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married and have a son named Alfredo, like my father. My husband, instead, is Giulio, Giulio Alberganti.”
    She looked at Montalbano as if she expected a reaction from him, but he had never heard that name. But, in the end, what did all that have to do with Puka? What was she getting at, this Catarì, pardon, Catarina?
    “I glad to hear it,” Montalbano said, with a slight, just a touch, of irony.
    The woman, however, noticed it immediately. She was beautiful and smart.
    “I’m not beating around the bush, telling you all this; I’m trying to get right to the point. My husband is a colleague of yours, well almost. I live here with my boy because I don’t want to leave my dad alone. Giulio works in Rome. We see each other when we can, unfortunately.”
    Montalbano didn’t open his mouth, but he still didn’t see where the woman was going with this.
    “When you asked about who gave us Puka’s name, I told you it was the police. That’s what I had told Dad and that’s what I put in the computer. But that’s not true.”
    “Puka’s name came from your husband,” Montalbano said. “And he suggested you tell your dad it had come from the police.”
    Catarina looked at him in admiration, nodding.
    “Did you tell your husband about the tragedy?”
    “I couldn’t. I called his office and they told me he was out; nobody’s answering his home phone, and he hasn’t called in a while. However, I’m not worried; it’s happened before. You see, my husband is …”
    “I don’t want to know,” Montalbano said. “I can imagine.”
    “But there’s something else,” Catarina said in a whisper.
    “Please.”
    “It’s a rather delicate matter. Do you know a builder by the name of Vincenzo Scipione?”
    “The one they call ‘
’u zu Cecè’
? Yes.”
    “That man has always been my dad’s nemesis. He’s a mafioso; I’m not the one saying it; it’s in the court’s rulings. However, now things have changed for him: Undersecretary Posacane is his puppet. Dad has never tolerated the Mafia, in spite of those who say we should. And he has paid for it: public contracts denied to him, machines set on fire, certain banks won’t give him credit, threatening phone calls, anonymous letters, and so on. Then, four months ago, there was the first accident on our construction site in Gibilrossa.”
    “I didn’t know about that one,” Montalbano said. “I was only aware of two. The one with the worker crushed by an iron beam and Puka’s. How did it happen?”
    “I should say that up to that point we had never had an accident on our construction sites: Dad is very serious about safety in the workplace. And he was very hurt when a journalist at Rete Libera called him a murderer. Sure, some really are murderers, but others aren’t. In any case, two workers fell from some scaffolding. They were leaning against the rails, when they gave way. Dad said he was sure that the bolts had been unfastened on purpose. Sabotage. Of the two workers, one was left with a few contusions, while the other is now an invalid. Three days after the accident, I received a phone call. A voice told me: ‘You see, Signora Alberganti, how many accidents can happen? You should be careful with that beautiful boy of yours.” I was scared to death but didn’t say anything to my dad or to my husband. About ten days later, another builder came to dinner at our place. A friend of Dad’s. He said he sold everything to Scipione, at a loss. He told us that two accidents were enough for him to understand how things were and that he didn’t want more deaths on his conscious. So I went to Rome to see my husband and told him everything. A bit later, he called me and told me to hire Puka. That’s right, Inspector, he cannot be a thief. You’re completely wrong about him.”
    He decided to speak openly with her, without keeping anything from her, repaying honesty with honesty. Plus, she was a strong woman.
    “Signora Alberganti, that was just an excuse