The Adventurer's Son(85)
Lauren came into the Pearl. She called in her big voice across the room for everyone to hear: “This whole time, for two years, you always said that you knew your son—that he would never walk with a guy like Pata Lora. And you stood up to Dondee and Carson.” She smiled her big smile. “And you were right all along. You did more than any parent could be asked to do, Roman. You went above and beyond.” Speechless, I tried to thank her, but couldn’t.
Aengus, who had made a six-part series based on a story that wasn’t true, wasn’t so sure. He took me aside. “Don’t you think we should get the FBI in here to do a real investigation? Just to be sure?”
“No. I don’t, Aengus. You haven’t been to the site where Roman was found. If you had, then you would know that it’s impossible that Pata Lora or the Guichos were involved. There’s no conspiracy. There’s no murder.”
I looked to Ken for support. He shrugged. “Yeah, Aengus, I know, it’s hard to believe, but the money and passport were there. Nothing was taken. . . .”
“But aren’t you just a little suspicious that all this is happening now, when the show’s coming out?” This was the producer who had hired the ex–DEA agent who convinced me my son had been murdered. The producer who then turned the murder into a titillating trailer shown on TV ten times a day, as I saw myself in a hotel room.
I erupted, emboldened by Lauren. “Look, Aengus, can’t you just let a grieving parent be? For two years I’ve felt like I’ve been held underwater. And for the first time I can come up for air and I can breathe. And you just want to shove me back down? No, Aengus, I have had enough!”
At that moment, I saw in Aengus what others had whispered. He had seemed to be on our side. Now I wasn’t so sure.
The next morning, Peggy and I went to El Doctor. I held her hand as we slipped and slid down the steep muddy hillside, following the tracks left by the repeated passage of a dozen OIJ, Fuerza, and MINAE. Peggy ducked beneath the yellow crime tape and started digging, first with a small stick and then with a spoon, brought for our lunch.
The rangers wandered off. Hesitant at first, I slipped under the yellow tape and joined her, the now-familiar feeling of looking for sign of Roman washing over me as we searched for anything that might help us understand what had happened. From experience, I knew that seeing anything of his would bring him close to me again and touch my heart.
A sympathetic Costa Rican had given us each a long solid walking stick made of local wood. Peggy’s was light but sturdy and an inch and a half across. Mine was heavy, longer, and thicker, made of a tropical hardwood called manu. We used our walking sticks as levers to move the eight-and ten-foot sections of log aside, digging underneath, pushing aside the sediment and debris, looking, but finding nothing. The OIJ had been thorough.
I pointed out the dead tree, the new growth. “It looks like a tree fell on his camp, doesn’t it? Although some of the rangers think it was snakebite and found a terciopelo down here. What do you think, Peggy? Do you think somebody killed Roman here?”
“No. No way. Why would anybody be here in the first place?”
“Maybe somebody killed him and brought him here?” I prodded.
“Too much work. How would they get him down the steep hill? Cut him up and carry him? It’s hard to walk here even without a pack. No, he died here. He was probably in camp or making camp and a tree fell, probably in the dark and he couldn’t see to run out of the way. Lots of trees fall here. Like we saw near Dos Brazos. Or when you were here with Brad and Todd and the Learn to Return guys.” She sounded as convinced as I felt that it had been a natural death.
Afterward we walked back to Dos Brazos to meet the miner who had found Roman. The miner said that the locals felt a kinship with Roman, because he had explored off-trail in a very challenging canyon and forest area, and he had done it without permission, against authority. The miner said that Roman had the spirit of the gold miners and they all admired him for that.
WE LEFT THE Osa for San José, where we joined a press conference with the OIJ and embassy. In front of a room full of media, I thanked the miners, the rangers, Cruz Roja, the OIJ, and the embassy, even all the people of Costa Rica for their big hearts and helpfulness. Afterward we met with Georgina, gave our blood samples for DNA testing, thanked everyone personally, and prepared to leave for home.
There was only one step left. In an office in OIJ’s brooding granite building in downtown San Jose, we told a soft-spoken translator that Pata Lora’s story wasn’t true. He had never been with our son. We retracted the denuncia that the OIJ had prepared to arrest Pata Lora for murder.
TIJAT’s producers had been right: the power of the camera is real. The effort to have Roman’s case moved from missing persons to murder had been successful, thanks to Carson and Missing Dial. But in the end, the media’s search for sensationalism had left us all vulnerable to a schizophrenic’s self-incrimination.
Almost two years after Roman’s last emails had thrown Peggy and me into a valley of grief that darkened and deepened with time, we now found ourselves atop a small hill of relief rising up from the valley bottom. Roman had not been murdered. He had not waited for us to save him. He had probably died before any of us knew he was in trouble. Before I had even read his last words: “it should be difficult to get lost forever.”
We had found him.