Collateral Damage (9 page)

“Why didn't you?”

“Our moms. They're kind of old South and wouldn't have understood. Neither one of us wanted to disappoint our mothers.”

“I found your engagement announcement in the Atlanta paper. Short engagement.”

“Very short.”

“Any reason?”

“We were planning to get married in the fall, but I got pregnant. We
didn't want to embarrass our moms, so we announced the engagement and rushed the wedding.”

“Your moms again.”

“Yeah,” she said, ruefully. “They were college kids during the free love years of the seventies, but I don't think they ever took to it. Or at least if they did, they didn't want their children to know about it.”

“Your baby?”

“He's doing fine. I'm due in January. Had an ultrasound yesterday. It's definitely a boy. James Ronald Desmond, Junior.”

“Meredith, can you think of anyone who would want to hurt Jim? Or you?”

“No. I've wracked my brain trying to figure that one out. There's no one.”

“Nobody at the university?”

“No. Jim got along with everybody.”

“How about the group you went to Laos with?”

“No. We were pretty tight. Everybody got along. There was about an even number of girls and boys, and before we came home, almost everybody had paired off.”

“No jealously? No fighting over the women?”

“No. Well, there was one problem, but Jim solved it and that was the end of it.”

“Tell me about that one.”

“There was a Laotian who came down from Vientiane, the capital, three or four times while we were there. He wasn't much older than us, but he was some sort of government minister. Probably a low-level bureaucrat, but the locals treated him with a great deal of respect. He and Jim got into it once.”

“What happened?”

“The guy started hitting on me. He spoke English pretty well, and I think he liked my blonde hair. After the third or fourth visit, he grabbed me and tried to kiss me. Jim hit him pretty hard. Knocked him down. There were a lot of the locals watching.”

“Did he say anything to you and Jim? Any threats?”

“He screamed something in Laotian that we didn't understand and left. We never saw him again, but a few days later some men came to the village where we were working and closed us down. We had to get the embassy involved before we were able to get back to work.”

“Do you know the Laotian's name?”

“No. It was one of the tongue twisters that so many of the Laotians have for names. Lots of syllables. I never could keep them all straight.”

“Do you remember an Asian man attending your wedding?”

“No. There were no Asian guests.”

“An Asian man came to the outside bar that night and wanted a drink. The bartender wouldn't serve him because of your private party. That apparently didn't sit too well with the Asian guy.”

“I wasn't aware of that. The wedding was perfect.”

“Do you have pictures of the wedding?”

“Sure. A video and still pictures.”

“May I see them?”

“I'll have to send them to you. I have all the pictures and video on my computer. I can e-mail them to you.”

I gave her my e-mail address, said goodbye, and went to the River-walk for a cold beer.

I was up early the next morning, the Explorer pointed west on Interstate 16, a cup of coffee in its holder on the console, a half-eaten McMuffin on my lap. I was making the two hour drive to Macon for a talk with the director of the Otto Foundation.

I'd called Doc from the Riverwalk the afternoon before and related my conversation with Meredith. I congratulated him on becoming a grandfather. He told me Jim and Meredith met with their parents as soon as they found out she was pregnant. Julie hadn't been too excited about the pregnancy before the wedding, but she had been ecstatic about the baby.

Doc had not heard anything about the problem in Laos with the young man from the capital. It must not have been very important to either Meredith or Jim, since it never came up. He didn't know what, if anything, to make of it.

He told me that the Laotian trip had been sponsored by the Otto Foundation with headquarters in Macon. The executive director was a man named Bud Stanley. I called and made an appointment for nine the next morning.

The foundation offices were in a small and shabby strip center on Riverside Drive. I opened the front door into a room where two women and a man sat at tables peering at computer monitors. The middle-aged man looked up and said, “You must be Mr. Royal.”

“I am.”

“I'm Bud Stanley. Come on back to my office.” He chuckled.

He led me through a door at the back of the room and into a small space that was stacked with office supplies. A Mr. Coffee machine sat on
a table, Styrofoam cups stacked next to it. There was a refrigerator in the corner and a scarred wooden table with four unmatched chairs placed around it.

“Nice office,” I said.

“Just trying to impress our donors. Can I treat you to a cup of coffee?”

“Yes, please. Black is fine.”

He poured two cups and motioned me to the table. We sat.

“Mr. Desmond called me yesterday. Said you were helping solve his son's murder and asked that I give you any help I can.”

“Do you remember Jim Desmond?”

“Oh, yes. I remember all our kids. There aren't that many of them.”

“Tell me a little about your foundation.”

“We are small, funded by an endowment left by a wealthy textile mill owner who died about twenty years ago. He had served in the U.S. government in some capacity during the Vietnam War and was interested in building schools in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The war and the civil strife that followed had left the countries destitute.”

“Is that all you do? Build schools?”

“Yes. We use our endowment and take contributions from people. We send two groups a year to an area to build a school. Each group stays for six months, and in a year we can pretty much complete a building.”

“Then what?”

He looked puzzled for a moment. “Oh, you mean what happens to the building after we leave?”

“Yes.”

“We have an agreement with the governments that once we have the building built and it is stocked with books, paper, pens, and such, the government will send in a teacher. They promise to staff the school for twenty years.”

“Do you supply the books and stuff ?”

“No. We coordinate with another charity in Los Angeles that handles that.”

“How's it working out?”

“It's been great. In twenty years we've built twenty schools and all of
them are still up and running. It's been in the government's interest to have the villagers educated to some extent. We've found that electricity and other infrastructure follows closely behind our schools. It's a win-win situation for the villagers.”

“Tell me how you recruit your students.”

“We started out with college students who needed or wanted a break. When this bridge year became fashionable, we found that we had a ready-made group of youngsters who wanted something different. Living in a Southeast Asian village without running water, electricity, or sewage is certainly different from what they're used to.”

“It sounds like most of your kids would have to come from affluent families to be able to take the time off. Or do you pay them?”

“We don't pay them, so you're right. Most of them come from well-to-do families. We also get a bit of monetary support from the families. For instance, a parent can give us the money for his child's airfare and other incidentals that we pay for and the parent can write it off as a charitable donation. We then buy the airline tickets and provide for the student during the six months they're in country.”

“Do you remember a problem that Jim Desmond had with some young Laotian guy that caused the project to be shut down?”

“Oh, yes. That's the only time we've ever run into something like that.”

“What can you tell me about it?”

“The Laotian was named Souphanouvong Phomvihana. We called him ‘Soupy.' His father ran the biggest poppy operation in the area.”

“Poppies?”

“Yes. The area we were working in lies right next to one of the largest poppy operations in Laos. They make heroin out of them and sell it around the world. It's part of the so-called Golden Triangle.”

“Tell me about Soupy.”

“He was about twenty-five at the time. Jim's group was the second bunch to work on this particular school. Soupy had come around several times to visit the first group, but never caused any trouble. For some reason, he took a liking to Meredith McNabb and apparently got physical with her. Jim gave him a good old-fashioned ass whupping.”
“What about the project being shut down?”

“Soupy's dad was one of the most powerful men in Laos. He had an army that protected his fields and kept the competitors out. He was in essence a warlord. Soupy got some of his father's men to go to the village and tell the elders that the Americans had to go. Apparently Soupy had been very embarrassed at having his butt kicked in front of the villagers.”

“How did you solve that?”

“We have very good relations with the governments where we work. I called our contact in the State Department, and he had one of the people at our embassy in Vientiane look into it. I think it went all the way to the top of the Laotian government, and somebody there had a talk with Soupy's dad. It seems that Soupy was a hothead and this wasn't the first time he'd used his dad's influence. I heard that the father wasn't happy about it and kind of pinned his son's ears back. Soupy made some empty threats about getting even with Jim, but nothing ever came of it.”

“Where's Soupy today?”

“He's the kingpin. His dad died a couple of years back, and Soupy took over.”

“So he now controls the army.”

“Yes. But keep in mind that the government wants us there, and I don't think they'd ever allow Soupy to cause too much trouble.”

“But, Soupy might still have wanted to even the score with Jim.”

“That's a possibility.”

There was an on-ramp to Interstate-75 a block south of the foundation offices. I drove onto it and headed south to Bradenton. Eight hours later I was crossing the Longboat Pass Bridge. It was six o'clock in the evening, and Tiny's was on my way home. I went in, took a stool, and ordered a Miller Lite. Debbie Messina was behind the bar. She gave me a hug and the beer and said she'd heard I'd been off-island for a couple of days. Nothing gets past the island bartenders.

It was quiet in the doldrums of summer. The usual snowbirds who would be found having an afternoon drink in Tiny's during the winter months, were tucked away in bars in Minneapolis or Chicago or Quechee, Vermont, or someplace where the humidity was not as lethal as it was on Longboat Key. I was alone with Debbie for about five minutes when Les Fulcher came in and took the stool next to mine.

“How's the knee?” I asked. “Painful. Look, I heard that you're looking into the murder of the guy who got shot down on the beach last month.”

There are no secrets on the island. “That's right.”

“I went by to see Janice Prather last night.”

“How's she holding up?”

“She's okay. Her daughter lives in Bradenton, so she's there to help Janice over the rough spots.”

“I'm glad she's got family in the area.”

“She told me something that I thought was interesting.”

“What?”

“On the day Jake died, he told Janice about a man who'd been on the boat the past three evenings. He didn't eat, but spent the entire cruise
standing up near the bow with binoculars. At first Jake thought he might be a bird-watcher, but he was still there after it got dark. No birds out then. The guy was making notes on a pad and taking snapshots before it got too dark.”

“Strange. Did he describe the man to Janice?”

“No. And she didn't ask. It was just one of those odd things that she remembered. I thought you might want to pass that on to the lady detective you're working with. I know she's investigating all the murders.”

“Thanks, Les. Probably just a lonely tourist, but I'll let her know.” I finished my beer and left for home. I fired up my computer and checked my e-mail. There was a note from Meredith with a video and about a hundred still pictures of the wedding attached in a zip file. I decided to wait to open it until J.D. and I could look at it together.

I called the detective. “I'm back.”

“Man, I'm glad. I missed you something terrible.”

“Really?”

“I didn't even know you were gone.”

“Some friend. I've been in Savannah talking to Meredith Desmond.” She snickered. “Oh, right. You mentioned that. Did you do any good up there?”

“A bit. And I've got a bunch of pictures and a video from the Desmond wedding. Why don't you stop by and we'll look at them together?”

“I'll be there in about an hour.”

I went back to the computer and typed up some notes of my meetings with Meredith and Bud Stanley. I wanted our off-the-record file to be complete in case we ever made it an on-the-record file. Besides, I knew that the notes would better preserve the discussions than my memory would. I e-mailed copies to Doc.

I took a shower, dressed in a clean T-shirt and cargo shorts, and opened a bottle of Chardonnay. I'd read somewhere that you should let the wine breathe before serving it. If you let beer breathe, it goes flat. I like the fact that the only ritual associated with beer is the opening of the can.

The video was like every one you ever saw of a wedding, except this one was on a white sand beach. The members of the wedding party were
dressed in tuxedos and gowns, the bride's white dress a confection of beauty. Everybody was barefoot.