“Michele Spitaleri, son of Bartolomeo Spitaleri and Maria Finocchiaro, born in Vigàta on November 6, 1960, and currently residing in said city, on via Lincoln 44, married to—”
“That’s enough,” said Montalbano.“I let you get it out of your system for a second, because I felt like being nice today, but now that’s enough.”
“Thanks for being nice,” said Fazio.
“Tell me who this Spitaleri is.”
“Well, seeing as how his sister married Pasquale Alessandro, and seeing as how Alessandro has been mayor of Vigàta for the last eight years, this Spitaleri happens to be the mayor’s brother-in-law.”
“Elementary, my dear Watson.”
“Owning, in that capacity, three construction companies and being a surveyor by trade, he gets ninety percent of the municipality’s contracts.”
“And they let him do that?”
“Yes they do, because he pays his dues in equal part to both the Cuffaros and the Sinagras. And naturally, he kicks back a cut to his brother-in-law.”
And therefore, since the Cuffaros and the Sinagras were the two dominant Mafia families in the area, the developer could consider himself safe.
“So the final cost of every contract ends up being double the figure established at the outset.”
“Dear Inspector, poor Spitaleri can’t do it any differently, otherwise he’d be operating at a loss.”
“Anything else?”
Fazio made a vague expression.
“Rumors.”
“Meaning?”
“He likes minors. A lot.”
“A pedophile?”
“Chief, I don’t know what you call it, but the fact is, he likes young girls around fourteen, fifteen years old.”
“But not sixteen?”
“No, he thinks they’re past their prime.”
“He must be one of those who often goes abroad: a ‘sex tourist.’ ”
“Yessir, but he finds ’em here, too. And he’s not wanting for money. In town they say that one time a girl’s mother and father wanted to report him, but he paid out millions of lire and dodged the bullet. Another time, when he deflowered a virgin, he paid for it with an apartment.”
“And does he find people willing to sell him their daughters?”
“Chief, don’t we live in a free-market economy these days? And isn’t the free market the sign of democracy, liberty, and progress?”
Montalbano gawked at him, open-mouthed.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because you just said something I should have said . . .”
The telephone rang.
“Chief, there’s a Signor Spitaletti here says he gots—”
“Yes, send him in.” He turned to Fazio: “Did you tell him why he was summoned?”
“What, are you kidding? Of course not.”
Spitaleri, tanned to the point of being brown, finely dressed in a green jacket as light as onionskin and sporting a Rolex, shoulder-length hair, a gold bracelet, a gold crucifix one could barely see amidst the chest hair sticking out of his unbuttoned shirt, and yellow moccasin loafers and no socks, was visibly nervous about being called in.The way he sat on the edge of the chair said it all. He spoke first.
“I came, just as you asked, but, believe me, I have no idea—”
“You will.”
Why did the guy provoke such a violent aversion in him? He decided to put on the usual act to waste time.
“Fazio, have you finished over there with Franceschini?”
There was no Franceschini over there, but Fazio had a lot of experience playing the straight man.
“Not yet, sir.”
“Listen, I’ll be right over, that way we can finish this business in five minutes.”
Turning towards Spitaleri, he stood up.
“Just sit tight a minute, then I’m all yours.”
“Look, Inspector, I have an engagement that—”
“I understand.”
They went into Fazio’s office.
“Ask Catarella to make me a coffee with my pot. You want some?”
“No thanks, Chief.”
He took his time sipping his coffee, then went out to the parking lot to smoke a cigarette. Spitaleri had arrived in a black Ferrari. Which increased the inspector’s dislike for the developer. Having a Ferrari in a small town was like keeping a lion in the bathroom of your apartment.
When he returned to his office with Fazio, they found Spitaleri with his cell phone to his ear and talking.
“. . . to Filiberto. Listen, I’ll get back to you later,” said Spitaleri, seeing them enter. He put his cell phone back in his pocket.
“I see you were calling from here,” Montalbano said severely, beginning an improvisation worthy of the commedia dell’arte.
“Why? Am I not allowed?” Spitaleri asked belligerently.
“You should have told me.”
Spitaleri turned red with rage.
“I don’t have to tell you anything! Until proven to the contrary, I am a free citizen! If you have something to—”
“Calm down, Mr. Spitaleri.You’re making a big mistake.”
“No, there’s no mistake! You’re treating me like someone under arrest!”
“Under arrest? Who ever said anything about arrest?”
“I want my lawyer!”
“Mr. Spitaleri, please listen to what I have to tell you, then you can decide whether or not to call your lawyer.”
“All right, speak.”
“Now, then. If you had told me you wanted to phone someone, I would have dutifully informed you that all calls into and out of every police station in Italy, even those made with cell phones, are intercepted and recorded.”
“What?!”
“Oh, yes.You heard right. A recent directive of the Ministry of the Interior.You know, with all the terrorism . . .”
Spitaleri had turned pale as a corpse.
“I want that tape!”
“You always want something! Your lawyer, the tape . . .”
Fazio, the foil, started laughing.
“Ha-ha-ha! He wants the tape!”
“Yes, I do. And I don’t see what’s so funny about that!”
“Let me explain,” Montalbano interjected. “We don’t have any tapes here.The conversations are intercepted directly by the anti-Mafia and antiterrorism commissions in Rome via satellite.And they are recorded there.To avoid all interference, deletion, omissions. Understand?”
Spitaleri was sweating so profusely he looked like a geyser.
“Then what happens?”
“If, when listening to the intercepted conversation, they hear anything suspicious, they inform us from Rome, and we begin investigating. Excuse me, but you, what reason do you have to be worried? You don’t have a record, you’re not a terrorist, you’re not in the Mafia—”
“Of course, but . . .”
“But?”
“You see . . . about three weeks ago, at one of my worksites in Montelusa, there was an accident.”
Montalbano glanced at Fazio, who signaled to him that he knew nothing about it.
“What sort of accident?”
“A worker . . . an Arab . . .”
“An illegal immigrant?”
“Apparently, yes . . . But I had been assured—”
“—that he was legal.”
“Yes. Because he was in the process—”
“—of being legalized.”
“So you know everything!”
“Precisely.”
6
And, flashing a sly smile, he added:
“We know all about that case.”
“Do we ever know about it!” Fazio laid it on even thicker, again laughing abrasively.
The lie was as big as a house.
“He fell from the scaffolding—” the inspector ventured.
“—on the third floor,” said Spitaleri, now drenched in sweat. “It happened, as you probably know, on a Saturday. When there was no sign of him at the end of the day, everybody thought he’d already left.We didn’t find out until Monday, when work resumed at the construction site.”
“Yeah, I know, that’s what we were told by—”
“—Inspector Lozupone of Montelusa, who conducted a very serious investigation,” Spitaleri concluded.
“Right, Lozupone. By the way, what was the Arab’s name again? I can’t quite remember.”
“I can’t remember, either.”
Montalbano thought they ought to build a great big monument, like the Vittoriano in Rome for the Unknown Soldier, to commemorate all the illegal immigrants who have died on the job for a crust of bread.
“Well, but, you know, that business about the protective railing . . .”
A second shot in the dark.
“Oh, there was a protective railing, Inspector, I swear to God there was! Your colleague saw it with his own two eyes. The truth of the matter is that that Arab was totally drunk, climbed over the railing, and fell.”
“Are you aware of the autopsy results?”
“Me? No.”
“No trace of alcohol was found in the blood.”
Another whopper. Montalbano was firing blindly away.
“But on his clothing there sure was!” said Fazio, with the usual laugh.
He, too, was shooting blindly, come what may.
Spitaleri said nothing. He didn’t even feign surprise.
“Who were you talking to just now?” the inspector asked, going back to square one.
“With the yard foreman.”
“And what did you say to him? You don’t have to answer, of course, but it’s in your own best interests . . .”
“First I told him that I was sure you had summoned me here to ask me about this business of the Arab, and then—”
“That’s enough, Signor Spitaleri, say no more,” said the inspector in a magnanimous tone. “I am required to respect your privacy, you know.And I do so not out of formal observance of the law, but out of a deep sense of respect for others, which is something I was born with. If Rome tells me anything, I’ll call you back here for questioning.”
Behind the developer’s back, Fazio mimed the gesture of clapping his hands, applauding Montalbano’s performance.
“So I can go?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Well, you see, I didn’t summon you here concerning the investigation into your employee’s death, but for something else entirely. Do you remember if it was you who designed and built a house in the Pizzo district at Marina di Montereale?”
“For Angelo Speciale? Yes.”
“It is my duty to inform you that a crime was committed. We discovered some illegal construction, an entire underground level.”
Spitaleri could not repress a sigh of relief.Then he started laughing. Had he expected a more serious charge?
“So, you found it! Well, you’re wasting your time. That’s pure chickenshit, if you’ll excuse my language! Look, Inspector, around here you’re practically required to engage in illegal construction just to avoid looking like an idiot in other people’s eyes! Everybody does it! All that needs to be done is for Speciale to request amnesty, and—”
“That doesn’t change the fact that you, as builder and works superintendent, didn’t abide by the terms of the building permit.”
“But, Inspector, I repeat, that’s all bullshit!”
“It’s a crime.”
“A crime, you say? I would call it a minor mistake, the kind that used to get marked in red pencil. Believe me, you would do better not to report me.”
“Are you threatening me, by any chance?”
“I would never do that in the presence of a witness. It’s just that, if you report me, you’ll be the laughingstock of the whole town.You’ll look like a fool.”
He was getting bold, the motherfucking crook. Over that business about the phone call, he was practically shitting his pants, whereas illegal construction only made him laugh.
So Montalbano decided to shoot him straight in the face.
“Maybe you’re right. Unfortunately, however, I still have to look into that illegal apartment.”
“But, why, can you tell me?”
“Because we found a dead body inside.”
“A dead . . . body?”
“Yes, of a fifteen-year-old girl. A minor. Little more than a child.With her throat slashed. A horror.”
He purposely stressed the words referring to the victim’s tender age.
And, in fact, Spitaleri suddenly extended his arms, as if trying to fend off a force that was pushing him backwards, then he tried to stand up, but his legs and breath failed him, and he fell back into the chair.
“Water!” he managed with difficulty to articulate.
They gave him the water, and they sent for a cognac from the bar on the corner.
“Feel better?”
Spitaleri, who still didn’t seem in any condition to speak, gestured with his hand that he felt so-so.
“Listen, Mr. Spitaleri, for now I’ll do the talking, and you can shake your head yes or no. Okay?”
The developer nodded.
“The little girl’s murder can only have happened on the day before or the day itself when the illegal floor was buried. If it happened the day before, then the killer hid the body somewhere and didn’t bring it inside until the next day—and just in the nick of time, since the underground floor became inaccessible after that point.You follow?”
Another nod.
“If, on the other hand, the murder took place on the last day, the killer must have left a small opening, pushed the girl in, then, once inside, raped her, slit her throat, and stuck her into the trunk. After which he left the apartment and closed up the only remaining opening. Do you agree?”
Spitaleri threw his hands up, as if to say he didn’t know what to say.
“Did you oversee the work up until the last day?”
The developer shook his head.
“Why not?”
Spitaleri spread his arms and made a rumbling sound.
“Rrrrrrhhhhhhhh . . .”
Was he imitating an airplane?
“You were flying?”
Another nod.
“How many masons were used to bury the illegal apartment?”
Spitaleri held up two fingers.
Was this any way to carry on an investigation? It was starting to look like a comedy routine.