The Paper Moon by Andrea Camilleri Page B

another, not even a used one. The first of those three letters, the one where I say I followed him to Fanara, dates from four months ago—you can check the date—when Angelo hadn’t given me the new car yet. But just to make the story more believable, Angelo told me to write that he’d gone to a certain house—I no longer remember the address—and that I’d become suspicious.”
    “Did he tell you who lived there?”
    “Yes, an aunt of his, his mother’s sister, I think.”
    She’d recovered her nerve and was now herself again. But why had the inspector’s idea so frightened her?
    “Let’s suppose for a minute that Angelo actually did get you to write those letters.”
    “But it’s true!”
    “And for the moment I’ll believe that. Apparently he had you write them so that someone else would read them. Who?”
    “His sister, Michela.”
    “How can you be so sure?”
    “Because he told me himself. He would arrange for her somehow to come across them, as if by accident. That’s why I was so surprised when you said he was keeping them hidden in the trunk of the Mercedes. It’s unlikely Michela would ever find them there.”
    “What was Angelo trying to get out of Michela by having her read the letters? What, in the end, was the purpose? Did you ask him?”
    “Of course.”
    “And what was his explanation?”
    “He gave me an extremely stupid explanation. He said they were supposed to prove to Michela that I was madly in love with him, as opposed to what she claimed. And I pretended to be satisfied with this explanation, because deep down I didn’t give a damn about the whole thing.”
    “You think in fact there was different reason?”
    “Yes. To get some breathing room.”
    “Could you explain?”
    “I’ll try. You see, Inspector, Michela and Angelo were very close. From what I was able to find out, when their mother was all right, Michela would very often sleep at her brother’s place. She would go out with him, and she knew at all times where he was. She controlled him. At some point Angelo must have got tired of this, or at least he needed more freedom of movement. And so my phony but over-leaping jealousy became a good alibi. It allowed him to get around without always having his sister in tow. He had me write the other two letters before going away on a couple of trips, one to Holland, the other to Switzerland. They were probably pretexts for preventing his sister from going along with him.”
    Did this explanation for writing the letters hold water? In its twisted, contorted way, like a mad alchemist’s alembic, it did. Elena’s conjecture as to the real purpose proved convincing.
    “Let’s set aside the letters for a moment. Since, in our investigation, we have to cast a wide net, we’ve—”
    “May I?” she interrupted him, gesturing towards the letters on the coffee table.
    “Of course.”
    “Go on, I’m listening,” said Elena, taking a letter out of the envelope and beginning to read it.
    “We’ve found out a few things about your husband.”
    “You mean what happened during his first marriage?” she said, continuing to read.
    Let alone the rug. This girl was pulling the ground out from under him.
    Without warning, she threw her head backwards and started laughing.
    “What do you find so amusing?”
    “The tric-troc! What must you have thought?”
    “I didn’t think anything,” said Montalbano, blushing slightly.
    “It’s that I have a very sensitive belly button, and so…”
    Montalbano turned fire red. Ah, so she liked to have her belly button kissed and tongued! Was she insane? Didn’t she realize those letters could send her to jail for thirty years! Tric-troc indeed!
    “To get back to your husband…”
    “Emilio told me everything,” said Elena, setting down the letter. “He lost his head over a former pupil of his, Maria Coxa, and married her, hoping for a miracle.”
    “What sort of miracle, if I may ask?”
    “Inspector, Emilio has always been