The Paper Moon Read Free Page A

her brother’s place as quickly as possible and tried to communicate her haste to the inspector.
    “All right,” said Montalbano. “Let’s go.”
    Passing by Catarella’s closet, he told him:
    “I’m going out with the lady. If you need me for anything afterwards, I’ll be at home.”
    “Will you be coming in my car?” asked Michela Pardo, gesturing toward a blue Polo.
    “Perhaps it’s better if I take my own and follow you. Where does your brother live?”
    “A bit far, in the new part of town. Do you know Vigàta Two?”
    He knew Vigàta Two. A nightmare dreamed up by some real-estate speculator under the influence of the worst sorts of hallucinogens. He wouldn’t live there even if he were dead.

2
    Luckily for him and the inspector—who never in a million years would have spent more than five minutes in one of those gloomy six-by-ten-foot rooms defined in the brochures as “spacious and sunny”—Angelo Pardo lived just past the new residential complex of Vigàta Two, in a small, restored nineteenth-century villa three stories high. The front door was locked. As Michela was unlocking it, Montalbano noticed that the intercom had six nameplates on it, which meant that there were six apartments in all, two on the ground floor and four on the other floors.
    “Angelo lives on the top floor and there’s no elevator.”
    The staircase was broad and comfortable. The building seemed uninhabited. No voices, no sound of televisions. And yet it was the time of day when people were normally preparing their evening meal.
    On the top-floor landing, there were two doors. Michela went up to the one on the left. Before opening it, she showed the inspector a small window with a grate over it, beside the steel-plated door. The little window’s shutters were locked.
    “I called to him from here. He would surely have heard me.”
    She unlocked first one lock, then another, turning the key four times, but did not go in. She stepped aside.
    “Could you go in first?”
    Montalbano pushed the door, felt around for the light switch, turned it on, and entered. He sniffed at the air like a dog. He was immediately convinced there was no human presence, dead or alive, in the apartment.
    “Follow me,” he said to Michela.
    The entrance led into a broad corridor. On the left-hand side, a master bedroom, a bathroom, and another bedroom. On the right, a study, a kitchen, a small bathroom, and a smallish living room. All in perfect order and sparkling clean.
    “Does your brother have a cleaning lady?”
    “Yes.”
    “When did she last come?”
    “I couldn’t say.”
    “Listen, signorina, do you come visit your brother here often?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why?”
    The question flustered Michela.
    “What do you mean, ‘why’? He’s…my brother!”
    “Granted, but you said Angelo comes to your and your mother’s place practically every other day. So, I suppose you come to see him here on the off days? Is that right?”
    “Well…yes. But not so regularly.”
    “Okay. But why do you need to see each other when your mother’s not around?”
    “Good God, Inspector, when you put it that way…It’s just something we’ve been in the habit of doing since we were children. There’s always been, between Angelo and me, a sort of…”
    “Complicity?”
    “I guess you could call it that.”
    She let out a giggle. Montalbano decided to change the subject.
    “Shall we go see if a suitcase is missing? If all his clothes are here?”
    She followed him into the master bedroom. Michela opened the armoire and looked at the clothing, one article at a time. Montalbano noticed that it was all very fine, tailored stuff.
    “It’s all here. Even the gray suit he was wearing the last time he came to see us, three days ago. The only thing missing, I think, is a pair of jeans.”
    On top of the armoire, wrapped in cellophane, were two elegant leather suitcases, one large and the other a bit smaller.
    “The suitcases are both here.”
    “Does