Inspector Singh has a million questions on his mind, but he remains quiet as he goes to retrieve the records his partner has requested. That quiet lasts until the heavy folder of paperwork hits their shared work desk with a heavy thump.
"So, you planning on telling me why this particular criminal group is supposed to be related to the Cooper case?"
Francine's ever-present frown is even more pronounced, and she opens the first labeled tab to pull out four photos. Then she places them side by side on her desk to face her partner and taps the child's notepad list.
"Tell me what you see."
Bodie looks across each picture.
A giant green frog in a blue metallic top hat sneers at the camera while adjusting the cuff links of his white gloves. An incredibly muscular bulldog wearing a wife beater and suit pants, caught in a grainy black and white picture from a camera feed as he holds twelve people hostage in a bank robbery. A panda, in only a pair of red pants, has at least five different kinds of fireworks strapped to his back with a separate rocket in his hand aimed right for whoever took the photo. The fourth picture is blurry and an almost intangible mess of colors, but half the head of an alligator with dark curls and a red bandana is recognizable in the bottom left side.
Bodie looks at the scribbled list. Frog. Dog. "Aligater." Bear. He glances back at the pictures a second time.
"Alright, so four members of the Fiendish Five check out with the species," the younger inspector says slowly as his mind churns. "And I know they're an international criminal group, which would put them as potential suspects above a lot of others at least. But what made you think of them first? We're not usually made to be aware of criminals outside of our assigned targets."
The elephant has been flipping through the rest of the folder as her partner connected the dots, and she ignores his question until she finds what she's looking for. She pulls it out triumphantly and holds it up.
"Because of this."
It's a fifth photo of the fifth member – but all Bodie can see is a vague bird-shaped silhouette against a darkened sky. He raises an eyebrow.
"Who is that supposed to be?"
"Clockwerk."
"And…am I supposed to know this name?"
Francine sighs, exasperated, and rubs the space between her eyes with her trunk. "Why couldn't they assign me someone who actually knows the Cooper case?"
"You're the one who knows the Cooper case. I'm here because it was a double homicide with a witness, and Interpol needed info on the perps as soon as possible." The sun bear plops into his desk chair like he hasn't a care in the world, but there's ice in his tone. "Which I got. So enlighten me, Ms. Expert. Who is Clockwerk and why does it matter so much?"
His partner shakes her head, having quietly accepted that winning this argument would get them nowhere. "Clockwerk is the fifth member and leader of the Fiendish Five, and the only reason we know that for sure is because of a three-way confrontation between us, him, and Connor Cooper about six or seven years ago."
Bodie leans forward to grab the silhouette photo. He squints at it and makes a 'go on' motion with his hand. Francine rolls her eyes.
"I was leading a team to catch Cooper in the act of a heist, because we received an anonymous tip that matched up with his M.O. and his activity was starting to peter out around that time. Actually, that –" she snatches Sly's birth certificate up and scans it, then grunts. "Yeah, that coincides with his child's birth almost perfectly."
"So, Cooper got busy and then realized he wanted to be a family man."
"Not quite. He and his gang were still doing heists, just more sporadic. This one was his last big one though, because there was a run-in with the Fiendish Five that neither of us expected."
"What makes you think he didn't expect it? Cooper's been known to drag other criminals into his messes all the time, right?"
"He didn't expect it because Clockwerk almost killed him," Francine states grimly. She steeples her fingers together to prop her mouth against them. "He was stealing from this massive corporation that had just unearthed the fabled Rockhopper Crusoe treasure in Chile, and I was laying in wait for him on the specific ship that was transporting it. Sure enough, he showed up along with his muscle man, Jim McSweeney, that very night. I was with a squad of four and we were less than a second away from revealing ourselves, when the sky went dark."
The elephant pauses, expression glazing over in a memory for just a moment before returning to the present.
"It was Clockwerk. He was so big that hovering right over us blocked out the moon."
"What happened?" Bodie asks, riveted by the story and surprised by the fact that he is.
"Chaos happened – my team and I watched as this massive, massive bird swooped down and made a grab for Cooper with his talons. The man barely got out of the way in time and so they went right through the hull of the ship instead. That was easily a meter of pure steel, pierced in one single blow. It was…it was terrifying."
Francine has been through many close calls and brushed up against death more than once. But that moment, witnessing someone so monstrous in size, strength, and killing intent, had brought out a primal fear that she never even knew she had. It had been one of the most terrifying moments of the inspector's life and she hadn't even been the target of the great bird's hatred.
She shakes off the shivers running up her spine and continues. "Of course, we had to make ourselves known right then because the ship started sinking, and we were afraid that Clockwerk would either kill Cooper or kill us unintentionally in his attempts to. The crew came up on deck too to see what was going on, and it was pandemonium. People were shouting and shooting and god knows what else.
"I still went after Cooper, because he was my target first and foremost. He and his crony were booking it for the far side of the ship – no doubt their getaway boat was that way – and I ran after them until Clockwerk landed right in front of the two."
Bodie whistles. "How close were you?"
"I was behind Cooper and McSweeney about…probably about five meters or so. Close enough I could hear them talking."
"They started talking? Just having a pleasant chat after the guy almost crushes his skull?"
"It was the farthest thing from pleasant, I can assure you." Francine says flatly. "But to sum it up, Cooper called Clockwerk by name, asked him what he'd 'been up to lately', and the bird said he'd started assembling his own team."
"The Fiendish Five."
"Yes, although we didn't have that name at the time." The Chief Inspector picks up the photo of Clockwerk, almost clutching it to her chest in the way she examines it. "Clockwerk said one last thing before taking off, and I was too preoccupied with trying to stop Cooper and his crony from escaping to give it much thought at the time.
"He said, and I quote: 'I look forward to meeting him.' With the way both Cooper and McSweeney reacted, I'd thought he was referring to the third Cooper Gang member, Dr. Zaroff Mandrill, since he mostly worked on the technical aspects and almost never went into the field."
They both look down at the homework assignment with the drawing of the silhouetted bird blocking out the moon.
"Do you think he told the kid?" Bodie asks after a long, shared silence.
"I don't know. I don't know why he'd ever have a reason to, but Cooper never ran by any logic I could follow."
The sun bear sits back in his chair to stare at the ceiling in contemplation. "Well, even if the kid didn't know about Clockwerk, Clockwerk sure knew about the kid. Wonder if he would've left him alone if he knew where he was in that house."
"He had a grudge against Cooper strong enough for murder, and there's a whole slew of heinous crimes credited to the Fiendish Five. I wouldn't put pedicide past any of them."
"So…what do we do?" Bodie eyes the homework assignment again.
"I'm going to start by opening an official investigation into Cooper's murder. Publicly, we'll announce that we're looking into every conceivable source of the slaughter without mentioning the Fiendish Five at all. If they find out they're the primary suspects, they'll know someone was close enough to identify them. However, some of these criminal groups consider it an honor to have taken other high-profile groups out, so with any luck one of the Five will announce that they were the ones behind it. It won't help us much in pinning them down to arrest, but it would be hard evidence for a long sentence at least."
Francine writes out the plan as she says it, already making notes about who and what she's going to get involved in the investigation. Inspector Singh starts taking his own memo.
"Leave the PR to me, I know how to spin a crowd and tease out the information we want released."
"Fine. Good." The elephant pauses, then points her pen at her partner. "Do not bring up Cooper's child in any interviews or statements. Even if the Five weren't planning on killing him too, it'll be dangerous for knowledge of him to get out. Cooper's old gang are still at large and they might whisk the boy off. That's not even mentioning the countless other enemies Cooper has made through the years who might want their own form of revenge."
"I'm already one step ahead of you," he replies easily. "How's this for a headline? Cooper Family Found Slain in American Suburb, Culprits Unknown. It's the truth, we won't have to mention the kid, and no one will be the wiser."
She only grunts in response, her trunk pressed against her chin as she stares at the family information and tries to figure out what they're going to do about the surviving child.
"We need to make him disappear completely," the older inspector says softly. Bodie looks up, confused, and she clarifies. "Cooper's son. He still needs to go somewhere. We can't keep him in that hospital forever."
Bodie follows her gaze to the stack of official documents on the desk. His eyes alight on the marriage certificate and a specific name jumps out.
Charlotte James-Cooper. James-Cooper. James.
"Then we won't. We'll give him a new identity and drop him off somewhere inconspicuous. No fuss, no media attention, just treat him like any other kid who's in the system." He taps a pencil to his snout. "Honestly, we don't even really need to check up on him either. We already have the suspect list from him and I doubt there'll be a will anyone can track since Interpol is going to seize all of Cooper's assets. Maybe if the investigation runs cold or we need every gruesome detail of the attack, but that's the only thing I can think of."
Francine gives him a hard look. "You just don't want to deal with him again."
"You're the one that said it out loud, not me."
"Knock it off with the games. I hate games." She shakes her head and turns back to her work. "Do we have a name for the boy? The sooner I can get legal documents made the better."
"Sure do!" He points out the dead woman's name with a grin. "Sylvester James. Close enough to make the paperwork easier but far enough that it won't be immediately recognizable for anyone really looking."
"That's…actually not bad," the elephant concedes.
"I have my moments."
She adds the new name on her computer system, then stops. "The only issue with this plan is if the boy starts spouting off about his identity to people."
"Francine, that kid is as silent as his dad's corpse. I have a good feeling he's not going to blab. And even if he does, people will think it's just his imagination. Kid loses both his parents in a terrible accident, he happens to be a raccoon, and coincidentally Connor Cooper himself has been found slain in the same town. It will just look like this kid wants attention, closure, or both. The end."
She can't fault his logic, and so the separate requests are made to open a homicide investigation for Connor Cooper and create the needed documents for one Sylvester James. With finality, Chief Inspector Pennington sends both requests to their supervisor. Then she turns to her partner.
"It's done. From now on, what happened in this office is classified information. No one can know the connection between this case and Sylvester."
Detective Inspector Singh gives a single nod, more serious than he's been the entire last day and a half.
"For all intents and purposes, Sly Cooper doesn't exist."
A/N: Well that statement won't backfire spectacularly lmao
This story is no longer dead! I can't believe it's been over a year and a half, and I honestly don't have any excuse beyond that I just….wasn't as interested in Sly for a while. Luckily for all of us, the interest is back full force and I have evening and weekend free time to actually write now! Hooray!
Apologies to everyone who waited patiently for this fic to update. You deserve a lot better, but I will try to make it up to chapter we'll get to see how the decisions made here affect Sly, and maybe get some outside perspective on things ;)