Chapter Eight: Illegal Evidence
A door slammed shut, music booming in the distance. Two men were alone. One looked at the other, angry and confused. The other was seated delicately, refusing to make eye contact.
"What was that all about?" The angrier one barked. "What were you trying to do, exactly?"
The other played with his fingers, looking guiltily away. "I… I know it is hard to understand, but there's a plan, and I'm the decoy..."
"A plan? What are you talking about?" Still angry, but now with concern.
Finally, the more sheepish one looked up, worry leaking into his visage. "You have to understand. If I didn't go along with it, they would have killed you, and I… I couldn't lose you… Not after-"
A gasp. "Don't tell me that he put you up to this! If you do what he says, you… You're going to go to prison!"
The other responded with a sad, resigned nod. "I know."
The man who'd been furious just moments before now transitioned into utter fear. "No no no! I'm not about to let that happen!"
He yanked open the door, running out in a hurry. His conversational partner jumped up from his seat, horrified.
"Wait, wait! You can't-"
But it was too late. The door slammed once more, leaving him completely alone. He collapsed back into his seat, before resting his forehead in his hands.
The following day, Kowalski was typing away once again. This time, Skipper had been lenient enough to leave him and Rico at the office while he and Private went out on an 'interrogation mission'. Which generally meant Skipper and Private would go to various places near Parker's house and attempt to get any sort of information they could on where Parker might have disappeared off to. Not a very effective way to go about finding answers, but it was the only thing they could do that wouldn't irritate the law. On top of being hard work, it was time consuming. Which, luckily enough, gave Kowalski an opening to hack into the police database again.
He sighed agonizingly as he did so. Though he'd managed to clear his footsteps, because of the rather abrupt interruption from Skipper, he hadn't done so completely. The police knew that someone got into their information, they just didn't know who. While it was good that they couldn't pin anything on Penguin Eyes, it also meant that they'd upped their security, which made it all the harder for Kowalski to get into the program. Something he was still rather displeased about.
He grumbled to himself unhappily. Skipper had really been on his back lately. The two of them did have a tendency to bicker, but never as much as they had been as of late. He knew it was in part his fault for being so adamant about poking his way into Skipper's love life, but he couldn't help it. He cared about what was in Skipper's best interest, and if love was the problem, then love could solve it, couldn't it? A simple equation. Skipper wasn't going to get over Hans on his own, couldn't grapple at his own form of closure. So he simply had to forget about him by realizing Hans wasn't the only bird in the flock. There were people out there, good people who could make him remember what it was to love. People like Park Zoo's Julien, a seductive and flirtatious heart-throb.
And yet, despite having attempted to match he and Skipper together, Kowalski couldn't help but feel a bit suspicious towards Julien. He couldn't imagine what Julien was hiding, but Julien had made it painfully obvious that he was hiding something. The amount of obviously fake acting he had pulled was evidence enough of that. It was prominent the first time they'd met him and even more so the secondary. Kowalski was starting to wonder if it was a good idea at all to have tried to push Skipper in his direction; he didn't necessarily want a bad person in Skipper's life. It was enough that Julien was involved in criminal activity; the idea of him tampering with the very case he hired them for didn't exactly make him dating material.
What a strange man. All Kowalski could hope was that Skipper would enjoy a nice fling with him and then would come to the conclusion that the world was full of new experiences, that it was never too late for him to try again. There was no need to waste away as he'd been doing, drowning himself in alcohol every night as a substitute for Hans' embrace. Love was a fickle thing.
Dreamily, Kowalski's thoughts drifted slightly towards the most magnificent and beautiful Doris whom he'd had the luck of encountering while at the Zoo. It was a wonder that she herself wasn't a dancer, but was instead a waitress. He wished he'd gotten her number or something. Perhaps he could visit Park Zoo again and find some method of contact for her. He wasn't as lucky as Rico was with women, tended to take his time more, and as a result it had been awhile since he'd dated. If Skipper couldn't find love through this whole escapade, at the very least, Kowalski could.
"Eureka!" Kowalski exclaimed triumphantly when he managed to break through the firewall, again.
Grinning at his own genius intellect, Kowalski maneuvered quickly through the files once more. As he suspected, nothing had been added to Clemson's case files. Kowalski resisted a scoff at the police's incompetence or corruption (it was one of the two, maybe even both), but instead focused on his main objective - finding out who Parker's gun really belonged to. It took a bit more hacking, thanks to the newly added precautions, but Kowalski quickly found what he was looking for. He scanned over a few words, quickly, before his brow quirked and he reread them. And then, reread them again. Kowalski backed away from the computer for a moment, before he blinked rapidly and looked over the file for the fourth time. No, this didn't make any sense… But there it was, plain as day.
"Rico!" Kowalski shouted to his brother, who'd been in the other room.
The demolition expert set aside his stamp collection and looked up. "Huh?"
"Y-you've got to see this, you won't believe it!" Kowalski gestured wildly for Rico to come over, to which he did.
"...Wuz goin' on?" Rico gruffly questioned, squinting at the screen in puzzlement.
"The gun Parker used to shoot Clemson," Kowalski elaborated, voice confounded. "It… It belonged to Julien!"
At the same time, Skipper and Private were sitting on a park bench, exhausted. The two of them were enjoying nice, cold snow cones as they sat, taking a break from all the strenuous interrogating. Going from establishment-to-establishment just in hopes of finding answers wasn't exactly ideal or effective, but it was the only way Skipper could legally go about things.
He wouldn't have minded bending the law here and there, but he still wasn't at all fond of the idea of Blowhole catching on to what they were doing, or finding any sort of reason to put them out of business. The man was still bitter about how Skipper constantly back-talked him back in the CIA. In addition, he was well known for his constant arguments with Nigel, berating the man's paranoia about the Red Squirrel. Skipper thought it was despicable. Their hatred was mutual.
"Skipper?" Private pulled him out of his thoughts with a sweet tone.
"What is it?" Skipper couldn't help but grumble back. He didn't want to be cross with Private, but he was still a bit peeved about his argument with Kowalski from the day before.
Private looked down at his cone, hesitating, before his voice broke through the silence again. "I… I have an idea that might be good for finding some answers, but I'm not sure you'll like it."
"Shoot," Skipper responded.
"Well, I don't suppose we could… Search Parker's home, could we?" Private suggested apprehensively.
Skipper glared at him. "Trespassing is a misdemeanor, you know that, right?"
"I know, but… It's vacant right now, and it's not like the police have been doing all too much to check it out." Private's fingers tightened around his snow cone. "I was just thinking… It could be helpful."
Private looked up to him, his sparkling blue eyes practically melting Skipper's heart. He sighed, raking a hand through his hair. This kid would honestly be the end of him. Finally, he nodded.
"...All right. We'll go, but only for a quick check up. In and out, got it?" Skipper assured firmly.
Private smiled cheerfully and agreed. The two of them finished off their snow cones before making their way in the direction of Parker's house. It wasn't too far, as they'd stuck to checking out the nearest blocks, but it was still rather isolated. Parker apparently liked his privacy, living in the house at the top of the hill, surrounded by thickets and long stretches of grass so that it would take quite the hike to reach him. By the time they reached his door, both of them were slightly winded, something neither of them would mention to anyone else.
Weirdly enough, Parker's house was not sealed. In fact, his front door was unlocked, something Skipper found to be incredibly suspicious and uncomfortable. He and Private shared a discontented glance as they entered. No one else was around, luckily, but it still didn't take away the edge of paranoia Skipper felt. His gut told him he was going to discover something bad, something awful in here.
It was a ranch house, so they didn't have to worry about a second or third floor. As the two of them snooped about, Skipper took it upon himself to look through Parker's personal belongings while Private booted up his computer. Skipper glanced under the well-made bed; nothing unusual. The man himself honestly had few things out of the ordinary. A dresser that, upon searching Skipper discovered nothing unordinary (no false bottoms, no hidden weapons, not even a journal), a bookshelf packed with novels and informative non-fictions on marine life, a stack of empty beer cans, a lamp and his computer desk were all that inhabited his personal bedroom.
In his kitchen, Skipper discovered more empty alcohol containers, in addition to an otherwise empty fridge. Odd, but Skipper supposed he wasn't one to talk. There was a rotting banana on the table, but aside from that, Parker had no food in the house. In the living room, there was a leather couch, another lamp, and a cracked television, but once again, it was uncomfortably bare. Skipper was beginning to grow restless with how normal Parker's home was, disregarding the beer cans. He was just about to give up on finding anything when he heard a loud gasp from the bedroom.
"Oh- oh dear, Skipper! Skipper, come quick!" Came Private's muffled shout.
Skipper bolted towards his surrogate brother, in the room within seconds. "What? What's going on?"
Private was still at the computer, pointing frantically to the screen. "P-Parker left his email open, and oh my goodness, you'll - you'll never believe!"
Skipper was by his side in moments, scanning the emails critically. It was a back-and-forth conversation between Parker and someone else. The sender was essentially hiring Parker for his services, but as Skipper read deeper into the messages, he found that they were referring to Parker's assassination skills. It was a commission to kill Clemson Gidro. The sender was willing to pay Parker a fat sum of money (in cash, they clarified) to take out Clemson. Of course, Parker agreed.
"Kowalski was right, it was a set up!" Skipper hissed in realization. "Private, trace those emails!"
"Ah… Actually, Skipper," Private murmured out, his astonishment now accompanied by anxiousness. "There's… There's no need to do that."
"Why not?" Skipper demanded.
Private looked away, not wanting to be the one to break the news to Skipper. He tapped his knuckles together beneath Skipper's ruthless gaze, before sighing and giving in. "Well… That's… That's Julien's email."
Skipper thought he might faint.
