The Shape of Water

15

More than a new recipe for baby octopus, the dish invented by Signora Elisa, the commissioner’s wife, seemed to Montalbano’s palate a truly divine inspiration. He served himself an abundant second helping, but when he saw that this one, too, was coming to an end, he slowed down the rhythm of his chewing, to prolong, however briefly, the pleasure that delicacy afforded him.

Signora Elisa watched him happily; like all good cooks, she took delight in the expressions that formed on the faces of her table companions as they tasted one of her creations. And Montalbano, because he had such an expressive face, was one of her favorite dinner guests.

“Thank you very, very much,” the inspector said to her at the end of the meal, sighing. The purpiteddri had worked a sort of partial miracle—partial because while it was true that Montalbano now felt at peace with man and God, it was also true that he still did not feel very pacified in his own regard.

When the meal was over, the signora cleared the table and knowingly put a bottle of Chivas on the table for the inspector and a bottle of bitters for her husband.

“I’ll let you two talk about your murder victims, the real ones; I’m going into the living room to watch the pretend murders, which I prefer.”

It was a ritual they repeated at least twice a month. Montalbano was fond of the commissioner and his wife, and that fondness was amply repaid in kind by both. The commissioner was a refined, cultured, reserved man, almost a figure from another age.

They talked about the disastrous political situation, the unknown dangers the growing unemployment held in store for the country, the shaky, crumbling state of law and order. Then the commissioner asked a direct question.

“Can you tell me why you haven’t yet closed the Luparello investigation? I got a worried phone call from Lo Bianco today.”

“Was he angry?”

“No, only worried, as I said. Perplexed, rather. He can’t understand why you’re dragging things out so much. And I can’t either, to tell you the truth. Look, Montalbano, you know me and you know that I would never presume to pressure one of my officers to settle something one way or another.”

“Of course.”

“So if I’m here asking you this, it’s out of personal curiosity, understood? I’m speaking to my friend Montalbano, mind you. To a friend whom I know to possess an intelligence, an acumen, and, most important, a courtesy in human relations quite rare nowadays.”

“Thank you, sir, I’ll be honest with you. I think you deserve as much. What seemed suspicious to me from the start of the whole affair was the place where the body was found. It was inconsistent, blatantly inconsistent, with the personality and lifestyle of Luparello, a sensible, prudent, ambitious man. I asked myself: why did he do it? Why did he go all the way to the Pasture for a sexual encounter, putting his life and his public image in danger? I couldn’t come up with an answer. You see, sir, it was as if, in all due proportion, the president of the Republic had died of a heart attack while dancing to rock music at a third-rate disco.”

The commissioner raised a hand to stop him.

“Your comparison doesn’t really work,” he observed with a smile that wasn’t a smile. “We recently had a minister go wild on the dance floor of third-and worse-rate nightclubs, and he didn’t die . . .”

The “unfortunately” he was clearly about to add disappeared on the tip of his tongue.

“But the fact remains,” Montalbano insisted.

“And this first impression was abundantly confirmed for me by the engineer’s widow.”

“So you’ve met her? Quite a mind, that lady.”

“It was she who sought me out, after you had spoken well of me. In our conversation yesterday she told me her husband had a pied-à-terre at Capo Massaria and gave me the keys. So what reason would he have to go risk exposure at a place like the Pasture?”

“I have asked myself the same question.”

“Let us assume for a moment, for the sake of argument, that he did go there, that he let himself be talked into it by a woman with tremendous powers of persuasion. A woman not from the place, who took an absolutely impassable route to get him there. Bear in mind that it’s the woman who’s driving.”

“The road was impassable, you say?”

“Yes. And not only do I have exact testimony to back this up, but I also had my sergeant take that route, and I took it myself. So the car is actually driven down the dry bed of the Canneto, ruining the suspension.

When it comes to a stop, almost inside a big shrub in the Pasture, the woman immediately mounts the man beside her, and they begin making love. And it is during this act that Luparello suffers the misfortune that kills him. The woman, however, does not scream, does not call for help. Cool as a cucumber, she walks slowly down the path that leads to the provincial road, gets into a car that has pulled up, and disappears.”

“It’s all very strange, you’re right. Did the woman ask for a ride?”

“Apparently not, and you’ve hit the nail on the head. And I have yet another testimony to this effect.

The car that pulled up did so in a hurry, with its door actually open. In other words, the driver knew whom he was supposed to encounter and pick up without wasting any time.”

“Excuse me, Inspector, but did you get sworn statements for all these testimonies?”

“No, there wasn’t any reason. See, one thing is certain: Luparello died of natural causes. Officially speaking, I have no reason to be investigating.”

“Well, if things are as you say, there is, for example, the failure to assist a person in danger.”

“Do you agree with me that that’s nonsense?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s as far as I’d gone when Signora Luparello pointed out something very essential to me, that is, that her husband, when he died, had his underwear on backwards.”

“Wait a minute,” said the commissioner, “let’s slow down. How did the signora know that her husband’s underwear was on backwards, if indeed it was?

As far as I know, she wasn’t there at the scene, and she wasn’t present at the crime lab’s examinations.”

Montalbano became worried. He had spoken impulsively, not realizing he had to avoid implicating Jacomuzzi, who he was sure had given the widow the photos. But there was no turning back.

“The signora got hold of the crime-lab photos. I don’t know how.”

“I think I do,” said the commissioner, frowning.

“She examined them carefully with a magnifying glass and showed them to me. She was right.”

“And based on this detail she formed an opinion?”

“Of course. It’s based on the assumption that although her husband, when getting dressed in the morning, might by chance have put them on backwards, inevitably over the course of the day he would have noticed, since he took diuretics and had to urinate frequently. Therefore, on the basis of this hypothesis, the signora believes that Luparello must have been caught in some sort of embarrassing situation, to say the least, at which point he was forced to put his clothes back on in a hurry and go to the Pasture, where—in the signora’s opinion, of course—he was to be compromised in some irreparable way, so that he would have to retire from political life. But there’s more.”

“Don’t spare me any details.”

“The two street cleaners who found the body, before calling the police, felt duty-bound to inform Counselor Rizzo, who they knew was Luparello’s alter ego. Well, Rizzo not only showed no surprise, dismay, shock, alarm, or worry, he actually told the two to report the incident at once.”

“How do you know this? Had you tapped the phone line?” the commissioner asked, aghast.

“No, no phone taps. One of the street cleaners faithfully transcribed the brief exchange. He did it for reasons too complicated to go into here.”

“Was he contemplating blackmail?”

“No, he was contemplating the way a play is written. Believe me, he had no intention whatsoever of committing a crime. And this is where we come to the heart of the matter: Rizzo.”

“Wait a minute. I was determined to find a way this evening to scold you again. For wanting always to complicate simple matters. Surely you’ve read Sciascia’s Candido. Do you remember that at a certain point the protagonist asserts that it is possible that things are almost always simple? I merely wanted to remind you of this.”

“Yes, but, you see, Candido says ‘almost always,’ he doesn’t say ‘always.’ He allows for exceptions. And Luparello’s case is one of those where things were set up to appear simple.”

“When in fact they are complicated?”

“Very complicated. And speaking of Candido, do you remember the subtitle?”

“Of course: A Dream Dreamed in Sicily. ”

“Exactly, whereas we are dealing with a nightmare of sorts. Let me venture a hypothesis that will be very difficult to confirm now that Rizzo has been murdered. On Sunday evening, around seven, Luparello phones his wife to tell her he’ll be home very late—he has an important political meeting. In fact, he goes to his little house on Capo Massaria for a lovers’ tryst.

And I’ll tell you right away that any eventual investigation as to the person who was with Luparello would prove rather difficult, because the engineer was ambidextrous.”

“What do you mean? Where I come from, ambidextrous means someone can use both hands, right or left, without distinction.”

“In a less correct sense, it’s also used to describe someone who goes with men as well as women, without distinction.”

Both very serious, they seemed like two professors compiling a new dictionary.

“What are you saying?” wondered the commissioner.

“It was Signora Luparello herself who intimated this to me, and all too clearly. And she certainly had no interest in making things up, especially in this regard.”

“Did you go to the little house?”

“Yes. Cleaned up to perfection. Inside were a few of Luparello’s belongings, nothing else.”

“Continue with your hypothesis.”

“During the sex act, or most probably right after, given the traces of semen that were recovered, Luparello dies. The woman who is with him—”

“Stop,” the commissioner ordered. “How can you say with such assurance that it was a woman? You’ve just finished describing the engineer’s rather broad sexual horizons.”

“I can say it because I’m certain of it. So, as soon as the woman realizes her lover is dead, she loses her head, she doesn’t know what to do, she gets all upset, and she even loses the necklace she was wearing, but doesn’t realize it. When she finally calms down, she sees that the only thing she can do is to phone Rizzo, Luparello’s shadow man, and ask for help. Rizzo tells her to get out of the house at once and suggests that she leave the key somewhere so he can enter. He reassures her, saying he’ll take care of everything; nobody will ever know about the tryst that led to such a tragic end. Relieved, the woman steps out of the picture.”

“What do you mean, ‘steps out of the picture’?

Wasn’t it a woman who took Luparello to the Pasture?”

“Yes and no. Let me continue. Rizzo races to Capo Massaria and dresses the corpse in a big hurry.

He intends to get him out of there and have him found somewhere less compromising. At this point, however, he sees the necklace on the floor and inside the armoire finds the clothes of the woman who just phoned him. And he realizes that this may just be his lucky day.”

“In what sense?”

“In the sense that he’s now in a position to put everyone’s back to the wall, political friends as well as enemies. He can become the top gun in the party. The woman who called him is Ingrid Sjostrom, the Swedish daughter-in-law of Dr. Cardamone, Luparello’s natural successor and a man who certainly will want to have nothing to do with Rizzo. Now, you see, a phone call is one thing, but proving that La Sjostrom was Luparello’s mistress is something else. Besides, there’s still more to be done. Rizzo knows that Luparello’s party cronies are the ones who will pounce on his political inheritance, so in order to eliminate them he must make things such that they will be ashamed to wave Luparello’s banner. For this to happen, the engineer must be utterly disgraced, dragged through the mud.

He gets the brilliant idea of having the body be found at the Pasture. And since she’s already involved, why not make it look as though the woman who wanted to go to the Pasture with Luparello was Ingrid Sjostrom herself, who’s a foreigner and certainly not nunnish in her habits, and who might have been seeking a kinky thrill? If the setup works, Cardamone will be in Rizzo’s hands. He phones his men, whom we know, without being able to prove it, to be underhanded butcher boys.

One of these is Angelo Nicotra, a homosexual better known in their circles as Marilyn.”

“How were you able to learn even his name?”

“An informer told me, someone in whom I have absolute faith. In a way, we’re friends.”

“You mean Gegè, your old schoolmate?”

Montalbano eyed the commissioner, mouth agape.

“Why are you looking at me that way? I’m a cop, too. Go on.”

“When his men get there, Rizzo has Marilyn dress up as a woman, has him put on the necklace, and tells him to take the body to the Pasture, but by way of an impassable route, actually by way of a dry riverbed.”

“To what end?”

“Further proof against La Sjostrom, who is a racing champion and knows how to travel a route like that.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. I was in the car with her when I had her drive down the riverbed.”

“Oh, God!” the commissioner groaned. “You forced her to do that?”

“Not at all! She did it quite willingly.”

“But how many people have you dragged into this? Do you realize you’re playing with dynamite?”

“It all goes up in smoke, believe me. So while his two men leave with the corpse, Rizzo, who has taken the keys Luparello had on him, returns to Montelusa and has no trouble getting his hands on Luparello’s documents of greatest interest to him. Marilyn, meanwhile, executes to perfection the orders he’s been given: he gets out of the car after going through the motions of sex, walks away, and, near an old, abandoned factory, hides the necklace behind a bush and throws the purse over the factory wall.”

“What purse are you talking about?”

“Ingrid Sjostrom’s purse. It’s even got her initials on it. Rizzo found it in the little house and decided to use it.”

“Explain to me how you arrived at these conclusions.”

“Rizzo, you see, is showing one card, the necklace, and hiding another, the purse. The discovery of the necklace, however it occurs, will prove that Ingrid was at the Pasture at the time of Luparello’s death. If somebody happens to pocket the necklace and not say anything, he can still play the purse card. But he actually has a lucky break, in his opinion: the necklace is found by one of the sanitation men, who turned it in to me. Rizzo gives a plausible explanation for the discovery of the necklace, but in the meantime he has established the Sjostrom-Luparello-Pasture triangle of connection. It was I, on the other hand, who found the purse, based on the discrepancy between the two testimonies: that is, the woman, when she got out of Luparello’s car, was holding a purse that she no longer had when a car picked her up along the provincial road. Finally, to make a long story short, Rizzo’s two men return to the little house and put everything in order. At the first light of dawn, Rizzo phones Cardamone and begins playing his cards.”

“All right, fine, but he also begins playing with his life.”

“That’s another matter, if that is indeed the case,”

said Montalbano.

The commissioner gave him a look of alarm.

“What do you mean? What the hell are you thinking?”

“Quite simply that the only person who comes out of this story unscathed is Cardamone. Don’t you think Rizzo’s murder was providentially fortunate for him?”

The commissioner gave a start, and it wasn’t clear whether he was speaking seriously or joking.

“Listen, Montalbano, don’t get any more brilliant ideas. Leave Cardamone in peace. He’s an honorable man who wouldn’t hurt a fly!”

“I was just kidding, Commissioner. But allow me to ask, are there any new developments in the investigation?”

“What new developments would you expect? You know the kind of person Rizzo was. Out of every ten people he knew, respectable or otherwise, eight, respectable or otherwise, would have liked to see him dead. A veritable forest, my friend, a jungle of potential murderers, by their own hand or through intermediaries. I must say your story has a certain plausibility, but only for someone who knows what kind of stuff Rizzo was made of.”

He drank a dram of bitters, sipping.

“You certainly had me fascinated. What you’ve told me is an exercise of the highest intelligence; at moments you seemed like an acrobat on a tightrope, with no net underneath. Because, to be brutally frank, underneath your argument, there’s nothing. You have no proof of anything you’ve said. It could all be interpreted in another way, and any good lawyer could pick apart your deductions without breaking a sweat.”

“I know.”

“What do you intend to do?”

“Tomorrow morning I’m going to tell Lo Bianco that I’ve no objection if he wants to close the case.”