Only then did I see the true sense of loss in her eyes. Maybe still as raw as the moment she heard Colin was dead. A bottomless chasm that could never be filled.
Still, something wasn’t sitting right. “That’s why you feel guilty? You think he killed himself because he couldn’t handle his double life or the thought of leaving my mom?”
“Well, what else could I think? It was the only way I could make sense of it. I mean, he was a strong man. Clear-thinking. He seemed to be in control; he had two separate, parallel lives, and he seemed OK with how he was going to handle it. But I couldn’t see any other reason why he’d do it, and I could never talk about it, not to anyone. No one knew. Isn’t that why you’re asking me all this?”
“You think that was the cause of his depression?”
“What depression?”
“He was seeing a shrink in the months before he died. He was diagnosed with clinical depression. He was being treated for it.”
“Nonsense. Colin wasn’t depressed. Conflicted, yes. Torn, maybe. But depressed? No way. Not at all.” She said it with total conviction. “I would have known. He was at peace with it. I mean, he felt bad about what he was going to do and about me having to wait, but like I said, I was in no rush. I was very young. I wasn’t thinking that far ahead. Little did I know how deeply he’d already affected me.” She sat back, visibly relishing some lost memory. “He was happy when he was with me. We were happy.” Emphasis on the “we.”
Right then, I think she wished she’d been more tactful.
I looked away, gave her some space to recover her poise. “He certainly wasn’t seeing any therapist,” she added, her tone firm. “I would have known about it.”
“My mother didn’t know. I’m pretty sure she didn’t know about you either. The man could keep secrets.”
“Not from me, believe me. Not about something personal like that.”
“Maybe he couldn’t bring himself to tell the shrink about you, and since he couldn’t find a reason for his being depressed, the shrink ascribed it to clinical depression. It’s in the coroner’s report. My mom met the shrink. I mean, he did kill himself-or that’s what everyone accepted at the time.”
“But you think otherwise?”
“I’m not sure.”
Her eyes flared wide. “You think he was murdered?”
“I don’t know.”
I’d been thinking about this all night. If he had a lover and felt conflicted about it, it could explain a depression and maybe, maybe, the suicide. But if he’d been planning to leave my mom-and me-for her, then it underlined my suspicions. Someone with plans to make a new life with his lover doesn’t go blow his brains out. And from what Faye was telling me, he didn’t seem overly troubled by it. Certainly nowhere near enough to even begin to justify a suicide.
I asked, “What can you tell me about the days or weeks leading up to his death? Was there anything particular he was involved with?”
“Something that he’d kill himself about? Or that others would want to kill him for?”
“Maybe.”
She finished her cup as she thought about it. “He was very focused on all the big issues facing the country, and it wasn’t a good time,” she said. “We were in a deep recession. Inflation, interest rates, oil prices-they were big problems. And that was the year of the presidential election, Reagan against Carter, a big showdown… they had opposing ideals, you were too young to really know about it. They were troubled times. Abroad, there was the hostage crisis in Iran.”
“I remember watching it on the news on TV with him and my mom,” I said.
“Yeah, it was a big deal at the time.” A wistful look brightened her face. “I thought of him when I saw Argo, you know. Poor Colin. It was like the whole country was under his watch, he took so much to heart.”
“But nothing specific?”
“It was all on his radar. It was his nature.”
“There had to be something out of the ordinary? Something that struck home more than the rest?”
“You’ve got to understand, his work involved a lot of confidential meetings, things he couldn’t and wouldn’t talk to me about. I mean, a few weeks before he died, an old college buddy of his got in touch and he wanted me to meet him. It was like a fresh part of his life that he could involve me in, a part of his past he didn’t need to exclude me from. We could actually go out and socialize with him, he didn’t need to hide me with him since the guy didn’t even live in the US. And it was great to meet him, to be out with Colin openly. We went out for drinks. But it wasn’t just a social call, they were working on something together, and I couldn’t be part of that. Which was frustrating, because his friend was fun and I wanted to hear more about his life and his travels, especially with that accent. Then a couple of weeks later, Colin was dead. I didn’t understand it then and I still don’t understand it now, though it set me on a path. That’s how life works.”
Something about what she said pinged deep inside some crevasse in my brain. “What accent?”
“I’m sorry?”
“His friend. What accent did he have?”
“Oh,” she recalled. “Portuguese. He was from Portugal. And I love the accent, it’s like Brazilian, I’ve sung along to it for years without knowing what the words mean, salsa and bossa nova, Antonio Carlos Jobim and-”
The crevasse was lighting up like lava was about to burst out of it. “Portuguese? What was his name? Do you remember?”
Her nose crinkled under the effort of dredging her memory for a long-lost name, then I said, “Camacho? Octavio Camacho?”
Her face recoiled with surprise. “Yes, exactly. How do you know that?”
43
Camacho. The Portuguese investigative reporter whose name Kurt and Gigi had dug up in that Corrigan-linked CIA dossier and who died in a rock climbing accident the same year my dad did. I needed to check on the date of his death, but I was sure it was within weeks, if not days, of my dad’s death.
They knew each other. More than that-they were old college buddies.
I was having trouble controlling my internal expletives. What the hell had they been discussing? And why did they both die? My gut was telling me they were both killed to silence them, but ever since that night at Nick’s his warnings about finding out my dad was actually part of something bad were still gnawing at me.
Right now, though, I had to downplay it with Faye. I didn’t want to expose her to any danger and so I really didn’t need her getting all overzealous about finding out what really happened to my dad. One obsessed vigilante was enough.
“I just remember my parents talking about him,” I said. “It’s the kind of unusual name that stays with you.” Moving her away from that, I asked, “You don’t know what they were working on?”
“No. I just know it was grave. It consumed Colin for days, but he wouldn’t tell me what was going on. All I know is that he was struggling with a major decision. Why not ask Octavio? I’m sure you could track him down?”
I was surprised that she didn’t seem to know that Camacho was dead. Either he’d died after my dad did-and given that it wasn’t even noteworthy news in Portugal, she would have been oblivious to it here in the US. On the other hand, if he died before my dad, surely my dad would have known and told her about it? She would have known even if he hadn’t told her-unless he didn’t want her to know.
Nick’s words again, like stubborn fleas, scratching away at me.
There was nothing more to learn here. I drained my mug and we both got up to leave; I told her it was great to meet her, despite the circumstances and the bulk of our chat.