Chapter 1

2008-05-15T15:40:00.001-07:00

(I had intended to update on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Sorry about the lateness.)

Dick sat in a pew in the church, wondering when and how he had died. He certainly didn't remember dying, and that's a pretty significant event in your life, all things considered.

The sorry congregation attending his funeral continued to pay absolutely no notice to him. Well, not to -him- as in the him that was sitting in the pew, but they certainly noticed the corpse in the casket. Dick found it quite disconcerting to look at himself, so he stopped doing it. Then he looked again. It was sort of like a train wreck, and he just couldn't look away.

It was at this point that he utterly failed to notice someone speaking to him.

"Well Moriahty, you're in a right ol' pickle, aintcha?"

The pale, slightly transparent man to which the voice belonged was dressed in old London finery, complete with a top hat and a coat with tails. Dick paid attention to precisely none of these details as he became lost in his own contemplations of mortality. The man became a bit more transparent, which experts now agree is possibly a sign of a ghost getting angry. Insofar as experts can agree on anything, and allowing for the fact that ghosts can't actually feel emotion. So it would probably be more accurate to say it was a sign that he thought he should be angry under the circumstances, but wasn't quite capable of going all the way with it. Regardless, it didn't appear that he liked being ignored any more than Dick did.

"Oi, Moriahty! You in there, mate?"

The man waved an increasingly see-through hand in front of Dick's face, which had two effects: One, the pages in the hymn book in the hands of Dick's mother (beside whom the man was sitting) started to flip as if a strong breeze were blowing. The secondary effect being that Dick's mother fainted. Which was noticed by everyone, including Dick. This being, of course, the catalyst that caused him to finally acknowledge the presence of someone who could actually see him.

"Oh, sorry, didn't see you there. Are you dead too?"

"Well," said the man with an air of slight disappointment, "I guess that speeds things up a bit, but I had me whole explanation ready an' everyfink! Oh well, can't be 'elped. I am, to put it in the politically correct fashion of our people, mortally challenged, me old geezah. Much like yerself."

Dick looked at the newcomer and raised an eyebrow. "Do we really need political correctness? We're DEAD!"

"Ah, now that's just the sort of fascist attitude that's typical of the newly deceased, mate! Just because we're dead doesn't mean we shouldn't be civilised, does it? Gotta set an example, you know?"

Dick didn't know in the slightest, but this man obviously knew more about how things worked on this plane of existence, so he settled for a smile and a nod.

"Anyway, I 'spect you're wonderin' how it all happened, eh Moriahty? How you popped yer clogs an' all that. Where the unfortunate event occurred. Who did it. Why."

Finally, some answers. Preparing himself to hear something he might not want to, Dick nodded eagerly. The excitement would have killed him if he hadn't already been dead. What horrible secrets was this stranger about to divulge...?

"Well, as for that, don't 'ave a sodding clue mate. You're on your own there," said the man cheerfully, disappearing in a puff of smoke.

If Dick had been capable of feeling cheated, that's probably how he would have felt.

Prologue

2008-05-12T03:14:00.000-07:00

Dick Moriarty, world-renowned private investigator, surveyed himself in a mirror and nodded approvingly. He had all the necessary qualities that a good PI needed: ridiculously long trenchcoat with the collar pulled up; a hat of some sort; scar of ambiguous origin on one cheek; and a cigar protruding from his lips, though it was currently unlit.

When he thought back on his illustrious career, he had no regrets. He had solved many baffling cases that the police couldn't even begin to understand, and had put away more criminal masterminds than the entire workforce of Scotland Yard had had hot dinners.

This mystery was new to him, though.

For reasons he couldn't understand, everyone was ignoring him. HIM! Dick Moriarty, globally recognised private investigator! Hadn't it been he who solved the mystery of Mrs. Greenward's missing jewellery? Had not it been he who finally ended the underworld crime ring headed by the self-titled "Quizmaster"?

And if that wasn't bad enough, he couldn't find a clean pair of socks. Dick couldn't help but feel that the two things were somehow related, though he hadn't the slightest idea what the connection might be.

And so it was with this troubling thought that Dick Moriarty, locally celebrated private investigator, set out to solve his most baffling case yet.

One of his more common investigation techniques was to talk to everyone involved, cross-referencing their stories and looking for contradictions or clues. This was made somewhat difficult by the fact that nobody seemed to be aware of his existence, so he decided to try other avenues of thinking. He cast his mind back to the last time he could remember someone speaking to him, but for some reason the harder he tried to recall something the fuzzier and farther away his memories seemed, as if his brain were swathed in cotton wool.

He sat down in a pew, lost in his thoughts and desperate for answers, when- pew? It was at this point that Dick realised he was in a church. He didn't remember going to church, but there he was. He also became aware for the first time that someone was talking.

"Eternal rest give to them, O Lord; and let perpetual light shine upon them..."

More perplexed than ever, Dick realised that not only was he in church, he was attending a funeral. He wondered who the poor soul had been; what kind of life he or she had lived, how they had died, who they had left behind. He looked at the sorry lot sitting in the pews, numbering four people in all. Whoever the person lying in the casket was, they hadn't been very popular.

To his surprise, he saw his father sitting in the front row. He guessed that the deceased must have been a family member or friend...but then why hadn't he been invited? A sudden thought dawned on him and with trepidation he approached the altar and peered into the open casket, and suddenly it all made sense.

Dick Moriarty, relatively well-known private investigator, was dead. He knew this because the funeral he was attending was his own, and he didn't suppose people who were alive did that very often.

Dick Moriarty: PI

Chapter 1

Prologue