The Adventurer's Son(45)
Both Lauren and Toby had been attorneys who needed to escape the ethical ambiguities they faced as defense lawyers in Colorado. They’d bought the Pearl twenty years earlier, renamed it the Iguana Lodge, tripled its size, and added a pool. The Cleavers’ sharp, practical knowledge of how Costa Rica functions, together with their extensive network of connections, would be invaluable during our search.
Thai and I drove to the office of the Ministry of Environment and Energy (MINAE), the government agency in charge of Corcovado National Park—a low, one-story gated compound next to the airport. A uniformed man led us to a spare room with a dozen chairs and tables pushed together. A dozen or so men huddled in groups speaking softly. Thin senior MINAE officials in tan uniforms contrasted with husky, young Cruz Roja volunteers in navy vests marked by a red cross. The local police stood by silently in black boots and side arms, their ball caps emblazed with “Fuerza.” In Corcovado, where criminals are common, MINAE, Cruz Roja, and Fuerza search as teams.
Someone had put together a poster titled “Muchacho Perdido” with “Missing Person” in English just below. Roman grinned in glasses and a scraggly beard. I’d sent the photo only two days before and already it was plastered all over Puerto Jiménez with his name “Cody Roman Dial” and his weight and height in both Spanish and English. The sight of the poster everywhere both reassured and troubled me. Something was being done: people were looking. But Roman was missing and that left me anxious to do something myself. Standing there in the MINAE building was not enough.
By now the police should know where Roman stayed in Puerto Jiménez.
Given the email I’d sent, I expected a debriefing from the Cruz Roja about their search up the Rio Conte, a thirty-minute drive away. Instead, I was questioned by a pudgy, balding, middle-aged man wearing an orange shirt over long sleeves. Like me, his face unshaven, he perspired in the un-air-conditioned room. He introduced himself as Dondee.
I reached out and shook his limp, damp hand. Thai would translate, as my Spanish was useless. I thanked Dondee for helping. He nodded, eyes closed, and asked, “When was the last time you saw Cody?” It sounded wrong to hear Roman called Cody, a name used by his aunts, grandmothers, and those who only knew him from official documents.
“The last time I saw him was in Mexico, in January. But he emailed me every couple of weeks since then. In his last email he said Corcovado required a guide. But he didn’t want a guide. He didn’t use them in six months of traveling.” I recited the detailed route information he’d sent about the Conte and Rio Claro. “He should have been back ten days ago.”
As Thai translated, Dondee pursed his lips as if he didn’t believe me—or worse, that he wasn’t listening. He responded by asking if there’d been any unusual behavior, as if Roman was just a twenty-something kid who hadn’t been in touch with his parents for a while. Hell, I’d gone months without contacting my parents when I’d been his age. But Roman wasn’t me.
“Roman always tells us where he is going. Then he tells us when he gets back. This time we have heard nothing about getting back. That’s unusual. That’s why we’re here,” I reiterated, annoyed.
Dondee motioned for us to sit. He leaned back, arms folded. Thai translated: “He’s asking if Roman does drugs.” This took me aback. Has Roman picked up new habits?
If Roman was anything like I’d been in my twenties, then he’d tried plenty of drugs. But he had always seemed uninterested in them. As Peggy would say, “He takes good of care of his body. He doesn’t want to put drugs into his system.” In Anchorage, he lifted regularly at the gym and liked to run. He drank alcohol, sometimes dipped tobacco, and smoked an occasional marijuana or tobacco cigarette, I suspected. But the “dirty hippy” comments in his emails suggested he hadn’t started using.
“No, he doesn’t do drugs. He drinks. But of course, anything’s possible. It would be a big change in character, though.”
Dondee went on. “Cody was seen last week walking on a trail to Carate with a well-known drug dealer. He came back to town, paid him at an ATM in Puerto Jiménez, then left to go surfing in Matapalo.”
What? This can’t be true. Now I was shocked.
Did he make up his trips across El Petén and La Moskitia? Was going-into-Corcovado-without-a-guide a lie? Why hasn’t he written us? It’s been weeks. Travel changes people, for both good and bad, but how can this be our son?
Dondee’s story didn’t fit. Roman knew more about tropical ecology at age eleven than most of my college students. He hung out with friends he’d known since kindergarten, packrafted rivers, studied molecular ecology. He hugged his family and friends. To change his character so fundamentally, then lie about it to us all seemed to me not just unlikely, but fucking impossible. Besides, why would he need a guide now after walking across El Petén alone?
With Thai translating, I tried to explain again that Roman wouldn’t have taken a guide on a trail. All his emails had emphasized that popular tourist destinations held no interest in themselves. They were access points for a string of creative, independent adventures across Central America. But showing Dondee emails or explaining Roman’s travel style didn’t change his mind. The more I tried to persuade Dondee, the more he resisted.
I wanted Dondee to help. He and the others were there to help. I was so very grateful to them for that. Still, the Cody they described and the Roman I knew were two very different people. Conventional wisdom holds that parents simply don’t know their children well enough to predict their behavior. But with Dondee there was more. He had a self-importance beyond his role as leader of the search. Then, I realized, we had met before.