Cedric

The windows at R & R were blued and hazy from years of burning incense. A  yellowish light flittered from one corner of the store to the next, lit on a row of Saint Martin candles, hovered over a display of Florida water, and then finally landed on the cement floor in front of the cash register. The light grew, not in brightness, but in size, becoming denser as it expanded. 

A form was appearing out of the weft of yellow light. It was humanoid, but oddly shaped, too slim and small to be a goblin, too yellow to be a demon. Out of the yolky glow, a matte sickish skin formed itself into an imp, and not a handsome one. It looked around stupidly, dazed from the appearance and from years of slavish civil service. Its pointed ears bristled alert, tuning like radar to the sounds of the human world. 

The imp sniffed the air, which was dense with fragrance, the most obvious of which was his own acrid odor. He sighed. He hated this fucking job. Why was he always called in for the most depressing tasks? Wasn’t there a fairy somewhere who needed something to do besides sing to unicorns or whatever the fuck fairies did?

The imp saw the body on the floor and willed his senses to settle. Now he was on the job and he needed to focus. He sniffed the unmoving man. Dead. For sure dead. But not quite dead enough. The man’s ghost hovered near his body, slumped in a corner beneath rows of beaded amulets, head in his hands. The ghost looked up and noticed the imp just as he was smelling the corpse’s armpit. The imp sighed. He hated ghosts. They were always so dramatic. Still, a job was a job and maybe this ghost would be different. The imp’s name was Cedric and he believed in doing a good job. Even if he fucking hated it. 

“Hi,” said the man’s ghost. “I’m dead.”

“Yeah,” said Cedric. “I noticed.”

This, at least, was a relief. Sometimes when he arrived at a scene, he was forced to have long existential conversations with the ghosts of the recently deceased explaining death, the nature of impermanence, and the relative impossibility of coming back to life. Sometimes he had to walk them through the bardo right up to the door of whatever came next for them. This ghost was lingering, not , it seemed, because he didn’t know what to do next, but because he had something to say before he did it.

“I was killed,” said the man’s ghost. “I was murdered.”

“Oh,” Cedric said. “I’m really sorry. Was it violent?”

“No,” the man said, “Well, a little. It could have been worse. Mostly I was surprised is all.”

“Yes,” Cedric said, “murder is surprising.”

The man’s calm impressed him. He looked like a normie, but it was clear from his demeanor that he wasn’t. Normies don’t take to death or murder so kindly. Not that witches or other folks always went peacefully, but they were usually a little better informed. Even fairies, for all their frivolity, respected death. A witch was likely to hurl a last ditch curse and a demon might try to smite you for a second, but they would probably end up going quietly. 

Cedric hadn’t known that he was being sent to a murder scene. “Death at the Botanica in New Orleans,” was the name on the file he had been given. The file had held a picture of the R & R storefront on Canal Street and a Kirlian photograph of the man’s aura. No details. That’s the way they were running the agency these days, no fucking attention to detail. 

The new kids running the show seemed to think that computer-generated imaging could take the place of context, even when the context was actually something super fucking important, like, say, murder. Cedric imagined himself throwing the stupid aura photograph on the desk of his blank faced boss. “This guy was murdered, you douche canoe,” he would say, “don’t you think that intel was kind more important than this nonsense?” Cedric snorted and realized he had totally spaced out and that the man had been staring at him and patiently waiting for maybe longer than was really okay under the circumstances. 

“So…” Cedric started, not quite knowing how to start the conversation but anxious to get to work. The dead could be so unpredictable and sometimes it was hard to get information out of them. You had to be so careful with the skittish ones, although this one didn’t seem skittish at all. He decided that the best course of action was to try to get the facts and get this ghost to death’s door before something went wrong and an overzealous reaper swooped in to take over. 

“What’s your name?” Cedric asked.

“Gerald,” the man said.

“Gerald?” Cedric asked. The man didn’t look like a Gerald. Cedric had seen a lot of dead Geralds in the north atlantic region and he felt like he had a handle on them. This guy looked browner than most men named Gerald, like he was from the Caribbean or something. Cedric wasn’t sure. It was hard for him to parse out the subtle physiognomic and territorial characteristics that humanoids used to differentiate themselves from one other and he didn’t like to assume. But still, Gerald? 

“Well, my real name is Geraldo,” the man said, “but most people call me Gerald. I don’t like to be confused for that talk show host.”

“Of course,” said Cedric, nodding. He had no idea what Gerald was talking about, but he had found that it was best to just let ghosts talk. 

“My last name is the same as his, too. Rivera,” the man went on, “so it makes it really confusing. Sometimes people ask me for my autograph and I try to explain that I’m not that Geraldo Rivera, but they never listen, even though we don’t look alike at all. Gringos don’t know a Puerto Rican from a Mexican. Geraldo Rivera, the other one, he’s not even Puerto Rican.”

Cedric nodded. He didn’t know the difference between a Mexican and Puerto Rican either, but he felt like he should play along.

“So now I go by Gerald. Gerald Rivers. Which is actually pretty close to Geraldo Rivera’s real name, the other one. His real name is Jerry Rivers.”

“So, um,” Cedric said, “this other Geraldo, he’s the one who murdered you?”

“Oh, no,” said Gerald, “I was just trying to explain about my name.”

“Okay,” said Cedric, “So you are Gerald Rivers, aka Geraldo Rivera, and you were murdered, but you were not murdered by Geraldo Rivera, aka Jerry Rivers, is that correct?”

“Correct,” said Gerald. 

“Okay, then,” Cedric said, reaching in his satchel for the file. “Can you give me the name of the person who murdered you?”

“No,” said Gerald, “I cannot.”

“Hmmm,” said Cedric, trying to remember the verbiage he had learned in his trauma-informed death transition training. He knew that sometimes ghosts had posthumous PTSD and didn’t always remember the details of their deaths. One must be gently mindful with a ghost’s fragile emotional state and also demonstrate that you were in charge and capable of handling the grisly details.

 “I’m sorry this happened to you,” Cedric started, “It must have been such an ordeal.” Cedric made eye contact with Gerald, a recommended strategy from the training. He continued, “Are you under a binding spell or do you just not know their name?”

“No,” said Gerald, quickly breaking eye contact, “I can’t tell you the name of the person who killed me because…”

“Oh. My. God. Wait,” Cedric interrupted, forgetting his sensitivity training, “were you killed by some other creature? As in not by a human?” 

It had been decades since Cedric had worked an interesting case. And a creature on human murder would definitely be interesting. He walked closer to the body, already imagining the autopsy. Maybe he would find bite marks. Maybe even claw marks. Maybe traces of fur that he could link back to ancient clan of…

“I was killed by a person,” Gerald said, disrupting Cedric’s bloody reverie, “I just don’t remember who.”

“Oh,” said Cedric, trying to mask his disappointment. That was not interesting.