It Isn't Cheating if He's Dead (5 page)

She squinted.  Guess it paid to be a cold
fish in his line of work, emotions always in check.

He glanced up at her and paused. “Jem, it
was more than two years ago. It’s all good.”

“Oh. Did I know that?”

He smiled. “I doubt it. Not exactly the
kind of conversation I have with a woman when I’m investigating the
disappearance of her fiancé.”

“No, I guess not.” She looked him up and
down. “My God, are you wearing flip-flops?”

“Sorry. Would you prefer if I only came in
a suit and proper shoes?”

Was he serious? “Hell no. I like you like
this. You look so… civilized. Downright normal in fact.” Except that every sinew
of his lean frame was visible beneath his clothes. She mentally slipped his
cornflower blue summer-weight sweater over his head and admired the cut of his
biceps, the lump of muscle that ran from his neck to his shoulder. She imagined
six-pack abs and perfect pecs. Her face flushed and she set a cup of black
coffee at his clothed elbow, then turned away and waited for her cheeks to cool.

When she turned back, he had spread files
and papers all over the table. It seemed a hot mess, nothing in order, a random
scattering of information. Sane Gerald would have been appalled.

She sipped her coffee and scanned the case
files, then pulled out a chair and sat across from him. “So what have you got?”

“Not much more than before. Except for the
autopsy results.” He slid a file from under some papers and flipped it open.

Jem’s stomach churned. She turned her head
and closed her eyes. “Are there photos?” She held her breath.

“Yes, but I left them at the precinct. You
don’t need to see that.”

She exhaled. “Nope. Thanks.”

“Okay, are you ready? Do you want to know?”

She wasn’t sure what the answer was. How
could you ever be ready for this? “Yes. I think so.” She chewed her thumbnail.
“No. No, not yet.”

She pulled a bottle of brandy from the
cupboard and free-poured into her coffee, then held the bottle towards Finn and
raised her eyebrows.

“No thanks.” He shifted in his chair and
cleared his throat. “Jem, it’s not even eleven.”

“You’re judging me?”

“No. Of course not. I apologize.”

She drank half the mug and then sat again.
“Okay. Now.”

“He died of a gunshot wound to the chest.”

She blew the air out of her lungs. “Right.
You said before that he was shot.”

“He had been beaten. But there were a lot
of healed scars, lots of remodeled bone, so he’d suffered a few breaks. In
fact, it looks like he’d taken some abuse for a while.”

She leaned her elbows on the table cradled
her cheeks in her hands, fingertips tapping her temples. “The only thing I knew
he’d broken was his arm. The one and only time he went skiing when he was in
university. Who did all that to him?”

“We don’t know.” He flipped the paper over.
“No food in his stomach, and he was thin. Emaciated.” He ran his index finger
down the page. “They tested his hair for drugs. He was clean.”

“You mean coke, heroin, that kind of drug?”

“I mean anything. No illegal substances.
And no antipsychotics. The medical examiner said that only means the last three
months. He has no idea before that.”

She took a long swig of coffee. “Do you
think he could have survived, alone on the streets, without his meds? For four
years?”

“It’s possible, but unlikely. The police
psychologist agrees. He’d have been too far gone. Easy prey for any number of
thugs and other street people. Which might explain some of the damage to his
body.” He closed the file and tossed it aside.

“The Montreal police have traced his steps
back twelve months. They got a tip from a worker at a homeless shelter. He said
Gerald told him he’d been staying in a treatment facility for six months, been
on meds the whole time. Was doing well. He left there four months before his
death. Stayed in the shelter once in a while, when it rained or on colder
winter days.”

Jem’s shoulders quivered. She swallowed
grief and drained the last of her mug. “He had the presence of mind to get
help. But he never bothered to call? Never tried to come home?” She broke down
in tears.

Finn kneeled on the floor beside her and
crushed her in a giant hug. “Jem, he wasn’t himself. He’d lost his mind. He
seemed fairly lucid to the shelter worker but I bet you’d think differently.
You knew him better.” He sat back in the chair. “I’m going to call the doctors at
the facility, find out more. But I do know that he wasn’t using his real name.”

“What name did he use?”

“Cord Fitzbottom.”

Jem stared at Finn. She closed her eyes and
conjured one brief moment eight years ago. She had been trying to convince
Gerald to branch out in his clothing choices. From the time they’d met in
college until that moment a year later, he’d worn nothing but corduroy pants.

“It’s so 1974.” She tried to shame him into
denim or cargos. Hell, velvet would have been an improvement.

“But I like the way the cords fit,” he
argued. “You know…” He turned and stuck out his butt. “In the bottom region.”
Then he slapped his own ass.

She’d been attracted to him from the second
they almost mowed each other down in the lecture hall. She was third-year law.
He was a professor exiting the hall after giving a lecture to a fresh-faced
bunch of med students. He bought her a coffee and they became friends. For a
year she tried to rein in her growing desire — his hair, his eyes, his
brilliant mind. All so sexy. But at that ass-slapping second, she fell
hopelessly in love.

She had laughed. “One point to you, Mr.
Cord Fitzbottom.”

He’d remembered. He couldn’t have lost his entire
mind.

Her legs were heavy from the brandy, her mind
too fuzzy to concentrate. She refilled her mug with straight coffee.

Finn had tucked the autopsy file into the
accordion folder and shuffled some of the papers. Her name typed on the label
of one near the table’s edge caught her attention. She picked it up and flipped
it open.

“What’s this?”

His cheeks blazed and he tried to snatch
the folder from her hand.

“Oh no you don’t. It appears to belong to
me, my name on it and all.” She scanned the first page and looked up at him,
her jaw set. “You suspected me?”

“Standard operating procedure. Always check
out the spouse.”

“But we were never ma —”

“Or the girlfriend, lover. Fiancée. You
know, the ones closest to the victim.”

“I see.” She closed the file and slid it to
him with force. “And now? You still think I’m guilty?”

“Jem, I had to look into it. It’s procedure.”
He put the folder into the file by his feet and slouched back in the chair. “I
never thought you did anything to him. I had to check. For the file.”

She crossed her arms. “And what did you
find?”

“A huge insurance policy benefitting you if
he died.”

“Excuse me?”

“Gerald took out life insurance a month
before he disappeared. Bought a five-year term and paid all the premiums up
front. The rep told me no one’s ever done that before.”

She shook her head. “Why? Why wouldn’t he
tell me that?”

“I’ve no idea. But when my sergeant
suggested you have him declared dead, you flat out refused. I always knew you
didn’t do it but that cemented it. If you were after the insurance, you would
have jumped at that.”

He pulled the file out and flipped through
the pages, then yanked one free of the metal prongs that held it in place. He
slid it across the table.

She picked it up, the thin paper like a
brick in her hand. Certificate of insurance. Two-point-five-million.

“I guess you can cash that in now.”

She leapt from the chair and took the
stairs two at a time. Regurgitated coffee and brandy burned her throat and
filled the toilet. She leaned back against the tub and sobbed.

He’d planned it. He meant to leave her. It
wasn’t only the crazy’s fault.

“Jem?” Finn’s voice echoed up the
staircase. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Should I come back next week?”

No. Don’t come back.

“Yes. Thanks.”

defend the
cretins

Jem awoke at five, showered and drank her
coffee, made dozens of sandwiches and piled into the van to feed her homeless
friends. Same thing every morning for the past week. Like she was on
auto-pilot.

Work could wait. The partners were billing-hour
Nazis, demanding up to eighty hours charged out per week. But when she told them
Gerald had been found murdered, they shifted cases to other associates, filed
motions on her behalf. They gave her time off. As much as she needed.

Was there that much time?

The park seemed in some kind of stasis. Residents
that were there one day were still there the next. No more freaky new guys, only
Chief, silent and still as ever. Even Jeremy stuck around to see Jem, ‘his saviour,’
and eat her sandwiches. Apparently she made the best sandwiches.

Frank and Angus teased and flirted with her.
They gave her daily reports on the comings and goings of their little world. Chief
ate what she’d left him. And Jeremy reported that Chief had pissed in the
bushes by the light of the moon. He even looked like he’d put on a little
weight. Her heart lightened at the sight of his less-sharp cheekbones.

She hadn’t pushed her luck with Chief.
Didn’t want to spark an outburst, or scare him away. Not before she figured out
why he wouldn’t speak. So she simply said good morning and placed his food at
his feet. Small steps were fine, as long as he kept eating. But she couldn’t
get his vacant stare out of her head. He had the look of a lost child mixed
with the anger of a man who didn’t want to be found. Like Gerald had looked
when she chased him through that park.

She hung the certificate of insurance on
her fridge with two of the tiny earth magnets Gerald liked to play with. Each
morning she smoked a cigarette — only one — in the kitchen while she stared at
the document. If she cashed it in, would it make her guilty of his death?
Cheapen his memory? It was obvious he’d wanted her to be taken care of. Had protected
her to the bitter end. His end. 

One morning, after her deliveries, she
tossed the empty sandwich box on the floor in the corner of the kitchen.

The shrill chime of the phone cut the
silence in the house. She jumped at the intrusion. Althea, the call display
announced. Jem braced herself, took one last long drag on her second cigarette
that day, and clicked the talk button.

“Morning, Mother Wolfe. You’re up early.”

“Jemima. When is he coming home to me?”

“Finn is making the arrangements. I should
know more tomorrow.”

Silence on the other end. “Finn? New
boyfriend already?”

Wow. Jem rubbed the back of her neck and
twisted it side to side until a loud crack relieved some tension. “Detective
Finn Wight. He’s the man that’s spent four years looking for your son.”

“And you’re on a first name basis with this
detective?”

“Four years, Althea. Dozens of meetings,
even more phone calls. That and the subject matter lends itself to a little
familiarity.” Jem snatched another cigarette and lit it with the matches she’d
picked up at the grocery store. “What do you want?” She rubbed her temples and
shut her eyes.

“I want to make arrangements for my only
child to be buried with dignity.” Althea’s voice cracked and soft muffled sobs
came through the receiver.

“I know. I’m sorry. But he doesn’t want to
be buried, he wants to be cremated.”

“He’s my son. I think I know what he’d
want. I’ve been in touch with my pastor to perform the eulogy. Or are you going
to tell me that’s wrong too?”

Of course it was wrong. Gerald was an
atheist. But he’d never had the balls to tell his mother that.

Jem curled her lips around her teeth and
bounced in place. “No ma’am. You plan the funeral exactly the way you want it.”
No point in arguing. She was going to do it her way anyway.

“Do you have his will?”

Jem hesitated. She hadn’t thought of a
will. “No. I don’t know if there is one.”

“Aren’t you his lawyer?”

“No, I’m not.” Jem held the phone between
her ear and shoulder and thumbed through a stack of mail she’d been ignoring. “I’m
a criminal defense attorney. I don’t do wills and estates.”

“Right. You defend the cretins that rob and
steal and murder people. Like my son.”

Jem took a deep breath and shook her head. “I
defend innocent people wrongly accused. And I think I have to hang up now.
Because the one truth that I know today, Althea, is that I no longer have to
put up with any of your crap.” She pressed the end button hard, then poked it
several times with her index finger. It didn’t have the same satisfying feel as
an old-fashioned slamming of the receiver.