The Potter's Field

Montalbano was convinced that Dolores and her husband filmed themselves during certain exercises in the drill ground, and then watched themselves afterward so they could perfect them.

11

Dolores, meanwhile, had opened the bottom drawer of the dresser and pulled out a packet of photographs that she spread out on the bed.

“These are the most recent, the ones we took at the home of that distant relative of Giovanni’s. Take whichever ones you want.”

Montalbano picked up a few. In order to have a look at them herself, Dolores came up beside him, so close that her hip touched the inspector’s.

They must have been taken at the end of a day in late August. The light was extraordinary. Two or three showed Dolores in a bikini. The inspector felt the point of contact between their two bodies heat up. When he moved slightly away to one side, she drew near again. Was she doing it on purpose, or did she really need at all times to have physical contact with a man?

“This is a really good one of Giovanni,” said Dolores, picking out a photo.

He was a good-looking man of about forty, tall and dark, with intelligent eyes, and an open, smiling face.

“All right, I’ll take this one,” said the inspector. “Don’t forget to give Fazio the information on your husband: when he was born, where—”

“Okay.”

“And whose beautiful house is this?” Montalbano asked, looking at a snapshot that showed Dolores, Giovanni, and some other people on a large terrace with a great many potted plants. He knew full well whose house it was, but he wanted to hear her say it.

“Oh, that’s my husband’s relative’s house. His name is Don Balduccio Sinagra.”

Indeed there he was in the photo: Don Balduccio, sitting in a deck chair.

He was smiling. But Dolores had said his name with near-total indifference.

“Will that be enough?”

“Yes.”

“Would you help me put things away?”

“Okay.”

She picked up the envelope and held it open for him, and he slipped in a first handful of photos. He had just inserted the second and last handful when she leaned slightly forward, grabbed his right hand, and planted her lips on its back. The inspector recoiled dramatically and was in danger of falling lengthwise onto the bed. Dolores, however, managed to keep her lips glued to his hand. Montalbano, meanwhile, felt suddenly drained of all strength, all ability to resist. How many degrees had the temperature in the room gone up?

Luckily Dolores raised her head and looked him straight in the eye. He could have drowned in that gaze.

“Help me,” she said. “Without him, I’m . . . Help me.”

Montalbano freed his hand, turned his back to her, and went into the living room, speaking perhaps too loudly.

“You, Fazio, take down her declaration, then have the lady give you the list of friends, the address in Gioia Tauro, and the keys.”

Fazio said nothing.

He was staring, spellbound, at the imprint of lipstick the woman’s lips had left on the inspector’s hand. The stigmata of Saint Salvo, who was certainly not a virgin but no less a martyr. Montalbano rubbed it with his other hand to make it disappear.

Dolores came in.

“I must be going now, Signora. I think we’ll have to meet again.”

“I’ll show you out,” said Dolores.

“For heaven’s sake, please don’t bother!” said Montalbano, fleeing.

“Macannuco? Montalbano here.”

“Montalbano! Good to hear from you! How are you?”

“Not too bad. And

“You remember that song we used to sing in class? Whatever I say, whatever I do, / I always take it up the wazoo. The situation hasn’t changed.”

“Listen, Macannuco, I need you to do me a big favor.”

“For you, I’ll do that and more.”

Macannuco headed the commissariat in the port of Gioia Tauro. Montalbano explained what he needed from him.

“Lemme get this straight, Montalbà. You’re asking me to break down the door of an apartment in Via Gerace 15, photograph the place, and e-mail you the photos?”

“That’s right.”

“Without a warrant?”

“That’s right.”

Fazio straggled back less than half an hour later.

“Jesus, what a dame!”

“Did you get everything we needed from her?”

“Yessir. There’s only three names on the list of friends.”

“Listen, tell me in a little more detail the story of Balduccio and the Alfano guy he sent to Colombia.”

“Chief, did you notice how the lady kept talking about a ‘distant relative’ without ever mentioning Balduccio Sinagra by name?”

“Actually, she did mention him by name. When we were in the bedroom looking through the photos. But she did it very offhandedly, as if she didn’t know who Balduccio was. Do you think it’s possible she doesn’t know?”

“No. So, anyway, one day some twenty-odd years ago, Don Balduccio sends a second cousin, Filippo Alfano, to Colombia, to maintain direct contact with the big coke producers there. Filippo Alfano brings along his family, which consists of his wife and son, Giovanni, who at the time is fifteen. Then, sometime later, Filippo Alfano is shot and killed.”

“By the Colombians?”