Even though I have already posted the first part of the chapter as a prologue, I would recommend re-reading it here. This is due to minor corrections, pointed out by my unofficial beta reader, my sister.
Further notes are at the bottom of the page.
xxxx
It was pointless. All of it.
Jughead leant back in the cracked red vinyl seat of the booth at Pop's, basking in the morning sunlight and in the unwavering optimism of the Andrews family. The damn determination on their faces was near unbearable, as Mary went over his father's situation. They'd ordered coffee to help ease the mood, he guessed, but it remained untouched, now stone cold from the dull progression of time.
It was still a nice gesture, though. Didn't the saying go 'It's the thought that counts'?
Mary's eyes were constantly flicking between apologetically looking at Jughead, scanning over the files she'd brought with her, and meeting her son's concerned eyes with attempted reassurance. Key word there being 'attempted'. She knew as well as he did that it was a hopeless case, that fact being more and more evident with each factor against FP Jones that she revealed.
"Don't forget that pesky confession," Jughead said dryly, the words almost getting caught in his throat from how constricted it'd become. Despite the pathetic comedic tone, nobody took it as a joke.
He could feel Archie tense beside him. Archie had never been the kind of guy to sit through an impossible situation without getting at least a little bit restless. Some glorious, dumb part of his mentality that there was no unsolvable situation that a little bit of effort couldn't fix. For a brief moment, his mind drifted back to when he'd naively dubbed Polly's situation as a "true Gordian knot", and nearly snorted out loud. In comparison, her knot seemed to equate more to one of the Adventure Scout knots Doily was so fond of.
It took him a second to realise that Mary was looking at him expectantly, having shared the bottomless pit that his father had dug himself into, and he didn't really know what to say. How did one react appropriately to the utter hopeless fate of a family member? It seemed like no one in this town knew anymore. First with the Blossoms and Jason, then with Betty and Polly, Veronica and her father, it seemed very much like the debate his novel had been founded upon was very evidently one sided. Was Riverdale a place of good or a place of evil? Who was he kidding. The whole damned town was just a rotted shell of what it used to be, what it should've been, what everyone still tried to pretend it was.
The silence hung lifeless in the air.
"Well," Jughead started, puffing his cheeks out. "At least he's an honest murderer." A wry smile had been thrown in as a last ditch attempt at another comedic moment, though everyone knew that it wasn't the day humour. It wasn't really the month, heck, the year for humour. Least so from him. What could he say, it was a talent. Or, more aptly named, a faulty defence and coping mechanism.
Unsurprisingly, his one-liner didn't help lift the mood.
Mary scanned over her files for the umpteenth time, sensibly manicured nail hovering just over the page filled with bleak text.
"Oh!" she exclaimed, perhaps a little more excited or hopeful than was necessary. "Would either of you know of a Halona Ridgemount?"
Cold nausea hit Jughead's stomach unforgivingly. He could feel both pairs of warm brown eyes upon him, but for a brief second, they morphed into the face his father had adored, the beautiful enigma who had invited him to have a milkshake with her just that one time before she faded into oblivion. There was no way Mary could know about her. His father never spoke about her. He never could.
"W-What did you just say?" he asked slowly, his voice faltering slightly.
Mary neatly laced her fingers together and gently rested them upon the files. Concern etched her features at his response, clearly not the reaction she'd expected.
"She's listed as your father's one phone call."
xxxx
"You called her, you fucking called her!" Jughead snapped at his father, fingers clenching around the cell bars. "What on earth possessed you to do that, Dad?"
The aforementioned man had opted to stare at the stained patch of wall in front of him rather than to look his son in the eye.
It had been approximately seventeen minutes since Jughead had found out that none other than Halona Ridgemount, FP's former sort-of-girlfriend, had been his only call.
His long, nimble fingers absentmindedly wove a thin, red ribbon between them, over and over and over again, weaving, unravelling. The imagery could almost be compared to a convicted man fiddling with a beloved rosary in a painful last attempt at St Peter's gates.
A silence fell over the two of them as FP chose to leave Jughead's accusations unanswered. His entire form was stilled, frozen in place. Only the constant movement of ribbon threading through his fingers indicated any sort of life in the man.
Jughead scrubbed the back of his hand over his face.
"Jesus, Dad, which part of 'no communication' did you get stuck on? And what did you think that calling her would do?"
He let his arms fall, defeated, to his side, after gesticulating his argument. A small part of him thought that maybe movement would snap his dad out of whatever illusion he was stuck in, but sure enough, like most thoughts he had concerning his dad, it died almost instantly.
"Dad," he said, the exasperation in is tone obvious. "Calling her is just dragging her into this whole mess."
"I have the right to call whoever I like, Jug, at least give me that-"
"No, Dad, you lost that right the moment you decided to murder a kid."
He stopped for a moment, watching how his father's breath hitched, how he shifted, how he suddenly tore his eyes away from that damned, stained spot on the wall. He frowned.
"Why did you do it?" he asked quietly, closely observing his father's response. Was there the chance...even the smallest chance?
FP glared, at least tried to. The slight wobble of the lip gave it away.
"I told you, I have the right-"
"No, not about phoning her." Jughead leant forward so that his nose was practically brushing the cool steel of the jail cell's bars. He locked eyes with his father, refusing to let FP avert his eyes.
"Why did you kill Jason?" A spike of vindictive pleasure ran through his body when he heard just how chillingly calm his voice was.
The way FP stiffened didn't go unnoticed.
And then, when he started to talk, reciting his story about his plan for Jason, Jughead felt his stomach curl, a similar cold nausea to what he'd felt that morning. He hadn't done it. He hadn't murdered a kid in cold blood. FP Jones was know for his lack of eloquence, and he always knew when his dad was lying anyway. He was lying about a crime that could easily get him 20 years, maybe more. Why? What on earth could persuade him to take the fall for something so incriminating?
"Right," he said. "Back to the phone number. Does the Sherriff know who you called?"
FP snorted. "Are you an interrogator, or my son? And of course not; that Sherriff is the reason why it's taken the department over four months to close this case."
"And look at where that put you." He snapped, swiftly turning on his heel to leave.
"Look at me, Jughead!"
He twisted his body to see FP, finally out of his petrified state and leaning against the bars. It made his heart sink at the sight, at how easily FP looked the part of 'criminal'. How damn easy it would be for the town to ignore anything else, and just present FP as their 'murderer', all strings nicely tied up. Because that's just the kind of town Riverdale was, where the convenient answer, the answer that looks right becomes the truth. And how everyone just goddamn went with it, and ignored anything else that might've said otherwise.
There was a theory he had read about, the notorious novel The Lucifer Effect by equally as notorious Phillip Zimbardo, which talked about why seemingly good people did bad things. Often establishments would argue in defence, when one of their own were finally caught, due to their dabbling in overt criminal activities, that it was just one bad apple. Just a singular bad person onto which everyone could unload their blame and guilt onto. Just a singular person to which became publically known as 'the bad guy', dividing them from the 'good guys'. However, he'd read that Zimbardo argued otherwise. His own involvement with the tricky psychology that was the human conscious has let him to take the bad apple metaphor one step further.
It wasn't just one bad apple in a crate of good apples. No, it was the crate itself that was rotten, poisoning the other apples, good or bad. The rotten establishment that led for the people within it to become just as putrid and foul.
Jughead felt that Riverdale could learn a thing or two from Zimbardo.
"Forsythe Pendleton Jones III," his dad said, his voice hardly louder than a whisper. "Never come back here, you hear me?"
The air between them seemed to still in anticipation, settling heavily between the two men, only the soft breaths breaking the near silence.
"Got it."
Jughead was already fumbling with his phone before he'd even fully left the room. His finger hovered over the wonderfully familiar contact name of Nancy Drew.
"You were right about him, Betts."
xxxx
Two sleuths walked into an abandoned trailer; all they needed now was a punchline.
The figure next to him shivered violently, tugging the pale pea-coat closer in a futile attempt at keeping in what little warmth she had.
"I would ask if the temperature just dropped like a horror movie," Betty Cooper said, through a mouth a chattering teeth. "But I have a feeling that that line is going to get old quickly."
Jughead let the small smile blossom over his features. Even after all the time they had shared together, he still scarcely could believe that someone as wholly good as her wanted to be with him. And this wasn't just face value good looks, so to speak. Yes, objectively, she had nice hair and pretty eyes, but anyone could have blonde hair or green eyes. But only Betty had that mesmerising ability to make him forget his own name when her eyes were alight with a fiery desire for the true and knowledge, only Betty's hair made his breath get caught in his throat when delicate strands escaped from her ponytail to curl around her face when she was furiously writing for her next article. It was all those small things, those little idiosyncrasies, the way she scrunched up her nose, how honest and earnest her nature was, how she absentmindedly chewed on her rosy lip, how stubborn she was for what she felt was right, that just made him fall a little bit more for her every time he saw her.
Jughead shrugged his own thick, denim jackt off and draped it over her shoulders.
"Don't even think about giving it back," he said, interrupting her attempt at insisting she was fine, eyes scanning over the empty trailer. "Trust me, I'll be fine."
Cramped, dusty, the thick, sweet odour of must and faded beer stains. Jughead hated how much nostalgia hit him at that moment, taking it all in. No-one's reminiscence from their childhood should have to be from dust and the faint reminder of booze.
Sad. That's all he could think as his gaze hovered over certain items, the broken table, the broken vase, the upturned chairs. He, the self-proclaimed writer at only seventeen, out of all the colourful and wondrous words he could possible fathom, anguish, misery, affliction, vexation, tribulation, woe, distress, it was 'sad' that enveloped every sense in his body.
Pathetic and sad.
"Hey," Betty said softly, curling her fingers around his. "You okay? We can come back later, if you want. I could call Archie-"
Jughead shook his head in a silent no, turning to catch her bright eyes in his. "Thanks, but I think that this needs to be done now."
She shifted her body to face him completely, the soft pads of her fingers gently tilting his chin towards her to ensure he held eye contact.
"You sure?"
A nod. She smiled, so warmly and endearingly, that he couldn't help but press a quick peck on her lips, and mumbled a quick 'thank you'. She waved him off.
"No need to thank me, Juggie, although, you could tell me what exactly we are doing here." Betty subconsciously tilted her head to the side, effortlessly demonstrating the effective use of body language, dialect, 'The Blue and Gold'. See translation: 'what are we snooping around for precisely.'
"We are looking for a phone number," he explained. "Probably on a slip of paper or something. Maybe a note with a number attached?"
Betty quirked an eyebrow. "Seeing how you've just returned from talking to Archie's mom and talking to your dad, my best guess this is for his one phone call?" she offered.
Jughead nodded. "And this is why I brought you, and not Archie." He nudged her shoulder. "Who would Sherlock be without their Watson?"
Betty scoffed. "We both know that you are definitely the Watson of this duo."
But then her expression morphed back to one of more seriousness. "Anything else to help us locate a scrap of paper in, well..." she gestured to the collateral damage that was the interior of the trailer.
He thought about it for a moment. Sherriff Keller hadn't known who the contact was, meaning he hadn't found the number himself when he'd ransacked the place. "It's going to be hidden. I'm fairly certain of that. And, this is mostly speculation, but I'm going to say that it's hidden in a place that is roughly smaller that a gun."
"Smaller than a gun?"
"Sherriff Keller would've been looking for a murder weapon, or something along the like," he elaborated. "There isn't that much that would constitute as incriminating evidence that is smaller than a gun, especially not in this case. The Sherriff didn't find it when he searched, as he was looking for something more glaringly obvious, from the anonymous tip off they got."
Betty's eyebrows crinkled. "How do you know that Archie and Ronnie didn't find it first?"
"Did they bring it up with you?"
She considered that. "Point taken."
"Besides," he continued. "I'm just making educated guesses at this point. I could be completely correct, or completely wrong, and we won't know until we search this place."
Betty grinned at him, then kissed the tip of his nose. "Guess we better start looking then."
xxxx
For all of the anticipation for finding the damned phone number, it was an unnerving moment when Betty found a crumpled post-it note behind an unassuming photograph of Jughead and Jellybean as children. She shot him an unsure look as she passed it to him. "Maybe just another crumpled note?"
In looping red ink, it read:
Call it gifting me with peace of mind knowing that should either of you two get into a spot of bother that you will always be able to contact me.
Don't you be letting that infamous Jones pride stop you from asking for help when you need it.
Halona
Underneath the neat cursive, a phone number was carefully printed.
He felt his heart drop to his stomach for a brief second. Before seeing it in actual, material reality, the phone number would've stayed a concept. A safe possibility. Seeing it in the flesh, a physical object that he was currently clutching between two fingers, made the whole thing real again.
"She was romantically involved with my dad," he blurted out, in a shoddy attempt at an explanation. Betty didn't say anything, but squeezed his hand softly, inviting him to continue.
"A few years ago, she came to town during the summer. Only for that one summer. She and my dad agreed to break off all contact when she left."
"Oh, did they get into an argument?"
"No. God, Betts, I've never seen my dad care for someone as much as he did for her. Or look as torn up when she left."
"Oh." She didn't say anything else, but he could see her itching to ask 'why?'. He scrubbed at his eyes.
"She was seventeen, Betts. For the majority of their relationship."
The tang of cool, chocolate milkshakes ghosted his taste buds, the old memory dancing atop of his tongue. Her Leading Lady looks. Her infectious charm. Her words, always kind but without any trace of condescension. The coy smirk she flashed to him in the neon lights of Pops before the sweep of her cream shawl signalled her permanent departure.
Betty's eyes widened slightly. "Oh," she repeated, but with a vastly different tone and meaning than the first time round. She looked back to the slip of paper, frowning at it in the way she did when her brain was working up possible theories. He'd seen that face many a times in the Blue and Gold office, scrutinizing the murder board.
"He must have thought it was serious enough a situation this time around to warrant a call. He's almost called her before," she summarised. Taking the note from Jughead, she smoothed down the jagged creases against the kitchen counter, her nail tracing the flowing font.
"He didn't have this when he called her from jail, and if she's referenced his pride getting in the way of him calling her, so it's highly unlikely that he's made a copy to carry around."
She paused to take a breath before continuing with what seemed to be an afterthought. "Not to mention that it was hidden; if he'd hidden it, why would he make a copy to carry round?"
Again, she paused to flash him an open expression, silently asking permission to finish. Jughead obliged with a nod.
"So he would've been reciting the number from memory. And I don't know about you, but the way I remember phone numbers is by dialling them. If this is the first time he's actually called her, then he's dialled this number, but then most likely deleted it before going through and calling her."
Her eyes flicked to his for confirmation, while he considered her theory. While, like most things the two of them said when coming up with potential explanations, it wasn't confirmed in anyway, it certainly wouldn't be foreign in terms of FP's actions.
"That's quite the deduction there, Watson," he admitted.
Betty raised an eyebrow. "I thought we agreed that you were the Watson here?"
Despite the situation, Jughead felt his lips curl into a tight smirk, and tilted his head to the side.
"Really? I only recall you telling me that I was the Watson of this duo, I don't seem to remember any sort of considered agreement."
"And since when was Watson ever renowned for their deductions?" Betty shot back, fully engaging in the good-natured banter. She theatrically blew him a kiss, which made him laugh.
"You practically confirmed that I am definitely the Sherlock," she concluded triumphantly, sticking two hands on her hips in an ever so quintessentially Betty way, that Jughead held his hands up in mock surrender.
"Okay, Sherlock it is then." As he let his hands fall to his side, he leant closer to gently weave his finger though hers.
"Thank you," he said sincerely, his softening to something more akin to a whisper. "Thank you for helping me."
As he said that, they both knew he wasn't referring to just the trailer search.
He glanced back to the counter, where the note still sat, red ink scrawl a little too alike to the rusty hue of blood for his liking. Or maybe his thoughts were still too wrapped up in those of murders and crime.
"Do you think he has called her before?"
Betty's eyes held concern, which we was pretty sure mirrored his. Slender, long fingers dug into his back pocket, as his hand closed around his phone.
"One way to find out for sure, I guess."
The number was already dialled and 'call' pressed before he consciously registered his own movements.
xxxx
NOTES:
As said in 'Shame', the ethnicity of Halona is not to be determined by the cover photo, but to be left open for personal interpretation.
I am aware that the tone of this may appear to be quite different from 'Shame'. This is because, while this does feature FP and Halona's relationship, it is not the primary focus. Instead, the main focus is on the town Riverdale itself as a whole and the interconnectedness between the families (similar to the show).
I cannot promise for a regular update schedule, but I can promise that this means it wont be horribly rushed. And this should definitely be completed, like, there is absolutely no reason for this to not be finished eventually, as I have planned the whole story out.
I am planning for this story to be finished before the premiere of Season 2, but I guess we'll see how accurate that claim will be.
Any comments, thoughts and concerns are welcome x
Alex