and rested for a couple of hours. She wasn’t hurt or anything, just very scared. I even brought her some chamomile tea, and she was lying down...”
He lost himself in the memory, a dreamy look in his eyes, and, without realizing, started licking his lips. Montalbano snapped him out of it.
“Do you remember what time of day she arrived?”
“Uh, it must’ve been ten, ten-thirty.”
“And what did she do next?”
“She ate in our restaurant, which was still open then, being high season. Then she came down and said she was going to the beach. I saw her again in the evening, but she didn’t have dinner here. She went to her room. At seven o’clock the next morning Silvestro, the mechanic, brought her car back. And then she paid and left.”
“One last question. Are there any buses or private coaches linking Lido di Palmi and Gioia Tauro?”
“Yes, during the high season. There’s a number of transportation services, which also go farther than just Gioia Tauro and Palmi, naturally.”
“So they were probably still running on September the fourth, right?”
“Around here, the high season lasts until the end of September.”
Montalbano looked at his watch. It was past five.
“Listen, Signor Sudano, I need to rest for a couple of hours. Have you got any rooms available?”
“Any one you want. It’s low season.”
15
He slept like a log for four hours straight. When he woke up, he called Fazio from his cell phone.
“I’m not going to make it back tonight. I’ll see you tomorrow morning at the station.”
“All right, Chief.”
“Did you talk to Alfano’s friend?”
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you anything interesting?”
“Yes.”
It must be really interesting, if the words had to be dragged out of Fazio’s mouth. Whenever he had something decisive to tell him about a case, he only revealed it in dribs and drabs.
“What did he say?”
“He said that what got Arturo Pecorini to move so suddenly out of Vigata was the Sinagras.”
Montalbano balked.
“The Sinagras?!”
“Yes indeed, Chief. Don Balduccio himself.”
“And what was the reason?”
“Rumors were starting to circulate in town about an affair between the butcher and Signora Dolores. So Don Balduccio sent word to Pecorini that it was best if he had a change of scene.”
“I see.”
“By the way, Chief, Prosecutor Tommaseo was looking for you.”
“Do you know what he wanted?”
“He talked with Catarella, so go figure. From what I could gather, he said a colleague of his from Reggio had called about a disappearance. He complained that he didn’t know anything about the case. He wants to be filled in. I think Tommaseo’s colleague was referring to our very own Giovanni Alfano.”
“I think so, too. I’ll go and talk to him tomorrow.”
The inspector got out of bed, took a shower, changed clothes, and went to the front desk in the bar. Signor Sudano didn’t want to be paid (“It’s low season, after all”).
He got in the car and left.
When he got to Villa San Giovanni it was already past ten. He headed for the same trattoria where he had eaten at midday. And he wasn’t disappointed the fourth time, either.
At one o’clock in the morning he was back in Sicily.
He traveled the road between Messina and Catania under a sort of rough copy of the Great Flood. The windshield wipers were helpless to wipe away the heavens’ waters. He stopped at the Autogrill service areas at Barracca, Calatabiano, and Aci Sant’Antonio, more to fill up on courage than on coffee. When all was said and done, it had taken him three hours to drive a distance that would have taken an hour and a half in normal weather. But once he’d left Catania behind and got on the autostrada for Enna, the deluge not only stopped suddenly, but the stars came out. Taking the Mulinello bypass, he headed in the direction of Nicosia. Half an hour later, he saw on the right a sign indicating the way to Mascalippa. He took that road, a dilapidated mess that here and there still preserved a faded memory of asphalt. As he entered Mascalippa, there wasn’t a living soul in the streets. He stopped in the town square, which was exactly the same as he had left it so many years before, got out of the car, and fired up a cigarette. The cold penetrated straight to the bones, and the air smelled of grass and straw. A dog approached him, then stopped short a few steps away, wagging its tail in friendship.
