Montalbano felt upset by the embarrassment.
“But his case was never closed, dammit!”
“We issued a notice of his decease. It’s not my fault if the people in the records office don’t do their job.”
They both hung up at the same time, without saying goodbye. For a second he was tempted to call Catarella and make him pay for his humiliation by Vattiato. Then he thought better of it. How was it poor Catarella’s fault? If anything, it was his own fault, for wanting to proceed and not letting Mimi persuade him to drop the whole thing. Immediately another thought made him wince. Would he have been able, a few years ago, to tell who was right and who was wrong? Would he have so blithely admitted the mistake? And wasn’t this, too, a sign of maturity, or rather—to mince no words—of old age?
“Chief? That would be Dr. Latte with an S onna phone. Whaddo I do, put ’im on?”
“Of course.”
“Inspector Montalbano? How are you? The family doing all right?”
“I can’t complain. What can I do for you?”
“The commissioner’s just back from Rome and he’s called a plenary session of the department for three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. Will you be there?”
“Naturally.”
“I communicated your request for a private meeting to the commissioner. He’ll see you tomorrow afternoon, right after the department meeting.”
“Thank you, Dr. Lattes.”
So that was that. Tomorrow he would tender his resignation. With a fond goodbye to, among others, the swimming dead guy, as Catarella called him.
That evening, phoning from home, he told Livia about the nurse’s testimony. By way of conclusion, just when the inspector thought he had reassured her completely, Livia let out a sigh full of doubt.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Jesus Christ!” snapped Montalbano. “You really won’t let go of it! You don’t want to accept the obvious!”
“And you’re too ready to accept it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that in the past, you would have checked out the veracity of that testimony.”
“In the past!” Montalbano fumed. What was he, old as the hills? Some kind of Methuselah? “I haven’t done any checks because, as I already said, the whole business is of no importance. And anyway . . .”
He broke off, the gears in his brain screeching to the sudden halt.
“And anyway?” Livia insisted.
What to do? Stall? Say the first idiocy that came into his head? Right! Livia would have caught on immediately. Better to tell the truth.
“Anyway, tomorrow I’m seeing the commissioner.”
“Oh.”
“I’m tendering my resignation.”
“Oh.”
A horrendous pause.
“Goodnight,” said Livia.
She hung up.
7
He woke up at the crack of dawn but remained in bed, eyes open and staring at the ceiling, which brightened ever so slowly with the sky. The faint light filtering through the window was clear and steady, not varying in intensity as when clouds were passing. It promised to be a beautiful day. So much the better. Bad weather wouldn’t have helped matters. He would be firmer, more decisive, when explaining the reasons for his resignation to the commissioner. Resignation. The word brought to mind an episode when he’d first joined the police, before coming to Vigata . . . Then he remembered the time when . . . And that other time when . . . All at once the inspector understood why all these memories were flooding his brain. They say that when someone is about to die, the most important moments of his life pass before him as in a film. Was the same thing happening to him? Deep down, did he consider resignation a kind of death? He roused himself, hearing the telephone ring. He glanced at the clock. Eight o’clock already, and he hadn’t even noticed. Jesus, what a long film his life was! Worse than
“Morning, Chief, it’s Fazio. I’m about to go out and continue my search . . .” (Montalbano was about to tell him to drop it, but changed his mind) “... and since I found out you’re meeting with the commissioner this afternoon, I prepared some papers for you to sign as well as some other stuff, and put them all on your desk.”
“Thanks, Fazio. Any news?”
“Nothing, Chief.”
Since he had to go the commissioner’s office in the early afternoon and wouldn’t have time to come home to Marinella and change, he had to get dressed up. He slipped the tie in his pocket, however; he would put it on in due course. It really bugged him to wear a slipknot around his neck first thing in the morning.
The stack of papers on his desk was in a precarious state of balance. If Catarella barged in and slammed the door, they would witness a replay of the Tower of Babel’s collapse. He signed for over an hour
