“Thank you, signora. As soon as I have any news, I’ll be sure to tell you.”
“Thank you,” said Dolores.
She didn’t make a scene. Didn’t scratch him, didn’t twist his hand, didn’t grab him by the lapels of his jacket. The woman was dignified, composed, sober. Different. For the first time, the inspector felt genuine admiration for her.
“That woman’s got balls!” Fazio said admiringly once they were on the street. “I was expecting some hair-raising scene from her, and instead she controlled herself even better than a man.”
Montalbano didn’t comment on this comment, but only asked:
“Were you aware that Pasquano, when he did the autopsy on the
Fazio, who was bending down to unlock the car door, stopped halfway and looked up at him, stunned.
“He had a bridge in his stomach?”
“He most certainly did. Apparently, shortly before he was killed, the bridge came unstuck and he swallowed it. But it hadn’t had time to pass through his body.”
Fazio was still bent down halfway.
“And there’s more,” the inspector went on. “The bridge had been made, beyond the shadow of a doubt, by a dentist in South America. Now, you tell me. Who’s in Grandma’s bed?”
“The big bad wolf,” Fazio replied automatically.
But immediately afterwards, he straightened himself abruptly, as the meaning of Montalbano’s words finally penetrated his brain.
“So . . . according to you, the dead man in the
“—is Giovanni Alfano. Not according to me, but according to Matthew,” Montalbano concluded. “Anyway, you yourself said that Alfano’s statistics corresponded pretty closely with those of the dead man.”
“Holy shit, you’re right! But, I’m sorry, who’s this Matthew?”
“I’ll tell you later.”
“But why would anyone want to kill him?”
“You know what Macannuco told me? First, that all the fingerprints had been perfectly wiped away.”
“Professionals?”
“Apparently. The second thing he said is that they found an empty shoebox with traces of cocaine in it, in a sort of crawl space above the bathroom.”
“Holy shit!”
“Exactly. Which means that, despite the strict surveillance he was under, Alfano was mixed up with drugs. Maybe he was a courier.”
“That seems impossible.”
“Impossible or not, appearances lead us to conclude that those are the facts. So it’s only natural to think that one fine day, following in his father’s footsteps, Giovanni Alfano started behaving inappropriately in the eyes of his work provider.”
“Don Balduccio?”
“So it seems. And in Balduccio’s eyes, that’s a serious offense. And intolerable. Giovanni, despite his father’s treason, had always been treated like one of the family, to the point that not only did Balduccio not disown him, he actually helped him out when he was in Colombia. So Giovanni is a traitor to his own blood. He has to die. You with me so far?”
“Yes. Go on.”
“So Don Balduccio hatches an ingenious plan. He lets Giovanni leave for Gioia Tauro with Dolores, then has him kidnapped, brought back to Vigata, killed, chopped up, and put in a garbage bag. And he even tells his men to arrange things so that the body isn’t discovered for some time. That way everyone will think that Giovanni boarded his ship. The plan is executed without a hitch, even though Balduccio in the meantime ends up in a hospital. Giovanni’s wife, however, some two months after her husband sets sail, starts to get suspicious and comes and tells us about it.”
“But why all the drama of cutting him up into pieces and burying them at
“Have you ever read the Gospels, Fazio?”
“Never, Chief.”
“Bad.”
And he explained the whole story to him. When he had finished, Fazio was looking at him, open-mouthed.
“So it’s as if Don Balduccio had left his signature!”
“Right. That’s why it all makes sense, don’t you think?”
“I sure do. So what do we do now?”
“We take a little time.”
“And what about Signora Dolores?”
