Allure of Deceit

by Susan Froetschel

  “They were so happy there.” Tears burned her eyes. “There are no other beneficiaries on the trust? And what about Rose’s parents?”

  “Unlike the foundation, the intentions for the living trust are clear. As you know, Michael rejected a prenuptial agreement, refusing to accept my advice or Rose’s, for that matter. He also wanted to list her parents as a beneficiary, but Rose was firm. She asked that he leave her parents out of the trust for the time being until the two sides of the family got to know each other better.”

  Every sentence pointed to the couple’s desire to live simply and practice generosity with their wealth.

  “Lydia, I must say something before we go on.” Henry took the scrap from her hands and placed it on the desk between them. “As far as I can tell, you and perhaps Rose’s parents are the only candidates with reason to resist this last-minute addition in their estate plans.”

  Lydia had felt like a fool for not immediately understanding. Of course, a proposed foundation locked up Michael’s vast fortune.

  “But you’re his mother,” he had continued in his soft, businesslike way. “He could make colleagues laugh with his stories about thrifty parents, but he trusted your good sense implicitly. He would trust your instincts.” He pointed to the note. “It’s your decision whether we proceed on a foundation.”

  He advised there was no need for her to hurry. “I suspect that no one else knows about this piece of paper. And even if they do, you don’t need to act. The courts would agree. The foundation was proposed, not finalized. Or, we can file the paperwork for a foundation.”

  Lydia remembered staring at the paper with its ragged edge and re-reading the words. The writing was tight, unevenly spaced, like a young boy’s work in elementary school. There was no doubt that the crooked writing belonged to her son. She asked if Michael had been alone when he handed over the paper. Henry shook his head.

  “Rose was in the room. He drafted it himself and handed it over to me.” The attorney looked down at his hands. “I can only guess, but I would presume they had talked about this plan beforehand.”

  Lydia had no more questions. Ignoring a final wish from her son was unthinkable. She told Henry to continue work on the foundation, relying on the mission statement supplied by her son.

  He nodded. “You are the best judge of Michael’s wishes. You can shape the foundation and its rules to guide future leaders.”

  A hands-off approach was so tempting and would have been the healthiest option for her. She could live her life, trust others to make decisions, and walk away from the headaches associated with so much money.

  Instead, Lydia took active control from the start. She based the foundation in Michigan. She wanted a small board of directors and a long list of strict rules. She asked that the announcement be delayed until absolutely necessary. When news of GlobalConnect was released, the reaction was unanimous surprise. Apparently, Michael and Rose had not confided in any friends or colleagues at work.

  Lydia had her reasons for tight control. She was sure, even months later, that Michael’s death was not a random act of terrorism. She spent a small fortune on investigations of hotel staff in India, Photizonet staff and competitors, the tourist agency, and the guides. Early on, the investigation covered Rose’s family as well as the couple’s closest friends, including Henry Strohn and Paul Reichart. Photizonet work had required frequent travel by employees to Asia, but the investigators unearthed no connections with the killer. Young people in the region could be easily tricked into carrying such packages for a small fee. Anyone might have co-opted the man to toss the package at the couple.

  The list of those with reason to envy Michael was endless. His innovations had disrupted the tech world. But leads dwindled. Investigators could not determine whether a stranger had instigated the attack or the young man had acted on his own.

  The investigators warned that her son may not have been the target.

  Her desire for answers was stronger than ever, but Lydia kept the obsession to herself. She used the foundation to observe and test interactions of staff, critics, Photizonet colleagues, and grant recipients. GlobalConnect was her best tool for asking questions, maybe learning the reasons behind the senseless deaths of her son and daughter-in-law.

  Lydia could not rest. She no longer trusted her judgment about others’ motivations. She constantly pored over possible reasons why anyone might want to harm Michael.

  A hand touched her shoulder, interrupting the memories. Annie gently asked about resuming the parade of grant applicants, and Lydia nodded. Annie was a strict organizer, scheduling every minute of Lydia’s time at such events. Conversations with the potential grant recipients typically lasted about ten minutes. If Lydia fingered the pearl clip holding her hair back, she needed more time. If she sipped her drink, grapefruit juice with a touch of salt, an aide stepped in to halt the meeting.

  More often than not, Lydia cut the meetings short.

  “It’s been the most delightful evening,” said the director of a powerful health nonprofit, as he bowed and kissed her hand. One of Annie’s assistants hovered nearby, timing the conversation. The executive thanked her for a recent check and outlined new initiatives as she sipped the grapefruit juice.

  Next was the director of a small group that ran natural-family-planning programs in rural Texas. Pearl Hanson was a Texas conservative, practical and stubborn. Despite limited tools and her brash ways, her program had raised awareness about the economic benefits of small families. The link between wealth and family planning prompted even devout women to pursue methods of contraception on their own. Pearl understood and didn’t cast blame.

  She was ambitious, seeking to leapfrog national expansion by expanding the program to developing nations, starting with Afghanistan. She was eager to work with Islamist groups. One of her goals was to change attitudes in Islamic nations about long-term guardianships for children.

  “Not adoption?” Lydia asked.

  Hanson shook her head. “Islamic family law does not allow adoption there. There are provisions for guardianship, but many children are treated poorly and forced to work.” She went on to suggest the need for regulating guardianships—while convincing Afghans to think the plans were their idea all the while.

  “It would be like adoption with more regulation,” Hanson explained. She hoped to run a pilot study, encouraging the value of smaller families, increasing appreciation of unwanted children, and involving men in family planning.

  The board typically valued programs that aimed for big social change, and Lydia, ever on the lookout for the possibility of new details about her son’s death, preferred programs that put people on the ground in Afghanistan and India. She asked Hanson the usual questions and liked the answers. “Your next step is finding local Afghan partners.”

  The tall woman was worried and pointed out how few shared her group’s approach.

  “Better to find a group not at all like yours.” Lydia explained how GlobalConnect tended to fund innovative programs, and diverse teams produced more innovation. GlobalConnect went one step further, forcing opposite groups to work together. To attract funding, the groups had to resist polarization and hate. This meant approaching men on women’s rights, collecting the opinions of elders on education for children, finding small businesses that protected the environment, and encouraging environmental groups to support business startups. The process was time-consuming, but it produced sustainable results.

  “It’s why your proposal stood out,” Lydia noted.

  She promised Pearl that GlobalConnect could help with contacts in Afghanistan. Hanson leaned forward and interrupted, asking to meet Paul Reichart. “He’s a legend among the aid groups in Afghanistan.”

  Typically grant applicants praised her son’s foresight. Few mentioned staff members like Paul. Lydia straightened the hair clip and asked what the woman knew about Paul.

  Pearl hurried on about developing close ties to small villages, delivering supplies, organizing he
alth groups. “He developed quite the network among villages. The leaders trust him.” She then talked about a particular village, how more than one organization referred to ­Laashekoh as a role model for managing relationships. “It’s a small village, but Paul Reichart worked magic in Laashekoh.”

  GlobalConnect staff members were not supposed to take credit for program successes. The policy directed that all focus remain on grant recipients. Annie did not trust self-evaluations from staff, and any boasting could jeopardize Paul’s position at GlobalConnect. Lydia advised Pearl to seek an Islamic group as a partner. “That will strengthen your application.”

  An assistant hovered nearby. Pearl Hanson thanked Lydia and vowed to do whatever was necessary to contribute to the GlobalConnect mission.

  Lydia then asked to borrow another assistant’s cell phone to call Henry. He was a member of the GlobalConnect board, but Lydia still regarded him as her son’s attorney. He answered after the first ring. “Nice to know I’m needed.”

  “Always.” She asked him to pull research on a village named ­Laashekoh and Paul’s activities. “But don’t tell Paul.”

  “For a specific grant?”

  “Pending,” she said.

  “Historical or current?”

  “Since Michael’s death.”

  He went silent. “What did you hear?” She relayed the scrap of information.

  Henry warned her that information on a remote village in a country of thirty million people would be limited.

  It was her turn for silence and a reminder that she would never give up on finding out why Michael had died.

  CHAPTER 2

  Parsaa slipped out of bed and donned extra layers of clothes. The family kept their shoes by the doorway in specific order, and he needed no light to retrieve his. He opened the door slowly, trying not to disturb his family.

  Daybreak was hours away. Sleep was elusive. As soon as he stepped outdoors, he thought about returning to his wife’s side and wrapping his arms around her, wishing for sleep to arrive and waiting for worries he could not always identify to vanish. Family, home, faith, the natural world—a man should want no more.

  Long ago he had recited familiar prayers to fight the thoughts darting through his head, but over the years he felt less comfortable using passages from the Koran for that selfish purpose. Instead, when sleep failed and weather allowed, he walked the familiar path outlining the perimeter of the village to order his thoughts. He relished how some parts of the village never changed—the curving path underneath his feet, the soft rattle of branches and scurrying noises of mice, the silhouettes of mountains that blocked the strongest winds from the northwest. But time also marked patterns. Shadows of trees lengthened, rocks tumbled away from the walls surrounding the village, and the stars shifted ever westward in the sky over Laashekoh.

  The sound of his footsteps, however soft, should have alerted a sentry on duty near the road leading to the village, but a string of days with no fighting or visitors had made the village complacent. Parsaa and the other leaders should have scolded older boys for building a temporary shelter of mud and branches for protection against rain or snow. The sentry was probably sleeping inside. Parsaa would remind Ahmed in the morning to speak to the boys.

  In truth, Parsaa, didn’t mind being alone with his thoughts. The darkness masked constant reminders that his eyesight was less keen than it had been only a few years earlier.

  For a long time, Parsaa had denied his difficulties with seeing. The deficit was gradual, and he did not tell others. With four sons, he had no need to hunt and no one noticed that his aim was off for shooting. And he could still read the Koran to his sons at night. His family made no comment one night when he repositioned the lantern, aiming light directly to the page. They knew he had committed the words to memory, but not that he used the light to test his sight. No matter how much he blinked and tried to focus, a fog covered the words. Increasingly, he asked a son to take over reading, and Parsaa worried about the day when the swirls and waves of letters lost their meaning.

  He envied the vigor of his offspring. His father and the other men of the village must have once felt the same. Yet they never spoke of such feelings, and neither would he.

  Stone walls twisted around the village, and Parsaa walked the outer edge until he reached an open section looking out over folds of mountains and a large valley. The isolated village rested on a plateau, with tiers etched into the mountainside. Fruit trees surrounded the village, and beyond were fields for grain and vegetable crops. Multiple springs fed a small river nearby that in turn rushed into the large river below. The moon waited behind a mass of clouds. The mountains, even those tall enough to catch the earliest of snows, blended with the night sky. As he stood at the village’s edge, the rest of the world seemed at once distant and close. He stared into the soft black distance and was pleased to detect the gray strip of the river, perhaps because glare from the moon and stars did not interfere. He wondered if his sons could detect the individual clouds passing overhead.

  He was not ready to ask such questions. Those who could not see were forced to trust the descriptions of others.

  The cool night air signaled winter’s approach. Except for the sleeping sentry, Parsaa could count on being alone. He pulled a wool shawl tight to his chest and sat on the stone wall to wait for the clouds to tumble past the moon. Alone, he found it easier to focus. He enjoyed training his mind on a task that needed to be completed the next day, allowing a vision to unfold moment by moment. The habit relaxed him.

  His eyes stared into the night, but his mind was intent on a burst of gold afternoon sun and thoughts of slashing at the last of the winter wheat. He imagined his younger sons helping stack and secure the piles while pelting him with questions. Parsaa smiled. The youngest boys assumed that parents possessed all the world’s answers, while Saddiq, the oldest, posed questions that often could not be answered.

  Saddiq was old enough to leave for the school his older brother never had a chance to attend. Parsaa’s oldest son had died the previous year, and the parents agreed to a brief delay for the next son. In the meantime, his mother, Sofi, tried to convince the boy to prepare and try reading on his own.

  Saddiq was stubborn and insisted that school was for children. He saw no need for lessons and asked his parents why he couldn’t stay at home and work in the village fields instead. Sofi was upset, but Parsaa refused to worry. Such fear was natural.

  “If you scold him, he will resent reading,” Parsaa had warned his wife many times. “He worries about leaving home, too. And if he sees the younger ones reading and using these skills at the market . . .” The man shrugged. “Then he will want to catch up.” The boys would be adults soon enough and had to learn to make decisions for themselves.

  In the meantime, Parsaa kept Saddiq busy with unpleasant tasks the older men did not want to do. Even on rainy days, the boy worked at tasks. The work in the fields was nearing an end, but as winter approached, the village could always use more wood. Saddiq willingly set out from the village, looking for fallen trees, chopping and dragging wood while his brothers sat by a warm fire and listened to Sofi read stories.

  The family read together after dinner, and the younger boys giggled when Saddiq struggled or missed a word.

  “The younger boys are doing well, and Saddiq pretends not to notice,” Sofi said. “His bad habits will take control.”

  She pressed when Parsaa did not answer. “How long will you let him stay away from school?”

  “Until he is ready to go without being forced.” He ordered his wife not to complain or compare the boy with the younger children. “Force yourself not to care, and he will start to care for himself.” Parsaa could only hope he was right, though he did not understand the reasoning from a boy who was normally so curious.

  The moon teased, glowing silver behind a moving cloud, before vanishing again. That’s when a bouncing light in the valley below caught his eye. Parsaa stood, comparing the light’s mov
ement in relationship to the river.

  The light moved away from Laashekoh and toward a hidden canyon.

  Far from the road, the canyon was deceptively narrow before widening into a dead-end. The eastern side had two entrances. One was a narrow road, supposed to be under watch by Laashekoh’s sentries and mostly unused, except for old trucks delivering supplies every few months. Two men were required. The driver steered while the other walked ahead, shouting directions on intricate turns to avoid wedging the vehicle between the canyon walls. The road continued toward a lush field, and waiting at the very end was a small compound surrounded by trees and sheer cliffs.

  The second access was a treacherous path beginning along the canyon’s edge and descending diagonally to the canyon floor and the family compound.

  The compound’s setting had been selected for the purpose of defense. One man could keep watch over the narrow entrance and easily pick off intruders. The compound’s caretaker deliberately encouraged thick brush near both entrances, and a stranger would not accidentally stumble upon either one. Travelers had to know about a special detour and then backtrack along a rocky stretch. Few locals, even in Laashekoh, knew much about the compound at the end of the canyon.

  Parsaa worried the light might not be real, and he blinked several times. The light still dipped up and down with the curves of the landscape—an individual carrying a strong, battery-powered torch and not a lantern bouncing with a wagon. The canyon road was an hour away by foot, and he could only imagine the sound of trudging footsteps along the rocky path.

  Visitors to the compound were rare. The owners, a married couple without children, were self-absorbed eccentrics. The caretaker and his wife fretted over security, more because of their advancing age rather than because of real dangers. The occupants had little to do with neighboring villages, and Parsaa assisted the small and ornery group with security.