Murder in a Cold Climate: An Inspector Matteesie Mystery (14 page)

“Anyway, his name was Billy Bob Hicks. One night a month or two later when Batten was high and happened to mention Billy Bob and William said he was an asshole, Batten told William not ever to say that to Billy Bob's face. He said that one guy in the world he'd never fool around with was Billy Bob, because he shot first and asked questions afterwards, and if he hadn't done that once too often he'd still be tending bar in Nashville, instead of Yellowknife. I just thought it was a lot of drunken Yankee bullshit at the time. Now”—she paused—“I'm not sure. Maybe I'm crazy, but I been thinking about him, and I can
imagine
him doing . . . that . . . to Morton.”

“Tending bar in Yellowknife,” I said. “You know where?”

“No, but people would know him. He's really tall. When he was here he had his hair cut long at the back and short on top and he has a long jaw, I remember his jaw. And he blinked a lot, as if he couldn't see very well. And he sort of slouched when he walked.” She stopped and there was a silence. “Thought I should tell you.”

I phoned Yellowknife and got a sergeant I know and said, “I'm going to describe a guy to you, maybe from Nashville, southern accent anyway, maybe a bartender there, name might be Billy Bob Hicks.”

I repeated Gloria's description.

“Well,” the sergeant said, “that fits a guy who's worked for two or three places around town, but the name is wrong. This one's name is Dave something. I'll find out for you.”

“Can I hang on?”

“Sure.”

He was back in a couple of minutes. “Dave Hawkinsville. What do you want to know?”

“Where he was Tuesday and Wednesday.”

“I'll call you back”

He called in about an hour. I was sitting by the phone eating part of Pengelly's lunch. Normally he ate at home, he said, but his wife, Bertha, worked two days a week in the Child Development Centre and Friday was one of her days. Bertha Pengelly's salmon salad sandwiches had more onion and mayonnaise than Nancy Paterson up in Norman Wells put in hers, but were equally good. It really helps to know guys whose wives are not above making good, or even excellent, sandwiches.

My sergeant friend in Yellowknife detachment said, “The guy I mentioned, Hawkinsville, flew to Edmonton Monday on Northwest Territorial's evening flight. They fly two a day to Edmonton, the morning one to Edmonton International and the evening one to Edmonton Municipal, so that's where he'd go, to Edmonton Municipal. Seems it was sort of a surprise to the place he worked, but people do decide things' suddenly around here sometimes, especially when it comes to getting out in January. Told a couple of people he wouldn't be back, but to think of him lounging on the beach at Waikiki. His ticket was just to Edmonton, one way. People said he got a phone call at the bar around one or so in the afternoon, bought his ticket about two. Took all his stuff from the hotel where he was staying, so I'd guess he was serious.”

“Thanks,” I said. “And damn it.”

“Take it easy, Matteesie.”

About an hour later I called the sergeant back. “Look.” I said, “this is a long shot, but it's on the Morton Cavendish murder and long shots is all we've got. You don't have a picture of that guy Hawkinsville, do you?”

“No. I checked. He's been clean here. Not squeaky clean, but no charges. A Metis woman complained he'd tried to do it to her, but there really wasn't enough to lay a charge on.”

I said, “Know anybody who was on the Tuesday Canadian Airlines flight from Edmonton that goes through there in the morning?”

“I'm pretty sure I could find somebody. You mean the guy might have come back?”

“It's worth a check. Like I told you, a long shot.”

But long shots do come in sometimes. The sergeant called back at four to say that a bank loans officer who knew Hawkinsville slightly from drinking at a place where he'd worked thought she had seen him on the Tuesday morning flight from Edmonton. “But she was coming off a holiday and was slightly hung over herself, she says, and walking along an aisle she was past him before she really took a good look, and then she figured she must be wrong. This guy on the plane didn't have a moustache and Hawkinsville did.”

Of course, he could have shaved it off. Making at least two men in the world, him and me, with no moustache. “Know anything about his habits?” I asked. “I mean, interests?”

“No. What is it you're looking for?”

“A guy who's at home on a snowmobile and knows something about the bush and maybe has an interest in guns.”

“Well, the snowmobile fits. He left his here with a dealer, for sale. I don't know anything about an interest in guns. You think he might be the guy who shot Morton?”

“I'm just guessing. A fairly flimsy tip.”

“Better put it on a telex. Then more people around here can be watching, or might know something.”

So I asked him to put it on telex to Edmonton, asking for a check of the flight crew in Canadian's Tuesday flight north for anyone who might remember seeing a guy of the following description on that flight, or any Edmonton counter agent who sold him a ticket from Edmonton to Norman Wells or beyond for that flight, and to ask around for any other Yellowknife-bound passenger who might have noticed him.

His height, southern accent, slightly hunched walk and habit of blinking, as described by Gloria, could be Dave Hawkinsville or Billy Bob Hicks or both in the same skin.

 

Heading out of town the next morning a little before ten, the beginning of enough daylight to run by, lights still showed in most windows, falling in yellow rectangles on snow piled against the sides of houses. Edie's dogs belted along at a gallop, running fresh, the big, the small and the middle-sized, all of them mixed breeds with some husky here, some wolf there, and a lot between—including a black-and-white bitch named Alice that looked like a border collie. If any of the few Fort Norman people about were curious, none showed it. There weren't that many dog teams in town any more but Edie's was seen often enough to be glanced at and then ignored. The temperature was minus thirty-six and the sun wasn't due above the horizon until about 10:30, but was reflected in a growing rosiness on clouds to the south. Including the pre-sunrise half light now and twilight at the end of the day we'd have maybe seven or eight hours. If we used it all and hadn't found William, we planned to stay out overnight.

In some ways I was reminded of moves when I was a kid, except that our loads then were a lot heavier. Hell, we even used to pile stones on komatiks when we were training young dogs, to get them used to the weight they might have to pull when things got serious. No Legs and I didn't add that much to the weight. When we started, Edie was on the back, No Legs and his sled ahead of me on the komatik along with bedrolls, food box, primus stove, its fuel, rifle and a seven-by-seven nylon tent that weighed like a feather compared to the old caribou-hide jobs of my childhood.

I was having fun. Why not? So the quarry was maybe a murderer, maybe an accessory or accessories to murder, or at the very least clues as to the present whereabouts of same. I felt good, No Legs felt good, and I had an idea that Edie wouldn't be here if she didn't feel good. All in favor? Carried.

Up front Edie's lead dog, a half-husky, half-Labrador named Seismo, was straining into his collar in a manner that struck me as dedicated. Earlier when the dogs were being unchained for harnessing, No Legs kept catching my eye and jerking his head at Seismo and then grinning, one old dog man to another. Seismo had snarled and lunged at every dog in turn except his obvious favorite, the smallish Alice. Such behavior wasn't unusual in a good lead dog, the daily reminder: I'm the boss. Kicking and flailing with whatever she could grab, Edie would straighten him out.

But then he had showed another side: Seismo the comedian. When Edie was hooking him up and had the harness only half on, he rolled on his back waving his legs in the air like a puppy, his eyes never leaving Edie as he calculated how far he could push her. Her string of mule-team curses informing him that party time was over seemed to be as much a part of the routine as his fooling around, because then he stood like a rock while she completed his harnessing, and if any of the others so much as moved while they were being hooked up he'd snarl and plunge threateningly. Now on the trail he was out in front, leaning into his collar, belly close to the snow, legs pumping powerfully, his traces the tightest of all. Nose to tail behind Seismo, the others, good strong dogs, leaned hard into their collars and traces under the lead line that ran back to Edie.

Edie left her perch occasionally to glide along on her snowshoes when a slope ahead made the pulling more difficult. I started out doing the same in such situations. It's the decent thing to do, you know, saving the dogs. The first time we had a slope to climb I was off and running easily enough.

I had a new set of what are called trail shoes, just like Edie's, narrower and more tapered and therefore a little easier to run on than standard snowshoes. I felt real good in them the first time—for several minutes. Then I began to struggle. Somewhere over the years my old easy mile-eating gait had abandoned ship. Thighs and calves cried for mercy. Thank God for the komatik, on which I flopped, to wide grins from Edie and No Legs.

It didn't soothe my damaged ego to think what I'd shelled out for them last night at the Bay. Reminded me of Tom Berger's 1975 inquiry into environmental and social impacts of the Mackenzie Valley pipeline. Chief Paul Andrew of the Fort Norman band, testifying passionately in defence of traditional Native lifestyles, had detoured briefly into the white man's justice system. He called it, “A system which punishes Indians for stealing from the Bay, but does not punish the Bay for stealing from the Indians.” The chief could have included Eskimos as well. The only alleviating element was that they were well-made, and by Natives of here, not of Taiwan.

Coming out of town we traveled along the south side of the Bear River until we got to where No Legs had last seen William. There No Legs stretched out an arm to point the way more or less south. At the signal Edie yelled, “Gee!” and Seismo wheeled abruptly right, into the bush.

No Legs had never stopped smiling from when I first saw him that morning. He was good-looking anyway, with deep set eyes and a broad face now mostly covered by his balaclava. He and Edie must have been about the same age and although neither was exactly Rotarian by temperament they were close enough to talk and did occasionally even after we set out, No Legs soon calling the dogs by name.

“I think that Seismo like that Alice,” he called once.

She laughed. “You're not kidding. Marriage made in heaven. Don't think I'd even have to chain that dog as long as I chained Alice.”

Bush isn't great for dog teams—they're better in the open—but this stretch we were going through now had been open enough for a snowmobile and was only a little more difficult for the dogs. After days of snow and wind, naturally there were few signs that anything except animals, whose tracks were everywhere, had passed this way. Yet what signs there were, we found. I came to have more and more respect for Seismo on the lead. He either sensed the course that William had followed, or was making the same decisions as William about which was the easiest way to go. Edie rarely interfered. Twice in the first fifteen minutes after leaving the river, we'd seen on open spots the unmistakable serrated tracks of a snowmobile, hardened and swept clear by the wind. Both times these were at the top of rises where the bush was thin.

It was a nice day, clear, no wind, no noise to inhibit conversation. Edie, seeming hardly breathless at all after running up the rise we'd just negotiated, was doing trapline research. She'd have to call to be heard, and he'd call back.

“What's the best day you ever had on your trapline, George?” she asked once.

“Nine,” No Legs said. “Four beaver, three otter, two marten.”

“Was this after you lost your legs?” Edie asked.

“No.”

“Do you skin them right on the spot, or what?”

No Legs: “Depen's what time o' day it is, how cold, how much more trapline you got. If you're gain' to be out long they freeze and you can't skin 'em frozen, but in my shack I got a stove and if I got a frozen animal I put it unner my bed for the night. By mornin' it's thawed. I skin it then.”

We had come to a down slope. Edie jumped back on the sled. I lumbered along off to the side, getting a little better with the trail shoes, watching for signs but not really expecting much right there with the snow deeper in a sheltered hollow.

“Do you ever find animals dead in your traps?”

“Naw, If they're there long enough, prob'ly somethin' eats 'em.”

Somewhat startled, “What? I mean, what would eat them?”

“Usually wolves. Maybe wolverine. Anything that'll eat meat. One time I got sick and couldn' get on the trapline for five days and when I did wolves had eaten everythin' 'cept a fox who'd dug hisself away down in, two or three feet into the snow, and was dead. Maybe they didn' know it was there.”

“I guess you'd feel bad when they get wasted that way.”

“Yeah, I hate to lose anything.”

I thought he realized she meant something else, that he'd feel bad about a trapped animal unable to hide or defend itself, but if so he decided to avoid that debate. Still, his answer could have been taken either way. Even about his lost legs.

“Ever trap a wolf?”

“Yeah. But I don' set that size traps no more. I used to rub beaver castor on the bait for wolves. They go crazy for it. They'd dig halfway to China to get at it. But now the size trap I set for smaller animals won't usually hold a wolf, okay with me. I've found traps sprung, bait gone, wolf tracks around,” He paused. “You get out here with no legs and a 150-pound wolf stuck in a trap, you might just wish you was back in town, drawin' welfare.”

They both laughed.

We went on, skirting clumps of bush, tough hills, as William's snowmobile trail did. An hour out, the day by now nearly full daylight, we stopped, unloaded tea Thermoses, and called Fort Norman by radio.

“Anything doing? Over.”

Pengelly was on duty. “The rescue people are out, but they ain't finding anybody to rescue. Over.”

“What's the word from Inuvik? Over.”

“They found that Bonner guy and, urn,
interviewed
him a little.” I think he meant, interviewed him hard, “Decided to forget the assault charge for now and see if he led them anywhere on the main event. Over.”

I had an idea. “This frequency we're on, like, if that downed plane is anywhere around, could it be picking us up? Over.”

“Sure, wanta send a message? We only take personals. Over.”

His kidding about personals was a reference to the highest-rated radio program in the remote districts, called the “Northern Messenger,” Babies born, deaths, birthday wishes, broken bones, liquor charges, instructions on what pattern of china to buy or what a polar bear skin sold for; anything and everything is the show's stock in trade.

I didn't have a message to send to Christian, Batten, Johns and Company, but I couldn't help wondering if they were out here somewhere, listening. Or if the guy who killed Morton Cavendish could hear us, he couldn't be far away, either, wherever he'd holed up. Or even William—the whole goddamn bunch of them, huddling around their radio like fans listening to the final game of the Stanley Cup.

All along, we were getting just enough show of snowmobile tracks, and once a plastic Baggie like those kids take to school holding their lunch, to keep us feeling that William had gone this way, too, a couple of days before. Apart from that, what we saw was snow and bush. A porcupine had eaten the bark from halfway up a tree. Tracks large and small were everywhere. Flocks of ptarmigan in their winter white burst out of cover now and again.

Once the Number 5 dog tried to take off after a rabbit and caused a tangle, plus getting chewed somewhat by Number 4 and Number 6 and a mean snarl and dirty look from Seismo. Another time Number 4 took a chew out of Number 3 and right away there was a hell of a dogfight going on, mainly Seismo against the world, but before they could get the traces in much of a tangle Edie waded in with her whip and got them separated without much damage done. She ran her team as expertly as any dog-team driver I'd ever seen. Her commands naturally weren't in the language I'd heard most as a child, but had heard lots of since. She'd yell “Chaw!” for the lead dog to go left, “Gee” to go right, “Mush” for go and “Whoa” to stop. I've known dogs long ago who wouldn't know what the hell to make of that.

When I thought of William somewhere ahead I wondered what frame of mind he might be in, why he was out here, whether he was armed, and what he might think about being followed. My alertness on this score was sharpened somewhat by remembering last night's dinner at Pengelly's, after I'd met Edie at her place and quickly became convinced that she had everything well in hand and wanted no effing (as Charlie Paterson might say) interference.

Earlier, Bertha Pengelly had dropped in to the detachment in late afternoon to say that if I could stand caribou sauerbraten and dumplings I was welcome to come to dinner. At this, Pengelly had said he had some rum but no mix, so when I was buying my snowshoes at the Bay I also bought mix. We'd eaten the sauerbraten and dumplings and it was great, although Bertha said it was even better with musk-ox and told Pengelly if he ever got a chance to transfer to Sachs Island detachment, where the musk-ox were plentiful, to take it, and they'd have me to dinner again. Some woman. Anyway, we had eaten and we were drinking and talking.

“I had something last year like you might get ahead of you tomorrow, y'know,” Pengelly said, glass in hand, stripped down to braces and shirt and pants in the comfort of his own home.

The living room was maybe twelve by twelve, and included a chesterfield, two big chairs, the TV set.

“I mean,” Pengelly went on, “going out into the bloody bush not knowing when a goddamn gun is going to go off and drop you bleeding in the snow.”

“Which is very white, and sets off the blood nicely,” I said companionably. After the second drink, rum can be like that.

Bertha had been listening. She appeared in the kitchen doorway. She must have weighed 200 pounds but on her it looked all right. Her face was pretty, and cheerful, and she had nice hair. Whether this shade somewhere between off-white and golden was its original color, I have no idea, but it was fluffy and fell in curls over her forehead and around her ears, and besides that she had personality.

“Yeah,” Pengelly mused, “You get these things sometimes. I sure as hell remember this one.”

“Come on, Steve,” Bertha protested. “You're not going to tell him
that
story, are you?” She turned to me. “It's all about how he got scared damn near to death.”

“Well,” Pengelly said, “since it's the only time I ever got scared since I used to be undercover in Toronto as pals with a lot of hair-trigger coke importers, I gotta tell it, don't I? It's all in the line that when you're hunting somebody you gotta be careful, what's wrong with that?”

The wind had died down outside, the sky clearing. We knew the search people would be in the air at daylight for sure, meaning that when my safari struck off with the indefatigable Edie and her dogs, we'd be checking by radio often in case everything got solved before we had to make some really interesting decisions about sleeping arrangements in our tent.