Spy

I’ve been conducting interviews nonstop since Dad died. It’ll be a year tomorrow. Three hundred and sixty five days of near-constant research and travel, seventy-eight subjects. All relatives, friends, former co-workers. Today, I am with Aunt Laura.

Laura sips her half-caf and stares out the window. “That’s all I remember.”

“All you remember?” I ask.

“Yes.” Laura looks annoyed but quickly corrects herself. I have communicated to her many times how important this is to me. “We can go over it again if you’d like.”

Laura thinks she’s being patient. What she doesn’t know is that I am in fact being patient with her. She’s the person I’ve interviewed most. The whole thing took place at Laura’s house, so I know she has access to information about Dad’s death nobody else would. We’ve assessed the same set of circumstances dozens of times. Sometimes I tease out a new detail or braid together a pair of dots that had previously seemed unrelated. The plot thickens a little bit. But mostly Laura just sips her coffee and recites her same monologue while I go over my notes.

“No no, I don’t want to work you too hard.” I stand up and start to pack my satchel, like I’ve done so many times this past year. “Plus I’ve got another interview to head to.”

“Oh?” I recognize Laura’s tone. Where she wants to sound interested, but doesn’t actually want to hear more.

“Indeed,” I say. “Back in the city, too, so I really gotta go.” I give Laura a quick hug and start to leave.

***

I do my interviews to prove that I know what really happened to Dad.

The official story is paper thin. It goes like this: Broke and depressed after prolonged recovery from heart surgery, Dad stopped working and let his marriage to my stepmom fail. After that, he moved into Laura’s loft, where he lived for two months before killing himself.

That’s it. There was no note, no updated will. Not even an obvious decline. It just happened.

Right away, I was suspicious. I spent the whole funeral — and the reception, and the quiet lunches and evenings after — asking my family what they knew. Nobody wanted to talk about it. When I asked about a suicide note, they would tell me that my father loved me very much. When I asked how he did it, they would bite their lips and shift and look away, or try to change the subject. Why? I thought. He was my Dad.

A theory started to take shape. And over time, I realized that it had to be real.

Dad was a spy.

Not a James Bond-type, obviously — I’m not stupid— but some kind of intelligence worker, with a whole side to him that had been kept secret from most of the world. This would explain everything. The way Dad zipped from government job to government job. The way he could never explain to me what he did beyond ‘business analysis.’ He even had a contract with CSIS once when I was nine. More business analysis, but that time I remember him telling me about how he’d had to work to get a “Top Secret” clearance. That must have been a slip-up.

More importantly than his life, though, my theory explained Dad’s death. I was certain he knew something he shouldn’t have. A Russian operative or even a CSIS handler must have figured he was a risk, snuck into Laura’s, and garroted him. And my stepmom must have been moved into witness protection shortly after because I never saw her again. Never heard anything when she sold the house.

The amount of unexplained details and connections I have sourced is almost unimaginable. I am certain this is what happened to Dad.

All I need is some hard evidence.

***

I review my notes in the car, but I know it’s futile. There’s nothing new. Laura even forgot a good bit of detail I had written down from before. And the next interview was a lie. I have nothing planned for the afternoon.

Lately, I’ve been worrying that this whole era of my life has been a waste. I’m twenty-two. Everyone I know is starting either a career or a graduate degree. And I’m interrogating the same people over and over again and pretending to write a memoir.

There are moments where I think that I’m crazy. I roll around and cry and curse my waste of a life.

But when I am focused, when I am clear headed, everything lines up. And it makes the official story look crazy by comparison. While my family hasn’t been able to do more than drink coffee and look sad, I’ve been doing the work. I’ve been helping Dad get the justice he deserves.

I start the engine.

***

I cruise around Laura’s neighbourhood for a few minutes, trying to think of what to do with myself. I’m discouraged, but I won’t go home.

The moment reminds me of driving around with Dad. I remember being a kid in the back of his CR-V, catching his eyes in the rear view, and being struck with the weirdest sense of fear.

Out of nowhere, I would convince myself that he wasn’t my real Dad, that he was an imposter. That he’d been planted in my house with instructions to wait until it was time to execute whatever was happening in the car right then.

We would only be going to Tim Horton’s or wherever, but, seven times out of ten, I would get the feeling. In hindsight, it was probably my instincts alerting me that something was up.

My stomach contracts. I’m hungry, I realize. Laura would have made me lunch, but it’s too late now. I turn out of her subdivision and head to the same Timmy’s Dad frequented.

I want a BLT and there’s a chance the place could unearth an important childhood memory.

A BLT is $7.99, I try to remember. $11.99 if I go for wedges and a drink, but I think I can survive without them.

Money has been tight since Dad died. I worked at Starbucks before all of this. I still do, but the driving and talking and researching eats up most of my time, so, these days, I’m only able to pick up one or two shifts a week.

Dad’s pension, split between me and my brother, makes up the majority of my income. $240 a month until I’m 25, as long as I’m registered as a full-time student in some sort of school. I take online courses back-to-back and do just enough not to fail so that the money keeps coming in.

I turn on the radio and immediately smile. Tom Petty serenades me all the way to Tim’s. One of Dad’s favourites.

***

The Tim’s line is infinite. People are taking forever, too. It’s insane to me how anyone can stand in a line for five straight minutes and not know exactly what they want by the time they get to the front.

And then I see her. Or at least I think it’s her. It has to be. Ms. Della Maestra. She’s heading out the door with a takeout bag in hand, towards a beige Dodge Journey. I do quick calculations to see if it’s possible to order and get my food before she leaves, but nothing works out. I break from the line.

Ms. Della Maestra was my Gym teacher from Grade One to Grade Three. I had the biggest crush on her of all time. I would pretend to listen so attentively every time she talked — whether it was about how smoking made your life insurance more expensive or how you should always be the one to initiate your divorce if you can feel it coming — and I would fake injuries in class just so I could sit on the bench beside her.

Whatever was going on with me must have been genetic, because Dad wound up dating Della Maestra briefly between Mom and my stepmom. They were only together for a month, but the way it shocked me has always stood out in my mind. Up to that point, my personal and educational lives had never brushed contact. I didn’t even know teachers were allowed to not be married. Coming home to Ms. Della Maestra on my porch with two pairs of gloves — telling me to call her Betsy and that her and Dad had a Judo class to get to — felt fake.

But it was real. And she is real. And in front of me right now, about to drive her Dodge Journey to God knows where.

I muscle out the door and hop into my car just as Besty is leaving the parking lot.

***

Betsy Della Maestra. Weaving through traffic to try and stay a safe car or two behind hers, I realize why she caught my attention at Tim’s. I realize she should have been the first person I ever interviewed.

She would know about Edmonton.

In 2010, Dad took a business trip to Edmonton. It was the only time he ever left the city for work, so he made a big deal of it. He bought a new dress shirt before and came home with a fridge magnet that said “Edmonton” at the end.

But I never knew why he went. It didn’t make sense to me that someone doing business analysis for the government in Ottawa should have to fly halfway across the country for work. I spent a couple weeks pursuing the lead, but it’s been mostly dead to me. Until now.

Because Ms. Della Maestra was with Dad in Edmonton. I can’t believe I’ve forgot. It was possible she witnessed things not one of my other contacts had. Things my dad thought he could only do alone, or around a new partner who wouldn’t ask too many questions. Even if he just left the hotel once or twice without telling her, that was useful information.

I have to talk to Betsy Della Maestra. Even if she’s driving half-way across the country, I have to follow her. There’s a good chance I’ll never see her again.

***

Betsy drives like a maniac. She switches lanes for no reason. She’ll act like she’s going to turn, and then keep going straight. At one point, she pulls a U-Turn and starts going the complete opposite direction. I have to pull off into someone’s driveway, do my own turn, and then merge back onto the main road, praying I’ll catch up to her.

Eventually, Ms. Della Maestra slows down. She pulls onto a quiet street off the freeway and stops. There’s nothing around, so this can’t be where she lives. I figure she’s just checking directions on her phone or something, but then she gets out of the Dodge.

Betsy has her phone out. She makes it to my door before I can exit, trapping me inside, and aims the camera at me. I roll the window down.

“Hey, creep!”

“Hi!” I start. “My name is — ”

Ms. Della Maestra talks over me.

“You’ve been following me back since Manotick. You think I didn’t notice? I did a fucking one-eighty in the middle of the road and you showed up two cars behind me a minute later like you thought you were invisible.”

“I’m — ”

She keeps going.

“I got you on video, by the way. You think it’s okay to follow women around like that? What’s your name?”

“My name’s Trevor Campbell,” I say. Betsy flinches but doesn’t respond. “I want to talk to you about my Dad: about Ron?” Betsy flinches again. She puts her phone away.

“Excuse me?” I can’t fuck this up. She’s already on edge; I have maybe thirty seconds to explain exactly what I need without sounding insane.

I take a deep breath. “My name is Trevor Campbell. You may remember me from your Physical Education class between grades One and Three. You also had a brief relationship with my father, Ron Campbell. Ron is recently deceased — he died this year — and I’ve been trying to piece together his past, as well as what happened to him. I believe there may have been a… uh, secret side to my dad, and I’ve been interviewing everyone he knew to try and figure it out. I followed you today because I thought you might have some information on a business trip my Dad took in 2010 that I am currently in the dark about. When you flew with Ron to Edmonton in 2010, did you witness him doing anything unusual?”

Silence. I look at Betsy expectantly, but she says nothing. At some point, she checks her phone, seemingly just to avoid eye contact. I wait.

Finally, she starts to laugh and then covers her mouth. “Right,” she says. “Excuse me. Sorry. I heard about Ron. I’m sorry for your loss.” She turns away. I think I hear her say fucking stalked me under her breath. “But, uh, no: I never heard anything mysterious about your father.”

“Nothing at all?” Betsy laughs for real this time.

“No, Trevor” She says, “Trust me. If there was anything secret about your Dad, it was that he was the way he dated like a slob.” My heart rate increases. “Ron thought he could find someone like me with some savings, an active lifestyle and too much trust, and just latch on and never have to work too hard in his life again.”

“Hmm,” I say. I’m surprised by Betsy’s sudden harshness, but I figure her emotions are out of whack from thinking she was being stalked by a weirdo a minute ago. I try to be patient.

“Did you know your father never once paid for any of our dates?”

“No,” I say.

“And were you aware that he lied about having a PhD in electrical engineering?”

“I was not.”

“The fucker — excuse my language — wanted to move in with me after being together for three weeks. Three weeks! It was insane. He was so desperate, so…” Betsy’s voice is rising as she talks. She’s almost yelling now. “So groveling. I’m not surprised, honestly. If you ask me, Ron probably just ran out of nice women to-” Betsy stops. She looks like she’s forgotten who she was talking to. “Sorry. But, anyways, um. No,” she says. “And I think, um — to answer your question — your Dad went to Edmonton because there’s a Service Canada office out there. He was helping them with their Ethernet. I mostly just slept at the hotel. I don’t know. This is really weird. Sorry.”

Betsy turns and hustles away.

“Bye,” she says.

When she’s back in her car, she does a three-point turn and drives onto the highway at an irresponsible speed.

I sit in my car, trying to process everything Betsy just said. She didn’t give me a chance to respond, but I don’t think I could’ve come up with anything to say if she did. I watch a plane pass silently overhead.

This interview was mostly unproductive, but one piece stands out. The PhD. Why would Dad lie about something like that? He’d never lied to me about anything.

It must have been cover. The lie was calculated. Dad must have demonstrated some skill in front of Betsy that could only have been picked up in intelligence training and then struggled to explain it. I don’t understand why else he would lie to anyone.

I start a new entry in my notebook.

Betsy Della Maestra, New Contact. New information on Edmonton+verbal evidence. Possible Service Canada involvement, inconclusive. Seemed emotionally distressed. Reminder to follow up + call Service Canada contact.

I turn on the radio. Tom Petty again.

A good sign.