The Perfect Murder
Title: The Perfect Murder
Fandom: Riverdale
Characters: Charles, Jughead, Betty, Alice, FP, Reggie, Kevin.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Spoilers and alternate ending to storyline for S5, references to character death.
Summary: With time to reflect while in Hiram's prison, Charles realises the route he should have taken. The perfect murder he could have committed to fix his half siblings and punish his parents for abandoning him had been laid out there for the taking, and if he had followed that path, he may well have succeeded.
With enough time to think since he’d been carted off to Hiram Lodge’s prison, Charles now understood where he had gone wrong. And the stupid thing was, he wouldn’t even have had to have come up with the plan himself, because his half brother had come up with it for him. If Charles had just taken advantage of the method that had been laid out for him, he wouldn’t be in here now. Instead, Jughead and probably Betty would have been there, with FP and Alice visiting their acknowledged children in there never once knowing that the one they had given up all those years ago was the one who had put them there. If he had just targeted Honey instead of those useless preppie kids, Charles could have been out there sitting pretty right about now….
No one had questioned it at first when Honey went off the radar the weekend of prom. The story that had appeared in the local media involving the history of Honey’s own high school prom, where he had been led to believe he was taking the prom queen as his date only for her to walk in with some other guy, had shed some light on why exactly he had tried to get prom cancelled at every high school he had ever worked in, and everyone had assumed he had just chosen to lie low for a while. No one particularly cared. He’d been going to leave Riverdale High anyway; Charles heard at least one person saying that Stonewall’s loss was their gain. They chose to enjoy the night, cheer as Cheryl and Toni made Riverdale High history by becoming the school’s first pair of prom queens.
When the final week of school approached, and he still hadn’t shown his face, people began to talk about it a bit more. Stonewall Prep had apparently been unable to reach him to discuss terms of his new employment with them, to the point where they were beginning to wonder if they should look at other candidates. As graduation day dawned with still no news of him, Alice Smith as chair of the PTA and Hiram Lodge as mayor prepared to join newly returned Principal Weatherbee at the ceremony, Jughead and Betty’s class prepared to walk. Still no one mentioned Honey, as though he had never existed. Charles watched as they all fastened their robes, as Betty muttered lines from her valedictorian speech, as everyone looked out into the audience trying to locate their families.
“Guys, did you hear about Honey?” Kevin Keller asked as he ran into the ceremony, minutes before everyone was due to take their places. “Some hiker found his glasses out in the forest. They’re treating him as a missing person now. My dad says there’s going to be search parties organised.”
Alice called to everyone to take their places before anyone had chance to respond to him; Jughead seized the moment to grab hold of Betty. “That’s weird. It’s just like the first draft of that story I wrote for the University of Iowa.”
“But no one knew that version of the story apart from us,” Betty replied, but didn’t get chance to say any more before being herded onto the stage ready to walk.
Charles smiled to himself as he sat in the audience beside FP, watching Alice and Hiram give their speeches, watching his siblings joining the line with their friends, smiling as Archie Andrews and Cheryl Blossom crossed the stage, then leaping to his feet and cheering when Betty walked, sitting back down just as that Fogarty kid received his diploma. All the while he bided his time, keeping his eyes focused on the stage, determinedly not looking at the door, knowing he couldn’t give any hint that he knew what was about to happen.
It was nothing unusual for a Riverdale event to be interrupted by the police, from Archie Andrews being arrested for murder just as he was named school captain to the murder of Midge Klump on the opening night of Carrie. But as the police stormed the graduation ceremony to arrest Jughead as he was about to walk, leading him and Betty away and telling them they were under arrest for the murder of Holden Honey, Charles thought this moment was the best of the lot of them.
The evidence was stacked up against them. Despite Jughead’s claims that he had ditched the story where Honey was murdered and submitted a version where he had been rescued, the University of Iowa claimed to have no record of having received the replacement he submitted instead and had only seen the original murder version, the one that appeared to exactly match Honey’s death. Although Betty claimed to have read the second version, their friends were all questioned and while it was eventually established that they had all been present when Betty had suggested killing Honey in what they took to be a joke, none of them had been aware that Jughead had planned to submit this as his story for Iowa, nor had they known of the second version. Reggie Mantle had complained about the way Jughead’s story had killed him off when he had heard; Kevin had been heard asking why Jughead had left him out of the action in the way he did. (Charles had snorted and rolled his eyes at that; only Kevin Keller would have asked that question.)
It couldn’t have gone any better for Charles. Having picked up a conversation about Jughead’s story through one of his recordings of the house, he knew what he had to do to take care of them once and for all. All he had to do was gain access to Jughead’s laptop; easy enough to do as a family member who could come and go in the house as he pleased; easier still to ensure that the story received by Iowa was the original murder version of the story rather than the second draft where Jughead had spared Honey, and the existence of which was known to no one except Betty. Equally easy to obtain Jughead’s and Betty’s DNA in order to plant at the scene of the crime. And Mrs Bell had played right into Charles’s hands with her comments regarding the letter Holden had written for Jughead; she had not read the letter herself, merely assumed that it would not be complimentary, so again, with the University of Iowa having received a different letter prepared by Charles, there was only Jughead’s word that Holden had in fact written him a glowing letter of recommendation. With the whole town being aware of their motives, and the evidence stacking up against them, it wouldn’t be long before Charles’s half siblings were charged with the crime. As for his so called parents, they’d have to spend the rest of their days without the children they’d chosen to keep, never knowing that the one they’d abandoned was the one who’d put them there.
He could be out there right now, secure in the knowledge that his meddling half siblings were no longer in a position to interfere, knowing that he finally had his revenge on his so called family. Yet he had made the wrong decision, and now was stuck in Lodge’s prison.
Fandom: Riverdale
Characters: Charles, Jughead, Betty, Alice, FP, Reggie, Kevin.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Spoilers and alternate ending to storyline for S5, references to character death.
Summary: With time to reflect while in Hiram's prison, Charles realises the route he should have taken. The perfect murder he could have committed to fix his half siblings and punish his parents for abandoning him had been laid out there for the taking, and if he had followed that path, he may well have succeeded.
With enough time to think since he’d been carted off to Hiram Lodge’s prison, Charles now understood where he had gone wrong. And the stupid thing was, he wouldn’t even have had to have come up with the plan himself, because his half brother had come up with it for him. If Charles had just taken advantage of the method that had been laid out for him, he wouldn’t be in here now. Instead, Jughead and probably Betty would have been there, with FP and Alice visiting their acknowledged children in there never once knowing that the one they had given up all those years ago was the one who had put them there. If he had just targeted Honey instead of those useless preppie kids, Charles could have been out there sitting pretty right about now….
No one had questioned it at first when Honey went off the radar the weekend of prom. The story that had appeared in the local media involving the history of Honey’s own high school prom, where he had been led to believe he was taking the prom queen as his date only for her to walk in with some other guy, had shed some light on why exactly he had tried to get prom cancelled at every high school he had ever worked in, and everyone had assumed he had just chosen to lie low for a while. No one particularly cared. He’d been going to leave Riverdale High anyway; Charles heard at least one person saying that Stonewall’s loss was their gain. They chose to enjoy the night, cheer as Cheryl and Toni made Riverdale High history by becoming the school’s first pair of prom queens.
When the final week of school approached, and he still hadn’t shown his face, people began to talk about it a bit more. Stonewall Prep had apparently been unable to reach him to discuss terms of his new employment with them, to the point where they were beginning to wonder if they should look at other candidates. As graduation day dawned with still no news of him, Alice Smith as chair of the PTA and Hiram Lodge as mayor prepared to join newly returned Principal Weatherbee at the ceremony, Jughead and Betty’s class prepared to walk. Still no one mentioned Honey, as though he had never existed. Charles watched as they all fastened their robes, as Betty muttered lines from her valedictorian speech, as everyone looked out into the audience trying to locate their families.
“Guys, did you hear about Honey?” Kevin Keller asked as he ran into the ceremony, minutes before everyone was due to take their places. “Some hiker found his glasses out in the forest. They’re treating him as a missing person now. My dad says there’s going to be search parties organised.”
Alice called to everyone to take their places before anyone had chance to respond to him; Jughead seized the moment to grab hold of Betty. “That’s weird. It’s just like the first draft of that story I wrote for the University of Iowa.”
“But no one knew that version of the story apart from us,” Betty replied, but didn’t get chance to say any more before being herded onto the stage ready to walk.
Charles smiled to himself as he sat in the audience beside FP, watching Alice and Hiram give their speeches, watching his siblings joining the line with their friends, smiling as Archie Andrews and Cheryl Blossom crossed the stage, then leaping to his feet and cheering when Betty walked, sitting back down just as that Fogarty kid received his diploma. All the while he bided his time, keeping his eyes focused on the stage, determinedly not looking at the door, knowing he couldn’t give any hint that he knew what was about to happen.
It was nothing unusual for a Riverdale event to be interrupted by the police, from Archie Andrews being arrested for murder just as he was named school captain to the murder of Midge Klump on the opening night of Carrie. But as the police stormed the graduation ceremony to arrest Jughead as he was about to walk, leading him and Betty away and telling them they were under arrest for the murder of Holden Honey, Charles thought this moment was the best of the lot of them.
The evidence was stacked up against them. Despite Jughead’s claims that he had ditched the story where Honey was murdered and submitted a version where he had been rescued, the University of Iowa claimed to have no record of having received the replacement he submitted instead and had only seen the original murder version, the one that appeared to exactly match Honey’s death. Although Betty claimed to have read the second version, their friends were all questioned and while it was eventually established that they had all been present when Betty had suggested killing Honey in what they took to be a joke, none of them had been aware that Jughead had planned to submit this as his story for Iowa, nor had they known of the second version. Reggie Mantle had complained about the way Jughead’s story had killed him off when he had heard; Kevin had been heard asking why Jughead had left him out of the action in the way he did. (Charles had snorted and rolled his eyes at that; only Kevin Keller would have asked that question.)
It couldn’t have gone any better for Charles. Having picked up a conversation about Jughead’s story through one of his recordings of the house, he knew what he had to do to take care of them once and for all. All he had to do was gain access to Jughead’s laptop; easy enough to do as a family member who could come and go in the house as he pleased; easier still to ensure that the story received by Iowa was the original murder version of the story rather than the second draft where Jughead had spared Honey, and the existence of which was known to no one except Betty. Equally easy to obtain Jughead’s and Betty’s DNA in order to plant at the scene of the crime. And Mrs Bell had played right into Charles’s hands with her comments regarding the letter Holden had written for Jughead; she had not read the letter herself, merely assumed that it would not be complimentary, so again, with the University of Iowa having received a different letter prepared by Charles, there was only Jughead’s word that Holden had in fact written him a glowing letter of recommendation. With the whole town being aware of their motives, and the evidence stacking up against them, it wouldn’t be long before Charles’s half siblings were charged with the crime. As for his so called parents, they’d have to spend the rest of their days without the children they’d chosen to keep, never knowing that the one they’d abandoned was the one who’d put them there.
He could be out there right now, secure in the knowledge that his meddling half siblings were no longer in a position to interfere, knowing that he finally had his revenge on his so called family. Yet he had made the wrong decision, and now was stuck in Lodge’s prison.