to turn. At a certain point he spotted, on his right, the tree with the sign saying fresh eggs painted in red.
The path from the road led nowhere except to the little white die of a cottage where he’d been. In fact it ended there.
From a distance he noticed a car parked in the space in front of the house. He drove up the path, which was all uphill, parked near the other car, and got out.
The door was locked. Maybe the girl was entertaining a client with other intentions than buying fresh eggs.
He didn’t knock, but decided to wait a little. He smoked a cigarette, leaning against his car. As he tossed the butt on the ground, he thought he saw something appear and disappear behind the tiny barred window next to the front door that allowed air to circulate inside when the door was closed. A face, perhaps. The door then opened and a distinguished-looking, chunky man of about fifty came out, wearing gold-rimmed glasses. He was pepper-red with embarrassment.
“Won’t you come in, Inspector?” the woman called from inside.
Montalbano went in. She was sitting on the sofa-cot. Its cover was rumpled and a pillow had fallen to the floor. She was buttoning her blouse, long black hair hanging loose on her shoulders, the corners of her mouth smeared with lip-stick.
“I looked out the window and recognized you at once,” she said. “Excuse me just one minute.”
She stood up and started putting things in order. Like the first time he saw her, she was dressed up.
“How is your husband feeling?” Montalbano asked, glanc-ing at the door to the back room, which was closed.
“How’s he supposed to feel, poor man?”
When she’d finished tidying up and had wiped her mouth with a Kleenex, she asked with a smile:
“Can I make you some coffee?”
“Thank you. But I don’t want to inconvenience you.”
“Are you kidding? You don’t seem like a cop. Please sit down,” she said, pulling out a cane chair for him.
“Thanks. I don’t know your name.”
“Angela. Angela Di Bartolomeo.”
“Did my colleagues come to interrogate you?”
“Inspector, I did just like you told me to do. I put on shabby clothes, put the bed in the other room . . . Nothing doing. They turned the house upside down, they even looked under my husband’s bed, they asked me questions for four hours straight, they searched the chicken coop and scared my chickens away and broke three baskets’ worth of eggs . . . And then there was one of ’em, the son of a bitch—pardon my language—who, as soon as we were alone, took advantage . . .” “Took advantage how?”
“Took advantage of me, touched my breasts. At a certain point it got to where I couldn’t take it anymore and I started crying. It didn’t matter that I kept saying I wouldn’t ever do any harm to Dr. Mistretta’s niece ’cause the doctor even gives my husband his medicines for free . . . But he just didn’t want to hear it.” The coffee was excellent.
“Listen, Angela, I need you to try and remember something.”
“I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Do you remember when you said that after Susanna was kidnapped, a car came here one night and you thought it might be a client?”
“Yessir.”
“Okay, now that things have settled down, can you calmly try to remember what you did when you heard that car’s motor?”
“Didn’t I already tell you?”
“You said you got out of bed because you thought it was a client.”
“Yessir.”
“A client who hadn’t told you he was coming, however.”
“Yessir.”
“You got out of bed, and then what did you do?”
“I came in here and turned on the light.” This was the new element, the thing the inspector had been looking for. Therefore she must also have seen something, in addition to what she’d heard.
“Stop right there. Which light?”
