floor and hurled it out the window.
“There! That’ll put an end to all this aggravation!” With a heartrending wail, the little boy ran into another room.
“It’s his father’s fault, always buying him these toys! He’s out of the house all day long, doesn’t give a damn, and I’m stuck here to look after that little demon! And what do you want?” “I’m Inspector Montalbano. Did Mr. Lapecora by any chance come up to your apartment this morning?”
“Mr. Lapecora? To our apartment? Why would he do that?”
“That’s what I’m asking you.”
“I guess I knew the man, but it was never anything more than good morning, good evening . . . Not a word more.”
“Perhaps your husband—”
“My husband never spoke to Lapecora. Anyway, when could he have? The guy’s always out. He just doesn’t give a damn.”
“Where is your husband?”
“He’s out, as you can see.”
“Yes, but where does he work?”
“At the port, at the fish market. He’s up at four-thirty in the morning and back at eight in the evening. I’m lucky I ever see him at all.”
An understanding woman, this Mrs. Gullotta.
o o o
On the door to the third and last apartment on the fifth floor was the name piccirillo. The woman who answered the door, a distinguished-looking fifty-year-old, was clearly upset and nervous.
“What do you want?”
“I’m Inspector Montalbano.”
The woman looked away.
“We don’t know anything.”
Montalbano immediately smelled a rat. Could this woman have been the reason Lapecora went one flight up?
“Let me in. I still have to ask you some questions.” Signora Piccirillo gruffly stepped aside to let him in, then led him into a small but pleasant sitting room.
“Is your husband at home?”
“I’m a widow. I live with my daughter, Luigina, who’s unmarried.”
“Call her in here, if she’s at home.”
“Luigina!”
A jeans-clad girl in her early twenties appeared. Cute but very pale, and literally terrified.
The rat smell grew even stronger, and the inspector decided to go on the attack.
“This morning Mr. Lapecora came to see you here.
What did he want?”
“No!” said Luigina, almost yelling.
“He didn’t, I swear it!” the mother proclaimed.
“What was your relation to Mr. Lapecora?”
“We knew him by sight,” said Mrs. Piccirillo.
“We haven’t done anything wrong,” Luigina whined.
“Well, listen closely: if you haven’t done anything wrong, you shouldn’t be afraid. We have a witness who claims that Mr. Lapecora was on the fifth floor when—”
“But why hold that against us? There are two other families living on this floor who—”
“Stop it!” Luigina exploded, in the throes of an hysterical fit. “Stop it, Mama! Tell him everything! Tell him!”
“Oh, all right. This morning, my daughter, on her way out for an appointment at the hairdresser’s, called the elevator, which arrived at once. It must have been stopped at the floor below us, the fourth floor.” “What time was it?”
“Eight o’clock, five past . . . She opened the door and saw Mr. Lapecora sitting on the floor. When I looked inside the elevator—I’d gone out with her to wait for it—the man seemed drunk. He had a bottle of wine, unopened, and, uh . . . it looked like he’d soiled himself. My daughter felt disgusted. She closed the elevator door and started going down the stairs. At that moment the elevator left, somebody downstairs had called it. Well, my daughter has a delicate stomach, and that sight made us both a little queasy. So Luigina went back inside to freshen up, and so did I. Not five minutes later, Mrs. Gullotta came and told us that poor Mr.
Lapecora wasn’t drunk at all, but dead! And that’s the whole story.”
“No,” said Montalbano. “That’s not the whole story.”
