La Ronge in April is a great spot. Spring is giving strong hints that it is coming, the promise of summer is in the air. It is not, however, a great time for boating.
I was on days off when I first saw it. A new white Ford Bronco pulling a 22 foot Lund Tyee boat, with BC plates. It was enough to set my alarm bells off, for there was still four or five feet of ice on Lac La Ronge. A couple of days later, while I was still off, I saw it again, still pulling this huge boat around. I promised myself that I’d stop it the first opportunity I had once I returned to work.
I didn’t notice the vehicle for the first couple of days back but one evening I was driving back to the office, when I met just the Bronco going the opposite direction.
As it passed I looked at the plate (I’d already called telecomns before we were close) and ran it on the computer. Seconds later the reply came back, it didn’t show the plates as being stolen however showed that they were invalid and suspended. The registered owner was an elderly couple in Victoria, say Joseph and Margaret Smith, and armed with this information I spun around and stopped the vehicle.
It is hard to explain sometimes just why some things set alarm bells ringing. I think that, for the most part, we key on to subtle hints in behaviour better than we think we are. And when you get good at something, such as police work, you get better at picking up those subtle hints. By the time I reached the driver’s door my alarm bells were pretty hard to ignore.
Seated in the driver’s seat was a bearded man in his forties, obviously very nervous. I asked him for his driver’s licence, registration and insurance and he handed me a Nevada Driver’s Licence, a vehicle title from Nevada, an insurance card with a Nevada address, and then he searched the glove box in vain for the registration. Our exchange went exactly like this…
“I kind seem to find the registration.”
Who is the vehicle registered to? (I loved asking questions I already knew the answer to)
“My Uncle.”
What’s your Uncle’s name?”
“Ha, you’re going to find this funny but I can’t remember his name.”
You’re right I do find that funny.
Now, normally what I should have done was tow the vehicle, and give the man, Michael J., a ticket for misuse of plates. I’d have kept the vehicle until it could be properly registered. It was obviously his, at least according to the insurance and the title. However, I knew, knew, that there was a lot more to this, and I wanted some time. So I asked where he was staying and he told me the Friendship Centre. I told him he couldn’t drive the vehicle, beyond taking it back to the Friendship Centre (“Seeing you’re a visitor here I’m going to give you a bit of a break.”), until it was properly registered, and I asked him to come back to our office in an hours and a half (his claim that he was on his way to church gave me some time to do some digging)
With that I headed back to the office, to try and determine what the real story was.
Comments
3 responses
I am waiting for the second part of that story, sounds like smth dramatic is gonna happen!
What towns have you served in for the RCMP Clare?
Let’s see. I was in Thompson MB, Winnipeg MB, back to Thompson, then Montreal PQ, Regina SK, La Ronge Sk, Rose Valley Sk, Saskatoon SK, Fort Providence NWT, and finally here in Arctic Bay. I guess I couldn’t keep a job.
Just wondered, as I think that one of the “advantages” (some people think the opposite though)of being in the force, wether it may be the RCMP, Army, Navy etc. that you get to experience lots of places, in your case alot of Canada.