The Potter's Field

He got back into the car, drove to Spiranzella, left the two bags under one of the four olive trees, and drove off.

Entering the station, he found Catarella at his post.

“But didn’t you have a fever?”

“I got rid of it, Chief.”

“How’d you do that?”

“Took four aspirins an’ then drunk a glass o’ hot spicy wine an’ then got in bed an’ covered m’self up. An’ now iss gone.”

“Who’s here?”

“Fazio in’t here yet, an’ Isspector Augello called sayin’ as how he still had a little fever but would come in later in the morning.”

“Any news?”

“There’s a ginnelman wants a talk to yiz who’s name is—wait, I got it writ down somewheres—iss an easy name but I forgot it, wait, here it is: Mr. Giacchetta.”

“Does that seem like a forgettable name to you?”

“It happens to me sometimes, Chief.”

“All right, then, send him into my office after I go in.”

The man who came in was a well-dressed gentleman of about forty with a distinguished air, perfectly coiffed hair, mustache, eyeglasses, and the overall look of an ideal bank clerk.

“Please sit down, Mr. Giacchetta.”

“Giacchetti. Fabio Giacchetti’s the name.”

Montalbano cursed to himself. Why did he still believe the names Catarella passed on to him?

“What can I do for you, Mr. Giacchetti?”

The man sat down, carefully arranging the creases in his trousers and smoothing his mustache. He leaned back in his chair and looked at the inspector.

“Well?” said Montalbano.

“The truth of the matter is, I’m not sure I was right to come here.”

O matre santa! He’d happened upon a ditherer, a doubting Thomas, the worst kind of person who might ever walk into a police station.

“Listen, I can’t help you with that. It’s up to you to decide. It’s not like I can give you little hints the way they do on quiz shows.”

“Well, the fact is that last night I witnessed something . . . and that’s just it, I don’t know what it was . . . something I really don’t know how to define.”

“If you decide to tell me what it was, perhaps together we can arrive at a definition,” said Montalbano, who was beginning to feel something breaking in the general area of his balls. “If, on the other hand, you don’t tell me, then I’ll have to send you on your way.”

“Well, at the time, it seemed to me . . . at first, that is, it looked to me like a hit-and-run driver. You know what I mean, don’t you?”

“Yes. Or at least I can tell a hit-and-run driver from a hit-and-run lover—you know, the kind with bedroom eyes and a little black book. Listen, Mr. Giacchetti, I haven’t got much time to waste. Let’s start at the beginning, all right? I’ll ask you a few questions, just to warm you up, so to speak.”

“Okay.”

“Are you from here?”

“No, I’m from Rome.”

“And what do you do here in Vigàta?”

“I started three months ago as manager of the branch office of the Banco Cooperativo.”

The inspector had been right on the money. The man could only be with a bank. You can tell right away: Those who handle other people’s money in the cathedrals of wealth that are the big banks end up acquiring something austere and reserved in their manner, something priestlike proper to those who practice secret rites such as laundering dirty money, engaging in legalized usury, using coded accounts, and illegally exporting capital offshore. They suffer, in short, from the same sorts of occupational deformities as undertakers, who, in handling corpses every day, end up looking like walking corpses themselves.

“Where do you live?”

“For now, while waiting to find a decent apartment, my wife and I are staying at a house on the Montereale road, as her parents’ guests. It’s their country home, but they’ve turned it over to us for the time being.”

“All right, then, if you’d be so kind as to tell me what happened . . .”

“Last night, around two A.M., my wife started going into labor, and so I put her in the car and we headed off to Montelusa Hospital.”

The man was finally opening up.

“Just as we were leaving Vigàta, I noticed, in the headlights, a woman walking ahead of me, with her back to me. At that exact moment a car came up beside me at a high speed, lightly swiping my car as it passed—it looked to me like it was swerving—and then it aimed straight for the woman. She quickly realized the danger, probably hearing the car’s engine, and jumped to her right and fell into the ditch. The car stopped for a second and then took off again with a screech.”

“So, in the end it didn’t hit her?”

“No. The woman was able to dodge it.”

“And what did you do?”