Moon Dragon (18 page)

Or you hang out in somebody’s living room, like this hot ghost chick is doing now at dawn, drinking ghost Scotch, smoking unfiltered ghost cigarettes, and wearing nothing but a shimmery bathrobe and a stocking and garter set.

Devon, of course, totally doesn’t know what he’s missing. But that’s been the case where I’m concerned, too, for most of these past three years. Him not knowing—or really caring—what he’s missing. Not that I wear stocking and garter sets for him; I’m strictly the pantyhose type. But maybe it’s time for me to shake things up a little, do things a bit different now that I’m dead. Right now, in spite of the TV blaring, he’s in a lotus position on the carpet, meditating, so I take the opportunity to speak to the ghost chick, something I’ve never attempted before. Trying to talk to a ghost, I mean.

“Excuse me,” I say to her. “But could you give us a little privacy, please?”

The bimbo just stares at me and blows a lazy smoke ring. Ghosts smoke a lot, I’ve noticed. A hell of a lot. There’s a kind of ectoplasmic smog that hangs over the city. And something else, too—a kind of giant moving tapioca cloud layer higher up. I noticed this in the rearview mirror about halfway home to the suburbs.

“You can see me?” she asks. Her voice sounds faint and scratchy, like old-time radio, and she actually sounds a little surprised.

“Sure. Would you mind?”

She shrugs and gets up, exposing way more of herself than I want to see, then jiggles off to the bedroom or someplace. Through the wall. She is, without question, the politest, most obliging, and cooperative ghost I’ve encountered yet, even if she is probably lying in my bed smoking right now. As far as I can tell—hell, I’ve only been doing this for a few hours now—most of them just walk right through you without saying a word. At least, that’s been my impression so far.

“Who are you talking to, Richie Rich?” Devon asks, waking with a snap from his trance—by reciting a special concluding mantra, he once told me. Devon is a really, really beautiful guy, which is why I married him, even if he does hide most of it under a very trimmed beard. But even that is the most beautiful beard I’ve ever seen in my life. The only even halfway-bearable one, anyway.

“Cell phone.” It occurred to me back at the stationhouse that I could get away with talking to anything I see—ghosts, demons, trolls, flying fruit-bats, whatever—just by holding it to my ear. That little piece of hardware is the difference between being perceived as a normal person and getting slapped with a blue paper and sent off to a psych ward.

“Devon,” I say now in my wife voice, “we need to talk.”

“What?
Now
? I’ve got a planning meeting in half an hour. For open house.”

Devon is a high school teacher. Which may explain why he sounds like a high school student most of the time. He’s two years younger than me, thirty-one, has thick long brown hair, a carpet of brown hair on his chest that matches his beard, dreamy blue eyes to die for, brilliantly white teeth, and a perfect tan. Half the girls at his school are in love with him. I don’t blame them. I was once, too.

Not that he’s a bad person. Or a dumb one. He’s just…Devon. Here’s what I mean:

“Devon, honey, I have something really scary and terrible and weird to tell you, and I need all of your attention right now. And I need you to be, well…super open-minded.”

“Okay, cool,” he says. Sort of vaguely. “Open-minded. Right. You’ve met someone. Another woman?” I can’t tell whether he’s being ironic or hopeful. Most likely, however, he’s just being supportive.

“No. It’s worse than that.”

“You’ve joined a church.”

“No, Devon, I’ve had, um, kind of an accident at work. An industrial accident, I guess you could say—occupational, anyway. I got shot through the heart last night—see?” And I take off my jacket and show him the bullet wound. He just stares at it blankly. Like I’m trying to come on to him at an inappropriate time of day or something. He has very circadian rules regarding sex; like many other furry mammals, he is a strict nocturnal. “The thing is, it didn’t completely kill me. Not totally.”

Okay, now he’s really staring at me, and I don’t blame him. It’s pretty hard to process news like this, especially first thing in the morning. On a weekday. When you aren’t stoned, I mean, as he normally is most weekends and evenings. No, he’s not exactly a role model to his sudents.

“Come here,” I tell him. “Check out my skin temperature and see if you can find a pulse. Seriously.”

He does this, moving like a robot, still staring. “Ah, hell,” he says after he’s confirmed my heart isn’t beating. Tears well up in his eyes and start to trickle down his cheeks. My own eyes sting in response. Maybe I
can
still cry; hope for me yet.

As a cop, I’ve had to make more than my share of “widow calls” in the line of duty; giving citizens the bad news that their loved ones are deceased. Wives, husbands, mothers, mostly. So I know it’s generally true what they say about the stages of grief—that most people have to go through denial, negotiation, and anger first. But not my Devon. It takes him a few minutes, but he goes pretty much straight to acceptance.

And he keeps looking down at the hole in my chest. He seems hypnotized by the sight of it. “Can I put my finger in there?” he asks like a kid.

Strangely enough, this is also his idea of foreplay. Digital insertion lower down, I mean. You might think from his question that he’s a biology teacher, but you’d be wrong. Social and Gender Studies. Of course, he’s always accused me of being cold and heartless. Maybe this is just his way of wanting to confirm it.

“No.”

He bursts into a flood of tears then, but when I try to comfort him by putting my arms around him, he pulls away. “You’re really cold! It’s spooky, Rich. I don’t think being touched by you erotically is healthy for me—not unless your aura gets cleansed first. So…your deal is that you’re halfway to the other side spiritually but still stuck in this world physically?”

“Sounds about right.”

“You want me to help? You know, like, guide you on your journey to the other side?”

I have no idea what he thinks this might involve, aside from setting me on fire or sawing my head off with the hedge-trimmer, so I say no to this, too.

“I mean, holy shit…you’re
really and truly dead, Richelle!” Devon moans now, collapsing onto the couch and burying his face in his hands. Once the New Agey calm is punctured, we usually get some kind of dramatics display in our tender moments. He was in the theater club in high school, because of his looks and all.

“Well, more like…
un
dead, actually.”

“Still…” My husband stops snuffling and looks up at me guilelessly. “I guess I should get the house now. I mean, technically, dead persons don’t have any legal right to community property anymore, right? Or to own any property, actually. Not when you stop and think about it.”

He had a point. The dumbass.

The Dead Detective

is available at:

Amazon Kindle
and
Amazon UK

About the Author:

J.R. Rain
is an ex-private investigator who now writes full-time in the Pacific Northwest. He lives in a small house on a small island with his small dog, Sadie, who has more energy than than the late Robin Williams.

Please visit him at
www.jrrain.com
.

Add him on
Facebook
.

Add him on
Twitter
.