Murder in a Cold Climate: An Inspector Matteesie Mystery (22 page)

But I heard no sound except the half-crazy dog.

When I got to maybe fifty feet from the Cessna I yelled again.

At that precise instant the dog fell silent and I heard what sounded like the weakest cry in all creation: a faint, faint, “Help!”

I still didn't storm in. It wasn't the situation for “away dull care”, and so on. I took one step at a time, cautiously, stopping to check the hills around. I noticed that whole trees, although small, had been cut and jammed into the snow a few feet offshore from the Cessna, part of its shield. It was all so well done that there wasn't even a clear path through to the aircraft. Yet I could see that all this camouflage could have been taken away in a matter of moments for the aircraft to warm up and taxi out for takeoff.

I had to move a couple of eight-foot trees in my careful approach to the door on the pilot's side. The dog was the next problem. He'd be in the way. I turned deliberately and pointed the rifle at him. Any northern dog knows what comes next when a gun is pointed, He whined and slunk back. As I moved forward watching him I heard the faint human sound again, this time a muffled groan. It was definitely from the Cessna.

The dog started up again. Dogs don't get on my nerves normally but I wanted to be able to hear other things right now. I turned and snarled at it in Inuktitut, which it translated as, “Shut up!”

It shut up.

Two or three feet from the Cessna I called loudly, “I've got a gun, safety off, full of dum dum bullets, and I'm corning in.”

No answer.

I thought it would be nice if I could do like in the movies, wrench the door open and jump in with my feet spread solidly wide and all ten fingers on the trigger.

On snowshoes, forget it. I laboriously untied the tapes, opened the door and climbed in.

 

The primus stove had been going not long before. I could smell it. Two candles were burning, stuck in the necks of empty bottles. It was standard, by the book, winter survival practice. Alone in the rear of the cabin Harold Johns was staring my way from where he lay in a sleeping bag on a pile of parkas and life jackets. Even in the bad light coming from the open door I thought he didn't look any too healthy. His face was thin by nature. Now it was mottled and bruised, his mouth set in a thin line, the tip of his nose split and scabbed. Peering at me, trying to see who I was, his expression was one of fear.

I introduced myself: “Inspector Matthew Kitologitak, RCMP.”

At that he tried impulsively to sit up in his sleeping bag. He didn't quite make it but did muster a fervent, “God, am I glad to see you! Can't get up. Got a broken leg.” And confirmed, “I'm Harold Johns.”

I looked around but still couldn't figure out what had happened. The radio had been trashed, wires everywhere, but there were no other signs of damage. The food box, close enough that Johns didn't have to get up to reach it, was half full.

Then I noticed with a sudden rush of adrenalin that he had one hand on a gun. It was the aircraft's emergency rifle, Komatik Air burned into its butt. I must have looked astonished. Johns followed my gaze and said, “William left it for me.”

Stranger and stranger. “When?”

“Day before yesterday.”

That was Saturday, the day Edie and No Legs and I met William coming back. A day later in Yellowknife had come William's drunken claim to Gloria that he'd fixed “those two bastards” and would get the other one, too.

He'd also said he didn't blame Johns, although obviously his decision not to impute blame didn't quite extend to hauling Johns the hell out of here to safety. Which meant, in turn, that Johns knew things William did not want the world to know. But why leave the dog? Smokey was not only loyal, but not a threat to testify in a court of law. My confusion was mounting. I simply hadn't expected to find only one person; or at least only one in evidence. What I really needed was the truth, the whole truth, the story from the start. But I might not have time now. So I asked the main question: “Where are Christian and Batten?”

I got something then, a roll of the eyes, a grimace, a look of remembered despair. I thought: until just now Johns thought that he was going to die before this thing was over: and that Christian and Batten were the heavies in his nightmare.

“They're gone. I imagine with the money, or a lot of it.”

“Gone how?”

“I don't know everything. When William arrived, what was it, Thursday or Friday, there was a lot of screaming, but mostly outside where I couldn't hear what it was about. Then Saturday they all went out early, before it was really light—”

“All?” I asked. I wanted things spelled out.

“Christian, Batten, William and even the dog. I heard the snowmobile, the dog barking, and all that fading into the distance and after a couple of hours William came back and said he'd taken the other two on the snowmobile to where they could catch a ride, I guess on the winter tractor road. It isn't far away.”

If he was being selective in his facts, how could I tell? “Then he tied up the dog,” I said, “and left by himself, right?”

“Right.”

“Did he say he'd be back?”

Johns nodded. “Not only for me, he'd have to come back for his dog.”

It suddenly occurred to me that Smokey couldn't have eaten for three days. Rummaging in the food box I found a two-pound can of corned beef, stripped off the lid with the key provided for that purpose, levered the meat out with a knife, went to the Cessna door and threw it at Smokey. Down it went. Two gulps. Plus a tail-wagging vote of thanks and a couple of blood-curdling howls for more.

It seemed a good idea at that point to produce my rum. There were two cups on the floor, and a kettle on the primus with a little water in it. In the Arctic it isn't hardship to do without ice. I poured two stiff ones, left the bottle beside him, and asked, “Is this where you were intending to land all along?”

He took a swallow of rum and let out a derisive snort. “At first Christian said probably Wrigley, south of here. But when we got near Fort Norman, could have landed there, he pulled out a detailed map showing this place. He said William had drawn it for them and that this was where we were going. I was too busy flying to argue or use the radio, even if he'd let me. The weather was bad but I knew if the worst came to the worst I could always land on the big river, it's close enough. You know, at that time this thing was still just a charter to me, a hairy one, but that's what this country can be like.”

“I'm aware of that,” I said—I believe the word is—drily. “It wasn't any cinch getting in, just at dusk, but I've seen worse. They told me to taxi in by the bank here, more sheltered. Seemed to make sense. That was the first night. It was the next day when I started asking questions. They were cutting trees and branches for camouflage. At first they just ignored my questions about that but then Batten said he was going to beat the shit out of me and Christian said don't, they needed me sooner or later to fly the airplane. By then I knew I was in trouble. Christian, I thought he was a friend of mine, Jesus, did tell me we were waiting for somebody, didn't say who, and then we'd take off. When William came, I thought maybe it was him we were waiting for, but looks like it wasn't . . .”

He paused. “Days before William got here we heard on the radio about Morton. I was sick about it, I knew Morton, I'd flown him a few times. When I looked at them they were grinning at each other, and Batten said, ‘Good old Billy Bob.' Who's Billy Bob?”

“The man who killed Morton. The guy they were waiting for here.”

Johns sighed. “Eventually something like that occurred to me as a possibility, but I didn't say anything. I thought if I could ever get out of here, then I could figure out what to do. Sure as hell couldn't do anything until then. I think if either of them had been able to fly a plane, I'd be dead by now.”

He paused for a minute and drained his cup of rum. I shoved the bottle toward him again. He poured and drank. Then, despondently, he said what many a man has said, or thought, before him, “I wish I could have been a goddamn hero in this thing. It kept bugging me that I couldn't figure out how. Then we got drinking one night, too much, and I told them they could rot before I'd even try to fly them out. When we were wrestling around that time, I got my leg caught in some webbing just as Batten took a dive at me. That's when I broke my leg. I haven't been able to move from right here since.”

So things were coming together. As hard-hearted as it sounds, it wouldn't be the first time a son had collaborated knowingly or unknowingly in his father's murder. But maybe all he'd thought he was doing when he told the others about this place, even drew a map for them, was sending them to a good hideout. At that time his father was still alive. William could have been only trying to help keep the money safe, including what he thought was his share, until they knew where they stood. If the report they'd got about their operation being blown was true, they're gone and scattered but their bankroll is intact. Otherwise they've just been on a little trip, they come back, and presto, they're back in business.

Then came Morton's murder, arranged by Bonner in that series of phone calls. If the guesswork part of that scenario is true, William is left with two options: to go after his father's murderer, or to go after money he thought was coming to him. He might not have even guessed at first that the two were linked.

The part I still wasn't sure about was the whereabouts of Christian and Batten. I'd been rather polite with Johns, so far. If Christian and Batten came rolling back in now, I was in trouble. I didn't like that idea. I thought of a lot of other guys I knew, friends, people I'd worked with. This is precisely when they might slap a guy around, stick a gun under his chin and suggest, “Talk”

Was I going to just sit here nodding and smiling while some refugee from Upper Canada College snowed me, or at the very least didn't tell me all he knew, and as a result perhaps endangered my life?

What if I took two fast steps and slapped his face when he wasn't ready for it?

The answer to the first question was yes: I was going to sit there nodding and smiling.

But I do have my ways. “I'll tell you something,” I said, “I killed Billy Bob Hicks out in the snow last night.”

That got Johns' attention: his eyes snapped up to stare at mine.

“I think if Billy Bob had managed to get here, after killing me first, he wouldn't have believed you when you said you didn't know where Batten and Christian are. I think he would have done little things like grinding the two parts of your broken leg together, to refresh your memory. I think he might well have ended up killing you and killing the dog, then have gone looking for Batten and Christian. Now I'm asking you a question and if what you tell me eventually turns out to be a lie and people get killed, you'll be the first. I guarantee it.”

Then I asked, “Are Batten and Christian still around here?”

He gave the smallest negative head-shake I'd ever seen. Moved about an inch each way. Yet I didn't think he was scared anymore. My threat to kill him seemed to have restored his courage. It sometimes happens that way.

“You can believe me or not, I don't give a damn which,” he said. “I haven't seen them for three days now. I've got no reason not to believe William when he said he took them to the tractor road. None of them are pilots. One of the things I told them was there was no way I could fly this Cessna out of here on this short a take-off run with a full load, like there'd be with them plus the guy they were waiting for aboard. I think after that they'd grab any chance they thought might get them away with the money.”

While I was thinking that over for angles, Johns repeated what he'd said before. “William told me he'd come back. I've been expecting him. Did he tell you how to find me?”

I was shaking my head. William hadn't done a damn thing helpful, especially that one.

As I was replying, “No, I found you on my own,” I heard an aircraft in the distance.

I reached over to grab
Komatik Air
's rifle from under Johns. A safety precaution. I was beginning to believe him, but no use taking chances. When I pulled at the gun I was in a hurry and did it roughly. His face went chalk white. I stared and then gently slid my hand over the part of the sleeping bag I'd dislodged when I yanked the rifle out. His bent right knee was pointed one way but the toes on that leg pointed in the exact opposite direction. I winced. Moving that setup might make anybody's face go chalk white.

I laid the rifles in the doorway, jumped out of the Cessna, floundered out of Smokey's range to tie on my snowshoes, then went back for the guns. I was still under cover. From the south the aircraft noise was getting very loud.

Then, flying at no more than a hundred feet directly over where I'd left the snowmobile, I could see first that it was a Beaver and then saw Stothers' horn-rimmed glasses on the pilot side. I couldn't make out who was in the passenger seat. Both were staring downward as intently as if my snowshoe trail down that hill and across the pond had been entered in the compulsory figures at the Calgary Olympics.

I ran out in the open and waved. The waved back madly. Then I walked swiftly back, opened the Cessna door, told Johns that the arrivals were friendly, we'd soon get him out to a hospital, and heard him call weakly, “Good.”

By the time I got back to where I could see, Stothers was circling the length of the pond in a careful tour of inspection. That done, he banked out of sight beyond the north rim.

On the way back he came over the peak at least six feet above his normal wolf-harassing altitude, then with the way clear below he practically fell out of the sky, flying that Beaver like a kid riding a bicycle instead of an old guy with wars and women and God knows what all behind him. Nobody could have touched down closer to shore than he did. Maybe in some things it's the old guys who do it best.

Considering that there are no brakes on a ski-equipped Beaver, Stothers made a masterful assumption that the deep snow would stop him fast enough that he wouldn't plow into the bank at the end of his run. He stopped just short, then turned and taxied along to where I stood. The passenger was Pengelly, who got his door open, jumped down, sank up to his knees in snow, and floundered forward.

I expected he'd say something smart-ass like, “Dr. Kitologitak, I presume?” but for once he was out of quips.

“Jesus, Matteesie, who's that back at the blue flag?” I told him.

“I just got a fast look at him with the binocs when we circled low, afraid it might have been you.” Then, deadpan, “I could pretty well see what you did to him. I'm sure he had it coming, but . . .”

“But what?” I asked.

“You still okay for ammunition?”

I said something very rude.

Stothers hadn't even said hello. He was staring at the Cessna and saying, “Well, well.” He slogged over closer to look at the coverup job, then walked in and kicked loose snow from around one of the plane's skis.

“Wouldn't be hard to get this thing out of here,” he said ruminatively. “Good thing there wasn't some warm weather, a thaw and then more freeze, or this thing might have been locked in here until breakup.”

Then he turned to me and scratched his beard on the left side of his face, that habit he had. “What did you find, Matteesie?”

I told him Harold Johns was inside the Cessna with a badly broken leg; that William's dog, chained to a tree, was what was sounding like a whole six-dog team: and that Christian and Batten were not in evidence, one theory being that they'd gone out to the tractor road.