The Adventurer's Son(82)

I like the idea of using this show to leverage some action from the Embassy and OIJ.

As promotion for the show, a TV camera followed Peggy, Ken, and me as we headed to the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., where Ken had arranged a meeting. It was Thursday, May 19, and the next day we were scheduled to fly to New York for another promotional spot. The first episode would air on Sunday.

We left our cell phones at security. Two friendly FBI agents in dark suits led us to a small conference room on the seventh floor. The room quickly filled with seven or eight more agents, including the deputy director. I told the story I had come to believe, the one carved from Pata Lora’s schizophrenic psyche, embellished with the Guichos and a new guy named Poquito, who seemed to be the Guichos’ boss. I also told the agents how I had tracked down Roman’s backpack purchase to the North Face store in San José.

“That’s real investigative work,” an agent said about the pack. “It’s the kind of thing that we do. But what do you guys want?”

I answered his question literally because I’d learned over the years that the FBI couldn’t really do much in Costa Rica. “For a long time, I just wanted to know what happened. Now we know. Now I want justice.”

“A body,” Peggy blurted. “We want a body. We want to bring him home.”

A body would answer a lot of questions. It was also necessary for any murder convictions.

The rest of the meeting was like so many others over the years: assurances and explanations about the limits of American law enforcement in foreign lands. “These things take time,” said the agent who had flattered me. “It could be years.” They also commented on how Carson’s activities had damaged relations between the U.S. and Costa Rica on this case.

AFTER THE MEETING, we collected our phones. Mine had a message from a number in Costa Rica. It was the consul general from the U.S. Embassy. He said to give him a call, no matter the time. My phone was almost dead. “It’s Ravi. He wants me to call,” I told Peggy. We walked the few blocks to the hotel to charge my phone. I called Ravi and put him on speaker.

“Roman,” Ravi said over the phone, “I’m not sure there’s any other way to say this but directly: human remains were found today near Dos Brazos. With camping equipment.”

I sat down. Over the years, Toby, Lauren, and the embassy had contacted us about news of other bodies in the jungle. But this felt different. This felt like Roman.

Ravi continued. “What we understand is that a miner had been in the mountains today and found bones in a streambed. Then, moving upstream, he found camping equipment. He immediately called 911 from there in the jungle. We wanted to let you know as soon as we could. It seems this might be your son.”

My feelings swirled between pain and relief. Relief, because it seemed the ordeal of searching without knowing might be over. Pain, because it would mean, once and for all, that our son was dead.

We needed to return to Costa Rica immediately. I had to see the scene, to judge for myself if it had been crime or accident.

Two years before, I had described in detail Roman’s equipment to Ravi. The blue Patagonia Puffball. The Jetboil. Green Salomon shoes. A yellow and gray Z-rest foam pad that folded rather than rolled. Peggy and I had made a poster of these and others items, hanging copies from Cerro de Oro to Carate. But I hadn’t listed all the things I knew Roman carried. I kept some to myself, for later, for proof. For a moment like now.

“Where did they find him, Ravi?”

“Up the Rio Tigre from Dos Brazos. Inside the park, in Corcovado. MINAE rangers are going up there in the morning to confirm.”

The next morning, Friday, Peggy and I went to my mom’s, taking the train to northern Virginia where we waited for her to pick us up at a bus stop. While we waited, a writer from People magazine called to interview me for an article about Missing Dial.

In the middle of her questioning, my phone lit up with a Costa Rican number. I told the reporter I had to take it. It was Kara, from the embassy. She was brief. She said she’d send me photos from the site where the remains had been found. She asked that I confirm if I recognized any equipment.

The photos arrived on my phone and I hurried through them. I needed to know if this was him. The first showed a bright green Salomon shoe pushed against a fallen tree limb, toe down, half buried in sand and debris. It looked as fresh as if it had come right off Roman’s foot that day. “His shoe doesn’t look old enough to have been in the jungle for two years!” Peggy exclaimed.

The next photo showed a pack, bottom up and partially beneath a rotten log. It, too, was mostly buried in dirty sand and gravel among sticks and brown leaves that had obviously been washed down as flood debris. A cookpot was partially exposed next to the pack. Another photo showed the pack free from the log and debris. It looked greenish gray. I quickly pulled up the catalog photo from the San José North Face store and found myself catching my breath. It was the same model and color.

The shoe and the pack were convincing enough to answer Kara’s question. But as more photos arrived, there could be no doubt. They were all Roman’s things. The yellow and gray colored folding sleeping pad was crumpled and partially shoved beneath a log. A compass with a black lanyard. A blue Petzl headlamp that I’d handed him in Alaska. This was all essential tropical camping equipment from our family stash back home.

There was also an unfamiliar silver cookpot and something green and metal. I couldn’t judge its size. It rested in a streambed where shallow water ran over it. I didn’t recognize this object at all. The last picture was sobering. It felt callous that they had even sent it. It was unmistakable: a human skull with the upper jaw visible, half buried in sticks and debris and backed up against a termite mound. Everything looked to me naturally deposited by flowing water in a creek, not haphazardly buried by a criminal hiding evidence.