The Monster Of Florence Part 8

"This investigation," he told the court, "if it weren't so tragic, would put one in mind of the Pink Panther."

Instead of prosecuting Pacciani, Tony used his time in court to criticize the investigation and deprecate the evidence against Pacciani, taking it apart with ruthless logic, piece by piece, until not one brick of evidence was left standing on top of another. Pacciani's lawyers, seeing all their arguments usurped by the prosecution, could do little but sit in stunned silence and, when their turn came, express their amazed agreement with the prosecution.

As the trial proceeded, it generated panic and consternation among the investigators. With the prosecutor himself declaring Pacciani's innocence, the peasant would surely be acquitted, which would be an unbearable humiliation and loss of face for the police. Something had to be done-and it fell to Chief Inspector Michele Giuttari to do it.

Six months earlier, at the end of October 1995, Chief Inspector Giuttari had been installed in a sunny office high above the Arno River near the American emba.s.sy. He had taken over the Monster of Florence case after Chief Inspector Perugini left for Was.h.i.+ngton. The Squadra Anti-Mostro had been disbanded, since the case was thought to have been solved, but Giuttari would soon reconst.i.tute a special investigative unit to take over its responsibilities. In the meantime, he had embarked on the herculean task of reading all the files on the case, tens of thousands of them, which included hundreds of interviews with witnesses, ma.s.ses of expert reports and technical a.n.a.lyses, as well as entire trial transcripts. He also combed through the evidence lockers, examining everything that had been collected at the scenes of the crimes, no matter how irrelevant.

Chief Inspector Giuttari discovered many loose ends, unexplained evidence, and profound mysteries left to resolve. During this process, he came to a fateful conclusion: the case had not been completely solved. n.o.body, not even Perugini, had understood the full and terrifying dimensions of the case.

Michele Giuttari was a Sicilian from Messina, das.h.i.+ng and articulate, an aspiring novelist and connoisseur of convoluted conspiracy theories. He went about with half a "toscano" cigar stuck in the corner of his mouth, coat collar flipped up, his long, thick, glistening black hair slicked back. He bore a striking resemblance to Al Pacino in the movie Scarface Scarface, and there was indeed something cinematic in the way he conducted himself, with style and verve, almost as if a camera were trained on him.

As Giuttari combed the files, he uncovered important but overlooked clues that, in his opinion, pointed to something far more sinister than a lone serial killer. He started with Lorenzo Nesi's claim that he saw Pacciani with another person with another person in a red car (that was actually white), on Sunday night a kilometer from the last killing. Giuttari opened an investigation into this shadowy person. Who was he? What was he doing in the car? Had he partic.i.p.ated in the murder? By uncovering the truth, the in a red car (that was actually white), on Sunday night a kilometer from the last killing. Giuttari opened an investigation into this shadowy person. Who was he? What was he doing in the car? Had he partic.i.p.ated in the murder? By uncovering the truth, the real real truth, it went without saying that the chief inspector would be doing himself a favor. Perugini had used the Monster as a vehicle for tremendous career advancement and Vigna would soon do the same. There was plenty of mileage left in the Monster of Florence case. truth, it went without saying that the chief inspector would be doing himself a favor. Perugini had used the Monster as a vehicle for tremendous career advancement and Vigna would soon do the same. There was plenty of mileage left in the Monster of Florence case.

Now, six months later, Pacciani's looming acquittal threatened to undo Chief Inspector Giuttari's nascent theories and carefully laid plans. The chief inspector had to do something to mitigate the damage of Pacciani's acquittal. He developed a plan.

On the morning of February 5, 1996, Chief Prosecutor Piero Tony spent four hours summing up. The case against Pacciani, he said, contained no evidence, no clues, and no proofs. There were no pieces of a pistol connecting him to the killings, there were no bullets planted in the garden capable of convicting, there wasn't a single witness in which he could believe. There was nothing. For Tony, the fundamental fact of the accusation remained unaddressed: nowhere did investigators explain how the infamous .22 Beretta used in the 1968 murder pa.s.sed from the Sardinian clan into Pacciani's hands.

"Half a clue plus half a clue," Tony thundered, "does not make a whole clue: it makes zero!"

On February 12, Pacciani's lawyers, robbed of their arguments, said little in summation. The following day, Ferri and his a.s.sociate justices shut themselves up in their chambers to deliberate.

On that same afternoon, Chief Inspector Giuttari slipped on his black coat, raised his collar, stuck the half "toscano" in his mouth, and gathered together his men. Their unmarked cars blasted out of police headquarters and headed to San Casciano, where they surrounded the house of Mario Vanni-the ex-postman who, at Pacciani's first trial, had mumbled over and over that he and Pacciani were just "picnicking friends." Giuttari and his men seized Vanni and bundled him into a squad car, not even giving the poor fellow time to put in his false teeth. Vanni, they said, was the "other man" Lorenzo Nesi had seen in the car. They charged him with being Pacciani's accomplice in murder.

The timing was exquisite. On the morning of February 13, the very day the appeals court judges were to announce their verdict, the newspapers were trumpeting the news of Vanni's arrest as Pacciani's co-Monster.

As a result, the great bunkerlike courtroom was like a volcano waiting to explode. The arrest of Vanni was a direct challenge to the judges, should they dare acquit Pacciani.

As the proceedings began, a policeman sent by Chief Inspector Giuttari arrived breathlessly in court, carrying a bundle of papers. He demanded the right to speak. Ferri, the president of the court, was annoyed by this last-minute move. Nevertheless, he coolly invited the emissary from police headquarters to say his piece.

The man announced that four new witnesses in the Monster case had surfaced. He presented them as Greek letters: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta. For reasons of security, he said, the Tribunale could not render the names. Their testimony was absolutely crucial to the case-because two of these witnesses, the emissary told the stunned court, were actually present actually present at the double homicide of 1985 when the French tourists were killed. They had witnessed Pacciani at the very scene of the crime, committing the murders, and one had actually confessed to helping him. The others could corroborate their testimony. These four witnesses, after more than a decade of silence, had suddenly been moved to speak out just twenty-four hours before the final judgment that would decide Pacciani's fate. at the double homicide of 1985 when the French tourists were killed. They had witnessed Pacciani at the very scene of the crime, committing the murders, and one had actually confessed to helping him. The others could corroborate their testimony. These four witnesses, after more than a decade of silence, had suddenly been moved to speak out just twenty-four hours before the final judgment that would decide Pacciani's fate.

A frozen silence fell over the courtroom. Even the Bics of the journalists remained stuck in their notebooks. This was an incredible revelation, the kind of thing you saw in the movies-never in real life.

If Ferri had been annoyed, now he was incensed. But he maintained an icy calm, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "We cannot hear Alpha and Beta. We are not here for a lesson in algebra. We cannot wait for the Procura [the prosecutor's office] to lift the veil of secrecy from the names. Either they tell us immediately who this Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta are and we will invite them into the courtroom to take their testimony, or else we will ignore this and take no action whatsoever."

The policeman refused to name the names. Ferri was livid at what he considered an offense to the court, and he dismissed the emissary and his news of witnesses. Then he and the other judges rose and retired to their chambers to decide their verdict.

Later, it was suggested that Ferri had fallen into a clever trap. By presenting the witnesses in a deliberately offensive manner, Giuttari had provoked Ferri into refusing to hear them-thus creating grounds to appeal Ferri's verdict to the Italian Supreme Court.

It was eleven in the morning. By four in the afternoon, the rumors began to circulate that the appeals court was about to issue its verdict. In all the bars in Italy, the televisions were tuned to the same channel, while pro-Pacciani and anti-Pacciani factions faced off, arguing and laying bets. Many "I Pacciani" T-s.h.i.+rts were dusted off and donned for the occasion.

Standing, his voice marked with age, President of the Court Ferri announced the absolute and unconditional acquittal of Pacciani for being the Monster of Florence.

The shaky old peasant was freed. He later greeted well-wishers from the shabby window of his house, flanked by his lawyers, weeping and spreading his hands to bless the crowd, as if he were the pope.

The public trial was finished, but the trial of public opinion continued. Giuttari's timely arrest of Vanni and his courtroom gambit had done the trick. Pacciani had been acquitted of a crime that two people had seen seen him commit-his accomplices. There was a public uproar. Pacciani was guilty-he had to be. And yet the court had acquitted him. Ferri came under public criticism. Surely, many said, there must be some way to undo this travesty of justice. him commit-his accomplices. There was a public uproar. Pacciani was guilty-he had to be. And yet the court had acquitted him. Ferri came under public criticism. Surely, many said, there must be some way to undo this travesty of justice.

There was: Ferri's refusal to hear the four witnesses. The Italian Court of Ca.s.sation (equivalent to the Supreme Court) took up the matter, vacated the acquittal, and opened the door for a new trial.

Giuttari swung into action, marshaling the evidence, preparing for fresh indictments and a trial. Only this time, Pacciani was not a lone serial killer. He had accomplices: his picnicking friends.

CHAPTER 28.

Spezi and other journalists immediately rose to the challenge of identifying the four "algebraic" witnesses. The veil of secrecy was easily rent. They turned out to be quite a collection of half-wits and lowlifes. Alpha was a mentally r.e.t.a.r.ded man named Pucci. Gamma was a prost.i.tute named Ghiribelli, in the final stages of alcoholism, known to turn a trick for a twenty-five-cent gla.s.s of wine. Delta was a pimp named Galli.

Of them all, Beta would be the most important, as he had confessed to helping Pacciani murder the French tourists. His name was Giancarlo Lotti, and he came from the same town as Vanni, San Casciano. Everyone in San Casciano knew Lotti. They had given him the racist nickname Katanga, an Italian slang term that might be loosely translated as "Jungle Bunny," even though he was white. Lotti was a sort of village idiot of the cla.s.sic kind that have largely disappeared from the modern world, a man who subsisted on the charity of the village, who was fed, clothed, and housed by his fellow citizens, and who entertained all with his unwitting antics. Lotti hung about the town square, grinning and hailing people. He was often subjected to pranks and taunts by schoolboys. They used to chase him around: "Katanga! Katanga! Run! Run! Martians have landed on the soccer field!" And Lotti would happily start running. He maintained himself in a felicitous state of inebriation, consuming two liters of wine a day, more on holidays.

Spezi, in search of information on Lotti, spent a long evening with the owner of the trattoria where Lotti got a free meal every evening. The owner regaled him with amusing stories. He told of the time that one of his waiters-the same fellow who every evening laid a free bowl of ribollita ribollita under the hangdog jowls and bloodshot eyes of the poor unfortunate-dressed up as a woman, with a pair of napkins for a hat and rags stuffed in his s.h.i.+rt for b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The waiter, thus decked out, strutted and sashayed in front of Lotti, winking at him lasciviously. Lotti was immediately smitten. "She" pretended to accept an appointment with him in the bushes the following night. The next evening Lotti returned to the trattoria, boasting loudly of his imminent conquest, and he ate and drank with gusto. Then the owner arrived, saying Lotti was wanted on the telephone. Lotti was astonished and pleased to receive a telephone call in a restaurant like a man of affairs. He swaggered to the phone, which in reality was manned by another waiter in the kitchen, who pretended to be the young lady's father. under the hangdog jowls and bloodshot eyes of the poor unfortunate-dressed up as a woman, with a pair of napkins for a hat and rags stuffed in his s.h.i.+rt for b.r.e.a.s.t.s. The waiter, thus decked out, strutted and sashayed in front of Lotti, winking at him lasciviously. Lotti was immediately smitten. "She" pretended to accept an appointment with him in the bushes the following night. The next evening Lotti returned to the trattoria, boasting loudly of his imminent conquest, and he ate and drank with gusto. Then the owner arrived, saying Lotti was wanted on the telephone. Lotti was astonished and pleased to receive a telephone call in a restaurant like a man of affairs. He swaggered to the phone, which in reality was manned by another waiter in the kitchen, who pretended to be the young lady's father.

"If you lay a finger on my daughter," the alleged father roared, "I'll smash your ugly mug!"

"What daughter?" Lotti babbled, terrified, his knees shaking. "I swear I don't know any daughter, you've got to believe me!"

Everyone had a good laugh over that one.

What was not so amusing was the story Lotti and the other algebraic witnesses had told Giuttari, which was soon leaked to the press.

Pucci said that ten years ago, he and Lotti were returning to Florence on Sunday evening, September 8, 1985. This was the night investigators had decided the French tourists were killed, the night that Lorenzo Nesi claimed to have seen Pacciani with another man. They stopped at the Scopeti clearing to relieve themselves.

"I remember well," said Pucci, "that we saw a car of a light color stopped a few meters from a tent, and, to our view, two men who were inside that car got out of it and started to shout at us with menacing gestures, so much so that we went away. The two threatened to kill us if we didn't go away immediately. 'Why did you come here busting our b.a.l.l.s, get the h.e.l.l out or we'll kill both of you!' We were frightened and got out of there."

Pucci claimed that he and Lotti had stumbled across the scene of the Monster's last crime at the very moment when it was being committed. Lotti corroborated the story and added that he clearly recognized both men. They were Pacciani and Vanni-Pacciani waving a pistol and Vanni clutching a knife.

Lotti also implicated Pacciani and Vanni in the 1984 double murder in Vicchio. And then Lotti explained that it was no coincidence they had stopped in the Scopeti clearing that night to take a p.i.s.s. He knew the crime was scheduled to take place, and he had stopped to a.s.sist in the killings. Yes, Lotti said, he had to confess it, he could hold back no longer-he was one of the murderers himself! Along with Vanni, he was one of the accomplices of the Monster of Florence.

Lotti's confession was of enormous importance to the police. As their star witness, he was well taken care of. They moved him into a secret place that much later was revealed to be police headquarters in Arezzo, a beautiful medieval town south of Florence. After living in the police barracks for many months, Lotti's story, which had begun with many contradictions, began to line up with the facts already ascertained by the police. But Lotti was unable to give the investigators a single objective, verifiable piece of evidence that they didn't already have. The first iteration of Lotti's story, before he had spent months in Arezzo, didn't match the evidence gathered at the crime scene. For example, he swore to having seen Vanni make the cut in the tent. Then he said Pacciani entered the tent through the cut. Kraveichvili jumped out in a flash past Pacciani, and the fat sixty-year-old man pursued him into the woods firing his gun, killing him with the pistol.

None of this agreed with the evidence. The cut in the tent was only seven inches long, and it was made in the rain fly of the tent, not in the tent itself. n.o.body could have entered through the cut. The sh.e.l.ls had all been found at the front door of the tent. If it had happened as Lotti claimed, the sh.e.l.ls would have been scattered along the path of pursuit. Lotti's initial descriptions of the crime not only contradicted the evidence gathered in the Scopeti clearing, but also contradicted the psychiatric and behavioral a.n.a.lyses, the results of the autopsies, and the reconstructions of the crime.

Even shakier was Lotti's "confession" regarding the killing in Vicchio. Lotti said that the girl was only wounded by the first shots and that Vanni, so as not to dirty himself, had donned a long duster coat. Then, while she screamed, he pulled her out of the car, dragged her into the field of flowers and herbs, and finished her off with a knife. Again, none of this matched the evidence: the girl had been killed by the first shot, a bullet into the brain, and did not have the time even to cry out. The medical examiner had established that all the knife marks had been made post mortem. And there was no evidence at either crime of more than one killer at the scene.

Finally, there was the fundamental question of when when the killing of the French tourists had taken place. Investigators had settled on Sunday night as the night of the crime. Naturally, Lotti claimed it was Sunday, and Nesi's testimony also involved Sunday night. But there was a great deal of evidence, including the testimony of Sabrina Carmignani, that suggested they had been killed Sat.u.r.day night. the killing of the French tourists had taken place. Investigators had settled on Sunday night as the night of the crime. Naturally, Lotti claimed it was Sunday, and Nesi's testimony also involved Sunday night. But there was a great deal of evidence, including the testimony of Sabrina Carmignani, that suggested they had been killed Sat.u.r.day night.

Why would Lotti make a false confession? The answer isn't hard to see. Lotti had gone from village idiot to star witness and coMonster of Florence. He was the center of attention of the entire country, his picture on the front page of the newspapers, investigators hanging on his every word. On top of that, he had free room and board in Arezzo and perhaps even a liberal supply of wine.

In addition to the central story, Giuttari and his interrogators took down testimony from the algebraic witnesses of Vanni's s.e.xual depravity. Some of this evidence was inadvertently hilarious. In one such story, the ex-postman had taken the bus to visit a wh.o.r.e in Florence. The bus driver took a curve a little fast, which caused a vibrator to fall out of Vanni's pocket. It rolled and bounced around the bus as Vanni, scrabbling about on his hands and knees, tried to scoop it up.

"The second investigation of the Monster of Florence has pa.s.sed from an inquiry into serial killings committed by a single individual to a series of killings committed by more than one person," the prosecutor Vigna told the press. Instead of a lone psychopathic killer, a band of Monsters had roamed the Tuscan countryside-the picnicking friends.

Ghiribelli, the alcoholic prost.i.tute, told investigators another story that would eventually loom large in the investigation. She claimed that Pacciani and his picnicking friends frequented the house of a self-styled druid or wizard (whose day job was that of pimp) where they held black ma.s.ses and wors.h.i.+ped the devil. "In the room just as you entered," said Ghiribelli, "there were old wax candles, a five-pointed star drawn on the floor with carbon, an unspeakable dirtiness and messiness everywhere, condoms, liquor bottles. On the sheets of the big bed there were traces of blood. There were spots as large as a piece of letter paper. These traces I saw every Sunday morning in 1984 and 1985."

The wizard-pimp she named had died ten years before, and it proved impossible to check Ghiribelli's a.s.sertions. Nevertheless, Giuttari took it all down and pushed the case forward, convinced he was finally on the right track.

The president of the appeals court, Francesco Ferri, the man who had acquitted Pacciani, watched the new investigation proceed with growing dismay and anger. He resigned his judges.h.i.+p to write a book, ent.i.tled The Pacciani Case The Pacciani Case, which was rushed into print in late 1996.

In his book, Ferri denounced the new investigation into the picnicking friends. "The worst thing," Ferri wrote about Giuttari's new witnesses, "is not the improbability of their accounts, their lack of believability, but the clear falsity of the accounts. These two individuals [Pucci and Lotti]...have described particulars of the homicides, of which they claim to be eyewitnesses, that do not in fact conform to the evidence revealed at the time....It is certain that Pucci and Lotti are coa.r.s.e and habitual liars....It is very difficult to believe that their stories contain even the minimum basis of truth."

The judge continued, "It smells to high heaven....It is stupefying, however, that no one has up to this time exposed the grave deficiencies of the stories of Pucci and Lotti, neither investigators, defense attorneys, or journalists....The most extraordinary thing, however, and more extraordinary still that n.o.body has noted it, is that for months Lotti has been kept in custody in an undisclosed location, where he has slept, eaten and perhaps above all drunken, and possibly even received compensation, in a place beyond the reach of the press, like a golden hen from which they ask, from time to time, a golden egg. In this way the revelations dribble out, bit by bit, more or less contradictory."

The judge advanced an explanation. "The mental flexibility of the subjects, their complete absence of morality and the hope of gaining impunity or other advantage is enough to explain their contorted testimony." Ferri concluded, "I could not remain quiet in the face of an investigation so far outside logic and justice, conducted with prejudice and equipped with confessions that are maintained at all cost."

Ferri, unfortunately, was not a compelling wordsmith, and he was innocent in the ways of publis.h.i.+ng. He placed his book with a tiny publisher that had little distribution and which printed very few copies. The Pacciani Case The Pacciani Case sank like a stone, virtually unnoticed by the press or the public. The new investigation of the Monster of Florence, under the doughty captains.h.i.+p of Chief Inspector Michele Giuttari, sailed on, untroubled by Ferri's accusations. sank like a stone, virtually unnoticed by the press or the public. The new investigation of the Monster of Florence, under the doughty captains.h.i.+p of Chief Inspector Michele Giuttari, sailed on, untroubled by Ferri's accusations.

In October of 1996, Vigna, the lead prosecutor in the Monster case, was appointed director of the Antimafia Investigation Department in Italy, the most powerful and prestigious law enforcement position in the country. (Perugini, you may recall, had earlier leveraged the Monster case into an appointment in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.) Others responsible for putting Pacciani on trial had also used the case as a springboard to greater things. Regarding the Monster investigation, a highly placed carabinieri officer entertained a unique theory of criminal justice that he shared with Spezi.

"Have you ever considered," he said, "that Pacciani's trial might be nothing more than a case of the acquisition and management of power?"

CHAPTER 29.

Pacciani remained free and technically innocent while Giuttari mustered up a new case against him. But the excitement was too much for the Tuscan peasant, and on February 22, 1998, the "sweet little lamb" dropped dead of a heart attack.

It took no time at all for the rumor mill to declare that Pacciani had not died of a heart attack, but had in fact been murdered. Giuttari sprang into action and directed an exhumation of the peasant's body. The remains were tested for poisoning. The results? His death was "compatible" with having been poisoned-by an excess of his own heart medicine. Doctors pointed out that patients, in the throes of a heart attack, often overconsume their heart medicine. But that was far too prosaic an explanation for Chief Inspector Giuttari, who theorized that Pacciani may have been murdered by a person or persons unknown, to keep him from telling what he knew.

The trial of Pacciani's picnicking friends, Vanni and Lotti, began in June of 1997. The evidence against them consisted of Lotti's word, backed up by the feeble-minded Pucci, against Vanni's ineffective and disorganized protestations of innocence. It was a sad spectacle. Vanni and Lotti were convicted of all fourteen Monster killings; Vanni was sentenced to life in prison and Lotti to twenty-six years. Neither the press nor Italian public opinion seemed skeptical of the idea that three quasi-illiterate inebriates of marginal intelligence could have successfully killed fourteen people over a period of eleven years with the goal of stealing the women's s.e.x organs.

The trial, furthermore, never addressed the central motive: why had Pacciani and his picnicking friends stolen those s.e.x organs? Chief Inspector Giuttari, however, had already embarked on an investigation of this very question. And he had an answer: behind the Monster killings lay a satanic cult. This shadowy cabal of wealthy and powerful people, seemingly beyond reproach, who occupied the highest positions in society, business, law, and medicine, had hired Pacciani, Vanni, and Lotti to kill couples in order to obtain the s.e.x organs of girls for use as the obscene, blasphemous "wafer" in their Black Ma.s.ses.

To investigate this new theory, Chief Inspector Giuttari formed an elite police unit, which he called the Gruppo Investigativo Delitti Seriali, the Serial Killings Investigative Group, or GIDES. They set up shop on the top floor of a monstrous, modern cement structure called Il Magnifico, after Lorenzo il Magnifico, erected near the Florence airport. He a.s.sembled a crack team of detectives. Their sole mission: to identify and arrest the mandanti mandanti, the "masterminds" or instigators behind the killings of the so-called Monster of Florence.

Out of the Everest of evidence in the Monster case, Giuttari had pried out a few pebbles that he felt supported his new theory. First, Lotti had made an offhand statement, ignored at the time, that "a doctor asked Pacciani to do a few little jobs for him." For Giuttari, this revived the old suspicion that a doctor was responsible for the killings-this time not as the killer himself, but as a mastermind. And then there was Pacciani's money. After the old peasant died, it turned out he was rich. He owned two houses and had post office bonds worth more than the equivalent of a hundred thousand dollars. Giuttari was unable to track the source of this wealth. This should not have been all that surprising-a large percentage of the Italian economy at the time was underground and many people had unexplained riches. But Giuttari ascribed a more sinister reason to Pacciani's affluence: the peasant farmer had gotten rich from selling the body parts he and his picnicking friends had collected in their years of labor.

In a later book on the case, Chief Inspector Giuttari explained his satanic sect thesis more particularly. "The best sacrifices for evoking demons are human sacrifices, and the death most favorable the death most favorable [emphasis his] for such sacrifices are those that occur during o.r.g.a.s.m and are called [emphasis his] for such sacrifices are those that occur during o.r.g.a.s.m and are called mors iusti mors iusti. A similar motive led to the killings of the 'monster,' who struck his victims while they were making love....In that precise moment [of o.r.g.a.s.m] powerful energies are released, indispensable for the person acting out satanic rituals, which bring power to himself and to the ritual he is celebrating."

Digging deep into medieval lore and legend, the chief inspector found a possible name for this sect: the School of the Red Rose, an ancient, almost forgotten diabolical order that had left its mark across centuries of Florentine history, a perverse Priory of Sion in reverse, all pentacles, black ma.s.ses, ritual killings, and demonic altars. The school, some said, was a deviant offshoot of an ancient order, Ordo Rosae Rubae et Aurae Crucis, an esoteric Masonic sect connected to the English Golden Dawn, and, therefore, with Aleister Crowley, the most famous satanist of the last century, who called himself "the Great Beast 666" and who in the 1920s founded a church in Cefalu, Sicily, called the Abbey of Thelema. There, it was said, Crowley practiced perverted magical and s.e.xual rituals involving men and women.

There were several other elements that guided Giuttari in the formation of his theory. The most important of them was Gabriella Carlizzi, an energetic little Roman lady with a big smile who ran a conspiracy theory Internet site and had self-published a string of books. Carlizzi claimed to know a great deal of hidden information about many infamous European crimes of the past decades-including the kidnapping and murder of the former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro and the Belgian pedophile ring. Behind them all, she said, was the School of the Red Rose. On the day of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Carlizzi shot a fax out to Italian newspapers: "It was them, the members of the Red Rose. Now they want to strike Bus.h.!.+" The Red Rose was also behind the Monster killings. Carlizzi had earlier been convicted of defamation for claiming the well-known Italian writer Alberto Bevilacqua was the Monster of Florence, but since that time her theories on the Monster had apparently evolved. Her site was also filled with religious and inspirational stories and a section in which she detailed her conversations with the Madonna of Fatima.

Carlizzi became an expert witness for the investigation. Giuttari and his GIDES detectives called her in and listened to her for hours-perhaps even days-as she recounted her knowledge of the activities of the satanic sect hidden in the green hills of Tuscany. The police had to give her a protective escort, she would later claim, because of the grave danger she faced from members of the sect intent on silencing her.

In rummaging through old evidence lockers, Giuttari found physical evidence to back up his theories that a satanic sect was behind the killings. The first was the doorstop that had been collected a few dozen meters from the place where the Monster had killed a couple in the Bartoline Fields in October 1981. For the chief inspector, that stone was something far more sinister than a doorstop. He described its significance to a reporter for the Corriere della Sera Corriere della Sera, one of Italy's major daily newspapers: it was, he claimed, a "truncated pyramid with an hexagonal base that served as a bridge between this world and h.e.l.l." He dug out of an old file some photographs taken by police of some suspicious circles of stones with some berries and a cross where an old gamekeeper claimed the French tourists had camped four days preceding their murder. (Many other witnesses said they had been camping in the Scopeti clearing for at least a week.) Investigators later concluded that the stone circles had no connection with the case. Giuttari did not agree. He turned the photographs over to an "expert" in the occult. The chief inspector reported the expert's conclusions in his book: "When the circle of stones is closed it represents the union of two people, that is to say a pair of lovers, while when it is open it signifies that the couple has been selected. The photograph of the berries and the cross show the murder of the two people; the people are the berries, while their death is represented by the cross. The photograph of the scattered stones shows the destruction of the circle after the execution of the two lovers."

Seeing that Pacciani & Co. were all from San Casciano, Giuttari figured that the satanic sect must be headquartered in or around that idyllic little Tuscan village, set like a jewel in the rolling hills of Chianti. Once again he delved deeply into fusty Monster files and found a startling clue. In the spring of 1997, a mother and a daughter had gone to the police with a strange story. They managed a rest home for old people in a place called Villa Verde, a beautiful old country house surrounded by gardens and a park situated a few kilometers outside San Casciano. The two women complained that a guest of the villa, a half-Swiss, half-Belgian painter named Claude Falbriard, had disappeared, leaving behind a huge mess in his room and a pile of suspicious things-things that might have something to do with the Monster of Florence, including an unregistered pistol and hideous drawings of women with their arms, legs, and heads cut off. The two women had piled all of Falbriard's belongings in a box and delivered them to the police.

At the time, the police had dismissed it as irrelevant. Giuttari saw the situation in a different light and launched an investigation of the two women and their villa. Right away he struck pay dirt: he discovered that Pacciani had actually worked for a while as a gardener at Villa Verde during the time of the killings!

Giuttari and his investigators now believed that the villa might have served as the headquarters of the Order of the Red Rose, whose members commissioned the gardener, Pacciani, and his friends to collect female body parts for use in satanic rituals at the villa. In Giuttari's scenario, the mother and daughter were actually part of the satanic cult. (Why they would have brought attention to themselves by going to the police was left unexplained.) Between the time of the murders and Giuttari's investigation, Villa Verde had become a super-luxury hotel with a swimming pool and restaurant, renamed Poggio ai Grilli, Hill of the Crickets. (The sign, almost as soon as it went up, was altered by some Tuscan wag to read "Poggio ai Grulli," Hill of the Morons.) The new owners were not at all pleased by the attention.

The press, with La n.a.z.ione La n.a.z.ione leading the way, picked up the story with ferocious glee. leading the way, picked up the story with ferocious glee.

OWNERS OF NURSING HOME UNDER SUSPICION THE VILLA OF HORRORS.

ALLEGED TO HAVE HOSTED SECRETS OF MONSTER OF FLORENCE.

"After ten o'clock, the villa was sealed up against outsiders. Various people arrived and performed magical and satanic rites." So claimed one of the ex-nurses of Poggio ai Grilli, the villa between San Casciano and Mercatale where Pietro Pacciani, once accused of committing the Monster of Florence killings, had worked as a gardener. During the period of the Tuscan murders, the "Villa of the Horrors" hosted a rest home for old people where for several months the painter Claude Falbriard lived, first investigated for illegal possession of a firearm, who then became a key witness in the investigation into the possible instigators behind the Monster's serial killings.

Falbriard at this time was still blithely floating around Europe, completely unaware he was a "key witness" and possibly even a mastermind behind the Monster killings. GIDES enlisted the help of Interpol and they tracked him down in a village on the Cote d'Azur near Cannes. They were disappointed to learn the painter had arrived in Tuscany for the first time in 1996, eleven years after the Monster's final double homicide. Nevertheless, Falbriard was brought to Florence for questioning. He was a disappointing witness-an angry, unhinged, decrepit old man who harangued the police with wild accusations of his own.

"At Villa Verde," he testified, "I was drugged and locked up in a room. They robbed me of billions of lire. Strange things happened, especially at night." The mother and daughter were behind it all, he claimed.

Based on Falbriard's statement, the two women were charged with kidnapping and fraud. La n.a.z.ione La n.a.z.ione wrote a series of lurid articles on the villa. "From the depositions of the former personnel of the rest home," ran one article, "there came many important clues. In fifty pages of testimony were hidden evidence of disturbing secrets. The old people held at Poggio ai Grilli were left abandoned among their own feces and urine without a.s.sistance. At night the aides were absolutely forbidden to set foot in the villa, which was transformed into a place where Black Ma.s.ses were performed. Giuttari suspects that the genital organs and the parts of the b.r.e.a.s.t.s amputated from the victims of the Monster were used to conduct these satanic rituals." wrote a series of lurid articles on the villa. "From the depositions of the former personnel of the rest home," ran one article, "there came many important clues. In fifty pages of testimony were hidden evidence of disturbing secrets. The old people held at Poggio ai Grilli were left abandoned among their own feces and urine without a.s.sistance. At night the aides were absolutely forbidden to set foot in the villa, which was transformed into a place where Black Ma.s.ses were performed. Giuttari suspects that the genital organs and the parts of the b.r.e.a.s.t.s amputated from the victims of the Monster were used to conduct these satanic rituals."

Despite the renovation of the villa, Giuttari hoped that some trace of the Order of the Red Rose might remain, or that the sect might still be active in the villa. Old Tuscan villas have huge bas.e.m.e.nts and underground areas for making and storing wine and aging prosciutto, cheese, and salami, and this is where Giuttari believed the actual room used as the temple of sacrifice might be found-and perhaps still in use.

One fine fall day, GIDES raided Poggio ai Grilli. After searching the enormous villa, the men of GIDES entered the room that their information indicated had been the sanctum sanctorum of the cult, the temple of Satan. In the room they found some cardboard human skeletons, plastic bats hung on strings, and other decorations. The search had come a few days before Halloween and a party had been planned-or so they claimed at the villa.

"Without doubt an attempt to sidetrack the investigation," Giuttari fumed to La n.a.z.ione. La n.a.z.ione.

Giuttari and GIDES made little progress into the satanic sect investigation, and by the year 2000 it seemed to be sputtering out.

Then, in August 2000, I arrived in Italy with my family.

PART II.

The Story of Douglas Preston

CHAPTER 30.

On November 4, 1966, after forty days of rain, the Arno River burst its banks and laid waste to Florence, one of the most extraordinary cities in the world.

This was no gentle rise of water. The river flash-flooded; it boiled over the Lungarni embankments and tore through the streets of Florence at thirty miles an hour, carrying along tree trunks, smashed cars, and dead cattle. Ghiberti's great bronze doors to the Baptistery were bashed down and knocked to pieces; the Cimabue Crucifix, possibly the greatest example of medieval art in Italy, was reduced to a mound of sodden plaster; Michelangelo's David was fouled to his b.u.t.tocks with fuel oil. Tens of thousands of illuminated ma.n.u.scripts and incunabula in the Biblioteca n.a.z.ionale were buried under muck. Hundreds of old master paintings stored in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Uffizi Gallery flaked apart, leaving layers of paint chips in the mud.

The world watched with horror as the waters receded, leaving the birthplace of the Renaissance a wasteland of ooze and debris, its art treasures devastated. Thousands of volunteers-students, professors, artists, and art historians-converged from all over the world to undertake an emergency salvage effort. They lived and worked in a city without heat, water, electricity, food, or services. After a week some rescuers had to don gas masks to protect themselves from the toxic fumes being released by rotting books and paintings.

They called the volunteers the Angeli del Fango, the "Mud Angels."

I had long wanted to write a murder mystery set at the time of the Florentine flood. The novel, ent.i.tled The Christmas Madonna The Christmas Madonna, involved an art historian who rushes to Florence to volunteer as a Mud Angel. He is an authority on the mysterious artist Masaccio, the young genius who single-handedly launched the Italian Renaissance with his extraordinary frescoes in the Brancacci Chapel, and who then died abruptly, at twenty-six, amid rumors that he had been poisoned. My character goes to work as a volunteer in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Biblioteca n.a.z.ionale, pulling books and ma.n.u.scripts out of the mire. One day he discovers an extraordinary doc.u.ment, which contains a clue to the whereabouts of a famous lost painting by Masaccio. Called The Christmas Madonna The Christmas Madonna, the painting was the central panel in a triptych described vividly by Vasari in the 1600s, which had subsequently disappeared. It is considered to be one of the most important lost paintings of the Renaissance.

My art historian abandons his volunteer work and sets off on a mad search for the painting. He vanishes. A few days later they find his body high in the Pratomagno Mountains, dumped by the side of the road. His eyes have been gouged out.