“Where do you work?”
“At the salt depot. From eight in the evening to eight in the morning.”
“It was you who discovered the body, correct?”
“Yes, sir. It must’ve been about ten after eight at the latest.
The depot’s just around the corner. I called the elevator—”
“It wasn’t on the ground floor?”
“No, it wasn’t. I distinctly remember calling it.”
“And of course you don’t know what floor it was on.”
“I’ve thought about that, Inspector. Based on the amount of time it took to arrive, I’d say it was on the fifth floor. I think I calculated right.”
It didn’t add up. All decked out, Mr. Lapecora . . .
“What was his first name, by the way?”
“Aurelio, but he went by Arelio.”
. . . instead of taking the elevator down, took it up one floor. The gray hat meant he was about to go outside, not to visit someone inside the building.
“What did you do next?”
“Nothing. Seeing that the elevator had arrived, I opened the door and saw the dead body.”
“Did you touch it?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve got experience with that sort of thing.”
“How did you know the man was dead?”
“As I said, I have experience. So I ran to the grocer’s and called you, the police. Then I went and stood guard in front of the elevator.”
Mrs. Cosentino came in with a steaming cup.
“Would you like a little coffee?”
Montalbano accepted and emptied the demitasse. Then he rose to leave.
“Wait a minute,” said the security guard, opening a drawer and handing him a writing pad and ballpoint pen.
“You’ll probably want to take notes,” he said in response to the inspector’s questioning glance.
“What, are we in school or something?” he replied rudely.
He couldn’t stand policemen who took notes. Whenever he saw one doing so on television, he changed the channel.
o o o
In the apartment next door, Signora Gaetana Pinna, with the tree-trunk legs, was waiting. As soon as she saw Montalbano, she pounced.
“Did you finally take the body away?”
“Yes, ma’am. You can use the elevator now. No, don’t close your door. I need to ask you a few questions.”
“Me? I got nothin’ to say.”
He heard a voice from inside the flat, but it wasn’t so much a voice as a kind of deep rumble.
“Tanina! Don’t be so rude! Invite the gentleman inside!” The inspector entered another typical living room– dining room. Sitting in an armchair, in an undershirt, with a sheet pulled over his legs, was an elephant, a man of gigantic proportions. His bare feet, sticking out from under the sheet, looked like elephant feet; even his long, pendulous nose resembled a trunk.
“Please sit down,” the man said, apparently in a talkative mood, motioning towards a chair. “You know, when my wife gets ornery like that, I feel like . . . like . . .”
“Trumpeting?” Montalbano couldn’t help saying.
Luckily the man didn’t understand.
“. . . like breaking her neck. What can I do for you?”
“Did you know Mr. Lapecora?”
“I don’t know nobody in this building. I been livin’ here five years and don’t even know a friggin’ dog. In five years I ain’t even made it as far as the landing. I can’t move my legs, takes too much effort. Took three stevedores to get me up here, since I couldn’t fit in the elevator. They put a sling around me and hoisted me up, like a piano.” He laughed, rather like a roll of thunder.
“I knew that Mr. Lapecora,” the wife cut in. “Nasty man.
He couldn’t be bothered to say hello, like it caused him pain.”
“You, signora, how did you find out he was dead?”
