Auntie Poldi and the Sicilian Lions (26 page)

“Hm, that's the next thing. Clearly a young woman, but we haven't managed to identify her yet. Forensics estimate that she could have been lying down there for thirty to fifty years. We're going through all the missing persons records, but without a DNA comparison it won't be easy.”

“A cold case,” Poldi exclaimed eagerly.

Montana pulled a face. “It'll be difficult to nail anyone for murder after such a long time, but we discovered the dried-up remains of some flowers beside the skeleton.”

“Flowers?”

“Roses.”

“You mean someone knew the woman was lying down there and threw some roses onto her?”

“Yes, within the last few years, too. Some of the roses were relatively well preserved. Romantic, eh?”

“What does Mimì say about it? He owns the mine, after all.”

“He was flabbergasted. But he claims he never bothered about the mine – only ever went there once with his father as a child. Somehow, I don't think there's any connection with Valentino's murder.”

“What about the new padlock? You think that's a coincidence too, Vito?”

Montana sighed. “We're working on it, okay?”

Poldi bit off some of the marzipan fruit, allowed the sweet almond paste to dissolve on her tongue and cogitated, troubled by a triviality as impalpable as the confectionery in her mouth. Just a triviality like a distant, irritating clicking sound one can't locate or turn off, an unpleasant smell that pursues one throughout the day, or a question mark without a question. It meant she'd overlooked something. Only a triviality, but the vital piece in the puzzle.

Montana glanced at his watch. “I must go.”

“So what was the bad news?” asked Poldi.

“Oh yes, the bad news…” Montana drew a deep breath. “I believe him. Patanè, I mean.”

Poldi tried not to show that this didn't surprise her somehow. “Why?”

He suddenly looked even wearier. “I can't tell you. Call it instinct. There's certainly enough evidence to charge him, even without a confession. Valentino's body was transported in a car, Valentino put the squeeze on him, Patanè is a thief who drugged you and organized a break-in at your house. The chief wants the case closed as quickly as possible.”

“But you don't believe Patanè is the murderer.”

“It's just a feeling, as I say.”

“How long have you been doing this job, Vito?”

“Thirty-six years.”

“Has your instinct ever let you down?”

“Innumerable times.”

He ran a hand nervously over his face and beard as if trying to wipe off an annoying film of something. His bright green eyes looked dull, almost grey. Poldi could tell he hadn't slept much in the previous two days.

“I really have to go now, Poldi.”

“And I'd really like to kiss you now.”

A little colour came back into the pale green eyes, but his smile remained pained. Poldi construed this as a crystal-clear sign of mixed feelings, and she knew a thing or two about those.

“Let's have a talk when the case is closed, shall we?”

“Oh, Vito.”

He wanted to go, couldn't wait to return to his office in the prefecture, the familiar world of investigation and lies. Poldi pictured his lovely colleague waiting for him there, not only impatiently but – with a bit of luck – consumed with jealousy.

But before he went he drew Poldi to him and kissed her.

“What do you mean by ‘kissed'?” I cut in at this point in September, before she could go on. “Details, please.”

“You mean that interests you now? You're usually so bashful about such things.”

“And you're usually more precise. All right, how did he kiss you? With tongue or without? Did he take your breath away? Was he greedy, desperate, frantic as a drowning man? Was it an explosion of sensuality, a bit of sophisticated foreplay or more of a cursory peck on the mouth? Were his lips dry or moist? Did his beard tickle? Did the kiss seem to last an eternity, or was it agonizingly brief? Did his breath smell fresh or just stale? I mean, did you click?”

Poldi looked at me intently. She might have been looking at a cute little hamster which has unexpectedly performed a new trick in its cage.

“In the first place,” she said, “you obviously don't have a clue about kissing, or you wouldn't ask such daft questions. Secondly, the man is a detective chief inspector and a Sicilian – a sexual force of nature, in other words. Thirdly…” Poldi closed her eyes and opened them again. “Thirdly, he tasted of Sicily. Bitter from the coffee, sweet from the marzipan, sour from cigarettes and salty from the sadness and lies he has to put up with every day – from suppressed passion and the pain of falling between two stools again and again. His beard tickled, but in a way that went right through me. It's like walking through a field of corn in summer and feeling you're alive. He smelt sweaty the way a hard-working man smells – of warm skin and a trace of aftershave, of longing and relief that he's back with you and can be himself once more. It was a kiss that tells you, as plain as can be, ‘I want you, and I don't give a damn about anyone else.' And, at the same time, it was a farewell kiss that suddenly tears itself away from your lips before they can say ‘Come' – one that severs all the ties between you and rips your heart out as well. It was that sort of kiss. Is that good enough for you?”

If anyone knew something about love, Sicily and farewells, it was my Auntie Poldi. On the other hand, she didn't intend to take that farewell kiss lying down –
piacere, grazie e buona giornata
– or file away her heart and give up the commissario just like that. Neither him nor the case. Why not? Because my Auntie Poldi had the feeling she was arriving in Sicily at last.

Back home again she sat bolt upright on the sofa, composed herself for a moment, shut her eyes, trying to forget about the kiss and instead remember the triviality that had so worried her in the café. It wasn't easy because of the whizzbangs that kept going off in the church square.
Bang
. More and more exasperated, Poldi rooted around in her recollections like someone trying to dislodge a morsel of salami stuck in the gap between two teeth. No use, so she did what she had been taught to do when meditating at the ashram: she took the unresolved triviality by the scruff of the neck, like someone teaching a puppy to sit, and put it back on its blanket.

“And stay there till you tell me the answer yourself.”

Boom
. The unresolved triviality winced at the next bang, whimpered a little, gazed meekly up at Poldi and tried to slink off its blanket. Poldi drew a deep breath, grabbed it by the scruff of the neck again and gently, patiently, put it back.

“Maybe you can tell me why Vito's bad news didn't surprise me. I mean, Patanè is a thief, a fence, and he damned nearly killed me with knockout drops. He's got a motive and there are masses of clues that seem to incriminate him, so why have I suddenly stopped thinking he murdered Valentino?”

The unresolved triviality looked up at Poldi attentively.

“Good dog,” she said. “All right, let's assume it wasn't Patanè. What does that mean? It means I'm wrong about the murder motive, right?”

The unresolved triviality wagged its tail.

“Aha. And it also means that the only candidates left are Valérie and Mimì. Or Russo. Right?”

The unresolved triviality wearily rested its chin on its paws and dozed off. Poldi didn't know what to make of that. She opened her eyes.

The house was hushed and cool. A tap was dripping in the bathroom, the shutters creaked gently in the midday sunlight. The whizzbangs had temporarily ceased, it seemed. Poldi could hear Signora Anzalone talking to someone outside in the Via Baronessa. She could only hear her neighbour's voice, though, not that of the other person, who was either saying nothing or speaking very softly. She got up from the sofa, intending to peek through the shutters. Just then the doorbell rang. She froze, momentarily overcome by the notion that outside her door were two unshaven, tracksuited thugs with shades and silencers, and, just beyond them, Signora Anzalone lying on the ground in a pool of blood. But then she heard her neighbour say something. “Yes, yes, she's in, I saw her come home a while back.” She sounded encouraging and familiar somehow. Not like someone talking to Mafia hitmen. Poldi opened the front door.

It was sad Signora Cocuzza from the bar. Still wearing her white apron over a grey skirt and a pink T-shirt dusted with flour, she looked shorter and more frail than she usually did behind her till – almost transparent but very erect. Poldi had only ever seen her from the waist up before. It now struck her that, despite the sorrow etched into her features, Signora Cocuzza seemed to glow as if there burned deep inside her a light that flickered through all the shadows in her heart. But that might just have been the midday sunlight in the Via Baronessa. Signora Cocuzza was holding out a small package tied up with ribbon. It gave off a delectable smell of fried food.

“I don't mean to intrude, Donna Poldina.”

“You aren't intruding in the least.”

“I wanted to thank you again for the mushrooms. They were quite delicious. Do you like arancini?”

“I'd sell my nephew for a few of your arancini, signora.”

A hint of a trace of a ghost of a smile. “They're still hot. Two with ragout and two with mozzarella, but they'll keep till tomorrow.”

Poldi took the package and stepped aside. “Do come in.”

She had expected a shy refusal, but the sad signora needed no second bidding. “I really don't want to intrude, though.”

“Nonsense. We'll eat the arancini together and wash them down with a couple of cold beers, what do you say?”

When Poldi had closed the front door, Signora Cocuzza turned to her. “Are you still looking for Valentino's murderer?”

Slumbering on its blanket somewhere at the back of Poldi's mind, the unresolved triviality sighed in the throes of a restless dream.

“I certainly am.”

The sad signora nodded. “Good. Then I may have some information for you.” She fixed Poldi with a steady gaze. “I know who the girl in the cistern was.”

14

                  
Tells of beauty and death and of what Signora Cocuzza was unable to forget. The Virgin Mary discloses her secret and is celebrated with fireworks and a procession. Poldi draws her conclusions and sets a thoroughly ingenious trap for Valentino's murderer. Things don't go according to plan, unfortunately, and she has to continue her interrogation on the brink of an abyss.

The story Signora Cocuzza told Poldi might be described as a Sicilian ballad about beauty and death. It went as follows:

Long, long ago, in the small town of Carruba on the slopes of Etna, overlooking the eastern shores of Sicily, there lived a very beautiful girl named Marisa Puglisi. She was the only child of humble agricultural labourers who spent their whole existence toiling away for the elderly nobleman who owned the lemon orchard they tended. Despite their poverty, however, Marisa's parents were very happy because Marisa's beauty and her cheerful, outgoing nature constituted the totality of their wealth and happiness. When she laughed the sun rose, buds opened and hearts beat faster. When she cursed the sky grew dark, Etna fell silent and angelic trumpets sounded the Armageddon.

Marisa blossomed early. Endowed with the curves of a grown woman even at the age of twelve, she aroused envy and lust in equal measure. When she was around, her classmates clasped their flat bosoms in despair. As for the men of the town, young and old, they dreamt of the forbidden apples of paradise whenever she walked past. When little Marisa attended Mass on Sundays with her little white dress and her beloved Monchichi bag, every head turned to look at her. It was not long before word spread throughout the district that Carruba was home to a growing girl whose beauty could blind Cyclopes and drive men insane.

And so it turned out. By the time she was sixteen, Marisa's name could be seen all over the place, carved on trees and pews and sprayed on walls.
Marisa ti amo, Marisa ti voglio, Marisa – vita mia
. Her skin was as luminously pale as ricotta with honey and soft as the peaches from Santa Venerina, for Marisa shunned the sun. Her body harboured a multitude of shadowy dimples, secret places and hollows that cried out for tender exploration. Her dark hair fell to her shoulders like ancient streams of lava, and her turquoise eyes were as big and mysterious as the lagoons of Tindari, the gold flecks in them resembling the glitter of morning sunlight on the sea. Her lips, which were always slightly parted as if to utter a major question or a minor reproach, were as full and red and glossy as cherries from Sant'Alfio. Everything, but everything about Marisa was soft and rounded and graceful. Her arms and legs were firm and strong from housework, her hips resembled those of an ancient fertility goddess, Persephone perhaps, and she shook the world's equilibrium with every step she took. And oh, her bosom. A yearning shore, a quiet bay between two wonderful hills visible from afar, a place where a lost fisherman could safely drop anchor and drowse away his sorrows. All in all, it must be said that Marisa
had been created by a generous God. Created for love. Marisa thought so, anyway, and she was ready to bestow love, laughter and pleasure with equal generosity. But not on the first poor wretch who came along.

In order to attain true perfection, however, all beauty requires the minor flaws that alone can render perfection discernible and our own mediocrity – our oversized noses, crooked teeth and meagre breasts – tolerable. In Marisa's case they were some insignificant skin blemishes, feet that were on the big side, and a predilection for bad language. Above all, though, lack of intelligence. For all her beauty, it must alas be said that Marisa Puglisi was rather stupid. She began to be overly proud of her beauty, flirting and boasting of her effect on boys and men. She needed admiration and adoration as gods need nectar and junkies need a fix, yet she gave all her admirers the brush-off. Well, most of them at least, because her heart wasn't made of stone. She was young, and her passionate nature needed an outlet. However, she was firmly resolved not to squander the gift of her beauty but to use it as a ticket to happiness. And to Marisa happiness meant a house with a fitted kitchen and a cleaning woman, a fur coat and a permanent pass to the smartest lido in Catania. In short, Marisa Puglisi was dead set on marrying a rich man. No one less than a
dottore
or an
avvocato
would be considered, and it seems that a suitable candidate soon presented himself.

At this point in her Sicilian ballad, Signora Cocuzza herself appeared on the scene. A shy and sickly young girl in those days, she was occasionally taken into Marisa's confidence. Marisa confessed to her friend that a young man from a good family was not only passionately in love with her – nay, worshipped her – but also wrote her ardent love letters. This appealed to her because none of her other swains had ever thought to do so. She further disclosed that she had to keep the whole affair a strict secret and only meet her admirer on the sly because his father sternly opposed their liaison. They would soon reach the point of no return, however. She would then tell her friend everything and, of course, appoint her a bridesmaid.

Two weeks later Marisa Puglisi disappeared without trace, somewhere near the Provinciale between Carruba and Acireale. She was never seen again until the day Vito Montana opened the cistern of an old sulphur mine fittingly named “Femminamorta”.

Poldi listened to the whole ballad in silence, sipping her beer while it was still cool and never once interrupting Signora Cocuzza.

“It broke her parents' hearts, naturally,” said the sad signora. “Mine too. I had never forgotten Marisa. Yesterday, when I heard that the police had found a woman's skeleton at Femminamorta, near Piazza Armerina, I realized it could only be hers.”

Poldi nodded. “True, but how come
you
already know of the discovery?”

Signora Cocuzza made a weary gesture. “One hears things.”

“Didn't the police investigate Marisa's disappearance?”

“Yes, of course. They combed the whole area for weeks, but without success.”

“Did they ever discover the identity of Marisa's secret admirer?”

“Hm…” The sad signora sighed. “I think the police needed to show some results. The only lead they had was something Marisa told me the day before she disappeared: that she would be meeting her admirer at Femminamorta the following night to clear the air.”

“Clear the air?”

“Give him his marching orders.”

“I thought she wanted to marry him.”

“Well, yes, but he wasn't her only admirer, and she found him rather weird. Too eccentric somehow. His love letters were starting to get on her nerves, if only because she found it hard to decipher his handwriting. On top of that, she had fallen head over heels in love with someone else, a centre half who played for Calcio Catania. And besides, she was… well, pregnant.”

“By the footballer?”

The sad signora nodded. “Second month.”

“So that night at Femminamorta,” Poldi summarized, “Marisa intended to give her mysterious admirer the push.”

“Yes, and return all his letters.”

“Very romantic of her.”

“No, the footballer was insanely jealous, that's all.”

“And who was this mysterious admirer?”

“Well… Her allusion to Femminamorta pointed to the father of your friend Valérie. He came under suspicion and was questioned for days without success. Nothing could be proved against him, but everyone around here, me included, considered him a murderer – because, of course, we realized eventually that Marisa must be dead. Signor Raisi spent the rest of his life trying to refute the suspicion. He bravely lived among us and never avoided people, but at some stage it all became too much for him.”

“What do you mean?”

“He killed himself, didn't you know? Of course, that finally convinced us that he really had murdered Marisa.”

Poldi drew a deep breath. “And Marisa's parents?”

“The tragedy destroyed them. They divorced two years later. Marisa's mother died last year. I don't know where her father is living now.” Signora Cocuzza was looking even sadder than usual.

“You ought to tell all this to the police again,” Poldi told her.

Signora Cocuzza shook her head. “What would be the point after all these years? Besides, the police hardly acquitted themselves with glory back then. I got the impression they weren't all that eager to solve the case.”

“Someone was pulling strings, you mean?”

“There's no proof, of course.”

“Russo?”

Signora Cocuzza shrugged her shoulders. “Russo was nineteen at the time. He was after Marisa too, of course; in fact they may even have had a fling. But Russo wasn't stupid, he knew he wasn't good enough for Marisa – not at that stage. And he was stunningly good-looking himself; he could take his pick. Besides, he was too bound up in his first business venture.”

“Which was?”

“He dug up some big palm trees on wasteland and sold them to the American airbase at Sigonella. It must have been a profitable deal, because he bought his first plot of land and set up Piante Russo soon afterwards.”

“You mean his career began just after Marisa disappeared?”

“I mean nothing at all, Donna Poldina. I just can't forget her, that's all, and I thought you might be interested.”

Poldi looked at her. “What has all this got to do with Valentino's death?”

Another shrug. “From what I hear, Valentino was killed where they found Marisa's body, so her murderer must have killed him too. It's only logical.”

Poldi hadn't looked at it like that. Signora Cocuzza's reasoning wasn't particularly forensic, but once it had been voiced, its simplicity struck Poldi as being so logical that she could only shake her head in bewilderment.

“My dear Signora Cocuzza, do you know something? You're a genius.”

Outside, the whizzbang salutes in honour of the local saint had started up again. The unresolved triviality, too, had perked up. It was standing on its blanket, wagging its tail excitedly and barking at Poldi. All at once, it had something in its mouth: a small, brightly coloured toy.

“And at that moment,” my aunt told me later, not without a certain self-satisfaction, “everything became clear to me. I knew who had killed Valentino and why, and I also knew how I might be able to prove it.”

“Well, go on.”

“Have you guessed already?”

“What's this supposed to be,” I asked evasively, “an intermediate examination in inductive logic?”

“Just tell me.”

But I wouldn't play. I hate tests and always have. I break out in a sweat even if someone asks me the way in my own home town. Also, I'm no Sherlock Holmes and I don't like spoiling other people's stories.

“It's
your
story,” I said firmly. “
You
finish it off.”

Poldi's train of thought was as follows: Valentino had blackmailed his killer with his knowledge of Marisa's murder. He had probably discovered the body in the cistern, but he must have had further evidence. There had probably been an exchange of evidence for cash at the cistern, but something had gone wrong. Badly wrong. Since Valentino's killer had tried to deter Poldi from investigating –
vide
the dead cat – this could only mean that the evidence must still exist somewhere. Valentino had probably hidden it like the price list under the lion, but where? In his room at his parents' place? Unlikely. Montana's men had searched it thoroughly. At her house, like the lion? That seemed too risky to be very likely. So where? What sort of evidence was it, anyway? Glancing at the unresolved triviality, Poldi had a sudden idea.

“How did Marisa get those love letters?” she asked Signora Cocuzza. “By post?”

“Of course not, her parents would have found out. The couple had a dead letter box where her admirer left the letters.”

Poldi's theory crystallized.

“Do you know where this dead letter box was?”

“Of course. It was I who had to collect the billets-doux for her.”

“Why doesn't that surprise me, Signora Cocuzza?”

The sad signora lowered her eyes a trifle coquettishly, Poldi noticed. “Of course I told the police all this at the time, but the letters had gone. Would you like to see it?”

“The dead letter box? You mean it still exists?”

Where, in Bavaria and Sicily alike, do people still deposit spare keys, prayer requests, lottery tickets and secret messages? With the Virgin Mary, of course. Every respectable household possesses a statuette of the Virgin, and old houses even have a small niche to accommodate one. But statues of the Madonna can also be found outside one's own four walls, for instance at crossroads, in fishing ports, taverns, and places in special need of divine protection. A mineral-water spring, for example. The patron saint of Torre Archirafi is the Madonna del Rosario, a blue-robed Madonna with a rosary in her hand. This large figure, which looks so poignant, is stationed beside the altar in the church. A smaller copy can be found in the side wall of the Acqua di Torre mineral-water factory, just beside the public bottling taps in an old shrine of volcanic rock and glazed tiles.

“The Belfiore family donated it in the nineteenth century,” Signora Cocuzza informed Poldi on the way there.

My aunt noticed that a small stage had been set up in the church square. Banners were hanging from many windows and the streets were overarched with colourful streamers and festoons. Padre Paolo, who was supervising two youths engaged in setting off another rocket, bade the two women a jovial “good day”. Already intent on the shrine, Poldi waved back absently.

She knew the little shrine but had hitherto paid it scant attention. Flush with the wall of the bottling plant, it took the form of a squat tabernacle. Mounted on a small marble base behind a cast-iron grille, the painted plaster Madonna was draped with plastic rosaries and surrounded by votive candles and artificial flowers.