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

Enforcement Agency. It seems a guy flying an oil company long-range executive jet was loading a shipment of assorted illegal substances, as they call them now, mostly hash, a little cocaine, for a flight he regularly made up here, and he got busted along with one of his suppliers. One of the ground crew apparently got religion and blew the whistle. This had been going on for at least three trips, flying a lot of stuff north, setting down on a remote landing strip to drop the stuff where it would be picked up by the gang working this end.”
    Easy to see it all happening. Our border is like a sieve. There’s no way every aircraft of executive size or smaller can be kept track of every inch of its flight plan. I thought right away of the old Canol road. When the Americans got worried in 1942 that the Japanese would shut off the coast as a supply route to US forces in Alaska, they’d built this highway and pipeline starting across the river from Norman Wells and leading through the mountains to Whitehorse in the Yukon. The Canol project was abandoned when the war ended and is pretty near impassable now, except for hikers in summer and all-terrain vehicles in winter. But it had lots of small air strips that could be cleaned up enough to land for a few minutes, transfer the contraband to a light plane or ATV and take off again for the legal destination. Maybe even one like Inuvik, with a customs office.
    â€œOnce in the North and safe,” Ted went on, “anybody could take it south in planes, trucks, boats, whatever the hell you’ve got. They’d turn it over for cash in Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, then come back here with money for the next shipment.” He grinned. “Nobody sniffs or searches baggage when a guy is going from Norman Wells to Edmonton.”
    The idea of the North supplying the south with drugs struck me as pretty ingenious. And also a little funny. “Who ran the show?”
    â€œSeems to have been Albert Christian. He’s the really smart one of the four, one of those guys people instinctively like, or can be influenced by. Call it charisma, if he’d been a politician. Makes friends and influences people. Seemed to have money. Talked about looking for a place to set up a flyin hunt and fish camp or some other tourist-oriented business. But if so, was still looking.”
    â€œWhere’s he from?”
    â€œHe said Winnipeg. We’re checking that now, because Winnipeg was one of the drug destinations from up here.”
    â€œWhat about the pilot?”
    â€œWe just don’t know. A cut above the other guys in education, manners, if that means anything. Early thirties. I know about the trouble he was in back east. But he’s been clean as far as we’re concerned.”
    â€œAnd the other guy that flew out with him, Benny Batten?”
    â€œUsed to be a football player. A centre, mostly. Had a shot with Green Bay about twenty years ago, just out of college, but mainly played for Canadian clubs, including about two games with Edmonton ten years ago before they cut him and he came here to work in construction. He did take work—usually as a big equipment driver, bulldozers and so on. Same as William. We had Batten once for punching out an American geologist who called him a no-talent palooka. I think he’d be mainly just muscle. Bonner did casual white collar work—clerking at the Bay and elsewhere. We think Bonner did some of the thinking and handled some contacts along the line, maybe he and William together. Actual dealing up here would be nothing. Too risky for their main operation. Not enough drug users in the Territories to support much of a drug operation. The known dribbles in Inuvik, Yellowknife, Norman Wells were mostly connected to whites. Our drug people used to figure any drugs we came across were being brought in mostly by users. Now it’s obvious the big money was in getting major stuff flown in here the way I’ve