“Inspector Montalbano.”
The nurse looked him over and must have immediately decided that the man standing before her had the face of a cop, because she said only:
“Please follow me.”
But the immigrant woman with the broken arm was not black; she looked merely like she had a tan. Secondly, she was pretty, slender, and very young.
“You see,” said Montalbano, slightly flustered, “the fact is that yesterday evening, I saw an emergency medical crew take her away in the ambulance with my own eyes . . .”
“Why don’t you try the emergency ward?”
Of course. The medic might have been mistaken when he diagnosed her with a fracture. Maybe the woman had only a sprain, and there’d been no need to hospitalize her.
In the emergency ward, none of the three men who’d been on duty the previous evening remembered seeing a black woman with a broken leg and three small kids.
“Who was the doctor on call?”
“Dr. Mendolia. But today’s his day off.”
By dint of effort and cursing, he managed to get the doctor’s phone number. Dr. Mendolia was courteous, but had not seen any non-European woman with a fractured leg. No, not even a sprain. So much for that.
Once out of the hospital square, he saw some parked ambulances. A few steps away stood some people in white smocks, talking. As he drew near, he immediately recognized the gaunt medic with the mustache. The man recognized him as well.
“Last night, weren’t you—?”
“Yes. Inspector Montalbano’s the name. Where did you take that woman with the three children, the one who’d broken her leg?”
“To the emergency room here. But I was wrong, her leg wasn’t broken. In fact, she got out of the ambulance by herself, though it took some effort. I saw her go into the emergency room.”
“Why didn’t you accompany her?”
“Inspector, we’d just received an emergency call from Scroglitti. There was a huge mess over there. Why, can’t you find her?”
6
Seen in the light of day, Riguccio was pale and unshaven, with bags under his eyes. Montalbano got worried.
“Are you sick?”
“I’m tired. My men and I can’t take it anymore. Every night there’s another boatload, every night another twenty to one hundred and fifty illegals. The commissioner’s gone to Rome just to explain the situation and ask for more men. Good luck! He’ll return with a lot of sweet promises. What do you want?”
When Montalbano told him about the disappearance of the black woman and her three kids, Riguccio didn’t make a sound. He merely looked up from the papers piled up on his desk and stared at the inspector.
“Take your time, while you’re at it,” the inspector blurted out.
“And in your opinion, what should I do?” Riguccio snapped back.
“Bah, I dunno, do a search, send out a bulletin . . .”
“Have you got something against these wretched people?”
“Me?!”
“Yeah, you. Seems to me you want to hound them.”
“Hound them? Me? You’re the one who agrees with this government!”
“Not always. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Listen, Montalba: I’m someone who goes to church on Sunday because I believe in it. End of story. Now let me tell you how things went the other night, because it wasn’t the first time. That woman, you see, took you all for a ride, you, the ambulance men—”
“You mean she faked that fall?”
“Oh yes. It was all an act. She wanted to go the emergency room, where they can basically come and go as they please.”
“But why? Did she have something to hide?”
“Probably. In my opinion, she was part of some kind of family reunion outside the law.”
“What do you mean?”
“Her husband is almost certainly an illegal who nevertheless managed to find work on the local black market. And he probably summoned his family here, with the help of people who make money from this kind of thing. If the woman had gone through the proper procedures, she would have had to declare that her husband was an illegal immigrant in Italy. And with the new law they would have all been kicked out of the country. So they took a shortcut.”
“I see,” said the inspector.
