Dream of a Falling Eagle

'I hadn't heard about this one. When did the murder take place?'

'It's a fresh kill.'

Fournier shook his head, looked back at me. 'Another potential witness?'

'Yes. Finding your photograph on a voodoo altar in Michel's house is just a loose end-a curiosity, really. It's a long shot that it means anything that could be useful to us, but I thought it was worth taking a subway ride to check it out.'

He again shrugged his shoulders. 'I'm sorry I can't be of help. Symbolism plays a very large part in voodoo, as in other religions. If there were other objects on the altar, they could help explain what my photograph was doing there.'

I opened the manila envelope I had brought with me, took out the two photographs, handed him the head- and-shoulders shot. 'This is a copy of your photo.'

He made a soft hissing sound. 'It looks like an army surveillance photo.'

'And this is how it was displayed on the altar.'

Fournier studied the second photograph for a few moments, then smiled thinly as he slowly nodded his head. 'Yes,' he said, handing me back the pictures, 'this explains it. Very interesting.'

'It means something to you?'

'This is what's called an array of atonement. Apparently your murderer and torturer was truly sorry for the crimes he had committed. He was seeking forgiveness. That's the meaning of the cross, voodoo fetishes, and veves on the altar. My photograph almost certainly represents a symbol of how he felt he should have behaved during his lifetime. He may also have been praying to me for intercession with God, as a Catholic does to a saint. That's unclear. What is clear is his regret for past misdeeds and his desire for redemption. That's probably why he agreed to cooperate with you in the first place. It's a shame he was killed before you could talk to him. I believe you would have found him most cooperative.'

'It certainly is a shame,' I said, replacing the photographs, rising to my feet, and extending my hand. 'But at least you've satisfied my curiosity. Thank you for your time, Professor.'

Fournier stood up, shook my hand. 'I'm sorry I can't be of help to you in tying the CIA to what went on over there for decades.'

So was I. 'It's all right, Professor. The fact that you're willing to testify to what you did see going on could prove very helpful.'

'I can provide a good deal of information on corruption within the Church in Haiti, and the collaboration of the Church hierarchy with the ruling class. I'll be happy to write it all down for you.'

'Thanks, but I think we'll leave the Church out of this one. We've got enough other things to do that are more important than getting into a spitting contest with Rome. Thanks again.'

I used a pay phone to call Carl Beauvil in Spring Valley to tell him what I had learned about Dr. Guy Fournier and the photograph; I didn't see how the information could be of any use to him, but his willingness to help us deserved appropriate payback. Then I headed over to the Federal Building to see if some long-overdue documents we had requested under the Freedom of Information Act had arrived. They hadn't. Since I was out of the house anyway, I decided to catch up on some background research I'd been putting off, so I headed uptown to the public library at Forty-second Street.

It was late afternoon when I got back to the brownstone. Garth was hard at work hacking away at the computer in my office. He was still using only his index fingers, but he started wriggling the other digits when he looked up and saw me. 'How'd it go?'

'Total waste of time. It seems the general was feeling a little guilty about all the people he'd castrated and blinded, and he was using Fournier's picture to try to pray his way into voodoo heaven.'

Garth grunted. 'Somehow I doubt he made it.'

'Somehow I agree.'

There was a knock on the door, and I turned as Francisco entered the office. The bright floral print tie he was wearing with his gray three-piece suit clashed with the somber expression on his face. 'You've been gone much longer than expected, sir.'

'Yeah, well, I had a couple of errands to-'

'The protocol we established at the beginning of this investigation calls for the both of you to leave an anticipated daily schedule with me, and then if either you, Garth, or the two of you together are going to be away longer than expected, you call the office. If I'm not here, you leave a message on the office machine.'

I looked over at Garth. 'Were you worried?'

Garth pretended to think about it for a few moments, then said, 'Not really.'

Francisco was not amused. 'I still think we should stick to the protocol, sir. You didn't check in the other night either. I have responsibilities. The protocol was set up when you accepted this assignment because it was agreed that the two of you could be in constant danger. If I think anything may have happened to the two of you, I'm to contact Veil immediately, and he'll provide for my personal safety while I deliver the work you've completed to the senator, with copies to the police and FBI. I almost did exactly that the night the two of you spent in the Spring Valley police station. For all I knew, you could both have been dead. I'm not being overly protective, sir. Considering the nature of the enemy, this is just good business practice. It was your idea.'

'You're right, Francisco,' I said seriously. 'Garth and I have both been a bit forgetful. We'll try to improve our performance in the future.'

'Thank you, sir,' Francisco replied, and smiled. 'I have a return address for the plagiarist, sir.'

'Already?'

He shrugged. 'It wasn't rocket science, sir. I didn't think it would be that difficult, so I didn't bother to hire a temp. A number of the editors I spoke with were familiar with Mr. Dickens' work, and they were all sympathetic. One of them had just received a submission from this Jefferson Kelly, so she still had the stamped, self-addressed return envelope that came with it. The address is in Huntsville, Alabama. I got a telephone number and called. It's the home district office of William P. Kranes.'

Garth had resumed typing, but now he paused and looked up from the computer. 'The William P. Kranes?'

Francisco nodded. 'Yes, Garth. That one. The new Speaker of the House of Representatives.'

Garth and I looked at each other, and my brother raised his eyebrows slightly. 'Interesting development,' he said quietly.

Indeed it was. Representative William P. Kranes was a pudgy, gremlin-like figure with a head of bushy brown hair and elfin smile, one of several ultra-conservative, howling junkyard dogs of C-SPAN who'd become leader of the pack, surfing to power in the last election on the crest of a powerful wave he'd been instrumental in creating, a poisonous, rushing tsunami of homophobia, antifeminism, and an entire devil's thesaurus of hysterical code words intended to give aid and comfort to anybody who was antiblack, antipoor, anti-anything that wasn't basically white, middle-class, and male. He was the most powerful man in Congress, now third in line of succession to the presidency, but only one of several southerners who now sat in key positions of power. Much to the dismay of both Garth and myself, it seemed to us that in the last election the Confederacy had finally won the last, great battle of the War Between the States, demonstrating without question that what a majority of Americans wanted to be- for a while, at least-was part of a nation of antebellum southerners in a time and place when states' rights ruled and 'people of color,' immigrants, women, homosexuals, and virtually every other minority group 'knew their place,' which was at the back of the bus, or even under it. Garth had been only half joking when he'd remarked one day that it could only be a matter of time before lynching was legalized as part of some new 'Law and Order' package.

'Nice job, Francisco,' I said. 'Now you can go back to your other work.'

'Yes, sir,' Francisco replied, and left to return to his office at the front.

'So,' I said, walking over to Garth, 'the situation is not without its irony. It turns out that one of William P. Kranes's racist, fascist flunkies is our copycat. Wouldn't he be surprised to learn whose work he's been stealing and claiming as his own? I think it's funny as hell.'

I knew Garth thought it was funny too, but he wasn't smiling. 'I'd pay good money to be able to set up and watch a meeting between Moby Dickens and his admirer.'

'And I'd double it. But you know it isn't going to happen. Delivering the bad news to Mr. Kelly is part of our