Collateral Damage by H. Terrell Griffin Page A

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

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
    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.”
    â€œI am.”
    â€œI’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 ona 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.
    â€œNice office,” I said.
    â€œJust trying to impress our donors. Can I treat you to a cup of coffee?”
    â€œYes, please. Black is fine.”
    He poured two cups and motioned me to the table. We sat.
    â€œMr. Desmond called me yesterday. Said you were helping solve his son’s murder and asked that I give you any help I can.”
    â€œDo you remember Jim Desmond?”
    â€œOh, yes. I remember all our kids. There aren’t that many of them.”
    â€œTell me a little about your foundation.”
    â€œWe 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.”
    â€œIs that all you do? Build schools?”
    â€œYes. 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.”
    â€œThen what?”
    He looked puzzled for a moment. “Oh, you mean what happens to the building after we leave?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWe 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.”
    â€œDo you supply the books and stuff ?”
    â€œNo. We coordinate with another charity in Los Angeles that handles that.”
    â€œHow’s it working out?”
    â€œIt’s been great. In twenty years we’ve built twenty schools and all ofthem 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.”
    â€œTell me how you recruit your students.”
    â€œWe started out with college students who needed or wanted a break.