Free Collateral Damage by H. Terrell Griffin Page A

You’ve got no suspects, no motive, no nothing. You can’t possibly hurt the case by working with me off the books.”
    â€œIt doesn’t feel right.”
    â€œSuppose I talk to the chief. If he agrees, will you go along with it?”
    â€œIf the chief gives me the okay, I’m in.”
    â€œThere’s a good girl.”
    â€œGirl?”
    â€œThere’s a good detective.”
    â€œThat’s better,” she said.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
    After J.D. left, I went to my computer and Googled Charles (Chaz) Desmond. Doc had been a busy man in the years since I’d seen him. There was quite a lot on him, all of it good. He was what he seemed to be. A successful businessman who dealt fairly with his customers and honorably with his competitors. There was nothing apparent that would lead me to believe that he had any enemies.
    I spent some time looking up James Ronald Desmond, the dead son. There was very little on him. Most of what I found had to do with his years at the University of Georgia. He’d been involved in the fraternity life on campus and had written a couple of letters to the editor of the university newspaper. He was not happy with the football coach and vented his frustration in the letters in the paper, but that was not something that usually got someone killed by a professional hit team. Especially at the University of Georgia where half the student body was always unhappy about the coach.
    I found an engagement announcement in the
Atlanta Constitution
dated two weeks before the wedding. A very short engagement. It did give me one bit of information I didn’t have. The maiden name of the bride.
    I Googled Meredith McNabb and found pretty much the same stuff from the University of Georgia and a lot of debutante crap from the Savannah newspaper. She came from a very wealthy family whose fortune was several generations old. The only oddity I found was that she had spent a year between high school and college working with volunteers building a school in Laos.
    I dug some more and there it was, in the
Savannah Morning News
about five years before. A picture of Meredith McNabb in Laos, standingwith a small group of other young people, including Jim Desmond. Their names were all listed in the caption below the picture. The story was about the local debutante who’d left a life of luxury to spend six months in rural Laos, living among people so poor they had never seen indoor plumbing or electricity. God, they looked so young and dedicated and happy. And five years later, one of them was dead and the star of the story was in mourning. Life can be a bitch.
    I called Desmond on his cell phone. He answered immediately. “Good morning, L.T.”
    â€œMorning, Doc. How’re you?”
    â€œAbout the same. I’m thinking of putting Julie in the hospital.”
    â€œHospital?”
    â€œThat’s a nice name for the booby hatch. She can’t seem to snap out of her grief.”
    â€œI’m sorry, Doc. I wish there were something I could do.”
    â€œFind the killers, Matt. Just find the assholes who took our boy.”
    â€œTell me about Jim’s work in Laos.”
    â€œNot much to tell. He wanted a bridge year, I think they call it. A year out of school before starting college. He was aware of the fact that he’d lived an above-average life and felt that he should give something back. Help the less fortunate. He came across this group run by a charity based in Macon that put the so called bridge year kids into projects in the Third World.”
    â€œWas the group legit?”
    â€œFar as I can tell. I checked them out. They seem to do very good work and the money they take in is accounted for. Most of it goes into the projects and very little to administration. The volunteer kids who can pay their travel expenses are asked to do so. The ones who can’t are funded by the charity.”
    â€œDid he like it? Laos, I