aka "The day of the owl". No chapters. About 110 pages.
It's 6.30am 16th January in the late 40s/early 50s. As the first bus to Palermo is about to leave "S.", Salvatore Colasberna appears, running. He's shot and dies. The police have trouble collecting witnesses. Nobody saw anything - the bus windows were misted up, etc.
The young "capitano" Bellodi and the "maresciallo" soon receive anonymous letters. They start by interviewing the Colasberna brothers - builders. The "capitano" knows that there's rivalry between builders, and that protection money is paid. Maybe the victim hadn't paid up? Some informers want to appear to be on the side of the law because they're smugglers, etc. They have trouble coping with the capitano (who's actually from Parma) because they can't read his intentions. Some of them say more than they mean to. There's an art to constructing lies. Sometimes they're designed to be seen through, because there's another layer of lies behind them. And the police are capable of telling clever lies too. By playing one suspect against another, the police begin to get some leads.
Bellodi has several problems, many arising from him being an outsider (from Parma) and an intellectual -
- The "maresciallo" sometimes has to translate dialect for him.
- Locals claim that outsiders are prejudiced against Sicily. In fact the mafia doesn't exist. Even if it does, it's like Freemasonry.
- Honour is more important than the law.
- Witnesses are scared to come forward
- In 1925 Mussolini sent Mori to Sicily to deal with the Mafia using all means necessary. Many of the Mafia moved away, the rest were suppressed. The innocent suffered too, but many felt that Facism was a good thing.
- In 1943 500,000 allied soldiers came to Sicily. It was disruptive for the police.
The powers that be in Rome (onerevole Livigni and ministro Mancuso) don't want the deceased to become a martyr, so they're keen on the killer being found and a non-political reason being discovered. They've heard of Bellodi - they think he's prejudiced - he sees the mafia everywhere.
Calogero Dibella (Parrinieddu), an informer, dies. Paolo Nicolosi has disappeared from "S." where he lived close to the incident. He's been gone 5 days. His wife is worried. She says he saw who ran from the shooting incident. He's discovered dead. Diego Marchia is the prime suspect. He and two others (Pizzuco and don Mariano Arena) are brought in for questioning. Marchia confesses to one murder, implicating Pizzuco, who's offended by the accusation. How high up the chain of mafia command can the police go? The politicians are worried that don Mariano Arena might break. National newspaper get wind of the story. The local papers suspect a crime of passion (Nicolosi's wife had a lover - il Passerello). Belloci thinks that in Sicily, "cherchez la femme" isn't a good strategy because you'll always find one even if that's not the cause. Sicilian crimes of passion don't begin from real passion, he thinks, but a type of intellectual passion, of formalism.
At the end Marchia has alibis - a doctor and some co-workers. The confessions are explained away. Bellodi takes a month's leave in Parma. From a distance he and his friends love Sicily.
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