Chapter 19 Chapter Eighteen

Toca was the ideal suspect, having spent nine years in prison as a teenager for grabbing and killing a man who was embracing his fiancée in Lovers Lane, and was later charged with sexually molesting and other domestic abuse against his own daughter. , was jailed again for rape. The police almost destroyed Toka's home in search of evidence.Finally, Pazzi took it upon himself to find a bullet casing in Toca's field.That was one of the few physical pieces the prosecution offered. The sensational trial took place in a heavily guarded building known as the Coal Bank.The location is just across the street from the Florence bureau of LaNazione ("National"), where terrorists were tried in the 1970s.The sworn and frieze-clad jurors, five men and five women, found Tokar guilty with little to no evidence other than his bad character.Most of the public believed that Tokar was innocent, but many people said that Tokar was originally a villain and deserved to be in prison. Toca, 65, was sentenced to 40 years in prison in Volterra.

The months that follow are golden.Not in the 500 years since Pazzo de' Pazzi brought back the Holy Flint from the tombs of the Holy Land on the First Crusade did the Pazzi family look this good. Rinaldo Pazzi and his beautiful wife stood beside the archbishop in the cathedral as the aforementioned flint was used to light the rocket-powered model of the dove during the traditional Easter service.The pigeon flew out of the church along the wire and ignited a carload of fireworks to the applauding crowd. When Pazzi gave his subordinates reasonable credit for their hard work, the newspapers swirled around his every word.Mrs. Patsy was asked for her opinion on fashion, and she looked stunning in the clothes the designers encouraged her to wear.They were invited to dreary tea parties at the houses of powerful men, and to dinner with an earl in a castle where suits of armor stood all over the place.

Pazzi was nominated for political office, and the admiration he received in the Italian parliament trumped the general uproar.Then he got orders to take charge of Italy's joint anti-Mafia fight with the FBI. That order, plus a scholarship to attend a seminar in criminology at Georgetown University, brought the Patsys to Washington, D.C.The detective chief lingered in the Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico and dreamed of setting up a Behavioral Science Unit in Rome as well. However, disaster struck two years later.After a calmer atmosphere, an appeals court free from public pressure agreed to review the Toca case.Pazzi was recalled to the country for investigation, and a knife was pointed at Pazzi among the colleagues he had dumped in the past.

The review jurors overturned Toka's conviction and condemned Pazzi, who the court found guilty of framing. People who used to support him above now avoid him like a stench.He's still a top man in the police department, but everyone knows he's a badass.Italy's government was slow to act, but the ax was about to fall.