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to be moving. A couple of parking lot security guards were attending to him, but the situation didn’t look good. Heart attack maybe? I could hear one of the guards talking to a 9-1-1 operator, asking for both an ambulance and police.
    Although by virtue of my chosen career I am a professional snoop, I try to hold it to a minimum in times of private misfortune.
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    I was about to step away from this bad luck story when something familiar caught my eye.
    An orange and blue scarf.
    I drew in a sharp breath.
    It was Mr. Magoo lying lifeless on the ground.
    Then I noticed one more thing. Alarm bells started ringing in my head.
    I charged forward, and yelled: “Seal off the parking lot!”

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Chapter 2
    Detective Darren Kirsch was not amused when after asking me—
    five separate times—to identify the dead man in the parking lot, all I could answer was: “Mr. Magoo.”
    “I’m sorry,” I said. I was. “I never asked his name. We were strangers who met on a plane. We chatted. I helped him with his suitcase. That’s it.”
    “How did you know he was murdered?”
    I winced. It turned out the orange and blue scarf around Mr.
    Magoo’s throat was tied very tightly. He’d been strangled. In the Saskatoon airport parking lot of all places. It was shocking. On average, there are fewer than ten homicides each year in my prairie hometown. Most of those happen within a very specific area of the city. Most involve alcohol and knives, not an orange and blue scarf. A quick visual survey of the people still milling about the murder site revealed that everyone, cops and medical professionals included, was just as taken aback as I was.
    “I didn’t know it was murder.”

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    “Then why did you demand the parking lot be sealed off before anyone even suspected the death was suspicious?” Kirsch barked. It was his favourite manner of speaking, particularly to me. We’d worked together years ago when I was still a cop. We enjoyed being thorns in each other ’s sides ever since. Well, me more than him.
    “I told you already. His luggage. I’d helped him, so I knew he had a carry-on and an argyle suitcase.”
    Kirsch stared at me. He was probably wondering what
    “argyle” meant.
    “They were missing. And the body was too far from the car for him to have already stashed them in the trunk. I assumed he’d been robbed, not murdered. I thought if we stopped people from leaving the parking lot, we might be able to identify the thief by searching cars and finding out who had the luggage. I could have been wrong, I suppose, but I thought it was worth the effort.”
    The big cop grunted. “I suppose.”
    “Was that a compliment? Was that a, ‘Hey, good call, Russell’?”
    Kirsch snarled. Unfortunately for him, despite the requisite dark brooding eyes, shovel jaw, and cheesy mustache favoured by Saskatoon cops, he was simply too teddy bear cute to pull it off.
    “Don’t leave town,” he said as he stalked off. “I’m gonna need to talk with you again.”
    “I’ll look forward to it.” I turned to go, then stopped and called out: “Have you been able to identify Mr. M…the dead man?”
    “Angel,” he called back. “His name was Walter Angel.”
    As I walked away, a troubling thought entered my mind. Had I read the look in Walter Angel’s eyes incorrectly? Had he been ogling me? Or was he afraid?

    It was late—after ten p.m.—by the time I got away from the airport. I knew stuffing two happy-to-see me schnauzers in the RX-7
    would be a bit tricky, but I was desperate to be reunited with my pups Barbra and Brutus after being away for a whole week. Using my cellphone, I dialled Errall’s number and got a two-word reply to my request. “Yeah, fine.”
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    Anthony