Many years ago, when Thomas Harris was researching the Monster of Florence case for his novel Hannibal Hannibal, and attending Pacciani's trial, he met Count Capponi and was invited to the palazzo. Much later Harris called the count and said he would like to make Hannibal Lecter curator of the Capponi archive-would that be all right?

"We had a family meeting," the count said. "I told him that we agreed, on one condition-that the family would not be the main course."

Niccol and I became friends. We met for lunch every so often at Il Bordino, a tiny trattoria behind the church of Santa Felicita, where his family's chapel and crypt were located, a short walk from his palazzo. Il Bordino was one of the last old-time trattorias in Florence; small, crowded, with a gla.s.s counter displaying the dishes available that day. Its dim interior was more like a dungeon, with blackened stone and plaster walls, scarred wooden tables, and ancient terra-cotta floors. The fare was quintessentially Florentine, simple dishes of meat and pasta accompanied by slabs of coa.r.s.e bread, served at working-cla.s.s prices, with tumblers of rough red wine.

One day over lunch, I mentioned to Niccol that Mario Spezi and I were researching the case of the Monster of Florence.

"Ah," he said, keenly interested. "The Monster of Florence. Are you sure you want to get involved in that business?"

"It's a fascinating story."

"A fascinating story indeed. I should be careful if I were you."

"Why, what could happen? It's an old story. The last killing was twenty years ago."

Niccol slowly shook his head. "To a Florentine, twenty years is the day before yesterday. And they are still investigating. Satanic sects, black ma.s.ses, a villa of horrors...Italians take these things very seriously. Careers have been made-and ruined-over this case. Take care that you and Mario do not poke too vigorously with your sticks into that nest of vipers."

"We'll be careful."

He smiled. "If I were you, I should get back to that delightful novel you described to me about Masaccio-and leave the Monster of Florence well enough alone."

CHAPTER 33.

One fine spring day, Monster 101 neared its end. I knew all the facts that were known, an expert on the case second only to Spezi and the Monster himself. But there was one point on which Spezi had been resolutely coy, and that was his opinion as to who the Monster of Florence might be.

"Eccoci qua," said Spezi. "And so here we are: satanic sects, blasphemous hosts, and hidden masterminds. What next?" He leaned back in the chair with a crooked smile and spread his hands. "Coffee?"

"Please."

Spezi shot back his demita.s.se of espresso, an Italian habit I could never quite acquire. I sipped mine.

"Any questions?" His eyes twinkled.

"Yes," I said. "Who do you think is the Monster?"

Spezi flicked the ash off his cigarette. "It's all there." He gestured at the heap of papers. "Who do you think?"

"Salvatore Vinci."

Spezi shook his head. "Let's look at it as Philip Marlowe might. It's all about the Beretta. Who brought the gun to the 1968 crime? Who used it? Who carried it home? And, most important, what happened to it later? It's all there in the story, if you care to look for it."

"The gun belonged to Salvatore Vinci," I said. "He brought it with him from Sardinia, he planned the 1968 killing, he had the car, and he was the shooter."

"Bravo."

"So he must have carried the gun home."

"Exactly. He handed the gun to Stefano Mele to take the last shot, so that Mele would contaminate his hands with powder residue. Afterwards, Mele threw the gun down. Vinci picked it up and took it home. He was no fool. He wasn't about to leave the murder weapon at the scene. A gun used in a murder is dangerous, because ballistics can connect it to bullets recovered from the victims. A gun like this would never be sold or given away. It would either be destroyed or carefully hidden. Since we know the gun wasn't destroyed, Salvatore Vinci must have hidden it. Along with the boxes of bullets. Six years later it emerged to kill again-in the hands of the Monster of Florence."

I nodded. "So you think Salvatore Vinci is the Monster-just as Rotella did."

Spezi smiled. "Really?" He reached into the pile of papers, withdrew the FBI report. "You've read it. Does it sound like Salvatore Vinci?"

"Not really."

"Not at all! The profile is insistent on one crucial point: the Monster of Florence is impotent, or nearly so. He suffers from s.e.xual dysfunction and would have little or no s.e.xual contact with women his own age. He kills to satisfy his libidinous desires, which can't be satisfied in the normal way. Strong evidence of this is that none of the crime scenes showed any evidence of rape, molestation, or s.e.xual activity. But Salvatore was the opposite of impotent-he was a veritable Priapus. Salvatore doesn't match the rest of the FBI report either, particularly in the psychological details."

"If Salvatore Vinci isn't the Monster," I asked, "then you still have the problem of how the Beretta pa.s.sed from him to the Monster."

The question hung in the air. Spezi's eyes twinkled.

"Was it stolen from him?" I said.

"Exactly! And who was in the best position to take the gun?"

Although all the clues were there, I could not see them.

Spezi tapped his finger on the table. "I don't have the most important doc.u.ment in the case. I know it exists, because I spoke to someone who'd seen it. I tried everything everything to get it. Can you guess what doc.u.ment that might be?" to get it. Can you guess what doc.u.ment that might be?"

"The complaint of the theft?"

"Appunto! In the spring of 1974, four months before the Monster's first killing in Borgo San Lorenzo, Salvatore Vinci went to the carabinieri to file a complaint. 'The door of my house was forced and my house was entered.' When the carabinieri asked him what was stolen, he said, 'I don't know.' "

Spezi rose and opened the window. The stream of fresh air eddied the blue layers of smoke in the room. He shook another Gauloise out of a pack lying on the table, stuck it in his mouth and lit it, then turned from the window. "Think about it, Doug. This fine fellow, a Sardinian with a deep and ancient suspicion of authority, probably a murderer, goes to the carabinieri to report a breaking and entering when nothing was stolen. Why? And why would anyone rob his house in the first place? It's a sorry house, poor, there's nothing in there of value. Except...perhaps...a .22 Beretta and two boxes of bullets?"

He tapped the ash off the cigarette. I was on the edge of my seat.

"I haven't told you the most extraordinary thing of all. Vinci named named the person responsible for the breaking and entering. The person he denounced was just a boy. A member of his Sardinian clan, a close relation. The last person he would have thrown to the carabinieri. Why file charges against him if he took nothing? the person responsible for the breaking and entering. The person he denounced was just a boy. A member of his Sardinian clan, a close relation. The last person he would have thrown to the carabinieri. Why file charges against him if he took nothing? Because he was afraid of what the thief might do with the gun Because he was afraid of what the thief might do with the gun. Salvatore Vinci wanted the breaking and entering to be on record, to protect himself. In case the boy did something with the gun that might be...terrible."

Spezi pushed his finger a few inches closer to me, as if sliding the nonexistent doc.u.ment forward. "Right there, on that doc.u.ment, we would find the name that Salvatore Vinci gave the carabinieri. The name of the thief. That person, my dear Douglas, is the Monster of Florence."

"And who is it?"

Spezi smiled teasingly. "Pazienza! Back in 1988, after the rift between Rotella and Vigna, the carabinieri officially withdrew from the investigation. But they couldn't leave it well enough alone. They kept it going in secret. And the missing doc.u.ment is one of the things they dug out of G.o.d knows what dusty file in the bas.e.m.e.nt of some dingy barracks."

"A secret investigation? Did they find out anything else?"

Mario smiled. "Many things. For example, after the first Monster killing, Salvatore Vinci checked himself into the psychiatric department at Santa Maria Nuova hospital. Why? We don't know-the medical records seem to have disappeared. Perhaps the boy who had stolen his gun had gone and done something terrible with it."

He reached out and shuffled through a pile, extracting the FBI report. "Your FBI, in this report, lists a number of characteristics the Monster is likely to have. Let's apply it to our suspect.

"The report says that the Monster is likely to have a record of petty crimes such as arson and theft, but not crimes such as rape and violence. Our man has a rap sheet of auto theft, illegal possession of weapons, breaking and entering, and an arson.

"The report says that during the seven years between the crime of 1974 and the next one in 1981, the Monster was not in Florence. Our man left Florence in January of 1975. He returned to Florence at the end of 1980. In several months, the killings started again.

"The report says that the Monster probably lived alone during the period of the crimes. When not living alone, he would probably be found living with an older woman such as an aunt or grandmother. During much of the seven-year period he was away from Florence, our suspect lived with an aunt. Several months after the last killing, in 1985, our man met an older woman and moved in with her. The killings stopped. True, from 1982 to 1985 he was married, but according to a carabinieri officer who was part of the secret investigation into the Monster case, the marriage was annulled for impotentia coeundi impotentia coeundi- nonconsummation. To be fair, impotentia coeundi impotentia coeundi was sometimes invoked as a way to obtain a divorce in Italy at that time, even when it wasn't necessarily true. was sometimes invoked as a way to obtain a divorce in Italy at that time, even when it wasn't necessarily true.

"The FBI report says that this type of killer will often contact the police and try to mislead the investigation, or at least collect news about the crime. Our man offered himself as an informant to the carabinieri.

"Finally, studies of s.e.xual serial killers often turn up a history of maternal abandonment and s.e.xual abuse within the family unit. Our man's mother was murdered when he was one year old. He suffered a second traumatic separation from a mother figure when his father's longtime girlfriend left. And he may have been exposed to his father's bizarre s.e.xual activities. He was living with his father in a small house while his father presided over s.e.x parties involving men, women, and perhaps even children. Did his father force him to partic.i.p.ate? There's no evidence that he did...or didn't."

I was beginning to see where he was going.

Spezi took a long drag of smoke and exhaled. "The report says the killer probably began in his twenties. However, at the time of the first killing, our man was only fifteen years old."

"Wouldn't that rule him out?"

Spezi shook his head. "The fact is, many serial killers begin at a surprisingly young age." He reeled off the names of famous American serial killers and their ages of debut-sixteen, fifteen, fourteen, seventeen. "He almost botched the first crime in 1974. It was the work of a panicky and impulsive beginner. He managed to pull it off only because the man had been killed by the first shot, but only by accident. The bullet struck his arm and then, deflected by the bone, entered the chest and stopped his heart. The girl had enough time to get out of the car and run. The killer fired after her, but only hit her in the legs. He had to kill her with the knife. Then he lifted her cadaver and moved it behind the car. He tried to possess her, but couldn't do it. 's.e.xual inadequacy.' Impotentia coeundi Impotentia coeundi. He took a woody vine instead and pushed it into her v.a.g.i.n.a. He remained with the body and caressed it with the only instrument that gave him a thrill, his knife. He made ninety-seven cuts in her flesh. He may have wanted to s.e.xually molest the corpse but he couldn't. He made the cuts around the b.r.e.a.s.t.s and around the pubic area, as if to underline that she was now his."

A long silence in the small dining room. The window at the far end of the table looked out on the very hills the Monster had stalked.

"It says the Monster owned his own car. Our man had a car. The murders were committed in places well known to the killer, near his house or place of work. When you map our man's life and movements, he had either lived near or was familiar with every single place."

Mario's finger touched the table again. "If only I could find that doc.u.ment of the breaking and entering."

"Is he still alive?" I asked.

Spezi nodded. "And I know where he lives."

"Have you ever spoken to him?"

"I tried. Once."

"Well?" I finally asked. "Who is it?"

"Are you sure you want to know?" Mario winked.

"d.a.m.n it, Mario!"

Spezi took a long drag on his Gauloise and let the smoke trickle out. "The person Salvatore Vinci denounced for breaking and entering in 1974, according to my informant, was his son, his own son his own son. Antonio Vinci. The little baby who was rescued from the gas back in Sardinia in 1961."

Of course, I thought. I said, "Mario, you know what we have to do, don't you?"

"What?"

"Interview him."

CHAPTER 34.

More than three decades after the murder of Barbara Locci and her lover in 1968, only two people involved in the Sardinian Trail investigation remained alive: Antonio Vinci and Natalino Mele. The rest had died or disappeared. Francesco Vinci's body had been found hogtied and locked in the trunk of a burned car, after he had apparently gotten on the wrong side of the Mafia. Salvatore had disappeared after his acquittal. Stefano Mele, Piero Mucciarini, and Giovanni Mele were long dead.

Before interviewing Antonio Vinci, we decided to speak with Natalino Mele, the six-year-old boy who was in the back of the car in 1968 and witnessed his mother's murder. Natalino agreed to speak to us and chose as a meeting place a duck pond in the Cascine Park in Florence, next to a shabby Ferris wheel and merry-go-round.

The day was overcast and dull, the air smelling of wet leaves and popcorn. Mele arrived, hands shoved in his pockets, a heavy, sad man in his early forties, with black hair and a haunted look in his eyes. He spoke in the excitable, querulous voice of a boy relating an injustice. After his mother was killed and his father imprisoned, his relatives had packed him off to an orphanage, a particularly cruel fate in a country where family means everything. He was alone in the world.

We sat on a bench with the dis...o...b..at of the merry-go-round thumping in the background. We asked if he could remember any details of the night of August 21, 1968, the night his mother was murdered. The question set him off.

"I was six years old!" he cried in a high-pitched voice. "What do you want me to say? After all this time, how could I remember anything new? This is what they all keep asking me: What do you remember? What do you remember? What do you remember?"

The night of the crime, Natalino said, he was so terrified he couldn't speak at all, until the carabinieri threatened to take him back to his dead mother. Fourteen years later, when the investigators established the connection between the 1968 killing and the Monster's killings, the police took him in for questioning again. They hammered him relentlessly. He had witnessed the 1968 double murder and they seemed to feel he was holding back vital information. The questioning lasted over the course of a year. He told them, over and over, that he couldn't remember anything of that night. The interrogators showed him graphic photographs of the Monster's mutilated victims, yelling at him, "Look at these people. This is your fault! It's your fault, because you can't remember!"

As Natalino spoke of the merciless questioning, his voice filled with anguish, rising in volume. "I told told them I couldn't remember anything. them I couldn't remember anything. Anything Anything. Except one thing. There is one thing I remembered!" He paused, drawing in breath. "All I remember now is that I opened my eyes in that car and I saw in front of me my mamma, dead dead. That's the only thing I remember of that night. And," he said, his voice quavering, "that's the only only memory I have of her." memory I have of her."

CHAPTER 35.

Years earlier, Spezi had called Antonio Vinci on the telephone and tried to arrange an interview. He had been categorically rebuffed. In light of that rejection, we discussed how we should best approach the man. We decided not to call ahead and give him another chance to say no. Instead, we would show up at his door and use false names, to avoid a second refusal and to protect ourselves from possible retaliation after the article was published. I would be an American journalist writing a piece on the Monster of Florence, and Spezi would be a friend giving me a hand as a translator.

We arrived at Antonio's apartment building at 9:40 p.m., late enough to be sure of finding him at home. Antonio lived in a tidy, working-cla.s.s area west of Florence. His apartment building stood on a side street, a modest structure of stucco with a small flower garden and bicycle rack in front. At the end of the street, beyond a row of umbrella pines, rose the skeletons of abandoned factories.

Spezi buzzed the intercom and a woman answered. "Who is it?"

"Marco Tiezzi," said Spezi.

We were buzzed in with no further questions.

Antonio met us at the door dressed only in a pair of shorts. He stared at Mario. "Ah, Spezi, it's you!" he said, recognizing him instantly. "I didn't hear the name well. I've wanted to meet you for a long time!"

He seated us at the kitchen table with the air of an affable host and offered us a gla.s.s of a special Sardinian spirit called mirto mirto. His companion, a silent and invisible older woman, finished was.h.i.+ng spinach in the sink and left the room.

Antonio was a handsome man with a dimpled smile; his curly black hair was peppered with gray and his body was tanned and heavily muscled. He projected a c.o.c.ky air of self-confidence and working-cla.s.s charm. While we chatted about the case, he casually rippled the muscles of his upper arms or slid his hands over them in what seemed an unconscious gesture of self-admiration. He had a tattoo of a four-leaf clover on his left arm and twinned hearts on his right; there was a large scar in the middle of his chest. He spoke in a low, husky, and compelling voice reminiscent of the young De Niro in the movie Taxi Driver. Taxi Driver. His black eyes were animated and at ease, and he seemed amused at our unexpected arrival. His black eyes were animated and at ease, and he seemed amused at our unexpected arrival.

Spezi began the conversation, speaking casually and slipping a tape recorder out of his pocket. "May I use it?" he asked.

Antonio flexed his muscles and smiled. "No," he said, "I am jealous of my voice. It is too velvety, too rich in tone, to be put in that box."

Spezi put the recorder back in his pocket and explained: I was a journalist from The New Yorker The New Yorker magazine writing an article on the Monster case. The interview was part of a series, all routine, of those still alive with a connection with the case. Antonio seemed satisfied with the explanation and very much at ease. magazine writing an article on the Monster case. The interview was part of a series, all routine, of those still alive with a connection with the case. Antonio seemed satisfied with the explanation and very much at ease.

Spezi began asking questions of a general nature, and established a friendly, conversational atmosphere, jotting notes in longhand. Antonio had followed the Monster of Florence case closely and had an astonis.h.i.+ng command of the facts. After a series of general questions, Spezi began to close in.

"What kind of relations.h.i.+p did you have with your uncle, Francesco Vinci?"