The Fourth Secret (4 page)

When he stopped in front of the station and climbed out of what was a moving mound of dirt, and not a car, Montalbano was exhausted. Leaving the valley where the construction site was, driving on the dirt road turned swamp, swerving and getting stuck, had cost him all his energy and caused the pain in his shoulder and leg to be almost unbearable. As soon as he recognized the human wreck that had walked in as the inspector, Catarella started to shout, he sounded like a rooster whose neck had been rung.

“
Santa Vergine
, sir!
Santa Vergine
! What happened? You’re all muddied! Even your hair is full of mud!”

“Calm down, it’s nothing, I’m going to go take a shower.”

There was nothing he could do. Catarella ran up to him, grabbing his arm while he tried to squirm from his grip. They walked down the hall in perfect harmony for both of them had injured their left legs; when they took a step, they both leaned right, in synchrony. Looking at them from behind, Fazio could barely keep from laughing.

In the bathroom, while he was cleaning up, Catarella held Montalbano by his shoulders; since he couldn’t get him out of there, he started to lose it.

“Sir, your personal undergarments are soaking wet; you’ll get sick! Sir, should I go get you a cognac?”

“No.”

“Sir, please, do it for my sake, take an aspirin! I keep a bottle in my drawer!”

“Fine, go get it.”

He went to his office, followed by Fazio.

“I was beginning to worry.”

“Did you tell anyone I was at the construction site?”

“No one. But if you hadn’t shown up, I was going to come look for you in half an hour. Did you find anything?”

He was about to tell him, but Catarella walked in with a glass of water and the aspirin in one hand and an anise cookie in the other.

“I don’t want the cookie.”

“No, sir! It’s absolutely necessary! If you don’t put something in your personal stomach when you take the aspirin, you might get a personal stomachache in your personal stomach!”

Summoning all the patience he could, Montalbano complied. Only at the end of the whole operation did Catarella leave, relieved.

“Where’s Augello?”

“Sir, there was an attempted robbery at the Melluso jewelry store. The owner started shooting like a madman, the two robbers fled since they only had toy guns; from the witnesses’ testimonies, it looks like they were just two kids. Final tally: two wounded bystanders.”

“Did the jeweler have a permit for the gun?”

“Yes, unfortunately.”

“Were the robbers foreigners?”

“No, luckily.”

In his head, Montalbano approved both the “unfortunately” and the “luckily.” They were more eloquent than any long speech.

“So?” Fazio asked, unable to contain his curiosity.

“So I came to a conclusion,” the inspector said, “but I don’t feel like telling you.”

“And why’s that?” Fazio asked.

“Because then I’ll have to tell the whole thing again to Mimì, and I don’t feel like doing it.”

Fazio looked at him, went to the door, shut it, came back, stood in front of the desk, and spoke in dialect.

“Can I speak to you man to man?”

“Of course.”

“You shouldn’t take advantage of the fact that all of us here love you and give in to your every whim. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes.”

“So you’ll get over this bad mood you’re in for having to eat the anise cookie and tell me what you found at the construction site. And if it bothers you so much to tell the story twice, then I’ll tell it to Augello when he returns.”

Montalbano gave up. He told him in detail what had happened, what he had done, and what he had found. At the end, he took out the plastic bag from his pocket and handed it to Fazio. The blood had turned into powder, an almost invisible dark layer at the bottom of the bag.

“You hold on to it, Fazio. It’s important. If this belongs, as I think it does, to Puka, then it’s a crucial piece of evidence.”

“Evidence of what?”

“Evidence of how the Albanian was killed. You see, I think that Puka was ambushed and struck by the murderer while he was in the toilet pissing. Puka was already wearing his work clothes, but not his hard hat. He leaves the door open. The murderer hits him hard on the head with a steel pipe. But as he’s hitting him, he shuts the door behind him.”

“Why?”

“Because the toilet is visible from the front door, and somebody could be walking by. It is a necessary precaution. Puka falls dead on the toilet bowl, and the murderer drags him out for the staging. There must have been at least one accomplice. Before sounding the alarm for the fake accident, they clean the toilet bowl, but they don’t see the stains on the door because it’s open the whole time.”

“But how did the blood end up there?”

“Keep in mind that I found it only by chance, because my eye had been caught by a strange reflection. The murderer hits him a first time, then raises the steel pipe to strike him again. However, there isn’t much room. The pipe hits the closed door, leaving a dent shaped like a crescent; at the same time, the blood that is on the pipe splashes on the door. However, there’s no need for a second blow; Puka’s head is split in two.”

The door opened and Augello walked in.

“Fazio told me you went to the construction site. What did you find?”

Montalbano got up.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said.

And left.

Six dead in the workplace in one month just in the province of Montelusa is quite a number. If that was any indication, then how many accidents happen in the whole country? Was anyone keeping track? Yes, every now and then, somebody did, and then the contrite face of a newscaster would announce to the entire world how that was certainly a high number, however, it was within the average of the European Union. And now on to sports. Thank you and come again. But what was the European Union average? Could they please tell us? No, sir, they would never say, because this story of the “European Union average” had become not only a good alibi, but also a source of great consolation. Unemployment had climbed four percent? Nothing to worry about, it was only slightly higher than the E.U. average. Have no fear; the government would find a solution. And, in fact, there was a minister who was thinking about increasing the speed limit to at least eighty miles an hour in order to make Italy more competitive in respect to the other countries of this beautiful Europe designed only to please the banks. But come to think of it, why did he call them accidents? No, Niccolò Zito was right: they were murders and they should be considered as such. These thoughts went through his mind as he was polishing off a plate of tender baby octopus Adelina had prepared for him, but his appetite little by little disappeared. He got up, cleared the table, and drank some coffee to remove that bitter taste from his mouth. Then he played the tape Niccolò’s secretary had sent him, laying on the couch.

The first death was a poor devil who fell into a septic tank. The second was a father of three who was burned alive. The third had been caused by a cable that held a steel beam, which snapped and crushed the man underneath it. The fourth was something less elaborate, that is to say, the usual, trivial fall from a scaffold. The fifth was definitely more creative: a construction worker buried in cement poured by a coworker who hadn’t seen him. What was the title of that novel by that Italian-American writer, Pietro Di Donato, in which there was a story similar to this one? Oh, yes,
Christ in Concrete
. They even made a good movie out of it. The sixth and last was Puka’s.

His stomach, after looking at that sort of massacre, had turned into a pulp. He needed a break. He walked out on the patio; the evening was a beauty. He went down to the beach, walked a bit along the shore, slowly, one step at a time. He walked for a good half hour; the salty air slowly revived him. He went back home, turned on the TV, and watched and rewatched the parts that showed Puka dead. But during his walk, he must have caught a little draft, and his shoulder started to hurt. He watched and rewatched the tape a dozen times, forward and backward, frame by frame, until he became bleary-eyed. There was nothing out of place. Was it supposed to look like an accident? It looked like an accident. He compared Puka’s scenes with those of another construction worker who had fallen from a scaffold; his name was Antonio Marchica. There, if there was something that could be said about Puka’s body, the way in which his legs and arms were placed, was that they looked exactly like you would expect them to be. Puka was positioned like a film director would have imagined. Marchica’s arms, for instance, were hidden, under his body. Instead, Puka’s right arm made a nice arch over his head, while the other one ran parallel to his body, at a slight angle. Marchica’s face was invisible, since it was pointed to the ground; instead you could see Puka’s profile, with his head wound facing out. Montalbano wouldn’t have been surprised to hear a recorded voice shouting: “Quiet on the set! Action!” But then he asked himself: If you hadn’t received an anonymous letter warning you, would you have sensed the same artificial, theatrical staging?” He didn’t know how to answer the question. He looked at his watch; it was two in the morning. He turned off the TV and went to the bathroom. Now his shoulder was hurting a lot, and he rummaged through the medicine cabinet to look for the cream that Ingrid had once put on that very shoulder, relieving the pain. Naturally, he couldn’t find it. He went to bed and after tossing and turning for a while, trying to find a position that didn’t affect his shoulder, he finally fell asleep.

He and Livia were at the edge of the cliff, looking at the sea below them. All of a sudden, they heard a violent crack.

What was that? Livia asked herself, scared.

And at the same time, they realized they weren’t at the edge of a cliff, but rather on a scaffold made of steel pipes and wooden planks. And it was the plank on which they were standing that had made that sinister noise.

Cra-a-ack!
the plank repeated, breaking.

They started to fall into the void. They fell and fell endlessly. After the initial fear had subsided and since they were falling into something that seemed bottomless, they somehow got used to falling. It was a slow, delayed descent, as if gravity were half as strong.

“How are you?” Montalbano asked.

“So far, so good,” Livia answered.

Since they were one next to the other, they held hands. Then they embraced. Then they kissed. Then they began to remove their clothes, which continued to float around them. Five minutes into their lovemaking, they ended up in one of those safety nets they use at the circus and kept doing it, laughing and bouncing around until somebody started to yell: “Cuff them! Cuff them! You can’t do that in public! You’re under arrest!”

The person shouting was the same marshal who lectured him in Montelusa for slamming the public phone too hard. Then he woke up, cursing him.

He had a crazy idea. It was four in the morning. He got up, went into the next room, and dialed a number. The sleepy and thick voice of Livia answered at the sixth ring, when the inspector was beginning to worry that she hadn’t come back home yet.

“Who is it?”

“It’s Salvo. You know I just dreamed of you?”

“Go fuck yourself, you stupid prick!”

He had dialed the wrong number; that wasn’t Livia’s voice. But it was enough to make him reconsider calling the right number. Now he was wide awake. He went to the kitchen to make some coffee and realized, in horror, that he was almost completely out. There weren’t even enough grounds in the can to make one lousy cup. Cursing, he got dressed. Every movement he made, he felt a piercing pain in his shoulder. He got in the car and drove to the port, where there was twenty-four-hour café. He got out and quickly scoffed down a double espresso. And just to be on the safe side, he bought a quarter pound of ground coffee before walking back to the car, where he froze. He had parked close to two poles that held up a giant sign, which stood next to the door of a wooden fence. Like the one at the construction site he had been to. And that was a construction site, too. He looked at the sign. The idea that had suddenly popped in his head held up to a second and a third scrutiny. Why not go for a look? It could be a lead.

His left arm was hanging motionless along his side, for as soon as he moved it, his shoulder hurt so much that it seemed as if it were yelling at him. The drive from Marinella to the station had been difficult; after a long struggle, he got out of the car and Catarella, who was standing out front, ran toward him.

“Ah, sir, sir! Does it still hurt?” he said, trying to basically throw him over his shoulder. “Lean on me! Lean on me! My leg doesn’t hurt anymore! Now I’m sound!”

“You went to see the old lady last night?”

“Yes, sir, sir! She even gave me a salve to use at night, and this morning I was sound and perfect!”

What did he mean? The inspector looked about conspiratorially. He spoke in a soft voice. “Can you bring me there tonight?”

Catarella was out of breath.

“
Santa Maria Vergine
, sir, what an honor you give me!”

“Catarè, do me a favor, don’t tell anyone.”

“I’ll be as quiet as a tomb, sir.”

He told Fazio about the tape he had watched. Then he told him that, since he had run out of coffee, at four in the morning, he got up and went all the way to the café at the port to get some.

“And what does that matter?” Fazio asked.

“It matters. I had parked the car next to two poles that held up a sign for a construction site, you know, the one that says the name of the contractor, the license number, and so on. “

“Yes, sir, so what?”

“The tape of the so-called accidents didn’t show this information. You have to get it for me.”

From his pocket, he removed a piece of paper and gave it Fazio.

“I wrote down the places where these accidents in the workplace happened, and the names of the victims. I want to know everything, the names of the contractors, and of those who commissioned the work, their license numbers … Is that clear?”