Chapter Ten: Maurice's Side
Before anyone could so much as blink, Skipper had Maurice apprehended in a chokehold, forcing the man down on the floor next to their damaged door. Maurice was tapping on his arm, face a straining red, but Skipper hardly let up - just enough to let the intruder breathe. The others watched in confusion, unsure of how he'd managed to cross the room so quickly.
"Come to stop us from arresting Julien?" Skipper snarled.
"Yes-" Maurice wheezed. "But only 'cause he's innocent, I swear!"
Skipper rose a brow, before turning to his brothers. "Kowalski, options."
"Uhh," Kowalski blinked, his mouth hanging open for a moment. "We should probably listen to what he has to say."
Skipper nodded and released Maurice. Maurice sent him a withering glance of disapproval, rubbing his now-red throat. Skipper didn't look at all apologetic. Private excused himself to prepare some more coffee, and the rest of them sat back down at the table, stiffly. Skipper was still very much so on guard, entirely distrusting towards anyone involved with Julien. That aside, Maurice had just broken their door, and that would cost a pretty penny to repair.
"How'd you know we just found out about Julien?" Was the first thing Skipper could think of to ask.
"When the four of you met with Julien yesterday, I noticed he was acting real… Strange." Maurice gratefully accepted the coffee when Private handed it to him, before continuing. "I figured there was somethin' up, so I asked him about it, and he told me that there was some sorta plan goin' on…"
"A plan?" Kowalski seemed skeptical. He tapped his fingers over the printed emails, drawing Maurice's attention to them. "Was it the same sort of plan where he hired Parker to kill Clemson?"
Maurice was not at all impressed. "That's just it. Clemson ain't dead."
"Not dead?" Private gasped.
"Nah, he just faked his death." Maurice sniffed as he took a sip, before adding some sugar.
"That would explain the lack of crime scene photos…" Kowalski grumbled. "All right, then. Let's say that you're telling the truth. Why would Clemson fake his death, and how exactly is Julien innocent?"
"Clemson used to live in New Jersey, before he came here. Back then, he was involved in some real bad stuff. Hoboken mafia. He bounced as soon as he could though, changed his name and started up again in New York." Maurice paused, staring down at his coffee. "...That was around the time that we wasn't doin' so well financially, not after… Well, anyway, Clemson sorta took Julien right outta college. Told us he could help pay his loans if Julien became the main dancer at his club, and that's how we got involved in all this."
Skipper found himself slightly chilled at the idea of a younger, more impressionable Julien being sucked into a life he probably didn't want. Sex, murder, drugs, and for what? Education! He cringed to himself; his family had been well off back in the day, but as of then he understood the tribulations monetary issues brought. That, and he had personal issues with Hoboken. One of his past colleagues, an ex-girlfriend named Lola whom he'd trained with alongside Hans, had run off with some muscle-head and gotten herself involved with the crime rings down there. Skipper was not at all a fan. The idea of Clemson dragging Julien into anything like that was horrific.
"Clemson wasn't the best at management, though. He also wasn't too great at keepin' his hands to himself, was always gettin' in other peoples' business. I guess he pissed someone off, enough so for them to out him... Someone tipped off the Hoboken mafia that he was stayin' here in New York, and they told him they were comin' for him. They really don't take kindly to guys that abandon the family, y'know. So of course, Clemson freaked out, and figured the only way to avoid bein' killed, was by bein' killed. He had ties with someone, I'm not really sure who, and they hired Parker to help him fake his death." Maurice told them all this while still staring into his cup, watching as the wisps of steam curled into thin air.
"What does this all have to do with Julien?" Kowalski spoke up after a few seconds of silence.
Maurice stared at Kowalski as if he hadn't been listening at all. "Julien's the decoy. Parker's just a hired man on the job, he ain't really supposed to go to prison. Sooner or later, someone was bound to notice somethin' wrong with him not bein' arrested and say somethin'. Clemson came up with the idea that Parker would be somehow proven completely innocent, and that it'd be Julien who'd get sent to prison in his place."
"That doesn't make any sense." Kowalski frowned. "Even if Julien was responsible, Parker would still be held in prison for being the one to shoot the gun."
"To be honest, as long as someone gets arrested, I don't think anyone was gonna ask any questions. Not in the kind of neighborhood we're in." Maurice replied darkly. "'Sides, Clemson doesn't really want Julien runnin' his club. Pretty sure he was gonna make himself a new identity and 'buy' it… He didn't want Julien thinkin' he had any sorta power."
Maurice looked away, sadness pulling into his visage. It was clear that he too was well aware of Clemson's abusive behavior towards Julien, but of course, had been powerless to stop it. Skipper cringed openly at the thought.
"So… Julien didn't do anything wrong?" Private piped up hopefully.
"Other than bein' a victim of circumstance, not a thing." Maurice assured him.
"That's all very nice and ideal, but do you have any real evidence of this?" Kowalski scoffed. "Because we do have evidence of Julien hiring Parker, but not of… Everything else you said."
Maurice seemed as though he couldn't tell if he wanted to laugh at Kowalski or slap him, but luckily for all of them he settled on neither. "You really think Julien's stupid enough to use the same email address for both you and Parker? He didn't type any of that. It was Clemson impersonating him. I mean… He did specifically want to have you guys doin' the investigation, but that's about all the say he had in the matter."
"Let me run a track on the IP addresses the emails have been sent from, then." Kowalski grumbled. "Do you have any idea where Clemson might be hiding right now?"
Maurice shook his head. "Pretty sure even Julien doesn't know that - but I can tell you it ain't New York."
Kowalski excused himself from the table to do as he said, muttering to himself under his breath as he did so. He didn't like being proven wrong. Skipper tapped his spoon against his coffee cup, staring down into it's endless darkness, still attempting to fathom the news that contradicted the previous news. It was pretty shattering, but in a good sort of way.
"So Julien… Is innocent." Skipper mused, both relieved and alarmed.
Maurice winced. "Well… I've tried to keep him away from all the bad stuff that goes on down there. Made sure he'd never sell his body, never do any hard drugs, nothin' like that. He wouldn't hurt a soul unless he felt like someone he loved was in danger. That's why…" He trailed off, leaving all of them hanging.
Private was the first one to speak up after, voice innocent and genuine. "What's why?"
"That's why he felt the need to do all of this. Believe you me, Julien wanted to stay far away from prison - didn't wanna get involved in any of this - but Clemson told him that if he didn't go through with it, he'd have me killed." Maurice sighed. "He's lost a lot of family over the years - we both have. It probably scared him to pieces, the idea of losin' the only thing he had left."
The room was silent, and once again, Private was the one to break it. This time, his voice was quiet, apprehensive and gentle. "...Is… Is that why you left Madagasar?"
Maurice nodded, receiving a soft pat on the shoulder from the youngest Penguin Eye. He looked to Skipper in particular, as though there was something he was just aching to say, but eventually his eyes fluttered and he seemed to deflate. Skipper's brow furrowed.
"Well," Kowalski poked back into the room, twisting his fingers. "Looks like… You were right, Maurice. The emails came from two completely different places. There's no way Julien could have sent both sets, even if he did send one. That doesn't prove his innocence, but it makes your story a lot more likely."
"Oh come on, Kowalski, we all know he's telling the truth." Skipper waved his hand dismissively. "I told you my gut was right."
"You're just saying that because you want to believe Julien's innocent." Kowalski sat back down, glaring at his commander. "I should have never introduced the two of you, now you can only look at him through rose-tinted-glasses."
"You're interested in Julien?" Maurice blinked, as though this was the most shocking thing he'd ever heard.
Skipper felt his face heat up. It was one thing for his crush to be outed, but even more so to his crush's surrogate father. He shot Kowalski a scowl, before clearing his throat and returning his focus back to his coffee.
"What's not to like?" He muttered. "Aside from thinking he was behind all this thirty minutes ago."
Maurice looked slightly distant as he mulled over this, eyes becoming glassy, before he took a long sip of his coffee. When he spoke up, it was as though he was forcing out the words, still trying to process them as he said them. "Huh. Well… That's… That's nice."
"Anyway!" Skipper quickly decided to change the subject, growing supremely uncomfortable. "Now what? We find Clemson, put him behind bars?"
"I think we should make sure that Julien's safe, above all. Clemson's gonna be waitin' for you to arrest him soon, and if you don't, he's gonna know something went wrong." Maurice chipped in, recovering from his mild trance.
"Right." Skipper nodded. "It's probably best we get the two of you away from Park Zoo altogether, if it's such a rotten place…"
"Don't get me wrong," Maurice paused him. "We both like dancin' and havin' a good time, but we could do without all the other stuff - y'know?"
Skipper nodded in understanding. "Let's pick up Julien and bring him back here, get the full story, and then we can figure out what to do."
Kowalski agreed. "I'll go start the car - Rico is not driving this time."
Rico followed him in an attempt to appeal with a drawn-out whine. The two of them could be heard dissenting as they got further away. Private skipped after them, leaving Skipper and Maurice alone. The older man turned to him, face slightly grim. Skipper immediately sensed awkwardness and fiddled with the button on his suit.
"...Skipper… I'm glad you like Julien n' all, but be careful, all right?" Maurice paused, starting towards the door. "He's… He means well, but there are a lot of things he doesn't understand, especially about love. He's not real good at communicatin' his feelings, even if they run deeper than they seem."
Skipper realized that Maurice was not cautioning him for his own safety, but for Julien's, and he nodded in agreement. If Julien wasn't a danger to him, Skipper could focus on keeping him from harm's way. "I will."
Maurice smiled at that. "Thank you."
As the two of them made their way out around the splintered pieces of wood, Skipper whistled to himself. "...Where did you learn how to bust down a door like that?"
Maurice paused on his way down the stairs, and in the darkness of the hall, he looked more hurt than ever when he looked wistfully in Skipper's direction. "My wife. Before she died."
Skipper decided he didn't want to know anything more than that, and the two of them departed in silence.
