by Amy Waeschle
Reeve had been a surfer too, though he preferred using swim fins and his body to a board. The activity had bonded the two of them for a while, and Cassidy harbored some peaceful memories of their blended family at the beach, she and Reeve surfing while Quinn tried to pick up girls and Rebs worked on her tan while speed-reading romance novels. Most of the memories she had of Reeve weren’t as favorable.
The waves at La Casita were shoulder high and a little scruffy, but fast and fun, folding into little crash barrels that she tucked into after getting the feel of the board. She was starting to enjoy herself when three Ticos paddled out, bantering back and forth in their rapid Spanish. The sun had almost peeked over the hills behind them, and the shadow of the land was receding quickly.
The first Tico out gave her a nod, and then waited while she caught the next wave. So, etiquette is alive and well in Costa Rica, she thought. As she paddled back out, she watched the first Tico paddle for a wave and drop in, using the curve of water like a skate ramp, riding it up and down until it crumbled, and he flew over the back. She settled in to wait her turn next to the other two Ticos, who each gave her a nod. They traded waves in this way for a while until she and the first Tico, his skin the color of chocolate and his tangle of curly brown hair sparkling with seawater, were paddling back out side by side.
“Where you from?” he asked in adorably accented English, his smile open and friendly.
“Oregon,” she replied.
“Ah,” he said, though she wondered if he had any idea where that was. “How long you stay?” he asked.
Cassidy thought quickly. “A few days.”
“Bueno. Tomorrow we have olas más grandes,” he said, his deep brown eyes sparkling. “You should go to Playa Grande,” he added. They reached the lineup and both sat up on their boards. The two other Ticos had taken waves, so it was just the two of them.
“I might be going to Nicaragua,” she said to her surprise. Until that moment, she hadn’t made a decision.
The Tico’s eyes lit up. “A dónde?” he asked.
“I’m not sure where exactly,” she said. “Do you know Bruce?”
“Cap-tain Kee-o!” he said in a husky-sounding chant, then paddled off for a wave and disappeared. The other two returned to the lineup, and Cassidy noticed a handful of other surfers getting ready to paddle out.
“Here come the crowds,” one of the Ticos nearby muttered when she turned back to the horizon.
“You guys work at the camp?” she asked.
“Yes. I am surf guide,” he said with a hint of pride. “Rico is instructor,” he added, tilting his head toward his friend.
“And him?” Cassidy asked, nodding toward the Tico she had talked to first.
“He is surf guide too,” he answered. “You stay at the camp?”
“Yes,” she replied.
He pointed to himself and said, “Macho.” Then he pointed to the surfer to his left, who was paddling into a wave. “Rico.” Then the third Tico paddled up. “Eddie.”
“Mucho gusto,” Cassidy said with a nod of her head. “Cassidy.”
“Mucho gusto,” Eddie and Macho chorused.
Cassidy’s stomach was growling, and the number of surfers bobbing in the lineup had increased their group to almost a dozen. It was time to go.
“Adios, Cassi-dee. You take tours today? I think we go to Avellanas,” Macho said. “Is beautiful beach,” he added, drawing out the word, his eyes shimmering. “Muchas olas.” He paddled for a set and was gone.
Cassidy remembered that she was going to the police station.
Eddie paddled for a wave, leaving her bobbing with her thoughts. “Wait,” she called, but it was too late. Hadn’t Mel told her that these might be friends of Reeve’s?
Quickly, she stroked into a wave and surfed it, trying to pick out Macho in the group of surfers collecting on the shore. Her wave collapsed with a thud behind her and she dropped to her belly to ride the whitewash in. She arrived breathless.
“Do you guys know Reeve Bennington?”
The threesome stopped their bantering. Macho had paused the coiling of his leash. The three looked at each other and then back at her. “Sí,” he answered. “We haven’t seen him in a while,” Eddie said.
“I know. I’m trying to get in touch with him.”
Eddie eyed her curiously. “Is he okay?”
A tendril of guilt tickled her insides. “I don’t know. He normally checks in with Rebecca, his sister, but he hasn’t, so I’m here.”
“Vamanos,” Macho said. “We can walk back together,” he said. Eddie and Rico were already walking toward the river, deep in conversation. Something about a surfboard.
“So his sister ask you to come?”
Cassidy nodded.
“Why she not come? Is beautiful, yes?” He gestured with his free arm at the jungle and the sunrise.
“She has too many children,” Cassidy replied, then realized how that sounded. “I mean, her kids are little. And her husband travels a lot.”
“Is he your friend?”
“No. Stepbrother. We grew up . . . for a time . . . together.”
“Ah.” This information seemed to satisfy Macho.
“So, can you tell me about him?” Cassidy asked.
“He surfed sometimes,” Macho began. “Like this, here. I see him out sometimes. At the club. On the beach. Is party town, right?” he said, a little sheepishly.
“What club?”
“They have music. Reggae, you know, for dancing. It is up past the circle.” He looked at her to see if she was following him. She nodded. She figured that the circle was where the road forked away from the beach.
“Was he doing drugs?”
Macho looked at her in surprise.
“Sorry, it’s just . . . I’m used to it. Reeve has had problems in the past,” she said, trying to keep her tone light.
“It is not my place to say,” Macho said.
Now it was Cassidy’s turn to be surprised.
“Smoke a little motta, have few beers, sure, I see this. But this is everybody,” he conceded.
“But no needles, pills?”
A look of extreme discomfort came over his face. “I would not know this. We only surf together sometimes.”
“I’m sorry. I just can’t help but think he got into some kind of trouble. He got off the boat in San Juan del Sur and never came back. Maybe he was using again. Maybe he was on the run, or maybe he just got pulled back into that life.”
“He go to San Juan?” Macho asked.
“He was working a trip with Bruce,” Cassidy answered. “You call him Captain Keo, right?”
Macho nodded. “Yes, I remember this. Reeve helps out. Fix things. Does video for the guests.” He sighed. “He’s a good guy. Good surfer too. One time he fixed my bike. I was going to be late to work, and he’s just coming home from the night, and he says, ‘let me look at it.’ Five minutes later and boom, it’s fixed. Fucking genius, that guy.”
They had reached the river and began to wade in, then went prone and paddled across, the current sweeping them downstream at an angle. On the other side, Eddie and Rico were waiting for them.
“Did he hang out with anyone? Apparently, there was a girl. Do you know who she is?”
All three shook their heads.
“Meet me this afternoon,” Macho said, eyeing the others, including them. “We can show you where he lives.”
Six
Cassidy returned her board to the cage, showered, and dressed carefully in her least grubby clothes. Not a small feat, given that she had not intended to impress anyone on this trip, which had transitioned from fieldwork to beach lounging. She did manage to find her one pair of earrings, and had even ironed her shorts. Her only footwear choice was flip-flops but it couldn’t be helped. After a cup of coffee, and eggs and bacon from the restaurant, she asked directions to the police station from the hostess.
Even though it was still morning, just past nine, the humidity was on its wa
y to sweltering. The air was fresher than on the previous evening, though, with the faint scent of blossoms and the gentle hum of insects to keep her company.
She followed the dirt street to the edge of town and found the low, white building with blue motorcycles parked outside and a Costa Rican flag tacked to the exterior wall. Other than the barred windows, she could have mistaken it for a community center.
The door was open, so she entered the tiny entryway, where a man in a blue uniform sat talking on the phone at a scuffed metal desk. When he noticed her, he grunted a signoff and hung up. His round face, with tired eyes and a flattish nose, attempted a smile.
“Puedo ayudarla?” he asked.
Cassidy bit her lip. “Una persona desaparecida.”
The man’s eyebrow rose.
There was no chair in the room. Beyond the entryway office space was a larger room with a table, folding metal chairs, and a medium refrigerator, stained brown at the edges and decorated with a handful of stickers from surf companies and energy drinks. Likely, the police station had once been a house and she was looking at the kitchen.
“Tu marido?”
A hot flash of pain lit up her face. She shuffled her feet to keep her knees from wobbling. “No,” she managed. “Mi hermano. Mitad.”
He looked at her curiously again. She didn’t know the word for “stepbrother” so had used the word for half, but it didn’t sound right.
“Hermanastro?” he asked, leaning forward.
She wasn’t sure but nodded, hoping it was close enough.
“Cuándo?”
“Hace dos, tres semanas.”
The man barked something into the room beyond them, and calmly pulled out a piece of paper from a slot mounted on the wall and handed it to her. The form asked for her contact information and the nature of the request. While she got to work filling out the form, the man left the room, his black boots tapping the hard concrete floor.
Cassidy knew she would never be able to describe the events leading up to Reeve’s disappearance in Spanish, but she did her best. When she finished, she peeked into the bigger room. The man returned and gestured for her to enter a smaller room down a short hallway.
Inside this next room, another officer was seated on a red vinyl folding chair behind the same type of metal desk as in the front entryway. The white walls were dingy and scuffed. In one corner, a wavy orange-brown water stain snaked down the crack. A filing cabinet stood in another corner, opposite the desk, with an ancient TV parked on top. The desk was piled with papers, some identical to hers. The officer, a middle-aged man with generous love handles and a thin, frowning mouth received her form and gestured toward a yellow velour chair pushed against the wall. Cassidy sat, though it felt awkward to be against the wall and not nearer to the desk.
The officer slid a set of reading glasses over his eyes and hunched over her form, using a pen to underline or mark specific words or phrases. When he finished, he placed the paper on top of the stack to his right and leaned his arms on the desk.
“He disappeared in Nicaragua?” he said in heavily accented English.
“Yes.”
“You know this?”
“Yes. From Bruce Keolani. He was working for him.”
Cassidy thought she saw something in his eyes, and he paused, as if making a connection. Then the look was gone, and he licked a finger and began leafing through his stack of papers. A radio squawked from his desk, and Cassidy could hear the reverb in the entryway echo the same message. The officer in the front room replied while the officer in front of her ignored it.
Finally, the officer pulled out a piece of paper and put it next to hers, his head moving side to side, as if comparing.
“Es ésta la misma persona?” he asked her, showing her the paper. Cassidy glanced at the top, where Rebecca’s information was typed. She must have filled out the same form online, she thought.
“Sí,” she said.
The officer sighed, and put the papers back on the pile. He sat back, his arms crossed over his chest. “You can try asking at OIJ,” he said. “But because he was last seen in Nicaragua there is not much we can do,” he added.
Cassidy realized it was the answer she had been expecting.
“Was he ever arrested in Tamarindo?” she asked suddenly.
The cop stood and walked to the filing cabinet, where he opened a drawer and sorted through files. His fingers paused and his eyebrows rose slightly. He removed the file and returned to his desk, put on his reading glasses again, and hunched over the information. It was several pages, but the officer finished quickly and closed the file.
“He assaulted a taxi driver about two months ago.”
Cassidy exhaled. “Was the taxi driver okay?”
The officer glanced back at the file. “There is no report on that.”
Cassidy sat back and tried to think. “Does it say why he was assaulting a taxi driver?” Reeve wasn’t normally violent—unless he was using.
The cop shook his head. “Ask the OIJ. They do the investigating.”
“What’s the OIJ?”
“Organismo de Investigación Judicial. It is in Santa Cruz.”
The man pulled another sheet of paper from his wall slot. It was a printed map with directions, including bus routes.
“Would your files show any record of overdose?”
The officer shook his head. “Only if we respond, such as for violence.”
Cassidy gave him a searching look.
“He is not in our files except for the assault. But you can inquire at the clinic. They know more than we do. Many times a person is brought in without us receiving notification.”
Cassidy thought about this. “Does Tamarindo have a lot of overdoses?”
The officer’s eyes darkened. “It is a growing problem.”
She crossed her arms. Now we’re getting somewhere, she thought. “How many?”
“Two this month already,” the man said, his eyes troubled.
“And you’re sure Reeve wasn’t one of them?”
The man shook his head. “One was a tourist. One was a young female.”
Cassidy grimaced. How young? She wanted to ask.
“Prostitution is legal in Costa Rica,” he said, as if this explained it. “I think you will find more answers at the OIJ,” the man said, and stood.
Realizing that she was being dismissed, Cassidy stood as well.
“Gracias,” she said, and walked back through the entryway, nodding to the officer stationed there as she passed before stepping back onto the street.
The hot bus ride did not improve her mood, and by the time Cassidy stomped up the steps to the OIJ in Santa Cruz, her shirt was wet with sweat, her throat was dry, and a blister was starting to grow its ugly head between two of her toes. A whoosh of air-conditioned breeze blew past her as she entered the modern building, with its marble floors and high ceilings. She placed her request to speak with an officer and was told to sit and wait, which she did in an upholstered chair next to a vending machine displaying typical junk food. A row of posters on the wall warned against the dangers of drug use, another was a hotline for illegal industrial dumping, and another showed a halting image of a young girl with terrified eyes, sitting on a bed in a sparse room. Beneath it were the words: Dejen de vender a nuestros hijos. Stop selling our children. A man in plain clothes called her name, and she was escorted to an office with bright lights, a computer on the gray metal desk, and wooden chairs. They shook hands, and the man introduced himself as Detective José Miranda.
“You say you have lost your brother,” Detective Miranda said, to her relief, in English.
“My stepbrother,” she corrected. “He hasn’t checked in for a few weeks. His sister is worried that something has happened to him.”
“Mmm,” Detective Miranda replied.
He was tapping a key on his computer. “And you filed your report with the local police?”
“Yes,” she said. “Though they told me that because
he was last seen in Nicaragua, there is not much they can do. I was hoping you could tell me something different.”
He gave her a sympathetic look. “I’m afraid your information is correct.”
“What if he was running from something? He attacked a taxi driver. What if someone was coming after him, to get back at him, or something?” Cassidy had no idea what she was talking about. “There’ve been murders in Costa Rica, for drug trafficking and smuggling. Could he have been involved in something illegal like that?”
“The report for his assault is here, but it looks like he was fined and then released. I see no drug-related charges.”
“How about heroin overdoses? I hear Tamarindo has a problem.”
The man eyes flashed. “Heroin is a problem everywhere. Tamarindo is not unique.”
“But do your records show if the assault was related to heroin sales, or activity, or if the victim or Reeve ever overdosed?”
Detective Miranda shook his head.
Cassidy switched tracks. “Did Reeve pay his fine?”
“Yes,” Detective Miranda said after a glance at the screen.
“Could he have fled to Nicaragua because he was being chased by someone?”
“It’s possible,” the detective said, though not very convincingly.
Cassidy sat back and sighed. This was going nowhere. “Should I go to Nicaragua?”
The detective sized her up with a look of scrutiny. “I cannot answer that for you.”
“Well, are you going to look into it, at least? He was living in Tamarindo before he disappeared. He’s a U.S. citizen.”
“You could try the U.S. Embassy in San José.”
“No,” Cassidy growled, as her head began to throb. She had spent enough time on this wild goose chase.
“How do you know foul play is a factor?” the detective said, shifting in his chair. “Sometimes people want to disappear.”
“Maybe,” she replied. The poster of the young girl in the hotel room flashed into her mind. “Could he have been kidnapped?”
