Augello wasn’t in. Fazio said he’d lost track of him since morning; Mimi’d stuck his head in at nine and then disappeared. Montalbano flew into a rage.
“Everybody does whatever he pleases around here! Anything goes! Ragonese will turn out to have been right, just wait and see!”
News? Nothing. Oh yes, the widow Lapecora phoned to inform the inspector that her husband’s funeral would be held Wednesday morning. And there was a land surveyor by the name of Finocchiaro who’d been waiting since two to speak to him.
“Do you know him?”
“By sight. He’s retired, an old guy.”
“What’s he want?”
“He wouldn’t tell me. But he seems a tad upset.”
“Let him in.”
Fazio was right. The man looked shaken. The inspector asked him to sit down.
“Could I have some water, please?” asked the land surveyor, whose throat was obviously dry.
After drinking his water, he said his name was Giuseppe Finocchiaro, seventy-five years old, unmarried, former land surveyor, now retired, residing at Via Marconi 38. Clean record, not even a traffic ticket.
He stopped, drank the last gulp of water remaining in the glass.
“On TV today, on the afternoon news, they showed a photograph. A woman and child.You know how they said to inform you if we recognized them?”
“Yes.”
Yes, period. One more syllable, at that moment, might have sparked a doubt, a change of mind.
“I know the woman. Her name’s Karima. The kid I’ve never seen before. In fact I never knew she had a son.”
“How do you know her?”
“She comes to clean my house once a week.”
“What day?”
“Tuesday mornings. She stays for four hours.”
“Tell me something. How much did you pay her?”
“Fifty thousand. But . . .”
“But?”
“Sometimes as much as two hundred thousand for extras.”
“Like blow jobs?”
The calculated brutality of the question made the surveyor first turn pale, then red.
“Yes.”
“So, let me get this straight. She would come to your house four times a month. How often did she perform these
‘extras’?”
“Once a month, twice at the most.”
“How did you meet her?”
“A friend of mine, retired like me, told me about her.
Professor Mandrino, who lives with his daughter.”
“So no extras for the professor?”
“There were extras just the same. The daughter’s a teacher, so she’s out of the house every morning.”
“What day did Karima go to the professor’s house?”
“On Saturday.”
“If you haven’t anything else to tell me, you can go, Mr.
Finocchiaro.”
“Thank you for being so understanding.”
The man stood up awkwardly and eyed the inspector.
“Tomorrow is Tuesday,” he said.
“So?”
“Do you think she’ll come?”
He didn’t have the heart to disappoint him.
