Murder in a Cold Climate: An Inspector Matteesie Mystery Read Online Free PDF Page B

Corporal Charlie Paterson came bounding up the steps of the plane, loudly lamenting his fate, then instantly charged back out to order Constable Hoare to get out there into the bush on a borrowed snowmobile, musing aloud as that tail light disappeared into the murk, “As much chance as a snowball in hell. That bush has more snowmobile tracks than rabbit tracks.”
    I looked at him. “But we’d look real funny if we got helicopters out in the morning and found that the machine broke down or hit a tree or some damn thing half a mile away.”
    â€œNo kidding,” he said sarcastically. “I never would have thought of that on my own.”
    Touché.
    The fact that the murderer’s or anyone’s snowmobile had been left running out in the open wasn’t noteworthy. Half a dozen snowmobiles were sitting around right now among the pickups, taxi vans and two police cars. More were arriving every few minutes as word spread around town. Every vehicle had its engine running. In the North that was winter habit, like long underwear. Anything not left running would be too damn cold to get into and also might not start. The temperature outside right now was minus thirty-eight. In these parts in mid-winter, minus twenty is considered a heat wave.
    When we were pretty well caught up on background the corporal unlocked the door. An old white guy, one hand with a tight grip on the front of his pants groaned, “Thanks a lot!” and shuffled past. Civilization at the crossroads.
    A few feet along the passage to our right the area in front of the airline counter was maybe twelve feet by eighteen feet with a bench along the outside wall. An opening led to another squarish room where a nice-looking woman, about thirty, held a metal detector while blocking the door to the tarmac where the 737 was sitting. Both rooms were crowded with people in parkas and big boots, the air blue with cigarette smoke. Some were sitting on benches, some standing.
    The buzz of voices fell silent. We stopped by the door of the small office off the check-in counters. Outside to our right the cars and pickups sat with motors running, the exhausts pluming in the frosty air. Lights could be seen moving on nearby roads. Down beyond the main road was the Mackenzie River with its more than 200 oil and gas wells, many in the river itself on artificial islands. The oil-town settlement of more than 600 people spread for miles along the river, the glow from burn-offs at the main Esso installations barely visible from where I stood. I somehow didn’t think the murderer had been from here, but there was no way of knowing yet.
    â€œI think one at a time, whaddaya say?” the corporal asked.
    â€œSure.”
    He faced the crowd. He didn’t have to ask for attention.
    â€œNo one leave the airport until we have names and addresses,” he said in a carrying voice. “This can be speeded up a lot if anybody knew the guy with the gun, positive identification preferred, of course, but even a suspicion we’ll listen to. Anybody with anything to say that might help, step right up.”
    I watched the faces in the growing silence. Even when they’d been filing past me out of the plane I’d been thinking of things I wanted to know right away. Never mind motive. Who could even guess that, yet. Somebody had had to know, and let the murderer know, that Morton Cavendish was on this flight. You couldn’t load up a Colt GM .45, figure out how to shoot some poor unconscious man strapped onto a stretcher, back it up with an escape plan and then start meeting every flight on the off chance. It crossed my mind that I wasn’t really supposed to be here for a murder. My assignment had been a missing aircraft bearing someone that Buster was concerned about.
    The corporal had waited a few beats. Nobody had stepped up.
    â€œOkay. Come in to this office behind me one at a time. First, airport staff, then plane crew, then the