Cassidy Kincaid Mysteries Box Set

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