“I heard talk about it,” Ruocco said. “I don’t know where it is. But I know someone who does. ’Gnazio.”
“Of course, Ignazio!” Zaccaria exclaimed. “He knows a whole bunch of Sardinians!”
Ruocco called Spezi a few days later. He had spoken to Ignazio and had the information on Antonio’s safe house. Spezi and Ruocco met in front of a supermarket outside Florence. They retired to a café where Mario downed an espresso and Ruocco drank a Campari with a splash of Martini & Rossi. What Ruocco had to say was electrifying. Ignazio not only knew the safe house, but had actually been there only a month before with Antonio. He had observed an old armoire with a glass front in which he could see six locked metal boxes, lined up in a row. His eye fell on a drawer not fully closed below, in which he glimpsed two, possibly three pistols, one of which might have been a .22 Beretta. Ignazio asked the Sardinian what was in those metal boxes and the man had responded brusquely, “That’s my stuff,” slapping his chest.
Six metal boxes. Six female victims.
Spezi could hardly contain his excitement. “That’s the detail that convinced me,” he said over dinner. “Six. How could Ruocco know? Everyone talks about the seven or eight double killings of the Monster. But Ruocco said six boxes. Six: the number of female victims killed by the Monster, if you eliminate the 1968 killing, which he didn’t do, and the time he mistakenly killed a gay couple.”
“But he didn’t mutilate all the victims.”
“Yes, but the psychological experts said he would have taken souvenirs from each one. In almost every crime scene, the girl’s purse was found lying on the ground, wide open.”
I listened with fascination. If the Monster’s Beretta, the most sought-after gun in Italian history, were in that armoire, along with items from the victims, it would be the scoop of a lifetime.
Spezi went on. “I asked Ruocco to go to the house, in order to tell me exactly where it was and describe it to me. He said he would. We met again a few days later. Ruocco told me that he had gone and looked inside, and could see the armoire through a window with the six metal boxes. He gave me directions to the house.”
“Did you go?”
“I certainly did! Nando and I went together.” The ruined house, Spezi said, was on the grounds of an enormous, thousand-acre estate west of Florence, called Villa Bibbiani, near the town of Capraia. “It’s a spectacular villa,” Spezi said, “with gardens, fountains, statues, and a stupendous park planted with rare trees.”
He took out his cell phone and showed me a couple of pictures he had snapped of the villa. I gaped at the magnificence of it.
“How did you get in?”
“No problem! It’s open to the public for sales of olive oil and wine, and they rent it out for weddings and such. The gates are wide open and there’s even a public parking area. Nando and I walked around. Several hundred meters beyond the villa, a dirt road leads to two decrepit stone houses, one of which fit Ruocco’s description. The houses can be reached by a separate road through the forest, very private.”
“You didn’t break in, did you?”
“No, no! I sure did think about it! Just to see if the armoire was really there. But that would be an insane thing to do. Not only would it be trespassing, but what would I do with the boxes and gun once I found them? No, Doug, we have to call the police and let them handle it—and hope to get the scoop afterwards.”
“Have you called the police then?”
“Not yet. I was waiting for you.” He leaned forward. “Think of it, Doug. In the next two weeks, the case of the Monster of Florence may be solved.”
I then made a fateful request. “If the villa’s open to the public, can I go see it?”
“Of course,” said Spezi. “We’ll go tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 44
What the hell happened to your car?” It was the following morning, and we were standing in the parking area next to Spezi’s apartment building. The door of his Renault Twingo had been ineptly forced open with what looked like a wrecking bar, ruining the door and much of the right side of the car.
“They stole my radio,” Spezi said. “Can you believe it? With all these Mercedes, Porsches, and Alfa Romeos parked along here, they picked my Twingo!”
We drove to the security firm run by Zaccaria, a nondescript building in an industrial area on the outskirts of Florence. The ex-cop received us in his office. He looked every inch a movie detective, dressed in a pinstriped blue suit of the sharpest Florentine cut, his long gray hair almost to his shoulders, strikingly handsome, dashing, and animated. He spoke with a raffish Neapolitan accent, tossing in a bit of gangsterish slang every once in a while to great effect, and speaking with his hands as only a Neapolitan can do.
Before going to the villa, we went to lunch. Zaccaria treated us to a repast at a local dive, and there, over a plate of maltagliata al cinghiale, he regaled us with stories of his undercover work infiltrating drug smuggling rings, some involving the American Mafia. I marveled that he had survived.
“Nando,” Spezi said. “Tell Doug the story of Catapano.”
“Ah, Catapano! Now there was a real Neapolitan!” He turned to me. “There was once a boss of the Neapolitan Camorra named Catapano. He was locked up in Poggioreale prison for murder. It just so happened that the murderer of his brother was in the same prison. Catapano vowed revenge. He said, I will eat his heart.”
Zaccaria took a moment to dig into his maltagliata and take a swig of wine.
“Slow down,” said Spezi, “and stop using so much dialect. Doug doesn’t understand dialect.”
“My apologies.” He went on with the story. The prison authorities segregated the two men at opposite ends of the prison and made sure they would never encounter each other. But one day, Catapano heard that his nemesis was in the infirmary. He took two guards hostage with a spoon sharpened into a knife, used them to force his way to the infirmary, got the key, and entered, surprising three nurses and a doctor. He immediately set upon his enemy, cutting his throat and stabbing him to death while the doctor and nurses looked on in horror. Then he cried out, in a strangled voice, “Where’s the heart? Where’s the liver?” The doctor, under threat, gave Catapano a quick lesson in anatomy. With one enormous swipe of the knife Catapano opened the man up and ripped out the heart and liver, one in each hand, and then took a bite out of each in turn.
“Catapano,” Zaccaria said, “became a legend among his people. In Naples, the heart is everything—courage, happiness, love. To rip it out of your enemy and bite it is to reduce your enemy to the level of meat, animal meat. It deprives him of what makes him human. And all the television coverage of it afterwards was useful in sending a signal to Catapano’s enemies that he could administer justice with the most refined methods, even in prison. Catapano had proved his courage, his capacity for organization, his exquisite sense of theater, and he did it inside one of the highest-security prisons in Italy, under the horrified gaze of five witnesses!”
Lunch over, we set off for the Villa Bibbiani in an icy winter drizzle under skies the color of dead flesh. It was still raining when we arrived, entering the grounds through a pair of iron gates and up a long, curving driveway lined with massive umbrella pines. We parked in the parking area, got our umbrellas out, and walked to the salesroom. The wooden door was locked and barred. A woman leaned out the window and said the salesroom was closed for lunch. Zaccaria charmed her, asking where the gardener was, and she said we might find him around the back. We walked through an archway and entered a stupendous formal garden behind the villa, with sweeping marble steps, fountains, reflecting pools, statues, and hedges. The villa was originally built in the 1500s by the Frescobaldi family of Florence. The gardens were created a hundred years later by Count Cosimo Ridolfi; in the 1800s, thousands of rare botanical specimens and trees were added to the gardens and park by an Italian explorer and botanist who collected plants from the far ends of the earth. Even in the gray winter rain, the gardens and massive dripping tree
s retained a cold magnificence.
We moved past the villa to the far end of the park. A dirt road ran along the edge of the arboretum into a thick wood, where, in a clearing beyond, we could see a cluster of crumbling stone houses.
“That’s it,” murmured Spezi, pointing to one of the houses.
I gazed down the muddy road to the house that held the ultimate secret of the Monster of Florence. A chill mist drifted through the trees and the rain drummed on our umbrellas.
“Maybe we could just walk down there and take a look,” I said.
Spezi shook his head. “Not a chance.”
We returned to the car, shook out our umbrellas, and got in. It was a disappointing visit, at least to me. Ruocco’s story seemed too perfect, and the setting struck me as an unlikely one for the secret hideout of the Monster of Florence.
As we drove back to Zaccaria’s firm, Spezi explained the plan he and Zaccaria had worked out for communicating this information to the police. If they merely gave it to the police, and the police found the Monster’s gun, the news would be all over Italy and Mario and I would lose the scoop. We also had to consider the physical danger to ourselves if Antonio knew we were the ones who had turned him in. Instead, Spezi and Zaccaria would approach a certain chief inspector of their acquaintance with what they claimed was an anonymous letter, which they were duly passing along as good citizens. That way, they would have the scoop but not the blame.
“If we pull this off,” Zaccaria said, slapping Mario’s knee, “they’ll make me minister of justice!” We all laughed.
A few days after our visit to Villa Bibbiani, Spezi called me on my cell phone. “We did it,” he said. “We did it all.” He didn’t go into details, but I knew what he meant: he had given the anonymous letter to the police. As I began to ask too many questions, Spezi cut me off, saying “Il telefonino è brutto,” literally, “The cell phone is ugly,” meaning he believed it was being tapped. We arranged to meet in town, so he could tell me the full story.
We met at Caffè Cibreo. A strange thing happened, Spezi said, when they had approached the chief inspector. The inspector inexplicably refused to accept the letter, and brusquely told them to take it and their story to the head of the mobile squad instead, a special police unit that investigates homicides. He appeared anxious to have nothing to do with the whole affair and was decidedly unfriendly.
Why, Spezi asked me, would a chief inspector turn down out of hand what could be the most important coup in his career?
Zaccaria, a former inspector himself, had no answer.
CHAPTER 45
The morning of February 22, I headed out of the apartment into the streets of Florence to fetch espressos and pastries to carry back for breakfast. As I was crossing the street to a little café, my cell phone rang. A man speaking Italian informed me he was a police detective and wanted to see me—immediately.
“Come on,” I said, laughing. “Who is this really?” I was impressed by the flawless, officious-sounding Italian, and I racked my brains as to who it might be.
“This is not a joke, Mr. Preston.”
There was a long silence as it sank in that this was real.
“Excuse me—what’s this about?”
“I cannot tell you. You must see us. It is obbligatorio.”
“I’m very busy,” I said, in a rising panic. “I don’t have time. So sorry.”
“You must make time, Mr. Preston,” came the reply. “Where are you right now?”
“Florence.”
“Where?”
Should I refuse to tell him or lie? That didn’t seem a wise thing to do. “Via Ghibellina.”
“Don’t go anywhere—we’re coming to you.”
I looked around. It was a part of town I didn’t know well, with narrow side streets and few tourists. This would not do. I wanted witnesses—American witnesses.
“Let’s meet in the Piazza della Signoria,” I countered, naming the most public square in Florence.
“Where? It’s a big place.”
“At the spot where Savonarola was burned. There’s a plaque.”
A silence. “I’m not familiar with that place. Let’s meet instead at the entrance to the Palazzo Vecchio.”
I called Christine. “I’m afraid I can’t bring you coffee this morning.”
I arrived early and walked around the piazza, thinking furiously. As an American, an author and journalist, I had always enjoyed a smug feeling of invulnerability. What could they possibly do to me? Now I wasn’t feeling so untouchable.
At the appointed time I saw two men wending their way through the tourist masses, dressed casually in jeans, black shoes, and blue jackets, shades pushed up on their crew-cut heads. They were in borghese, in plainclothes, but even from a hundred yards away I could tell they were cops.
I went over. “I am Douglas Preston.”
“Come this way.”
The two detectives took me into the Palazzo Vecchio, where, in the magnificent Renaissance courtyard surrounded by Vasari’s frescoes, they presented me with a legal summons to appear for an interrogation before the public minister of Perugia, Judge Giuliano Mignini. The detective politely explained that a no-show would be a serious crime; it would put them in the regrettable position of having to come and get me.
“Sign here to indicate you have received this piece of paper and understood what it says and what you must do.”
“You still haven’t told me what it’s about.”
“You’ll find out in Perugia tomorrow.”
“At least tell me this: is it about the Monster of Florence?” I asked.
“Bravo,” said the detective. “Now sign.”
I signed.
I called Spezi, and he was deeply shocked and concerned. “I never thought they’d act against you,” he said. “Go to Perugia and answer the questions. Tell them just what they ask and no more—and for God’s sake, don’t lie.”
CHAPTER 46
The next day I drove to Perugia with Christine and our two children, passing the shores of Lake Trasimeno on the way. Perugia, a beautiful and ancient city, occupies an irregular rocky hill in the upper Tiber valley, surrounded by a defensive wall that is still largely intact. Perugia has long been a center of learning in Italy, graced by a number of universities and schools, some of which date back five hundred years. Christine planned to sightsee with the kids and have lunch while I was interrogated. I had decided the whole interrogation was a bluff, a crude attempt at intimidation. I’d done nothing wrong and broken no law. I was a journalist and writer. Italy was a civilized country. Or so I kept repeating to myself on the drive down.
The offices of the Procura, where the public minister worked, were in a modern travertine building just outside the ancient city walls. I was ushered into a pleasant room on a high floor. A couple of windows looked down to the beautiful Umbrian countryside, misty and green, wreathed in drizzle. I had dressed smartly and I carried a folded copy of the International Herald Tribune under my arm as a prop.
Present in the room were five people. I asked their names and wrote them down. One of the detectives who had summoned me was there, an Inspector Castelli, fashionably dressed for the important occasion in a black sports jacket and black shirt buttoned at the collar, wearing lots of hair gel. There was a small, extremely tense police captain named Mora with orange hair implants, who seemed determined to put on a good show for the public minister. There was a blonde female detective, who, at my request, wrote her name in my notebook in a scribble I have yet to decipher. A stenographer sat at a computer.
Behind a desk sat the public minister of Perugia himself, Judge Giuliano Mignini. He was a short man of indeterminate middle age, well groomed, his fleshy face carefully shaved and patted. He wore a blue suit and carried himself like a well-bred Italian, with a large sense of personal dignity, his movements smooth and precise, his voice calm and pleasant. Bestowing upon me the honorific of dottore, which in Italy denotes the highest respect, he addressed me wit
h elaborate courtesy using the “lei” form. I had the right to an interpreter, he explained, but that finding one might take many hours, during which I would be inconveniently detained. In his opinion I spoke Italian fluently. I asked if I needed a lawyer and he said that, although it was of course my right, it wasn’t necessary, as they merely wanted to ask a few questions of a routine nature.
I had already decided not to assert journalistic privilege. It’s one thing to fight for your rights in your own country, but I had no intention of going to prison on principle in a foreign land.
His questions were gentle, and posed almost diffidently. The secretary typed the questions and my answers into the computer. Sometimes Mignini rephrased my answers in better Italian, checking solicitously if that was what I really meant to say. At first he rarely, if ever, looked at me, keeping his eyes down to his notes and his papers, occasionally looking over the shoulder of the stenographer to see what she was typing on the screen.
At the end of the interrogation, I would be refused both a transcript of the interrogation and a copy of the “statement” I was required to sign. My account of the interrogation appearing here is taken from notes I jotted down immediately after the interrogation and a much fuller account I wrote up two days later from memory.
Mignini asked many questions about Spezi, always listening with respectful interest to the answers. He wanted to know what our theories were involving the Monster case. He questioned me closely about one of Spezi’s two lawyers, Alessandro Traversi. Did I know who he was? Had I met him? Had Spezi ever discussed with me Traversi’s legal strategies? If so, what were those legal strategies? On this latter point he was particularly insistent, probing deeply for what I might know of Spezi’s legal defense. I truthfully claimed ignorance. He reeled off lists of names and asked if I had ever heard them. Most of the names were unfamiliar. Others, such as Calamandrei, Pacciani, and Zaccaria, I knew.
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