their embrace? He frowned, gripped by a dark premonition.
o o o
The inspector was astonished to find everything in Lapecora’s office exactly as he had left it. Not one sheet of paper out of place, not a single clip where he hadn’t seen it last time. Lagana had understood.
“It wasn’t a search, Inspector. There was no need to turn the place upside down.”
“So, what can you tell me?”
“Well, the business was founded by Aurelio Lapecora in 1965. He’d worked as a clerk before that. The business was involved in importing tropical fruit and had a warehouse in Via Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, near the port, equipped with cold-storage rooms. They exported cereals, chickpeas, fava beans, pistachios, things of that sort. The volume of business was decent, at least until the second half of the eighties. Then things went steadily downhill. To make a long story short, in January of 1990, Lapecora was forced to liquidate, but it was all aboveboard. He even sold the warehouse and made a tidy profit. His papers are all on file. An orderly man, this Lapecora. If I’d had to do an inspection here, I wouldn’t have found anything wrong. Four years later, also in January, he obtained authorization to reopen the business, which was still incorporated. But he never bought another depository or warehouse, nothing whatsoever. And you know what?” “I think I already know. You found no trace of any business transaction from 1994 to the present.”
“Right. If Lapecora only wanted to come and spend a few hours at the office—I’m referring to what I saw in the next room—what need was there to reconstitute the business?” “Find any recent mail?”
“No, sir. All the mail’s at least four years old.” Montalbano picked up a yellowed envelope that had been lying on the desk and showed it to the sergeant.
“Did you find any envelopes like this, but new, with the words ‘Import-Export’ in the return address?”
“Not a single one.”
“Listen, Sergeant. Last month a local print shop sent Lapecora a package of stationery at this office. Since you found no trace of it, do you think it’s possible the whole stock got used up in four weeks?” “I wouldn’t think so. Even when things were going well, he couldn’t have written that many letters.”
“Did you find any letters from a foreign firm called Aslanidis, which exports dates?”
“Nothing.”
“And yet, according to the mailman, some were delivered here.”
“Did you search Lapecora’s home, Inspector?”
“Yes. There’s nothing related to his new business there.
You want to know something else? According to a very reli-able witness, on certain nights, when Lapecora wasn’t here, this place was buzzing with activity.”
He proceeded to tell him about Karima and the dark young man posing as a nephew, who used to make and receive phone calls and write letters, but only on his own portable typewriter.
“I get it,” said Lagana. “Don’t you?”
“I do, but I’d like to hear your idea first.”
“The business was a cover, a front, the receiving end of some kind of illegal trafficking. It certainly wasn’t used to import dates.”
“I agree,” said Montalbano. “And when they killed Lapecora, or the night before, they came here and got rid of everything.”
o o o
He dropped in at headquarters. Catarella was at the switchboard, working on a crossword puzzle.
“Tell me something, Cat. How long does it take you to solve a puzzle?”
“Ah, they’re hard, Chief, really hard. I been workin’ on this one for a month and I still can’t get it.”
“Any news?”
“Nothing serious, Chief. Somebody arsoned Sebastiano Lo Monaco’s parking garage by setting fire to it. The firemen went and put it out. Five motor vehicles got roasted. Then somebody shot at somebody by the name of Filippo Quaran-tino but they missed and got the window of the house where Mrs. Saveria Pizzuto lives and she got so scared she had to go to the merchancy room. Then there was another fire, an arson fire for sure. But just little shit, Chief, kid stuff, nothin’
important.”
“Who’s in the office?”
“Nobody, Chief. They’re all out taking care of these things.”
Montalbano went into his office. On the desk was a package wrapped in the paper of the Pipitone pastry shop.
He opened it: cannoli, cream puffs,
“Catarella!”
“At your orders, Chief.”
“Who put these pastries here?”
“Inspector Augello did. He says he bought ’em for the little boy from last night.”
How thoughtful and attentive to abandoned children Mr. Mimi Augello had suddenly become! Was he hoping for another glance from Livia?
