I sat in the kitchen sipping my coffee as Mr Andrews slowly poured his coffee, Archie waiting anxiously for his dad to acknowledge him.
"What's going on son?" Mr Andrews asked. "Is it your breakup with Veronica?"
"No, Dad, it's not..." Archie sighed, glancing at me. I nodded at him in encouragement. "I've been thinking. Maybe college isn't for me. Maybe I can try working with you in the construction company again."
Mr Andrews nodded. "There's no shame in hard work, son, but where's this coming from?"
"After the crap I've seen these last few months, I just wanna get out of my head," Archie said. "Work with my hands. Try to make peace with things."
"Well, if you're serious about it, you better get your butt in gear," Mr Andrews said. "Shift starts in about an hour."
Archie grinned at both of us as he ran out of the kitchen to get ready while I took a sip of my coffee, avoiding Mr Andrews's eye.
"Why do I get the feeling you had something to do with this?" he asked.
"Because I may have given him the idea?" I answered. "Look, beating the crap out of that punching bag alone in the garage isn't helping, he needs to find something else. So, I figured if hitting things makes him feel better, maybe hitting things with others around would do the trick. And you did say you could use a few more hands out there breaking up the concrete from last week's demo job."
"It's worth a shot," Mr Andrews said. "Archie was a hard worker a few years back when he spent the summer working with me. He dropped it so he could play football and focus on his music. He didn't have time for it all."
Football season was long over, and I'd heard from the others that Archie used to play guitar and sing, but there was something about a teacher's death that made him lose interest in it. Maybe someone could get him back into it though. Maybe that's what it would take to get him back into the swing of things.
A few hours into the day I was surprised to hear a truck pulling up outside. It was too early for the crews to be done for the day, and no one ever came by the trailer that served as our office. Anyone who needed something done just called.
"Where's Fred at?" Vic the foreman demanded, slamming the door against the stair rail as he came in, followed a moment later by a pissed-off Sweet Pea.
"He's out doing some small job over on Grove Street," I answered, finally getting a good look at the two. They'd obviously been involved in a fight, Vic coming out the worst of the two. "What the hell happened? You've had no issues the past three days and now you pick a fight with Vic of all people?" I asked, turning my attention to Sweet Pea.
"I didn't start anything," he snapped, throwing his hard hat down. "I just finished it."
"A good thing he did too," Vic said, pulling out the First Aid kit. "When's Fred supposed to be back?"
I sighed, running my hand through my hair. "I don't know, when he's done with whatever it is he's doing? Now, one of you tell me what happened out there."
"Andrews lost it," Sweet Pea said, dropping into a chair.
"Boy refused to follow orders, said he didn't need his mandatory break," Vic explained.
"Who threw the first hit?" I asked.
"He did," Vic replied, gesturing to face. "Tell Fred he's off my crew, I don't care if Archie is his kid."
I nodded, trying to figure out how we were going to break the news to Mr Andrews. "Okay, both of you go back to work or go home, I don't really care. I'll talk to Mr Andrews, figure something out."
"I've gotta get back onsite," Vic said, standing. "Take the rest of the day off kid, you earned it," he told Sweet Pea when he stood to follow him.
I looked at Sweet Pea from across the room for a minute before going over to him. "I"m sorry," I whispered, wrapping my arms around him. He'd been keeping his promise so far, doing what was asked and not causing trouble. More Serpents had followed his lead as well, leaving Veronica's employ to return to Andrews Construction. "I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions like that."
"No, anyone else would have done the same," he said. "What are you going to say to Mr Andrews later?"
"I don't know yet," I replied. "But right now, Betty asked me to meet her at Pop's."
"Come on, I'll give you a ride," Sweet Pea said, leading me out.
When I got inside, Betty was already there waiting. "Where have you been hiding out the past few weeks?" I asked her, sliding into the booth. Since Archie had come back I hadn't seen her at all.
"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," she said. "I've been going to see my dad a lot."
"That's not what I was expecting you to say, but okay. But why, Betty? The man's a serial killer. Even I wouldn't want to visit him."
Betty sighed. "I know, but I had no choice at first. Now, I just like being able to talk to him. He's the one who got me interested in mysteries when I was younger, and he gets me. He helps me process everything. He's helping me with this whole Penelope Blossom enigma."
I ran a hand through my hair as I studied the blond across from me. "Okay, start from the beginning. When and why exactly did you start going to visit him?"
"I don't know," Betty shrugged. "A few months? I think it was around the time Dilton and Ben died."
I raised an eyebrow at her. She'd been going to visit Hal Cooper in prison for that long and didn't tell anyone? I wondered if Jughead knew.
"My mom forged his signature and my college tuition money to the Farm," Betty continued. "She didn't even ask me, she just gave away all my money...like my education meant nothing. Attorney McCoy said if I could get him to sign an affidavit saying that signature was a fake, there'd be a chance I could get my money back. My dad agreed to it, but only if I brought him a copy of the Gryphons and Gargoyles manual. When I did, he told me he'd been the one behind Ascension Night. He sent the invitations, dressed up as the Gargoyle King, and planned to murder everyone there that night."
"Wait," I said, confused by what she'd just said. "If your dad was behind Ascension Night, he already knew how the game was played. So why did he want a copy of the manual?"
"He'd been reading about the Gargoyle King in the paper and wanted to learn more." I watched as Betty caught on, her eyes widening. "I am such an idiot. I should have known he was lying without Penelope Blossom telling me that."
"You said you're involved in some mystery with Penelope, so how does she factor into all this?"
"Penelope had been posing as my mom to visit my dad in prison. When I confronted her about it, she told me my dad hadn't been there that night, she'd told him about Ascension Night. I stayed away for a while after that, but after Claudius Blossom died, I started going again. I don't think he killed himself, and my dad was the only person I could talk to about it."
Betty looked around before lowering her voice. "Penelope Blossom is a murderer, she uses poison to disguise all the deaths as suicides. Featherhead, Daryl Doiley, the nuns at the Sisters, and now Claudius. I just can't prove any of it."
I sighed, leaning my head against the booth. "Why didn't you just go to Jughead about all this? Aren't the two of you the epic mystery solving duo of Riverdale?"
"I would, but he has so much going on already with running the Serpents and his novel," Betty said. "My dad has nothing. He's in a cell all day every day by himself. I feel bad for him."
Leave it to Betty Cooper to feel sympathy for a killer. We sat in silence for a few minutes as I processed everything. "Okay, so why are you telling me all this now? It sounds like you've dug up all the information you could from the past, and I'm not sure what you expect to get from the present."
"Well, tomorrow morning is the memorial service for Claudius at Thistlehouse and I was planning on talking to Cheryl. Clifford died by suicide, right? Or did he? I asked Dr Crudle Jr to pull his autopsy report but I suspect there was poison in his system, even if that's not what ultimately killed him. And since Cheryl was there that night, I'm hoping she heard or saw something that could shed light on this mystery."
"So your plan is to ask Cheryl at her uncle's funeral if her mother killed her father?" I asked, trying to keep it all straight.
Betty nodded. "And I was hoping you would come with me."
"Sorry, but the answer's gonna be a hard no on that," I replied. "Cheryl has made it clear to everyone that she sees me as nothing but the traitor who essentially handed over Southside to Ghoulies on a silver platter."
"Please, Abigail?" Betty pleaded. "You and Toni used to be close friends. Can't you use that to get Cheryl to forgive you?"
I let out a quick laugh. "You've known Cheryl Blossom longer than I have, and even I know there's no changing her mind about something, no matter who you are. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to get some food to go."
Betty ended up waiting with me, offering me a ride home. Sweet Pea and Mr Andrews were in the front room when I came in, both jumping up to take the bag of burgers and the shakes from me.
"Does he know yet?" I asked Sweet Pea quietly, following the two men to the kitchen.
"If you're referring to Archie being kicked off the site today, then yes, I know," Mr Andrews said.
I shot a questioning look at Sweet Pea. "I didn't tell him," he said.
"No, the boys were talking about it when they got back to the office this afternoon. No one would tell me what happened though," Mr Andrews said. "And since you know, you can tell me."
Sweet Pea busied himself with emptying the bag, forcing me to answer. "Archie got into a fight earlier, got himself kicked off the job, but that's just what I was told. Sweet Pea was there though." He wasn't getting out of this conversation that easily.
"Archie was fine, working no problem that I saw. Next thing I knew, he threw the first punch," Sweet Pea explained, carefully avoiding who else was involved. "I managed to pull Archie back before things got too bad."
Mr Andrews nodded, not looking at either of us. "You did good, son," he said after a moment, patting Sweet Pea's shoulder. "I'm gonna take this out back." I watched the door close behind him, knowing he was worried about Archie but unsure of how to help.
"He'll be okay, Abigail," Sweet Pea said softly, wrapping his arms around me. "Give him time to process everything and you'll see."
"You're right," I sighed, leaning back against him. "Come on, let's go eat before it gets cold."
"You do know I'm going to get back at you later though, right?" Sweet Pea asked as we ate.
"Oh, I know," I grinned at him. "Afterall, isn't the saying 'revenge is sweet'?"