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.”
“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.”