The Prince (20 page)

“Wait, hold on, Jano. Don't say another word,” Rosario interrupted him. He was still concerned. “Answer truthfully. Did something happen that can't be rectified?”

“Not at all. I respect Mena. I want to marry her,” Jano replied brazenly.

Losurdo was relieved. “Well, I find it odd that my daughter hasn't told you.”

Jano went on the defensive. “And what should she have told me?”

“Mena is already promised,” Losurdo lied.

That statement was like a blow to Jano—worse, an insult. “Already promised?” he stammered.

With that disclosure, Rosario Losurdo hoped to get rid of him forever. But Jano wouldn't accept defeat. “It's me Mena loves.”

“I don't believe Mena would have led you on to that degree; otherwise I'll have to straighten her out but good! A serious young man like you shouldn't be teased.” By this time, Losurdo was enjoying himself, toying with him like a cat with a mouse.

On top of it, Jano had no sense of humor whatsoever, so he didn't realize that Mena's father was taunting him.

“I'm sorry, Jano, if for a moment or two you thought otherwise. But cheer up! A fine fellow like you must have a thousand young women eager to marry him.”

Jano was no longer listening to him. He was so struck by the revelation that he hadn't yet recovered. “And who is he?” he asked.

“Who?” Losurdo repeated.

“Who's the lucky man?” Jano asked again.

“The fiancé?” Losurdo asked. Now he was the one in difficulty.

“That's right, who is he? Do I know him?” Jano persisted.

Losurdo didn't know what to say. He scratched his head searching for a response. Then he remembered the boy who had cut his hair a few days ago; the one his daughter never missed a chance to look for at church or in town. “Saro. It's Saro!” But the next instant he regretted saying the name. He'd gotten the boy tangled up in a mess that could have serious consequences.

“Saro . . .” Jano repeated the name as if hypnotized. His eyes betrayed an inner fury. He turned and left the farmyard, even forgetting to say good-bye to Rosario Losurdo.

– 1939 –

W
hen the gravedigger finally struck the wooden coffin with his shovel, he nodded to the people standing around the rim of the pit to let them know he'd found what they were looking for. He continued digging around the coffin and eventually managed to secure two ropes beneath it before climbing out of the pit.

The town crier, Ninì Trovato, and three other old men assigned to cemetery operations grabbed the four ends of the ropes and struggled to raise up the coffin. Each one pulled without paying any attention to the others, causing the casket to rise to the surface lopsided, and there was a moment when Ninì almost let the rope slip out of his hands. The coffin tilted alarmingly, so the gravedigger had to go and give him a hand. Marshal Mattia Montalto did likewise, helping the elderly man opposite Ninì. Finally, the coffin emerged from the hole and was deposited on the ground.

Curzio Turrisi, brother of the deceased, Salvatore, had also been invited to the macabre ceremony. Curzio was now a free man, having paid his debt to the law with eleven years of harsh imprisonment. Present as well was the public prosecutor Tommaso Amato, who had authorized the exhumation at the insistence of the mayor, Lorenzo Costa. Also in attendance were Jano, representing the mayor, and Michele Fardella, Salemi's town clerk, who was to draft a report of the exhumation and was in fact armed with a fountain pen and paper. Dr. Bizzarri, who had taken over Dr. Peppino Ragusa's medical post, had also been summoned.

The gravedigger took his crowbar and easily unhinged the lid. After some effort, and with Ninì Trovato's help, he lifted the lid and gave a quick professional look inside before stepping away. The marshal was the first to approach, followed by Jano and then Curzio Turrisi.

Although nineteen years had passed since the day of the fire, what remained of the corpse hadn't rotted away, but seemed mummified. The blackened trunk of the body charred in the palazzo's blaze could be glimpsed beneath the tattered clothing. The skull, with its jaw wide open, seemingly mocking those present, was covered by a black film similar to parchment.

Dr. Bizzarri, puffing like a locomotive with his 220-pound bulk, bent over the corpse. “Strange. Was he embalmed?” he asked, bewildered.

“No,” Ninì Trovato spoke up, “it's a phenomenon of this terrain. I've found other mummified corpses like that in this cemetery. Dr. Ragusa said it's a physiochemical phenomenon produced by microorganisms present in the soil here, which is composed of dry sand.”

Dr. Bizzarri listened to him, curious. He nodded and then straightened up from the casket. Finally, he ordered the gravediggers to transport the mummy to the cemetery's chapel.

“But why this sacrilege?” Curzio asked Michele Fardella, who at that moment, as the mayor's representative, was viewed as the highest-ranking figure among all those dignitaries. “Can't you leave him in peace even in death?”

“It's the law. We received a tip. It may not be your brother in the coffin,” Fardella told him.

“Who else could it be? And after so many years, who do you think will care?” Curzio persisted glumly, stepping aside while two gravediggers, having placed the body in a gunnysack, headed for the graveyard's chapel.

“Actually, I have no basis of comparison to determine if the identity is truly that of the dead man,” Dr. Bizzarri said to cover himself.

The marshal spoke up: “We have Salvatore Turrisi's file at the station. There should also be a passport-size photo. I'll get it to you.”

“What I need is medical records and fingerprints, Chief. I can't do anything with a passport photo, sorry to have to tell you.”

“I'll make it available to you in any case,” said Marshal Montalto firmly.

Poor Dr. Bizzarri conducted a thorough analysis of the cadaver's abject remains, but could find nothing that would corroborate the theory that the body had been switched, as the anonymous note had implied.

The body's height matched that of Salvatore Turrisi. The bones were intact, meaning that the deceased had not suffered any fractures. This confirmed the fact, maintained by his brother, that Salvatore had never in his life fallen and had never broken so much as a bone in his little finger. The fire had completely obliterated his fingertips, making it impossible to analyze his fingerprints. All in all, the note had all the earmarks of a hoax.

Jano and Michele Fardella reported the negative results of the autopsy to Mayor Lorenzo Costa. He, however, continued to argue that the anonymous note was telling the truth. Otherwise why would anyone bring up something that had happened almost twenty years ago?

Through one of those mysterious twists of fate that often, unbidden, give our lives a sudden turn, Marshal Mattia Montalto, a few afternoons later, went to Dr. Bizzarri to bring him Salvatore Turrisi's file.

The doctor thanked him for taking the trouble, opened the file, and absently scanned the records concerning the activities of the outlaw Turrisi. Then he took the ID photo and glanced at it briefly. Salvatore Turrisi was smiling, the way people smile in all passport photos.

Dr. Bizzarri was visibly startled.

“Doctor, what did you spot?” asked the marshal, noting his surprise.

The doctor turned the photo toward him and pointed to the mouth.

“I don't understand,” the marshal hesitated.

“Don't you see here?” He pointed to the teeth. “Turrisi was missing his upper left incisor.”

The marshal looked at the picture and noticed a small black space between two of Turrisi's teeth.

The doctor stood up and went to get the skull of the exhumed corpse. He brought it to the marshal and showed him the teeth. “You see? This cadaver has all his teeth in place. Not a single one is missing.”

Marshal Montalto studied the photo again. There was no doubt about it. It couldn't be the same person. “The anonymous note was telling the truth.”

“One hundred percent,” the doctor concluded. “These are not the remains of Salvatore Turrisi.”

The news shook the town like an earthquake. Word that the body buried almost twenty years ago was not Salvatore Turrisi spread with lightning speed to every corner of Salemi and the Madonie.

“So then who is the person we found charred in Marquis Bellarato's palazzo?” Lorenzo Costa shouted to Michele Fardella, Marshal Mattia Montalto, and a stunned Jano, all gathered in town hall. “And what happened to Salvatore Turrisi?”

“And who is Marquis Bellarato's killer? Did he die in the fire, or is he still at large? And who is the charred corpse?” the marshal added. “Turrisi at least had a motive. We have to start all over again or else drop the case.”

“Don't even consider it. People must not get the idea that we allow crimes to go unpunished or let murderers go unidentified. The command from Rome was clear: order above all,” the mayor barked.

The marshal dutifully awaited instructions, which were promptly given.

“Montalto, I want on this table, by noon tomorrow, all reports relative to the period of the fire at Marquis Bellarato's palazzo. Let's say, everything that happened in Salemi two months before and two months after the fire. I myself will review the case. It is a categorical imperative that we now give a name to this corpse who for nineteen years has lain in Salvatore Turrisi's coffin.”

The marshal nodded slightly and left the room.

In the following weeks, Mayor Lorenzo Costa very carefully pored over all the daily reports compiled by Marshal Montalto nineteen years earlier. By the end of the second week, he had formed a clear picture of the situation. To sum things up, he called for his right-hand man: Michele Fardella.

“My dear Michele, I now understand what happened nineteen years ago,” he began in a patronizing tone. “You may not recall, but just three days after the fire, the wife of a certain Nicola Geraci reported her husband's disappearance to the carabinieri. Nicola Geraci was a socialist, a representative of the red leagues of Petralia Sottana, a good-for-nothing. But now I'll tell you something that will make you fall off your chair,” he went on in a melodramatic whisper.

“I remember Nicola Geraci: he was a typical politician who never stopped talking,” Michele Fardella said.

“Geraci had had words with Prince Ferdinando Licata. At a meeting in the town hall, the prince convinced the peasants that being socialists wouldn't do any of them any good. Nicola Geraci couldn't stand for that, and in front of the whole assembly he threatened the prince that sooner or later he'd make him pay for it.”

“You never openly threaten a big shot. He didn't know what he was letting himself in for,” Fardella said.

“He was a marked man. And three days later he disappeared from circulation. He never returned home to Petralia Sottana, to his wife, who is still crying over him. The body was never found.” He studied the clerk closely, to detect by any facial movement whether he had reached the same conclusions that he himself had.

Michele looked at the mayor. “Are you saying that the charred body, the one found in Marquis Bellarato's palazzo, could be Nicola Geraci?”

“I'm willing to bet on it.”

“Nicola Geraci, a socialist . . . but what was he doing at the home of the marquis, who everyone knows hated the reds?”

“I don't know. But we'll find that out too.”

“How?”

“I'm thinking of Prince Licata,
u patri
. Maybe we've found a way to get rid of him and get our hands on his estates.”

Those last words made Michele Fardella's blood run cold. “Prince Licata can't be touched,” he whispered.

“The interests of fascism are above the interests of the individual,” the mayor reminded him. “If you think about it, Licata was the only one in town who had a motive for killing Marquis Bellarato and Nicola Geraci. The attorney was a spokesman for the socialist leagues of Petralia Sottana and was supporting the Farm cooperative in its bid to obtain land. Then, in that famous meeting at Salemi town hall, Licata cleared away any socialist pipe dreams the peasants may have had in their heads. Nicola Geraci threatened him and a few days later vanished from sight. The motive against Marquis Bellarato was known to all. The marquis, working on behalf of his cousin's cooperative, was competing for the award of an estate whose name I no longer even remember . . .
Baucina
, I think. Licata's cooperative had to come up with the balance on the option, otherwise it would lose its deposit since Marquis Bellarato had the money to obtain the land. And as coincidence would have it, on the very afternoon before the day the option was to expire, the marquis was killed, and the palazzo went up in flames.”

“But what does Nicola Geraci have to do with it?”

“The fire was started in order to hide any traces,” Captain Costa continued. “No one could have recognized the two charred corpses. But Licata's brilliant idea was to involve Salvatore Turrisi.
He
certainly had good reason to kill Marquis Bellarato.”

“And Licata saw to it that the second corpse was identified as Turrisi thanks to the Saint Christopher medal,” Michele Fardella said, completing the mayor's line of reasoning. “Exactly. Naturally, I'd like to know what happened to Salvatore Turrisi.”

“The prince must have given him money and made him leave the country, to get him out of the way.”

“Or else he must have had him killed, to eliminate any witnesses,” the captain concluded. “His accomplice is Rosario Losurdo, his trusty sidekick, the gabellotto for his estate. We'll have to take care of him too, and then we'll be free to do what we want with their lands.”

“But there are legal heirs,” Michele Fardella objected.

“Fardella, you still haven't figured out what you can accomplish when there's a dictatorship willing to protect your ass?” He led him to the window. Through the panes, they could see the few hurried passersby, bundled up in their long, heavy overcoats. “If we play our cards right, we'll soon be
padroni.
We'll own this town and the lands surrounding it.”