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

the back end of the van headed uphill and we were looking downhill.
    Even with the snow I could see that we were on a shelf overlooking the Mackenzie. Below and to our right I could dimly see the airport lights, blinking through the squalls. Between us and the airport, even though there wasn’t much light yet, we could see a straight white line cutting through the bush like a chalk mark on a blackboard. It vanished in the distance in both directions. Everyone flying in the North along the Mackenzie sees miles of these straight white cutlines through the bush. Many were cleared originally in the 1960s for Canadian National Telegraphs but now were shared here and there by International Pipelines and in some places from about mid-January to mid-March, by the vital winter road. That’s the only time when ice at the river crossings is thick enough to hold big transports.
    I stared at the outline, nodding, saying to myself, yeah, yeah. When he got that far after the murder, which way did he turn? I didn’t ask it but Charlie answered it anyway.
    â€œNed Hoare picked up the guy’s trail coming off the airport property,” he said. “He could do that because nobody else goes across the airport on a snowmobile. But the farther Ned went, the less he could be sure he was following the right track. At the cutline, of course, it was game over. Snowmobile tracks in both directions.”
    These cutlines in summer are too rough to travel except on foot with a backpack. Winter is another matter. I knew the geography. If a cutline connects one community with another, like Fort Norman and Norman Wells, or even comes close, almost automatically it becomes a winter road. Transports large and small, normally limited by strictly local road systems, move supplies and equipment. Places that don’t have a winter road, like Fort Good Hope a hundred miles north, downriver, near the narrow part of the Mackenzie where it runs between high cliffs called The Ramparts, sign petitions and beefs to their legislative members. They feel that civilization is passing them by.
    â€œSo which way do you think?” I asked.
    â€œHard to say. If you weren’t trying to fool anybody, Fort Norman would be a piece of cake. Can’t ignore north, of course, but jeez that road north is tough. A truck slid off a cliff once this winter already.”
    Anyway, Mountie detachments along the river both ways had been alerted. Any stranger would be getting very searching looks.
    I asked, “Did you manage to fly the cutline yesterday at all?”
    â€œGot a chopper up for about an hour before the weather forced us in. Saw some snowmobiles towards Fort Norman. Pengelly from the detachment there came the other way on his machine and checked them out. All local. Saw nothing to the north. Like I say, can’t rule north out, but if the guy went south, what time’s the murder, around five-thirty, he could have been in Fort Norman by midnight, except that he wouldn’t be that dumb.”
    We were on the same wavelength. The fugitive couldn’t have expected to last long unspotted if he stayed in the open. If he ran without lights, which he probably did, he couldn’t make good time. If he ran with lights, say toward Fort Norman, anyone out to intercept him could stop and turn out his own lights and spot anything coming.
    â€œI don’t think the guy would be heading for a settlement at all,” I said.
    â€œSo where?” Charlie asked.
    â€œSome hideout, even a place he’d specifically fixed up himself in advance.”
    â€œIf he knew the bush,” the corporal mused, emphasizing the if, “he could stick it out for weeks or maybe months. I mean, an experienced trapper could, easy. Some of them do. Go out after freezeup and come back starving, eating ptarmigan and their goddamn dogs and, and, well, girl friends—”
    â€œCharlie . . .” I protested, although none of the possibilities he