Excursion to Tindari

6

Calogero brought the bill, Montalbano paid, Beatrice stood up, and the inspector did likewise, though with a twinge of regret. The girl was a veritable wonder of nature, but there was nothing to be done. It ended there.

“Let me give you a lift,” said Montalbano.

“I’ve got my own car,” replied Beatrice.

At that very moment, Mimi Augello walked in. Seeing Montalbano, he headed straight for him, then all at once stopped dead in his tracks, eyes agape. It was as though the angel of popular legend had passed, the one that says “Amen,” and everyone remains exactly as they were, frozen. Apparently he had brought Beatrice into focus. He suddenly turned around and made as if to leave.

“Were you looking for me?” the inspector asked, stopping him.

“Yes.”

“So why were you leaving?”

“I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“What do you mean, disturb me! Come, Mimi. Miss Dileo, this is my right-hand man, Deputy Inspector Augello. This young woman traveled with the Griffos last Sunday and has told me some interesting things.”

Mimì knew only that the Griffos had disappeared, but was entirely ignorant of the investigation. In any case he was unable to open his mouth, his eyes still fixed on the girl.

It was at that moment that the Devil, the one with a capital D, materialized beside Montalbano. Invisible to all present except the inspector, he was wearing his traditional costume: hairy skin, cloven feet, pointed tail, short horns. The inspector felt his fiery, sulfurous breath burn his left ear.

“Let them get to know each other better,” the Devil ordered him.

Montalbano bowed to His Will.

“Have you got another five minutes?” he asked Beatrice with a smile.

“Sure. I’m free all afternoon.”

“And you, Mimi, have you eaten?”

“Uh ... n-no, not yet.”

“Then sit down in my place and order something while the young lady tells you what she told me about the Griffos. I, unfortunately, have an urgent matter to attend to. See you later at the office, Mimi. And thank you again, Miss Dileo.”

Beatrice sat back down. Mimì lowered himself into his chair, as stiff as if he was wearing a suit of armor. He still couldn’t grasp how this gift of God had fallen to him, but the topper was the fact that Montalbano had been so unusually nice to him.

The inspector, meanwhile, left the trattoria humming to himself. He had planted a seed. If the ground was fertile (and he had no doubt as to the fertility of Mimì’s ground), that seed would grow. Which meant good-bye Rebecca, or whatever the hell her name was, good-bye transfer request.

“Excuse me, Inspector, but don’t you think you’re being a bit of a stinker?” asked the indignant voice of Montalbano’s conscience.

“Jeez, what a pain in the ass!” was his reply.

In front of the Caffe Caviglione stood its owner, Arturo, leaning against the doorjamb and basking in the sun. He was dressed like a beggar, in stained, threadbare jacket and trousers, despite the four to five billion lire he’d made loan- sharking. A skinflint from a legendary family of skinflints. He once showed the inspector an old sign, yellowed and covered with fly shit, that his grandfather used to display in the café at the start of the century: “Anyone sitting at a table must also drink a glass of water. And a glass of water costs two cents.”

“Have a coffee, Inspector?”

They went inside.

“A coffee for the inspector!” Arturo ordered the barman as he dropped into the register the coins Montalbano had extracted from his pocket. The day Arturo decided to offer a few scraps of brioche free of charge would be the day the world witnessed a cataclysm to delight Nostradamus.

“What is it, Artù?”

“I wanted to talk to you about this Griffo business. I know them. In the summer, every Sunday evening, they sit down at a table, always by themselves, and order two pieces of ice-cream cake: cassata for him and hazelnut with cream for her. I saw them that morning.”

“What morning?”

“The morning they left for Tindari. The bus terminus is just down the street, in the piazza. I open at six, give or take a few minutes. Well, the Griffos were already here that morning, standing in front of the closed shutters. And the bus wasn’t supposed to leave until seven! Go figure!”

“Did they have anything to drink or eat?”

“They each had a hot brioche the baker brought to me about ten minutes later. The bus pulled in at six-thirty. The driver, whose name is Filippu, came in and ordered a coffee. Mr. Griffo went up to him and asked if they could board the bus. Filippu said yes, and they left without even saying good-bye. What were they afraid of, missing the bus?”

“Is that everything?”

“Well, yes.”

“Listen, Artù. That kid that was killed, did you know him?”

“Nenè Sanfilippo? Until a couple of years ago he used to come in regularly to shoot pool. Then he started showing up a lot less. Only at night.”

“What do you mean, at night?”

“I close at one A.M., Inspector. He’d come in sometimes and buy a few bottles of whisky, gin, that kind of thing. He’d pull up in his car, and there’d almost always be a girl inside.”

“Did you ever recognize anybody?”

“Nah. He probably brought ‘em here from Palermo, or Montelusa, or wherever the hell he found them.”

Pulling up outside the entrance to headquarters, he didn’t feel like going in. A teetering pile of papers to be signed awaited him on his desk; the mere thought of it made his right arm ache. Checking his pocket to make sure he had enough cigarettes, he got back in his car and headed in the direction of Montelusa. Exactly halfway between the two towns was a little country road, hidden behind a billboard, which led to a ramshackle rustic cottage, behind which stood an enormous Saracen olive tree that was easily two hundred years old. It looked like a fake tree, a stage prop, something out of the imagination of Gustave Doré, perhaps an illustration for Dante’s Inferno. The lowest branches dragged and twisted along the ground, unable, try as they might, to hoist themselves skyward, and thus at a certain point of their progress they reconsidered their effort and decided to turn back towards the trunk, creating a kind of elbowlike bend or, in some cases, an out-and-out knot. Shortly thereafter, however, they changed their minds and turned around again, as if frightened at the sight of the powerful though pocked, burnt, time-wrinkled trunk. And in turning around, the branches took a different direction from the one before. They looked just like vipers, pythons, boas, and anacondas that had suddenly metamorphosed into olive branches. And they seemed to despair, forever damned by the sorcery that had frozen them—“crystallized” them, the poet Montale might have said—in an eternity of tragic, impossible flight. The middle branches, having reached more or less one meter in length, were immediately beset by doubt as to whether they should head skyward or turn earthward to rejoin the roots.

When it wasn’t sea air he was after, Montalbano, instead of his customary walk along the eastern jetty, would pay a visit to the olive tree. Straddling one of the lower branches, he would light a cigarette and begin to reflect on problems in need of resolution.

He had discovered that, in some mysterious way, the entanglement, contortion, overlapping, in short, the labyrinth of branches, almost mimetically mirrored what was happening inside his head, the intertwining hypotheses and accumulating arguments. And if some conjecture happened to seem at first too reckless or rash, the sight of a branch tracing an even more far-fetched path than his thought would reassure him and allow him to proceed.

Ensconced amidst the silvery green leaves, he could stay there for hours without moving. His immobility was only interrupted from time to time to make the movements needed to light a cigarette, which he would smoke without ever removing it from his mouth, or to carefully extinguish the butt, which he would rub against the heel of his shoe. He would keep so still that ants, undisturbed, would climb all over his body, creep into his hair, walk across his hands and his forehead. Once he got down from the branch, he would have to shake out his clothes very carefully, and at that moment, along with the ants, a little spider or two, or a few lucky ladybugs, would also come tumbling out.

Having settled onto his branch, he asked himself a question fundamental to what direction the investigation would take: Was there any connection between the disappearance of the old couple and the murder of the kid?

Raising his head to let the first drag of smoke go down better, the inspector noticed a branch of the olive tree tracing an impossible path of sharp corners, tight curves, bounds forward and back. At one point it actually looked like an old-fashioned three-lobed radiator.

“No, I won’t fall for it,” Montalbano muttered, rejecting the invitation. There was no need for acrobatics, not yet. For the moment the facts, and only the facts, were enough.

All the residents of Via Cavour 44, including the concierge, unanimously maintained they had never seen the old couple and the kid together. Not even in some chance encounter, as might happen when waiting for the elevator. They kept different hours, led entirely different lives. Come to think of it, how the hell could two unsociable, bad-tempered old bears, who never spoke to a living soul, have any kind of relationship at all with a twenty-year-old with too much money in his pockets who brought a different woman home every other night?

It seemed best, at least for now, to keep the two things separate. And to consider the fact that the two missing persons and the murder victim lived in the same building a pure and simple coincidence. For the moment. Besides, hadn’t he already decided this, without openly saying so? He’d given Mimi Augello Nenè Sanfilippo’s papers to study, and thus had implicitly assigned him the murder investigation. It was up to him, the inspector, to look into the Griffos.

Alfonso and Margherita Griffo, who would hole up in their apartment for up to three or four days in a row, as if be sieged by solitude, giving not the slightest sign of being physically at home, not even a sneeze or a cough, nothing, as though rehearsing their eventual disappearance ... Alfonso and Margherita Griffo, who, as far as their son could remember, had been outside of Vigata only once in their lives, to go to Messina. Then one fine day, Alfonso and Margherita suddenly decide to make an excursion to Tindari. Were they devotees of the Madonna? But they never even went to church!

And they were so keen on that excursion!

According to what Arturo Caviglione told him, they showed up an hour before departure time and were the first to get on the still-empty bus. And though they were the sole passengers at that point, with fifty seats at their disposal, they went and chose the decidedly most uncomfortable ones, which were already encumbered by two giant boxes containing Beatrice Dileo’s collection of samples. Did they make that choice out of inexperience, unaware that one feels the sharp turns most keenly in the last row and ends up with a queasy stomach? At any rate, the hypothesis that they chose those seats so they would be more isolated and not have to talk to their fellow passengers didn’t hold water. If one wants to remain silent, one can, even if there are hundreds of people around. So why the last row?

The answer might lie in what Beatrice had told him. The girl had noticed that from time to time, Alfonso Griffo would turn around and look back through the big rear window. From that position, he could watch the cars that were behind them. But he could also, in turn, be seen, say, by a car that was following the bus. To see and be seen: this would not have been possible had he been seated anywhere else in the coach.

After arriving in Tindari, the Griffos didn’t budge. In Beatrice’s opinion, they never got off the bus. They hadn’t joined the others and weren’t seen about town. What, then, was the reason for that excursion? Why was it so important to them?

Again it was Beatrice who had revealed something important. Namely, that it was Alfonso Griffo who had the driver make the final extra stop, barely half an hour from Vigata.

Maybe, until the day before departure, it had never even occurred to the Griffos to go on that excursion. Maybe their intention had been to spend that Sunday the way they had spent hundreds of others. Except that something had happened which forced them, against their will, to make that journey. Not just any journey, but that one. They’d been given some kind of explicit order. But who could have given that order, and what sort of power did he have over the old couple?

“Just to give this some coherence,” Montalbano said to himself, “let’s say it was a doctor that ordered them.”

But he was in no mood for joking.

And we are talking about a doctor so conscientious that he decided to follow the bus with his car, both on the way out and the way back, to make sure that his patients were in their seats the whole time. After it gets dark, and they’re not far outside of Vigàta, the doctor flashes his headlights in some special way It’s a prearranged signal. Alfonso Griffo asks the driver to stop. And at the café Paradiso, the couple disappear without a trace. Maybe the conscientious doctor asked the elderly pair to get in his car; maybe he urgently needed to check their blood pressure.

At this point Montalbano decided it was time to stop playing Me Tarzan,You Jane and return, as it were, to civilization. As he was shaking the ants out of his clothes, he asked himself one last question: What mysterious illness did the Griffos suffer from, making it necessary for their ever-so-conscientious family doctor to intervene?

Shortly before the descent that led into Vigata, there was a public telephone. Miraculously, it worked. Mr. Malaspina, owner of the tour-bus company, took barely five minutes to answer the inspector’s questions.

No, Mr. and Mrs. Griffo had never gone on any of these tours before.

Yes, they had booked their seats at the last minute, at exactly one P.M. on Saturday afternoon, the deadline for signing up.

Yes, they had paid in cash.

No, the person who made the booking was neither Mr. nor Mrs. Griffo. Totò Bellavia, the employee at the counter, was ready to swear on a stack of Bibles that it was a distinguished-looking man of about forty, calling himself the Griffos’ nephew, who signed them up and paid.

How did Mr. Malaspina happen to be so well informed on the subject? Simple, the whole town was doing nothing but talking about the disappearance of the Griffos, and he’d become curious and decided to inform himself.

“Chief, that would be the old folks’ son waiting for you in Fazio’s office.”

“Would be or is?”

Catarella didn’t miss a beat.

“Both, Chief.”

“Let him in.”

Davide Griffo came in looking frazzled: unshaven, red-eyed, suit rumpled.

“I’m going back to Messina, Inspector. What’s the use staying around here? I can’t fall asleep at night, with the same thought in my head all the time ... Mr. Fazio said you still haven’t managed to find anything out.”

“Unfortunately, that’s right. But rest assured that as soon as there’s any news, we’ll let you know immediately. Do we have your address?”

“Yes, I left it for you.”

“One question, before you leave. Do you have any cousins?”

“Yes, one.”

“How old is he?”

“About forty”

The inspector pricked up his ears.

“Where does he live?”

“In Sydney. He works there. He hasn’t been to see his father in three years.”

“How do you know?”

“Because every time he comes, we arrange to see each other.”

“Could you leave this cousin’s address and telephone number with Fazio?”

“Certainly. But why do you want it? Do you think . . .?”

“I don’t want to leave any stone unturned.”

“Look, Inspector, the mere idea that my cousin could have anything to do with this disappearance is utterly insane ... if you’ll excuse my saying so.”

Montalbano stopped him with a gesture.

“Another thing. You must know that, in these parts, we give names like cousin, uncle, nephew to people with whom we have no blood relation. We do it out of affection, because we like them ... Think hard. Do you know of anyone your parents might refer to as nephew?”

“Inspector, you obviously don’t know my father and mother! God forbid any of us should have such a disposition! No, sir, I do not think it possible that they would ever call anyone a nephew who wasn’t their nephew.”

“Mr. Griffo, you’ll forgive me if I make you repeat something you’ve already said to me, but, you must understand, it’s as much in your interest as mine. Are you absolutely certain your parents mentioned nothing to you about the excursion they were planning to go on?”

“They said nothing, Inspector, absolutely nothing. We weren’t in the habit of writing to each other; we only talked over the phone. I was always the one who called, every Thursday and Sunday, always between nine and ten P.M. Thursday, the last time I spoke to them, they made no mention of going to Tindari. Actually, Mama, before hanging up, said: ‘We’ll talk again Sunday, as usual.’ If they were already planning on going on that tour, they would have told me not to worry if they weren’t at home, and to call back a little later, in case the bus was late. Doesn’t that seem logical to you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“But since they didn’t say anything, I called them on Sunday at nine-fifteen, and nobody answered. And that’s when my torments began.”

“The bus returned to Vigata around eleven o‘clock that evening.”

“And I called and called until six the next morning.”

“Mr. Griffo, we must, unfortunately, consider every possibility. Even those that we find repugnant. Did your father have any enemies?”

“Inspector, if I didn’t have this lump in my throat I would laugh out loud. My father is a good man, even if he has an unpleasant personality. Like my mother. Papa’s been retired ten years. Never has he spoken of anyone wanting to do him harm.”

“Was he rich?”

“Who, my father? He got by on his pension. He was able to buy the flat they’re living in by liquidating their savings.”

Griffo lowered his eyes, disheartened.

“I can’t think of any reason why my parents would have wanted to disappear, or anything that would have forced them to disappear. I even went and spoke to their doctor. He said they were doing well, given their age. And they had no signs of arteriosclerosis.”

“Sometimes, after a certain age,” said Montalbano, “people become more susceptible to certain influences, more easily persuaded . . .”

“I don’t understand.”

“Well, I don’t know, some acquaintance may have spoken to them about the miracles of the Black Madonna of Tindari ...”

“What would they have needed miracles for? Anyway, they were pretty lukewarm about anything to do with God.”

He was getting up to go to his rendezvous with Balduccio Sinagra when Fazio walked into his office.

“Sorry, Chief, you got any news of Inspector Augello?”

“I saw him at lunchtime. He said he’d be by later. Why?”

“Central Police of Pavia are looking for him.”

At first Montalbano didn’t make the connection.

“Pavia? Who was it?”

“It was a woman, but she didn’t tell me her name.”

Rebecca! Surely worried about her beloved Mimi.

“This woman from Pavia didn’t have his cell phone number?”

“Yeah, she’s got it, but she said it’s not connected.Turned off. She said she’s been trying to reach him for hours, since just after lunch. What should I tell her if she calls back?”

“You’re asking me?”

Deep down, even as he was answering Fazio with feigned irritation, he felt quite pleased. Want to bet the seed was beginning to grow?

“Listen, Fazio, don’t worry about Inspector Augello. He’ll turn up sooner or later. I was about to tell you I’m leaving.”

“Going home to Marinella?”

“Fazio, I don’t have to tell you where I’m going or not going.”

“Jeez, what did I ask! And what’s got your goat, anyway? I asked you a simple, innocent question. Sorry I was so bold.”

“Listen, I’m the one who should apologize. I’m a little on edge.”

“I can see.”

“Don’t tell anyone what I’m about to tell you. I’m on my way to an appointment with Balduccio Sinagra.”

Fazio turned pale and looked at him boggle-eyed.

“Are you kidding me?”

“No.”

“The guy’s a wild animal, Chief!”

“I know.”

“Chief, get as angry as you like, but I’ll say it anyway: In my opinion, you shouldn’t go to this appointment.”

“I’ve got news for you. Mr. Balduccio Sinagra, at this point in time, is a free man.”

“Well, hurray for freedom! The guy spent twenty years in the slammer and has at least twenty murders on his conscience! At least!”

“Which we haven’t been able to prove yet.”

“Proof or no proof, he’s still a piece of shit.”

“I agree. But have you forgotten that it’s our job to deal with shit?”

“Well, if you really want to go, Chief, I’m coming with you.”

“You’re not moving from this office. And don’t make me tell you that’s an order, ‘cause it pisses me off no end when you guys make me say things like that.”