The Terra-Cotta Dog

11

Fresh and smiling, in jacket and tie and enveloped in a haze of cologne, Montalbano showed up at the home of Francesco Lacommare, manager of the Ingrassia supermarket, at seven oclock in the morning. The manager greeted him not only with legitimate astonishment, but also in his underwear, with a glass of milk in hand.

"What is it?" he asked, turning pale upon recognizing the inspector.

"Two simple little questions and I'll get out of your hair. But, first, one very serious stipulation: this meeting must remain between you and me. If you speak to anyone at all about it, even your boss, I'll find an excuse to throw your ass in jail, and you can bank on that."

As Lacommare was struggling to recover his breath, a shrill, annoying female voice exploded inside the apartment:

"Ciccino! Who's that at this hour?"

"It's nothing, Carmelina, go back to sleep," Lacommare reassured her, pulling the door shut behind him.

"Do you mind, Inspector, if we talk over here on the landing? The top floor, the one right above us, is vacant, so theres no danger anyone will bother us."

"Who do you buy from in Catania?"

"From Pan and Brancato."

"Do they have fixed delivery schedules?"

"Once a week for Pan, once a month for Brancato. We've coordinated it with the other supermarkets that use the same wholesalers."

"Very good. So, as I understand it, Brancato will load up a truck with merchandise and send it out to make the rounds of the supermarkets. Now, where on these rounds is your store situated? Let me explain better"

"I understand, Inspector. The truck leaves Catania, services the Caltanissetta area first, then Trapani, then Montelusa. The Vig markets are the last ones the truck visits before heading back to Catania."

"One last question. The merchandise those thieves took and then left behind"

"You're very intelligent, Inspector."

"You are, too, if you can answer me before I've asked you a question."

"The fact is, this whole story's been keeping me up at night. Here's the problem: The Brancato merchandise was delivered early. We were expecting it first thing the next morning, but it arrived the evening before, just as we were closing. The driver told us one of his supermarkets in Trapani had been suddenly closed for mourning, so he was ahead of schedule. Mr. Ingrassia, to free up the truck, had it unloaded, checked the list, and counted the crates. But he didn't have anyone open them up. Said it was too late. He didn't want to pay anybody overtime and said we could do everything the next day. A few hours later, the store was robbed. So, my question is: Who told the robbers the merchandise had arrived early?"

Lacommare was putting some passion into his reasoning. Montalbano decided to play devils advocate. After all, the manager must not be allowed to get too close to the truth; that might cause trouble. Most of all, it was obvious he was unaware of Ingrassias trafficking.

"The two things aren't necessarily connected," the inspector said. "The thieves could have come to rob what you already had in storage and ended up finding the freshly delivered merchandise instead."

"Yes, but then why leave it all behind?"

"That was indeed the question." Montalbano was hesitant to give an answer that might satisfy Lacommares curiosity.

"But who the fuck is that anyway?" asked the now enraged female voice from within.

She must have been a woman of delicate sentiment, this Signora Lacommare. Montalbano took advantage of the interruption to leave. He'd found out what he wanted to know.

"My respects to your lovely wife," he said, starting back down the stairs.

When he reached the front door, however, he sprang back upstairs like a tethered ball and rang the doorbell.

"You again?" Lacommare had drunk his milk but was still in his underwear.

"I'm sorry, I forgot something. Are you sure the truck was completely empty after you unloaded it?"

"No, I didn't say that. There were still about fifteen large crates. The driver said they belonged to that supermarket in Trapani that he'd found closed."

"But what is all this fucking commotion so early in the morning?" Signora Carmelina shrieked from within, and Montalbano fled without even saying good-bye.

...

"I think I've determined, with reasonable accuracy, the route the weapons traveled before reaching the cave. Bear with me, Mr. Commissioner. Here goes: In some way that we have yet to discover, the weapons come to the Brancato firm in Catania from some other part of the world. Brancato warehouses them and puts them in big boxes with the company name on them, so they look like they contain normal electrical appliances to be sold in supermarkets. When they receive the order to deliver, the Brancato people load the boxes with the weapons onto the truck, along with the rest. As a precaution, along some stretch of road between Catania and Caltanissetta, they replace the company truck with a stolen one. That way, if anybody finds the weapons, Brancatos can claim they had nothing to do with it, they know nothing about it, the truck isn't theirs, and, in fact, they themselves were robbed. The stolen truck begins its circuit, dropping off the... uh... clean crates at the various supermarkets it supplies, then heads off to Vig. Before arriving, however, it stops in the middle of the night at the Crasticeddru and unloads the weapons in the cave. Early that morning, according to Lacommare, the store manager, they deliver their final packages to the Ingrassia supermarket and then leave. On the way back to Catania, the stolen truck is then replaced by the companys actual truck, which returns home as if it has made its full journey. Maybe they take care to tinker with the odometer each time. And they've been playing this little game for at least three years, since Jacomuzzi said that the outfitting of the cave in fact goes back three years."

"Your explanation makes excellent logical sense," said the commissioner. "But I still don't understand the whole charade of the phony robbery."

"They acted out of necessity. Do you remember that gunfight between a patrol of carabinieri and three thugs in the Santa Lucia countryside, where one carabiniere was wounded?"

"Yes, I do remember it, but whats that got to do with this?"

"The local radio stations broadcast the news around nine p.m., right when the truck was on its way to the Crasticeddru. Santa Lucia is only about a mile and a half away from the cave. The traffickers must have heard the news on the radio. It would have been stupid to let themselves be spotted in a deserted place by some patrol of which there were many that night, racing to the site of the shoot-out. So they decided to push on to Vig. They were certain to run into a roadblock, but that was the lesser evil at this point, since they stood a good chance of slipping through. And that's what happened. So: they arrive well ahead of schedule and make up the story about the supermarket closed for mourning in Trapani. Ingrassia, who's been alerted of the hitch, has his employees unload the truck, which then pretends to head back to Catania. It's still carrying the weapons, those same crates which they told Lacommare, the manager, we're supposed to have gone to the supermarket in Trapani. The truck is then hidden somewhere around Vig, on Ingrassias or some accomplices property."

"I ask you again:Why fake the heist? From where they'd hidden it, the truck could have easily gone back to the Crasticeddru without having to pass through Vig."

"But it did have to pass through Vig. If they'd been stopped by the carabinieri, the Customs Police, or whomever, with those fifteen crates aboard, unaccompanied by any delivery note, they would have aroused suspicion. Theyd have been forced to open one, and that would have been the end of that. They absolutely did have to take back the packages that Ingrassia had unloaded, and which he had every reason not to open."

"I'm beginning to understand."

"So, at a certain hour of the night, the truck returns to the supermarket. The night watchman is in no position to recognize either the deliverymen or the truck because he wasn't yet on duty when they came the previous evening. They load the still-sealed packages, head off to the Crasticeddru, unload the weapons crates, turn back around, ditch the truck in the lot behind the filling station, and their work is done."

"But can you tell me why they didn't simply get rid of the stolen merchandise and head back to Catania?"

"That's the stroke of genius. By leaving the truck behind with all the stolen merchandise inside, they throw us off their trail. We're automatically forced to assume some kind of flap a threat, a warning for not paying ones protection dues. In short, they force us to investigate at a lower level, the kind of stuff that is unfortunately an everyday matter in this part of Italy. And Ingrassia plays his part very well, absurdly calling it all a practical joke."

"A real stroke of genius," said the commissioner.

"Yes, but if you look closely enough, you can always uncover a mistake. In our case, they didn't realize that a piece of cardboard had slipped under the planks that served as the caves floor."

"Right, right," the commissioner said pensively. Then, as if to himself: "Who knows where the empty boxes ended up?" he queried.

Now and then the commissioner would pause in idiotic wonder over meaningless details.

"They probably loaded them into some car and burned them out in the country. Because some accomplices brought at least two cars to the Crasticeddru, perhaps to take the driver away after he'd ditched the truck behind the gas station."

"So without that piece of cardboard we would never have discovered anything," the commissioner concluded.

"Well, not exactly," said Montalbano. "I was following another path that would eventually have led me to the same conclusions. They were forced, you see, to kill a poor old man."

The commissioner gave a start, darkening.

"A murder? Why was I not informed of this?"

"Because it was made to look like an accident. I only ascertained a couple of nights ago that the brakes on his car had been tampered with."

"Was it Jacomuzzi who told you?"

"For the love of God! Jacomuzzi, bless his soul, is certainly competent, but mixing him up in this would have been like issuing a press release."

"One of these days I'm going to give that Jacomuzzi a good dressing down ...I'm going to skin him alive," said the commissioner, sighing. "Now tell me the whole story, but slowly, and in chronological order."

Montalbano told him about Misuraca and the letter the cavaliere had sent him.

"He was murdered needlessly," he concluded. "His killers didn't know he'd already written to me and told me everything."

"Listen, explain to me what reason Ingrassia had for being near his supermarket while the phony robbery was taking place, if were to believe Misuraca."

"If there were any other snagsan untimely visit, for examplehe could jump out and readily explain that everything was all right and they were sending the merchandise back because the people at Brancatos had got the order wrong."

"And what about the night watchman in the freezer?"

"He was no longer a problem. They would have bumped him off."

"How should we proceed?" the commissioner asked after a pause.

"Tano the Greek has given us a tremendous gift, even without naming any names," Montalbano began, "and we shouldn't waste it. If we go about this carefully, we could get our hands on a network the size of which we can't even imagine. But we've got to be cautious. If we immediately arrest Ingrassia or someone from the Brancato firm, we'll come up empty for all our effort. We need to aim for the bigger fish."

"I agree," said the commissioner. "I'll call Catania and tell them to put a tail on.."

He broke off with a grimace, painfully remembering the mole who'd talked in Palermo and brought about Tanos death. There might well be another in Catania.

"Let's start at the bottom," he decided. "We'll put only Ingrassia under surveillance."

"All right. I'll get the court order from the judge," said the inspector.

As he was heading out the door, the commissioner called him back inside.

"By the way, my wife is feeling much better. How would Saturday evening do for you? We have a lot to discuss."

...

He found Judge Lo Bianco in an unusually good mood, his eyes sparkling.

"You look well," the inspector couldn't help saying.

"Yes, yes, I'm quite well, in fact." He then looked around, assumed a conspiratorial air, leaned towards Montalbano, and said in a low voice: "Did you know that Rinaldo had six fingers on his right hand?"

Montalbano faltered a moment, befuddled. Then he remembered that the judge had been working devotedly for years on a ponderous book entitled The Life and Deeds of Rinaldo and Antonio Lo Bianco, Masters of Law at the University of Girgenti at the time of King Martin the Younger (1402-1409). Lo Bianco had got it into his head that the two ancient barristers were his ancestors.

"Oh, really?" Montalbano asked with jovial surprise. It was best to humor him.

"Yes, indeed. Six fingers, on his right hand."

Jerking off must have been heaven, Montalbano was about to say sacrilegiously, but managed to restrain himself.

He told the judge everything about the weapons traffic and Misuracas murder. He even detailed the strategy he wanted to follow and asked him for a court order to tap Ingrassias phone lines.

Normally, Lo Bianco would have raised objections, created obstacles, imagined problems. This time, delighted with his discovery of Rinaldos six-fingered hand, he would have granted Montalbano an order to torture, impale, or burn someone at the stake.

He went home, put on his bathing suit, went for a long, long swim, came back inside, dried himself off, but did not get dressed again. There was nothing in the refrigerator, but in the oven sat, as on a throne, a casserole with four huge servings of pasta n casciata, a dish worthy of Olympus. He ate two portions, put the casserole back in the oven, set his alarm clock, slept like a rock for one hour, got back up, took a shower, put his already dirty jeans and shirt back on, and went to the station.

Fazio, German and Galluzzo were waiting for him in their work clothes. As soon as they saw him, they grabbed their shovels, pickaxes, and mattocks and struck up the old day laborers chorus, shaking their tools in air:

"Give land to those who work! Give land to those who work!"

"Fucking idiots," was Montalbanos only comment.

Prest Galluzzo's newsman brother-in-law, was already there, at the entrance of the Crasticeddru cave, along with a cameraman who had brought along two large battery-powered floodlights.

Montalbano gave Galluzzo a dirty look.

"Well," the latter said, blushing, "I just thought that since you allowed him last time"

"All right, all right," the inspector cut him off.

They entered the weapons cave, and when Montalbano gave the order, Fazio, German and Galluzzo started working on removing the stones that had fused together over the years. They labored for a good three hours, and even Prest the cameraman, and the inspector joined in, periodically relieving the three men. In the end the wall came down. They could clearly see the little passageway, just as Balassone had said. The rest was lost in darkness.

"You go in first," Montalbano said to Fazio.

The sergeant took a flashlight, started crawling on his belly, and disappeared. A few seconds later, they heard an astonished voice from the other side.

"Oh, my God! Inspector! You have to see this."

"The rest of you come in when I call you," said Montalbano to the others, looking especially at the newsman, who upon hearing Fazio had started forward and was about to throw himself to the ground and start crawling.

The little tunnel was roughly the same length as the inspectors body. An instant later he was on the other side, and he turned on his flashlight. The second cave was smaller than the first and immediately gave the impression of being perfectly dry. In the very middle was a rug still in good condition. In the far left corner of the rug, a bowl. To the right, in the symmetrically corresponding position, a jug. Forming the vertex of this upside-down triangle, at the near end of the rug, was a life-size shepherd dog, made of terra-cotta. And on the rug were two dead bodies, all shriveled up as in a horror film, embracing.

Montalbano felt short of breath; he couldn't open his mouth. He remembered the two youngsters he had surprised in the act of making love in the other cave. The men took advantage of his silence and, unable to resist, came in one after the other. The cameraman turned on his floods and began frantically filming. Nobody spoke. The first to recover was Montalbano.

"Call the crime lab, the judge, and Dr. Pasquano," he said.

He didn't even turn around toward Fazio to give the order. He just stood there, in a trance, staring at that scene, afraid that his slightest gesture might wake him from the dream he was living.