Read It Isn't Cheating if He's Dead for Free Online

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