Murder in a Cold Climate: An Inspector Matteesie Mystery by Scott Young Page B

at me.
    â€œIt’s about Morton Cavendish,” I said.
    â€œSomebody said you’d been around but took the plane out yesterday, Matteesie. I thought of you when I heard that terrible business. It was on the radio that you’d been right there beside him. You back in the police?”
    â€œSort of I guess I never really left.”
    We both laughed. It really was pretty ridiculous, but it hadn’t taken long for people here to decide I’d gone civilian, moving to Northern Affairs.
    At that thought I had a momentary flash of what kind of language I could expect from Buster when he found out what I was doing. Every once in a while, too, I thought of my superiors in Northern Affairs and how they’d dither over how the Russians would react if it came out that this certified Northern Affairs man, police work all behind him, was back getting involved the way I was.
    But I couldn’t do anything about that now. Maybe it would never make the papers. A cop, without portfolio. The search for the downed plane was stalled today. Bad weather a few hundred miles south, which meant Norman Wells, Fort Norman, and beyond. I’d kept track on the radio. The weather was okay for the bigger aircraft but no good for tree-hopping while looking for something on the ground. Even without being able to fly, I got the impression from the radio reports that the searchers couldn’t figure out why they hadn’t found anything or heard anything. They’d assume that the pilot would have tried to come down on an open space and if anybody was alive they’d put out colored markers and run a homing device. As far as I knew nothing yet had been seen or heard. But as soon as something was, I could get there in a matter of hours. I was keeping Buster’s orders in mind, but meanwhile—a man was entitled to a hobby, right?
    â€œWhat I wanted to know,” I said, “was what kind of shape Morton was in when you first saw him at the hospital.”
    â€œWell, to start with, he must have had an angina attack before the stroke. He’d had angina before, you know, enough that he carried nitro pills with him. In fact, he still had some nitro clutched in one hand when he was brought in. But then sometimes he ate the damn things like peanuts. He must have either taken some, or been about to take some, when he had the stroke.”
    â€œWas he conscious?”
    â€œNot when I first saw him. Slipped in and out several times later. He tried to speak. Seemed desperate to tell me something. I tried to get him to write it, but he couldn’t hold a pencil.”
    â€œWould he have come out of it?”
    â€œWell, you can never tell, sometimes the first stroke is just the start and is followed by others—but I did tell people that I thought the chances were not too bad, if we got him to a good stroke facility, like Edmonton. Might take weeks of therapy but sometimes it’s quite amazing, a guy seems totally gone, but over weeks or months, he’ll come back.”
    â€œAnything else you can tell me? About him, or William, or whatever?”
    â€œWhen Morton was brought in the son was a little loaded, I’d guess. Smelled of booze, anyway. Scared, but then who wouldn’t be, seeing his father’s eyes rolling around like a pinball machine when he tried to speak? Morton had a big bruise on his forehead. I asked William about it and he seemed to be trying to think when it had happened, but he didn’t answer.”
    â€œWas it consistent with a fall?”
    â€œCould be.”
    â€œOr being hit? Slugged?”
    â€œWell, hell,” the doctor said slowly, “yeah, I guess so . . .” He looked at me more sharply. “Yeah, I guess so. I guess that’s all pretty academic, now. From what I hear, I guess the bruise wouldn’t show any more.”
    When I left there I thought I’d better check in at RCMP headquarters. The RCMP “G” division covers the