The Monster Of Florence Part 3

In the summer of 1968, Barbara left Salvatore and took up with his brother Francesco, the balente balente who played the macho man. With him, Barbara acted the part of a gangster's moll, going to the Sardinian bar, joking with the tough guys, wiggling her hips. She dressed like a femme fatale. Once she went too far, at least for Francesco's taste, and he seized her by the hair, dragged her into the street, and ripped off the offending dress, leaving her in the middle of a gaping crowd in only her slip and hosiery. who played the macho man. With him, Barbara acted the part of a gangster's moll, going to the Sardinian bar, joking with the tough guys, wiggling her hips. She dressed like a femme fatale. Once she went too far, at least for Francesco's taste, and he seized her by the hair, dragged her into the street, and ripped off the offending dress, leaving her in the middle of a gaping crowd in only her slip and hosiery.

At the beginning of August 1968, a new lover appeared on the scene: Antonio Lo Bianco, a bricklayer from Sicily, tall, heavily muscled, with black hair. He too was married, but that didn't stop him from challenging Francesco: "Barbara?" he was reported to have said. "I'll f.u.c.k her in a week." Which he did.

Now both Salvatore and Francesco had reason to feel angry and humiliated. On top of that, Barbara had just stolen six hundred thousand lire from Stefano, money he had received for the motorbike accident. The Vinci and Mele clan feared she would give it to Lo Bianco. They decided to get it back.

The story of Barbara Locci was reaching its final chapter.

The end came on August 21, 1968. A careful reconstruction of the crime, done years later, revealed what happened. Barbara went with her new lover, Antonio Lo Bianco, to the movies to see the latest j.a.panese horror flick. She brought along her son, Natalino, six years old. Afterwards the three of them drove off in Lo Bianco's white Alfa Romeo. The car headed out of town and turned in to a little dirt road past a cemetery. They drove a few hundred feet and stopped next to a stand of cane, a place where they often went to have s.e.x.

The shooter and his accomplices were already hidden in the cane. They waited until Barbara and Lo Bianco began having s.e.x-her on top, straddling him. The left rear window of the car was open-it was a warm night-and the shooter approached the car in silence, reached in the window with the .22 Beretta in hand, and took aim. The gun was poised a few feet above the head of Natalino, who was sleeping in the backseat. From almost point-blank range-there was powder tattooing-he fired seven shots: four into him and three into her. Each round was perfectly placed, penetrating vital organs, and they both died immediately. Natalino woke at the first shot and saw, in front of his eyes, the bright yellow flashes.

In the magazine of the gun remained one more shot. The shooter handed the gun to Stefano Mele, who took it, pointed it at his dead wife's body with an unsteady hand, and pulled the trigger. The shot, even from that close range, was wild and it struck the woman in the arm. No matter-she was dead and the shot had served its purpose: it had contaminated Stefano's hand with powder that the paraffin-glove test, then in use, would certainly pick up. Mele, the simpleton, would take the fall for the rest. Someone searched the glove compartment for the missing six hundred thousand lire, but it wasn't found. (Investigators would find it later, hidden elsewhere in the car.) The remaining problem was the child, Natalino. He couldn't be left in the car with his dead mother. After the killing, he saw his father holding the gun and cried out, "That's the gun that killed Mommy!" Mele threw the gun down and picked up his son, hoisted him to his shoulders, and set off walking. He sang a song to calm him down, "The Sunset." Two and a half kilometers down the road, Stefano dropped him at the front door of a stranger's house, rang the doorbell, and disappeared. When the homeowner leaned out the window, he saw a terrified little boy standing in the light of the front door. "Mama and Uncle are dead in the car," the little boy cried in a high, quavering voice.

CHAPTER 10.

Even at the time of the 1968 double homicide, the investigation uncovered many clues that a group of men had committed the killings, clues that were ignored or dismissed.

The police back then had questioned the six-year-old Natalino closely, the only witness to the crime. His story was confused. His father had been there. At one point during his questioning, he said, "I saw Salvatore in the cane." He quickly reversed that, saying it wasn't Salvatore but Francesco, and then he admitted it was his father who told him to say it was Francesco. He described the "shadow" of another man at the crime scene and spoke vaguely about an "Uncle Piero" as also being present, a man who "parted his hair on the right and worked at night"-which must have been his uncle, Piero Mucciarini, who worked as a baker. Then he said he couldn't remember anything.

One of the carabinieri officers, frustrated by the child's incessant contradictions, threatened him: "If you don't tell the truth, I'll take you back to your dead mother."

The only solid piece of information the investigators felt they had gotten from the boy was that he had seen his father at the crime scene with a gun in hand. As the wronged husband, he was the perfect suspect. They took Stefano Mele in that very night and quickly demolished a pathetic alibi that he had been home sick. The paraffin-glove test revealed traces of nitrate powder between the thumb and index finger of his right hand, the cla.s.sic pattern of someone who had recently fired a handgun. Even a simpleton like Mele realized that after the test, there was no point in further denial, and he confessed to being present at the scene of the crime. Perhaps it even dawned on him that he had been framed.

Cautiously, fearfully, Mele told the carabinieri interrogators that Salvatore Vinci was the actual killer. "One day," he said, "he told me that he had a pistol...It was him, he was the jealous lover of my wife. It was him, who, after she left him, threatened to kill her, he said it more than once. One day when I asked him to give me back some money, do you know what he said? 'I'll kill your wife for you,' that's what he said, 'and that'll even up the debt.' He really said that!"

But then, abruptly, Mele retracted his accusations against Salvatore Vinci and took full responsibility for the murder. As to what had happened to the gun, he never gave a satisfactory answer. "I threw it in the irrigation ditch," he claimed-but a careful search that night of the ditch and the surrounding area revealed nothing.

The carabinieri did not like his story. It seemed improbable that this man who had difficulty finding his way around a room would, by himself, have been able to find the scene of the crime, without a car, many kilometers from his house, ambush the lovers, and place seven shots into them. When they pressed him, Stefano once again turned the accusation against Salvatore. "He was the only one who had a car," he said.

The carabinieri decided to bring the two together to see what might happen. They picked up Salvatore and brought him down to the carabinieri barracks. Those present have said they never will forget that meeting.

Salvatore entered the room, suddenly the balente balente himself, full of swaggering self-a.s.surance. He stopped and subjected Mele to a hard, wordless stare. Bursting into tears, Mele threw himself on the ground at Salvatore's feet, groveling and sobbing. "Forgive me! Please forgive me!" he cried. Vinci turned around and left, never having spoken a word. He possessed an inexplicable hold over Stefano Mele, the ability to enforce an himself, full of swaggering self-a.s.surance. He stopped and subjected Mele to a hard, wordless stare. Bursting into tears, Mele threw himself on the ground at Salvatore's feet, groveling and sobbing. "Forgive me! Please forgive me!" he cried. Vinci turned around and left, never having spoken a word. He possessed an inexplicable hold over Stefano Mele, the ability to enforce an omerta omerta so powerful that Mele would risk life in prison rather than challenge it. Mele immediately retracted his accusations of Salvatore being the shooter and once again accused Salvatore's brother Francesco. But when pressed, Mele finally went back to insisting he had committed the double murder all by himself. so powerful that Mele would risk life in prison rather than challenge it. Mele immediately retracted his accusations of Salvatore being the shooter and once again accused Salvatore's brother Francesco. But when pressed, Mele finally went back to insisting he had committed the double murder all by himself.

At this point the police and the examining magistrate (the judge who oversees the investigation) felt satisfied. Regardless of the particulars, the crime was solved in the main: they had the confession of the wronged husband, backed up by forensic evidence and the statements of his son. Mele was the only one charged with murder.

During the trial in the Court of a.s.sizes, when Salvatore Vinci was brought in to testify, an odd scene occurred. As he was gesturing and speaking, his hand caught the attention of the judge. On one finger he wore a woman's engagement ring.

"What is that ring?" the judge asked.

"It's Barbara's engagement ring," he said, looking not at the judge but giving Mele another hard stare. "She gave it to me."

Mele was convicted as the sole perpetrator of the double homicide and sentenced to fourteen years.

In 1982, investigators began to compile a list of possible accomplices to the 1968 killing. On the list were the two Vinci brothers, Salvatore and Francesco, as well as Piero Mucciarini and the "shadow" mentioned by Natalino.

Investigators felt sure that the gun had not been thrown in the ditch, as Stefano insisted. A gun used in a homicide is almost never casually sold, given away, or tossed. One of Mele's accomplices, they felt, must have taken it home and carefully hidden it. Six years later, that gun had emerged from its hiding place, along with the same box of bullets, to become the Monster of Florence's gun.

Tracing the gun, they realized, was the key to solving the case of the Monster of Florence.

The Sardinian Trail investigation zeroed in on Francesco Vinci first, because he was the balente balente, the c.o.c.ky one, the guy with a rap sheet. He was violent, he had beaten up his girlfriends, and he hung around with gangsters. Salvatore, on the other hand, seemed quieter, a man who had always worked hard and stayed out of trouble. He had a spotless record. To the Tuscan police, who had no experience with serial killers, Francesco Vinci seemed the obvious choice.

Investigators dug up bits and pieces of circ.u.mstantial evidence against Francesco. They established that he had not been far from the scenes of each crime on the dates they were committed. Between robberies, thefts of livestock, and escapades with women, he moved around a great deal. At the time of the 1974 double homicide in Borgo San Lorenzo, for example, they placed him near the scene, due to an argument between him and a jealous husband, in which his favorite nephew, Antonio, the son of Salvatore Vinci, also took part. At the time of the Montespertoli killing, Francesco had also been nearby, again visiting Antonio, who happened to live at that time in a little town six kilometers from the scene.

A prime piece of evidence against Francesco, however, took a while to surface. In the middle of July, the carabinieri in a town on the southern Tuscan coast reported to investigators in Florence that on June 21 they had discovered a car hidden in the woods, covered with branches. They had finally gotten around to running the license plate and found it belonged to Francesco Vinci.

This seemed highly significant: June 21 happened to be the day that Spezi and other journalists had published the (false) reports that one of the victims of the Montespertoli killings may have survived long enough to talk. Perhaps the news had spooked the Monster after all, prompting him to hide his car.

The carabinieri took Vinci in and asked him for an explanation. He launched into a story about a woman and a jealous husband, but it didn't make much sense and, furthermore, it didn't seem to explain why he had hidden the car.

Francesco Vinci was arrested in August of 1982, two months after the Montespertoli killings. At the time, the examining magistrate said to the press, "The danger now is that a new killing might happen, even more spectacular than before. The Monster, in fact, might be tempted to rea.s.sert his paternity claim to the killings by moving yet again into action." It was a strange thing for a judge to say on the arrest of a suspect, but it showed a high level of uncertainty among the investigators that they had the right man.

Fall and winter came, and there were no new killings. Francesco Vinci remained in custody. Florentines, however, did not rest easy: Francesco did not look like the intelligent and aristocratic Monster they had imagined; he was too much the image of a cheap hustler, ladies' man, and macho charmer.

All of Florence awaited with trepidation the arrival of the warm weather of summer, the time favored by the Monster.

CHAPTER 11.

During that fall and winter of 198283, Mario Spezi wrote a book on the Monster of Florence case. Ent.i.tled Il Mostro di Firenze Il Mostro di Firenze, it was published in May. It told the story of the case from the 1968 killings to the Montespertoli double homicide. The book was devoured by a public terrified of what the coming season might bring. But as the balmy nights of summer settled on the green hills of Florence, no new killings occurred. Florentines began to hope that perhaps the police had gotten the right man after all.

In addition to writing a book and publis.h.i.+ng articles on the Monster case, that summer Spezi wrote a puff piece about a young filmmaker named Cinzia Torrini, who had produced a charming little doc.u.mentary about the life of Berto, the last ferryman across the Arno River-an ancient, wizened man who regaled his pa.s.sengers with stories, legends, and old Tuscan sayings. Torrini was pleased by Spezi's article, and she read his Monster book with interest. She called him to propose the idea of making a film on the Monster of Florence, and Spezi invited her to dinner at his apartment. It would be a late dinner, even by Italian standards, because Spezi kept journalistic hours.

And so it was that on the evening of September 10, 1983, Torrini found herself driving up the steep hill that led to Spezi's apartment. As might be expected from a cinematographer, Torrini had a vivid imagination. The trees on either side of the road, she said later, looked like the hands of skeletons twisting and clawing in the wind. She could not stop herself from questioning her wisdom at going out in the heart of the Florentine hills on a moonless Sat.u.r.day night to talk to someone about hideous crimes committed in the Florentine hills on moonless Sat.u.r.day nights. Around one curve of the winding road, the headlights of her old Fiat 127 spotlighted a whitish thing in the middle of the narrow road. The "thing" spread itself, becoming enormous. It detached itself from the asphalt and rose, noiselessly, like a dirty sheet carried off by the wind, revealing itself to be a great white owl. Torrini felt a tightening of her stomach, because Italians believe, as the Romans did before them, that it is an ugly omen to encounter an owl in the nighttime. She almost turned around.

She parked her car in the small parking area outside the huge iron gates of the old villa turned into an apartment building and rang the bell. As soon as Spezi opened the green door to his apartment, her sense of disquiet vanished. The place was welcoming, warm, and eccentric, with an old seventeenth-century gambling table, called a scagliola, used as a coffee table, old photographs and drawings on the walls, a fireplace in one corner. The dining table had already been set on the terrace, under a white awning, overlooking the twinkling lights sprinkling the hills. Torrini laughed at herself for the absurd uneasiness she had felt on the drive up and put it out of her mind.

They spent much of the evening talking about the possibility of making a film on the case of the Monster of Florence.

"It seems to me it would be difficult," Spezi said. "The story lacks a central character-the killer. I have my doubts the police have the right man, the man they have in prison awaiting trial, Francesco Vinci. It would be a murder mystery without an ending."

Not a problem, Torrini explained. "The main character isn't the killer: it's the city of Florence itself-the city that discovers it harbors a monster within."

Spezi explained why he thought Francesco Vinci was not the Monster. "All they have against him is that he was a lover of the first woman killed, that he beats up his girlfriends, and that he's a crook. In my view, these are elements in his favor."

"Why do you say that?" Torrini asked.

"He likes women. He's a big success with women, and that's enough to convince me he isn't the Monster. He hits them but he doesn't kill them. The Monster destroys destroys women. He hates them because he wants them and can't have them. That's his frustration, the thing that d.a.m.ns him, and so he possesses them physically in the only way he can, which is to steal the part most indicative of their femininity." women. He hates them because he wants them and can't have them. That's his frustration, the thing that d.a.m.ns him, and so he possesses them physically in the only way he can, which is to steal the part most indicative of their femininity."

"If you believe that," Torrini said, "then it must mean the Monster is impotent. Is that what you think?"

"More or less."

"What do you make of the ritual aspects of the killings, the careful placement of the body? The stick from a grapevine inserted in the v.a.g.i.n.a, for example, which recalls the words of Saint John that the 'vines which beareth not fruit He taketh away'? A killer who is punis.h.i.+ng couples for having s.e.x outside of marriage?"

Spezi blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling and laughed. "That's a bunch of twaddle. You know why he used an old piece of grapevine? If you look at the crime scene photos, you see that they were parked right next to a vineyard! He simply grabbed the closest stick he could find. To me, his use of a stick to violate a woman seems to confirm that he is not exactly Superman. He didn't and probably can't rape his victims."

Toward the end of the evening, Spezi opened his book and read the last page out loud. "Many investigators feel the case of the Monster of Florence is solved. But if, at the end of a dinner pa.s.sed in pleasant company, you were to ask me what I thought, I would tell you the truth: that it is with a strong sense of unease that I answer the first ringing of the telephone on a Sunday morning. Especially if the previous Sat.u.r.day evening was the night of the new moon."

After Mario set down his book, a silence fell on the terrace that overlooked the Florentine hills.

And then the telephone rang.

It was a lieutenant of the local carabinieri, one of Spezi's contacts. "Mario, they've just found two people killed in a VW camper in Giogoli, above Galluzzo. The Monster? I don't know. The dead are two men. But if I were you, I'd head over there for a look."

CHAPTER 12.

To reach Giogoli, Spezi and Torrini took a road that climbed a steep hill behind the great monastery of La Certosa. The road is called Via Volterrana, and it is one of the most ancient in Europe, built by the Etruscans three thousand years ago. At the top of the hill, Via Volterrana makes a gentle turn and runs straight along the ridgeline. Immediately on the right lies a second road, Via di Giogoli, a narrow lane running between mossy stone walls. The wall on the right encloses the grounds of the Villa Sfacciata, which belonged to the n.o.ble family Martelli. Sfacciata means "cheeky" or "impudent" in Italian, and the mysterious appellation went back five hundred years, to at least the time when the villa was home to the man who gave America its name.

The left wall of Via di Giogoli encloses a large olive grove. About fifty meters from the beginning of the road, almost opposite the villa, stood a break in the wall, which allowed farm equipment access to the grove. The opening led to a level area that enjoyed a magical view of the southern Florentine hills, over which were sprinkled ancient castles, towers, churches, and villas. A few hundred meters away, on top of the closest hill, stood a famed Romanesque tower known as Sant'Alessandro a Giogoli. On the next hill rose an exquisite sixteenth-century villa called I Collazzi, half hidden behind a cl.u.s.ter of cypress trees and umbrella pines. It belonged to the Marchi family, one of whose heirs by marriage had become the Marchesa Frescobaldi. Being a personal friend of Prince Charles and Lady Diana, she had entertained the royal pair shortly after their marriage.

Beyond this extraordinary view, the Via di Giogoli descended through torturous switchbacks through villages and small farms, ending in the monolithic working-cla.s.s suburbs of Florence in the valley below. At night, those gray suburbs became a twinkling carpet of lights.

It would have been hard to find a more beautiful place in all of Tuscany.

Later-too late-the city of Florence would post a sign at this spot that said, in German, English, French, and Italian, "No parking from 7:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. No camping for reasons of security." On that evening, the night of September 10, 1983, there had been no sign, and someone had camped there.

When Spezi and Torrini arrived, they found the full cast of characters in the Monster investigation. There was Silvia Della Monica, a prosecutor, with the head prosecutor, Piero Luigi Vigna, his handsome face so sunken and gray it looked almost collapsed. The medical examiner, Mauro Maurri, his blue eyes glittering, was working on the two cadavers. Chief Inspector Sandro Federico was also there, pacing about in a state of high nervous tension.

A spotlight fixed to the top of a police car threw a spectral light across the scene, casting long shadows from the group of people arranged in a semicircle around the sky blue VW bus with German license plates. The stark light emphasized the ugliness of the scene, the scratches on the beaten-up old camper, the lines in the faces of the investigators, the screwlike branches of the olive trees looming against the black sky. To the left of the camper, the field sloped away into darkness toward a cl.u.s.ter of stone houses where, twenty years later, I would take up temporary residence with my family.

When they arrived, the left door of the camper stood open and from inside could be heard, just concluding, the music from the film Blade Runner Blade Runner. The music had been playing all day long, without ceasing, as the tape player automatically looped the tape over and over. Inspector Sandro Federico approached and opened his hand, showing two .22 caliber sh.e.l.ls. On the base was the same unmistakable mark made by the gun of the Monster.

The Monster had struck again, and the number of his victims had now risen to ten. Francesco Vinci, still in jail, could not have committed the crime.

"Why would he strike two men this time?" Spezi asked.

"Take a look inside the camper," said Federico, with a jerk of his head.

Spezi went toward the van. Pa.s.sing along its side, he noticed that in the high part of the little windows on the side, in a thin band where the gla.s.s was transparent, there were bullet holes. To look inside, he had to stand on his tiptoes. The killer, in order to aim properly, would have to have been taller than Spezi, at least five feet ten inches. He also noted bullet holes in the metal side of the van itself.

Around the van's open door stood a number of people; policemen in plainclothes, carabinieri, and crime scene investigators; their footprints lay everywhere on the dew-laden gra.s.s, obliterating any sign left by the killer. It was one more example, Spezi thought, of a botched crime scene.

But before he looked inside the van, Spezi's eye was arrested by something scattered about on the ground outside, pages ripped up from a glossy p.o.r.nographic magazine ent.i.tled Golden Gay Golden Gay.

A dim light filtered into the interior. The two seats in front were empty: immediately behind was the body of a young man with a thin mustache, his eyes glazed over, lying stretched out on a double mattress, his feet toward the rear of the van. The second body was in the back of the van, in the corner. It was still crouching as if to make itself as small as possible, petrified with terror, its hands clenched, its face covered by a cascade of long blond hair. The hair was streaked with blood, black and congealed.

"Looks like a girl, don't you think?" came the voice of Sandro Federico, shaking Spezi out of his surprise.

"At first we were fooled, too. But it's a man. It seems our friend made the same mistake. Can you imagine how he felt when he discovered it?"

On Monday, September 12, the papers screamed out the news: TERROR IN FLORENCE.

The Monster Chooses His Victims at Random The two victims, Horst Meyer and Uwe Rusch, both twenty-four years old, had been traveling around Italy together and had parked their VW bus in this place on September 8. Their almost nude bodies had been discovered around seven o'clock the evening of September 10.

By this time, Francesco Vinci had spent thirteen months in jail, and the public had come to believe he was the Monster of Florence. It seemed that once again, as with Enzo Spalletti, the Monster himself had demonstrated the innocence of the accused.

The Monster of Florence was now international news. The Times Times of London devoted an entire Sunday section to the case. Television crews arrived from as far away as Australia. of London devoted an entire Sunday section to the case. Television crews arrived from as far away as Australia.

"Even after twelve victims,1 all we know is that the Monster is free and that his .22 caliber Beretta could kill again," wrote all we know is that the Monster is free and that his .22 caliber Beretta could kill again," wrote La n.a.z.ione La n.a.z.ione.

Now that the Monster had killed while Francesco Vinci was in prison, his release seemed imminent. But as the days went by, Vinci remained incarcerated. Investigators suspected that the double homicide had been "made to order." Perhaps, they theorized, someone close to Vinci wished to demonstrate that he couldn't be the killer. The crime of Giogoli was anomalous, improvised, different. It seemed strange that the Monster would have made such a grave mistake, given their a.s.sumption that he took his time watching the couple having s.e.x before killing them. And then he had killed on a Friday night, not a Sat.u.r.day, as was his custom.

A new examining magistrate had arrived in Florence shortly before the crime and was now in charge of the Monster investigation. His name was Mario Rotella. He chilled the public with one of his first public statements, in which he said, "We have never identified the so-called Monster of Florence with Francesco Vinci. For the crimes committed after the 1968 homicide he is only a suspect." And then he added, causing a furor, "He is not the only such suspect."

One of the prosecutors, Silvia Della Monica, aroused even more confusion and speculation when she said, "Vinci is not the Monster. But neither is he innocent."

CHAPTER 13.

A few days following the Giogoli killings, there was a tense summit meeting in the prosecutor's offices, on the second floor of a Baroque palace in Piazza San Firenze. (The palace is one of the few seventeenth-century edifices in the city-disparaged by Florentines as "new construction.") They met in the small office of Piero Luigi Vigna, the air as thick as a Maremma fog. Vigna was in the habit of breaking his cigarettes in two and smoking both pieces, under the illusion that he was smoking less. Silvia Della Monica was there-small, blonde, herself surrounded by a self-generated cloud of smoke; also in attendance was a colonel of the carabinieri, who had brought two packs of his favorite Marlboros, and Chief Inspector Sandro Federico, who never ceased torturing a withered "toscano" cigar between his teeth. An a.s.sistant prosecutor smoked his way through pack after pack of tarry Gauloises. The only nonsmoker in the room was Adolfo Izzo, who merely had to breathe to acquire the habit. few days following the Giogoli killings, there was a tense summit meeting in the prosecutor's offices, on the second floor of a Baroque palace in Piazza San Firenze. (The palace is one of the few seventeenth-century edifices in the city-disparaged by Florentines as "new construction.") They met in the small office of Piero Luigi Vigna, the air as thick as a Maremma fog. Vigna was in the habit of breaking his cigarettes in two and smoking both pieces, under the illusion that he was smoking less. Silvia Della Monica was there-small, blonde, herself surrounded by a self-generated cloud of smoke; also in attendance was a colonel of the carabinieri, who had brought two packs of his favorite Marlboros, and Chief Inspector Sandro Federico, who never ceased torturing a withered "toscano" cigar between his teeth. An a.s.sistant prosecutor smoked his way through pack after pack of tarry Gauloises. The only nonsmoker in the room was Adolfo Izzo, who merely had to breathe to acquire the habit.

Federico and the carabinieri colonel presented a reconstruction of the Giogoli murders. Using diagrams and flow charts, they showed the sequence of events, how the killer had shot one of the men through the little window and then had fired through the sides of the van, killing the other man where he was crouching in the corner. The Monster then entered the van, fired some more rounds into them, and discovered his mistake. In a rage, he picked up a gay magazine and ripped it up, scattering the pieces outside, and left.

The prosecutor, Vigna, expressed his view that the crime seemed anomalous, ad hoc and improvised-in short, that it had been committed not by the Monster, but by someone else trying to demonstrate the innocence of Francesco Vinci. The investigators suspected that Vinci's nephew, Antonio, had committed the killings as a way to spring his beloved uncle from prison. (Antonio, you will recall, had been the baby saved from the gas back in Sardinia.) Unlike the rest of his family, he seemed tall enough to have taken aim through the clear stripe of gla.s.s at the top of the camper's window.

A plan of brutal subtlety was secretly put in motion. Sign of it appeared ten days after the Giogoli killings, when a small and apparently unrelated news item appeared in the back pages of the newspapers, reporting that Antonio Vinci, nephew of Francesco Vinci, had been arrested for illegal possession of firearms. Antonio and Francesco were extremely close, partners in many shady activities and sketchy adventures. The arrest of Antonio was a sign that the investigators were widening their exploration of the Sardinian Trail. The examining magistrate in the Monster case, Mario Rotella, and a lead prosecutor, Silvia Della Monica, were convinced that both Francesco and Antonio knew the ident.i.ty of the Monster of Florence. They were convinced, in fact, that this terrible secret was shared by the entire clan of Sardinians. The Monster was one of them, and the others knew his ident.i.ty.

With both men in Florence's Le Murate prison, they could now be played against each other, and perhaps broken. The suspects were kept apart, and artfully crafted rumors were circulated through the prison, designed to arouse suspicions and pit one against the other. A program of interrogation aimed at the two prisoners was set in motion, giving each one the impression that the other had talked. It was "let slip" to each that the other had made serious accusations against him, and that he could save himself only by telling the truth about the other.

It didn't work. Neither one talked. One afternoon, in the ancient interrogation room at Le Murate, the head prosecutor, Piero Luigi Vigna, was fed up. He decided to press Francesco Vinci as hard as he could. Vigna, handsome, das.h.i.+ng, and cultured, with the profile of a hawk, had in the course of his career faced down Mafia dons, murderers, kidnappers, extortionists, and drug kingpins. But he was no match for the small Sardinian.

For half an hour the prosecutor hammered Vinci. With crisp logic, he wove a web of clues and evidence and deductions proving the man's guilt. Then, all of a sudden, using a technique straight out of a Hollywood movie cliche, he shoved his face to within an inch of the black-bearded face of the Sardinian and screamed, spraying him with saliva: "Confess, Vinci! You're the Monster!"

Francesco Vinci remained utterly calm. He smiled and his carbon-black eyes twinkled. In a calm, low voice he responded with a question that seemed to have nothing to do with anything: "I beg your pardon, sir, but if you want a response from me, tell me first what that thing is on the table. If you please." With a hand he indicated Vigna's pack of cigarettes.

The prosecutor, wanting to follow the man's train of thought, said, "It's a pack of cigarettes, obviously."