isawallflower | RYSLIG; ic inbox

[ Yeah, unfortunately the only true crime Riley can get excited about is the kind that doesn't involve people she knows. ]

They never did! But, they could identify exactly who it belonged to, between the fingerprints and the arm's very distinct tattoo. The man was Jimmy Smith. He'd been missing for a little over two weeks when the shark vomited up his arm. Despite seeming like he didn't have any enemies, he was actually a small-time criminal, who had been doing insurance scams and drug deals for his employer, Reginald Holmes, for a few years. Recently, he'd taken to blackmailing him.

He'd last been seen with another small-time criminal, forger Patrick Francis Brady. The two left a bar and relocated to a cottage Patrick Brady had been renting. It was the last time anyone ever saw Jimmy Smith alive.

The two men, Brady and Holmes, kept accusing each other in the murder. Holmes denied having anything to do with Brady, but he tried to kill himself only days after they started questioning him!! The wild thing? He missed. He went on to be involved in a four hour speedboat chase with the police, while having a bullet hole in his head.

[Reginald Holmes sounds like the name of someone that would be a floor master... That has nothing to do with anything, but she thinks it all the same.]

Like Phineas Gage! I feel like I was just talking about him recently! Did Holmes survive the chase or did they kill him? It'd be interesting to see what sort of effect his injury had on him when the brain is so fiddly. I bet he at least dumped the body from his speedboat... It sounds like Brady and he failed the prisoner's dilemma. Was Brady ever arrested or did they decide he was innocent because of what Holmes did? If they had enough evidence...

You're asking just the right questions. :)

He DID survive, and he was taken to the hospital. He even decided to cooperate with the police! After Brady had claimed Holmes was the mastermind of it all, which was what turned the police onto him in the first place, Holmes testified that Brady killed Jimmy Smith, dismembering him in his cottage and then threatening to murder Holmes if he didn't pay him!! He had Smith's arm with him at the time to prove he meant it. Holmes panicked and threw the arm in the ocean, explaining where it went.

That should've been enough to lead to a conviction...but on the morning of the inquest, Holmes was found in his car with three bullets in the chest. This time, there was no miraculous recovery.

The scene was staged to appear like a suicide, but forensics were able to find inconsistencies. It was undoubtedly murder. Whether Brady had him killed or Holmes, having recently taken out a substantial life insurance policy on himself, hired a hitman to do the job. Whatever the reason, without his testimony the case suffered. Brady was acquitted and swore until he died thirty years later that he had nothing to do with the Shark Arm Murders.

[She’s being praised for her curiosity about crime and death!!! God, that feels good.]

That’s a sad ending for Holmes...but I guess he was already such an amazing part of the case, surviving or not might not have mattered in the end.

[It...makes sense in her head.]

Did Holmes have a wife? I know a married couple is supposed to love each other, but they don’t always. That’s a lot to deal with, especially if his injury affected his personality, and the money might have seemed like the better option.

I feel like it has to have been Brady...but that’s a long time to lie.

You can never know who to believe with these things...and because it's such an old case, it'll probably never be solved.

Holmes did have a wife. It's in fact one of the reasons why people thought he had himself killed with the life insurance policy. It's said the last time she saw him, she accompanied him to the door of his car, as he was very nervous about being out alone. He already tried to kill himself, so maybe he was finishing the job once he knew he had security for his family.

It certainly sounds like Brady was the ringleader...but there IS one more key player in all this who the public didn't really learn about until way after the fact. It was in 1995, in a book published about the case. Author Alex Castles posited that perhaps Brady killed Smith under the orders of someone else—Edward Fredrick Weyman, or Eddie Weyman, one of the most dangerous criminals in Australia during the 1930s. He'd been arrested twice. One for attempting to defraud a bank with a forged check, and the other time after a bank robbery that Smith allegedly gave information on.

This author also was one to push the idea that Holmes hired a hitman to kill himself, since suicide would've voided his life insurance policies.

That voids life insurance? ...That doesn't seem fair. You can get medicine and go to the hospital for it. It should be the same as dying from being sick.

Anyway... That would be nice of him. And nice of the hitman to be there for him, if that is what happened.

[Man. She misses Zack.]

In Australia?
[...ah -- ] You did say that. I forgot. It sounds like everyone had a reason to be mad at Smith. He must have been really good at pretending for him to not have any known enemies when they first identified him.

Are you writing a book about it, too, Miss Riley? You know an awful lot.

What? Oh my gosh, no, I could never!! I'm no good at writing. I just used to listen to true crime podcasts and watch documentaries when I wanted to unwind back home. If a case really interested me, I'd look into it more. That's how I found that book.

Really, it's just a hobby. I could never write a book or anything like that.

[ She tried. After her parents had a poem her brother wrote for a school contest framed. Hers rhymed and was about sunflowers. They didn't even read it. ]

Anyway, intent really matters with insurance policies. It's in EVERYTHING, from life insurance to just electronic warranties. Like how if a laptop doesn't cover accidents. There's a level of it being the person who owns the policy's fault, so the insurance companies don't cover it, to keep people from abusing it to just get more money.

It's always seemed a little bit mean to me, but it's how the world works.

...? It was more conversational than I'm used to reading, but I thought that was because it's a conversation. You're good at remembering and sharing details. You build anticipation. I thought you made it really interesting.

[None if what Riley's just said is making a ton of sense to her, actually. Imagine if anyone in Rachel's life had bought warranties. Imagine if she knew how any of that worked.]

But in the case of life insurance, they can't use the money. They're dead.

Thank you, Rachel. But it's different, between conversations and actually writing a book. There's a certain skill there. Some people have it, some people don't.

[ ... ]

For the insurance, their family can use it, the money. The worry's that people would do exactly what Alex Castles theorized Holmes did. They'd take advantage of it. Some policies do cover it after awhile, but you have to be on the plan for a few years beforehand.

Got it.

[Riley would be the one that knows, she supposes...and some people having "it" isn't really a hard concept to grasp, even if the angle you're coming at it from mostly has "it" being "the urge to kill".]

That doesn't really discourage suicide...just encourages homicide. Someone that wants more than anything to die will find a reason other than helping their family get money pretty easily. It's just a nice thought, being useful to people you value even after you're gone.

[ There's a pause here, as she...considers. ]

It's a nice thought. You're right. A very morbid one, but nice. A person who loves their family enough to go to any lengths to provide for them.

[ It's...hm. She lead them on this subject, but now it feels weird. ]

[It sure does feel weird... Ray's still here for it, but it's much, much weirder than it was five facts ago.]

Oh. Sorry, I wasn't trying to be morbid. That sort of thinking makes me really happy...

[ Ah- ]

No, it's okay. Sometimes I like morbid, as evident by the whole true crime thing. I just
Thinking about that kind of thing is a little strange for me.

[ She...said she'd be honest with Rachel. ]

A family like that isn't something I'm used to. Once it stops being facts, it's harder to not try and compare.

Edited (icon no) 2021-10-17 08:31 (UTC)

[Right... Thinking that sort of thing definitely isn't normal, and even if Riley has her own issues, she still has normal people thoughts and feelings about things. She's a halfway point, maybe.]

No. It isn't something I'm used to either even if I've thought about it. It was something I wanted... I wanted to be desired in both life and death. I don't think I could have ever had that with my parents. Not even in my fantasies... There was someone after who provided anything I asked for and more, but nothing he did was really for me, I think. He wanted "me", but one he wanted and not the "me" that was my true self. He never felt like my ideal family.

But I was able to get close. What's more amazing than someone who would die for you is someone who refuses to die so that he has the chance to fulfill your wish himself. My most precious person is both.

[ Oh. Oh, that's actually... ]

You're right. That does sound amazing.

When you were talking about naming Molly, you mentioned it not feeling right to use a name of someone close to you. Was this the person you were talking about?

I did? Well, I guess that's not surprising since I still think that.

Yes, that's Zack. We saved each other so many times...but that isn't why he's so important to me. He doesn't understand me, but that didn't stop him from telling me to be my own person and decide for myself what I really wanted.

He didn't ever give up on me. No matter how impossible things seemed and even though I told him I would take responsibility for our promise if we couldn’t fulfill it, he refused to let any of it get in the way of him doing what he’d said. And he wanted to. That meant so much.

[ For not the first time, Riley wonders about Rachel's life before Ryslig. What lead her to Danny? What kind of saving does she mean? What kind of world, where she was still talking so much about someone dying for you?

It's the kind of thing she doesn't know if Rachel would answer. It's the kind of thing she doesn't know if she's ready to ask. Still. She wonders. ]

I'm glad you had someone like that there for you before all this. I'd started to think you had no one in your court back home, but I can tell that's not exactly true.

And he's right, you know. I agree with him. It's important for you to have a say in your own life.

I know. As stupid as he is, he's really smart about some things. I miss him a lot, but he's already made me the happiest I could ever be. If I never see him again, I still have those memories. If I lose those here...it still happened. No one can take what we had away. But I do hope I get to remember him forever.

Miss Riley, you said you weren't used to that kind of family either. I don't think there's anyone that could really understand my relationship with Zack, but you said you had friends, right? I think I remember that.

[Mostly because it was her friends that she said she killed.]

You weren't alone?

[ It's not okay if she loses her memories. Riley decides that here and now. Such a special relationship, someone who made this empty little girl happy—she doesn't want to see that ever go away.

...But, there's something else to address here. ]

I wasn't.
At least, mostly.

There was another girl. Her name's Cairo. She's my best friend, since we were kids. I didn't have anyone before her and I didn't think I'd have anyone if she wasn't by my side.

It was complicated with the other girls on my team. We were friends, sort of, but I could never really build the community I'd been trying to.
In the end, that was my own fault.

She's here now, though. Even after everything I did, she still wants to be with me.

[Cairo. That's the capital of Egypt, she muses before she can stop herself, because Egypt has become important to her. That's where she has to get Atem back to so that he can rest properly and have his name said, his mouth open so he can eat. She promised.

But this isn't Atem that she's talking to -- it's Riley. Someone she helped for reasons that made even less sense than for some random dying boy, but who was kind to her in return. She didn't regret it most of the time.]

She hasn't given up on you, either.

Does she accept you? The person you are...

Yes? I think so.
Like she doesn't want me to kill any more of our friends.
I don't want to do that either so
it works out.

I was kind of horrible to her. I don't remember some of it, but I'm more than a little surprised she's still on my side from what she told me.

Then I'm happy for you.

[In a more abstract way than most people mean it, she thinks, because there's still more of a disconnect to her feelings when it comes to others. Part of it, too, is knowing that if she didn't have Zack, she'd be so jealous of Riley, so she must be happy for her, right?]

I wouldn't worry too much. What's important is that she's there. That sort of thing can bring you closer, too. I tried to kill Zack once, and look at us now.

Well I can't really look at him, but I'll take your word for it.
I won't deny this all has made us talk more than we had been, but I can't help but wish it'd been without all the murder...

That's on me, though.

Wow. Rub it in.

[Has Rachel ever really joked with Riley before... Talking about Zack brings out some of that playfulness more easily.]

The way I see it, it would be impossible for things to happen the way they did if the "bad" hadn't happened, too. But since it was always hard for me to regret that sort of thing, maybe it's not my place to say.

I didn't mean anything by it! If he shows up here one day, maybe you could introduce me. :)

[ It's almost like she's just...joking around with another teenager. Riley doesn't do that often, didn't even before here.

...But— ]

I'd still rather none of the bad things happened.
The people I hurt and the girls I killed didn't deserve what I did to them. If there was a way to fix my mistake, I'd take it.

WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, CHEERYCHERRY. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 019.46.820.17 * CHEERYCHERRY has joined 019.46.820.17 <CHEERYCHERRY> It's Riley! <CHEERYCHERRY> Please leave a message! <CHEERYCHERRY>** Please be someone with their priorities sorted out properly!

<CheeryCherry> | cw: suicide in true crime

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