Garth walked back into the room. He was carrying the photographs Carl Beauvil had sent us. He selected the head-and-shoulders shot of the man in the priest's collar, handed it to Tremayne. "Like you said, you know a hell of a lot of Haitians. Ever see this guy before?"
The man with the gray eyes and hair barely glanced at the photograph before looking back up at Garth. "I've not only seen him, but I know him personally."
Well, well, well. I drained off the rest of the Scotch in my glass, rose to get some more.
"Who is he?" Garth asked.
"Guy Fournier-Dr. Guy Fournier. He's Haitian, a defrocked Roman Catholic priest who was an antigovernment activist in Haiti long before Aristide arrived on the scene, and long before me. His life must certainly have been at risk, for years, and it was probably only his collar that saved him; the past Haitian governments and the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Haiti have always had what you might call a close working relationship."
"Not only the governments," Garth said dryly. "Not a few of those friendly neighborhood padres have turned up on lists of paid CIA informers."
"It doesn't surprise me. Fournier also happens to be a collector of Haitian art, which is how I know him. We go to a lot of the same galleries, shows, and auctions."
I took a long pull at my second drink, sat back down on the couch. "Why was he defrocked?"
"Ostensibly for preaching liberation theology, which was the same as heresy to the hierarchy. But the real reason they defrocked him was to remove a thorn in their side and make him a softer target for Fraph thugs. They considered him a real pain in the ass. Friends helped him get out of the country a few months before Aristide was restored to power. Otherwise, he would have ended up getting his arms and legs cut off in Fort Dimanche. He lives right here in New York. His Ph.D. is in comparative religion, and that's what he teaches now, downtown at Mongo's former place of employment."
Garth asked, "Why didn't Beauvil recognize him?"
"I can't be certain, but probably because Carl has never lived in Haiti. He was born here. Fournier wasn't that well known outside of Haiti. Also, Carl's a policeman, and that's not a profession most Haitians have a lot of use for. They're afraid of the police. Carl does an enormous amount of work for his people, but he's still essentially isolated within the community. He's probably never even heard of Fournier. Incidentally, this looks like it could be a surveillance photo taken by the army, Fraph, or the police over there. May I ask where you got it?"
I said, "It was on a voodoo altar in the basement of the murder victim's home in Spring Valley."
Lucas Tremayne frowned slightly. "That's odd."
"Why?"
"I don't know. I'm no expert on voodoo, but a voodoo altar just seems an odd place to find a picture of a Roman Catholic priest. Could it have been set down there by chance, by accident?"
"No," Garth replied, and handed his friend the second photograph. "This is a picture of the altar itself. You can see that this man's photograph is placed right in the middle, in the center of that circle of candles, carvings, and painted symbols, with the cross beneath it. Mean anything to you?"
Tremayne shook his head in disgust, then pursed his lips slightly. "I hate this voodoo shit. It's probably done more harm to the Haitian people than the generals, Fraph, and Ton-ton Macoutes, who've all used voodoo as a weapon against the people. It's a self-inflicted wound. I do recognize some of these things around the photograph as voodoo fetishes. They mean something."
I grunted. "The question is, what?"
"May I keep this photograph of the altar?"
"No," Garth said, reaching out to retrieve both photographs from the other man's hand.
"I may not be an expert on voodoo, but I'm certain I can find somebody who is."
"You flash that photograph around, and you're likely to conjure up some people you really don't want to meet. Among other bad habits they have, they cut out people's hearts."
"Garth, I'm not going to flash-"
"Say good night, Lucas," Garth said with a thin smile, gently but firmly grasping his friend's elbow and lifting him up off the sofa. "Mongo and I have to get our beauty rest."
"But I want to find out more about this for you!"
"Nope. Not a word to anyone. You've already been more than helpful in identifying this Guy Fournier for us. Mongo and I don't have time to track down any more leads even if you could produce them for us, and I'm sure the Spring Valley police and FBI are following up. Safe trip home."
"But I haven't finished my drink!"
"Not to worry; Mongo will finish it for you."
We walked with Tremayne to the parking garage in the next block where he had left his car. After he paid the attendant, he turned to shake hands, and said, "Look, I'm sorry for barging in on you guys like that. I tried calling you right after I left the reception where I talked to Carl, but your secretary had gone home, and I didn't know what message to leave. Then I got antsy, so I just drove in on the chance I'd catch up with you."
"Jesus, Lucas," Garth said, squeezing the other man's shoulder, "don't apologize. We might never have identified this Fournier. He could provide us with a few telling details we don't have now, and he might prove to be a valuable witness later on."
"You think so?"
"We'll see-you won't. Good night, my friend."
Lucas Tremayne waved to us as he got into his Range Rover when it was brought to him, then drove off. I turned to Garth. "Time pressure or no, we've got to go for it, right?"
"Sure. Like I told Lucas, Fournier might be able to connect some of the dots we're writing up right now."
"You go talk to him. I'm about ten times faster on the computer than you are."
"No, you go. Academe is your province, and he'll have heard your name bandied about more than once in those hallowed halls. He'll be more comfortable with you. Besides, I'm on the verge of a breakthrough; I think I'm about ready to begin using four fingers."
Chapter 5
Dr. Guy Fournier's office at the university was on the third floor of a four-story, rather nondescript building called Faul Hall on the southwest edge of the sprawling campus in lower Manhattan, just off Washington Square. I had decidedly mixed feelings upon returning to the university where I had worked for so many years at a job I'd loved, abruptly walking away because of an act of betrayal, one of a series of betrayals that had almost cost Garth and me our lives. I was early for our appointment, and the door was open, so I went in. The office was rather long and narrow, with two walls taken up by floor-to-ceiling built-in bookcases crammed full of books in English and French. There was a small wooden desk to the left of the doorway, and its surface was piled high with a clutter of student papers and books festooned with multicolored book markers. A gleaming computer workstation was set up against the opposite wall, next to a dirt-streaked window that looked out on a fire escape and a view of the campus that would have been more pleasant if the window hadn't been so dirty. The work-station and its cleared perimeter comprised the only neat area in the office; the floor was littered with stalagmite-like stacks of more books and old magazines, also in English and French. It looked more like a neglected storage area than a place to meet students. I sat down on a stack of ancient National Geographies and waited.
Dr. Guy Fournier arrived precisely at 11:15, the appointed time. His office might be shabby, but he was not. The white-haired man wore sharply creased black slacks, expensive black loafers, and a lightweight gray blazer over a white cotton turtleneck. The man had presence. He was a little over six feet, and stood very erect, almost as if he were at attention. In person, his large, gleaming black eyes in the triangular face were even more striking than in his photograph, which had apparently been taken a few years before. I put him in his early sixties.