Death in the Zoo
Chapter 12 - The Killer Revealed
Skipper paced quickly back and forth in the holding pen. It had been nearly twelve hours since Rico stormed out of the building, and Skipper had thought he'd be back by now. He realized how badly he must have hurt the penguin, both inside and out.
Kowalski noticed Skipper pacing. "I'm sure he'll be back any minute now," he comforted, or at least tried to. Skipper didn't respond and continued walking in circles. Private was twiddling his flippers and sitting in the corner, where he had been most of the day. The young penguin thought about how things were just over a week ago. The penguins would probally be on some sort of mission about now... exploring the zoo, searching for popcorn or some other unimportant task. He wished that they could go on a mission right now—all four of them.
Skipper was thinking the same thing. Just half a week ago he and his team were as close knit as any military squadron. Now, his explosives expert was AWOL and none of the remaining team members felt like doing much talking in the awkward atmosphere. He knew that even in this drab holding pen, his team would find something fun and interesting to do. They'd go on a mission, or—a mission. Oh, he missed the missions. He loved watching his team perform perfectly rehearsed moves while narrowly avoiding detection by Alice. He loved how it felt knowing that someone always had his back, no matter what the circumstance. Now, however, he felt cold and alone. His team had fallen apart, and he was unsure of what to do about it.
He wanted to crawl up into a ball and sit in one spot until everything went back to what it was—that was what he wanted.
"Skippah, are you hungry at all?" Private said, holding a fish up to the leader penguin. Skipper had not notice the small penguin walk over from his corner. "Alice just dropped some fish in." The leader penguin noticed he had been daydreaming for some time.
Skipper grabbed the trout, but his stomach did flips as he attempted to take a bite. "You can have my rations tonight, Private," He said.
"That's alright, I'm not very hungry myself." returned the younger penguin. Silence befell the two for some time.
"Skippah..." the special operation penguin said, looking up at his leader. "I-I..." he choked on his words. Skipper looked up at his penguin, and noticed the tears forming in the corner of his eyes.
"What is it, soldier?"
"I'm... I'm so sorry..." he said softly, choking back the tears that started to drip down his face anyway. Skipper was surprised, but all he could do was give a confused look. "I'm so sorry..."
"For what?" asked Skipper, unsure of how to handle his partner on the verge of a breakdown.
"I took that classified air pistol..." confessed the young penguin.
Skipper was taken aback, and he gasped. "What do you mean?"
"I did take that Powershot gun that you said was classified," he choked.
"The Powerline 15XT?"
"Yeah, that."
Skipper lifted a flipper up to his head to scratch it in thought. He was surprised when he saw convulse with one of the hardest flinches he had ever seen out of the younger penguin. It made him suddenly feel guilty for always slapping Private when he did something out of military code.
"But... why? For what?" Skipper asked, continuing to keep his voice low so Kowalski couldn't hear them.
The younger penguin paused for a second, swallowed hard, and then spoke quickly. "Maurice came over one day when you and the others were out. He asked me what kind of weapons we penguins liked to use, so I showed him."
"You showed him our weapons? Private, that's..." Skipper's voice trailed off when he wondered why Maurice would ask such a question.
"He wasn't impressed with our wooden swords and explosives, because he said he had already saw us use them many times. Then he started mocking our team, saying that we were not very good because we couldn't use any other types of weapons." The young penguin took a breath.
"So you showed him the Powerline?"
"Yes."
"How did you know it even existed? You weren't supposed to know about that one for while."
"A few weeks ago I got up in the night and stepped on the trapdoor in the floor it was under. I noticed it sounded hollow, so I looked for a bit until I found that I could open it.
When Maurice said those things about our team, I opened the trap door and showed him the air gun. He was really impressed, and apologized for saying those things about our team. He left quickly afterwards."
"When did this happen, Private?" Skipper asked. He realized that the short penguin had broken several aspects of both military and penguin code... but he didn't care too much. Private knew the last piece to the puzzle and Skipper was determined to get it out of him.
"On the Wednesday before the party." he answered. It was true... Skipper, Kowalski and Rico had gone out to find some popcorn after not receiving much for the day. Private had asked to stay back to tidy up the HQ. That must have been when Private's story occurred.
Skipper thought a bit before continuing. "Why did you deliberately lie to me when I asked you about it?"
The a wave of fear and guilt flashed over the penguin's face, and then he spoke with a quavering voice. "I was afraid you were going to kick me off the team, Skipper!"
Skipper was surprised at his comrade's words. "Private..."
"Yes?" Private responded weakly, as if he feared what Skipper was about to say next.
"I would never kick you off this team, soldier." said Skipper. His words and tone of voice had a calming effect over his friend, and the small penguin smiled up at his leader, but the smile soon vanished.
"But I broke a lot of rules," he said.
"I know you did. And that's why you spent a day and a half inside that cage." Skipper explained. "Why do you think that you're not still being punished?"
Private's eyes opened wide. "I thought you had forgotten with all that's been going on."
"Private," said Skipper softly, "you're a key part of our team. Without you we wouldn't have been able to succeed on half the missions we've gone on." He put a consolidating flipper on his teammate's shoulder. "But most importantly... you're part of the family."
Private smiled at his leader's words, and his eyes changed from fear to happiness.
Skipper continued, removing his flipper from Private's shoulder. "Even though, I wish you would have told me this in the first place."
"I know... but I was so scared, I couldn't..."
"It doesn't matter," Skipper responded, cutting off Private. "but if you would have told me this right away, I could have solved this mystery a long time ago."
Private's eyes lit up, and Skipper assumed it was from the feeling of being relieved of the guilt that was probably eating him from the inside out. Although Skipper knew he should give Private some sort of more severe punishment, he knew it was not a good time to do so. His teammate was falling apart at the seems already, with the knowledge that one mistake had led to this extreme.
"What's going on?" Kowalski said suddenly. Skipper noticed the tall intellectual waddling over to him and Private.
"Private here has told me a very vital piece of information," Skipper said, putting his flipper back on Private's shoulder and offering a smile to the younger penguin.
"What?" Kowalski asked, looking a little confused.
"I know who killed Julien!" Skipper exclaimed, raising his flippers into the air. Both Kowalski and Private looked at him in confusion.
"Maelie?" Kowalski wondered.
"No, it's..." Skipper was unable to finish his words as a sudden, loud scream echoed up the air ventilation shaft. It was female, and Skipper recognized it almost immediately.
Suddenly, there was a loud crash as Maelie fell through the metal grate and onto the hard concrete floor. She was panting heavily and gripping her stomach with both hands.
"Help... me!" she heaved, sounding like she was in pain. The three penguins rushed over and helped her to her feet. Her fur was matted and rough looking, one of her eyes was nearly swollen shut and part of her ear was missing. She looked like she had been in a nasty fight.
"What..." Kowalski tried to say.
"Help me!" she screamed, falling onto Skipper, who caught her with his flippers. She regained her balance.
"What's wrong?" Skipper said. She glanced over her shoulder quickly. Skipper noticed how twitchy and tense she was.
"He's chasing me! He's going to kill me!" she heaved. Her voice no longer sounded sweet and cheerful as it had been when they first met—now it was hoarse and cracking, which lead Skipper to believe she had been screaming a lot. "You've got to help me!"
"Who's chasing you?" Skipper said firmly, grabbing Maelie by the arms and shaking her a little. He had a feeling he already knew, though.
"Hello there," a familiar, deep, dry voice said calmly from behind Skipper. All four of the animals standing in the room looked toward the air vent.
There stood a gray-furred, wide and short lemur. He was leaning up against the side of the vent and caressing a pocket knife in his paws. His large, yellow eyes were pointed directly into Skippers. They seemed to be radiating some form of evil Skipper had never seen before.
"Maurice?" Kowalski said, sounding very confused and shocked.
