The widow obeyed, but then:
“What’s any of this got to do with Arelio’s murder?” she asked.
“Please do as I say, it’s important. Just five minutes and I’ll be out of your hair. Tell me: did your husband also wake up when the alarm went off ?”
“Normally he slept lightly. His eyes would pop open if I made the slightest noise. But now that you’ve made me think back on it, that morning he didn’t hear the alarm. In fact, he must have had a bit of a cold, a stuffed-up nose, because he started snoring, which he hardly ever did.” A terrible actor, poor old Lapecora. But it worked, at least that time.
“Go on.”
“I got up, picked up the clothes I’d put on that chair over there, and went into the bathroom.”
“Let’s move.”
Embarrassed, the woman led the way. When they were in the bathroom, Signora Antonietta, looking at the floor, asked:
“Do I have to do everything?”
“Of course not. You were dressed when you came out of the bathroom, correct?”
“Yes, fully dressed, that’s how I always do it.”
“Then what did you do?”
“I went into the dining room.”
Having learned her lesson by now, she walked towards the dining room, followed by the inspector.
“I picked up my purse, which I’d prepared on this couch the night before, then I opened the door and went out on the landing.”
“Are you sure you locked the door behind you when you went out?”
“Absolutely certain. I called the elevator—”
“That’ll be enough, thank you. What time was it, do you remember?”
“Six twenty-five. I was late, actually, so late that I started running.”
“What was the snag?”
The woman gave him a questioning look.
“For what reason were you running late? Let me put it another way. If someone knows he has to go somewhere the next morning, he usually sets the alarm clock, calculating the amount of time it will take to—” Signora Antonietta smiled.
“A callus on my foot was hurting,” she said. “I put on some ointment, wrapped it up, and lost some time I hadn’t figured on.”
“Thanks again, and sorry for the disturbance. Good-bye.”
“Wait! Where are you going? Are you leaving?”
“Oh, yes, of course. You had something to tell me.”
“Sit down a minute.”
Montalbano did as she said. In any case, he’d found out what he wanted to know: that is, the widow Lapecora had not entered the study, where Karima almost certainly had been hiding.
“As you can see,” the woman began, “I’m getting ready to leave. As soon as I can give Arelio a proper funeral, I’m going away.”
“Where will you go, signora?”
“To stay with my sister. She has a big house, and she’s sick, as you know. I’ll never set foot inVigata again, even after I’m dead.”
“Why not go live with your son?”
“I don’t want to inconvenience him. And I don’t get along with his wife, who spends money like water while my poor son is always complaining that he can’t make ends meet. Anyway, what I wanted to tell you was that, when I was going through some old stuff I don’t need anymore and want to throw away, I found the envelope the first anonymous letter came in. I thought I’d burned it, but I must have destroyed only the letter. And since you seemed particularly interested . . .” The address had been typed.
“May I keep this?”
“Of course. Well, that’s all.”
She stood up, as did the inspector, but then she went over to the sideboard, picked up a letter that was lying on it, and shook it at Montalbano.
“Look at this, Inspector. Arelio’s been dead barely two days and already I have to start paying the debts he ran up with his filthy little arrangements. Just yesterday I received—apparently the post office already knows he was killed—I received two bills from the office. One for electricity: two hundred twenty thousand lire! And one for the phone: three hundred eighty thousand! But he wasn’t the one using the phone, you know. Who would he ever call anyway? It was that Tunisian whore who was phoning, that’s for sure, probably calling her family in Tunisia. Then this morning, this came. God only knows what kinds of ideas that dirty slut put into my idiot husband’s head!” So compassionate, the widow Antonietta Lapecora, nee Palmisano. The envelope had no stamp on it; it had been hand-delivered. Montalbano decided not to show too much curiosity, only as much as was necessary.
