"Ah it feels so good to be back on the ground." He said rather cheerfully to the Dutch man beside him in the baggage claim.
"What?" He says sounding very confused.
Just as the Danish man is about to respond, he sees his very bright and obnoxious red suitcase coming down the line. He rushes forward and grabs it so that he can get back to work and see Alfred,his partner, for his next case. He hails a taxi after the long walk across the airport and gives the grouchy cabby the agency's address. After a long drive in the traffic he finally arrives to a familiar face,a very cheery and super irritating face, waiting for him outside of the agency building.
"Hey Mathias! I've got a new case for you." Alfred yells across the parking lot, having his hands cupped around the sides of his mouth to make the sound carry out farther, even though Mathias was the only other person out in front of the building.
"Yes Alfred, I know. Why else would you have me come home early from my vacation? I was having fun in Copenhagen you know!" Mathias grumbled, his face quickly forming into one of mock sadness. Though, in all honesty, Mathias was rather upset that his trip was cut short by his work.
"Well this is much more important. We have a serial killer. People are calling him 'Skadi'. After the mythological norse character or whatever, you should know who they are." Alfred got to the point quickly, this case being an urgent one and all.
"Isn't Skadi a goddess though? You called the killer a 'he'."
"Let them think whatever they want. Anyway, to a more interesting topic, he freezes the right hands of his victims in liquid nitrogen then tosses the rest of the body, crazy huh? Does a pretty good job of cleaning up after himself too. Haven't found anything that could give us hints about his whereabouts."
"So you felt the need to call me back from my vacation to solve this? Aren't there other detectives in this city?" Mathias really wasn't ready to deal with some nut job with some weird obsession for frozen right hands. He'd already begun to miss the rainy weather of Copenhagen.
"Yes but they came to us and you get to be my sidekick for this one." Alfred just gave a thumbs up and an assumingly unintentional shit-eating grin.
"Okay. Give me the case file and I'll see what I can find." Mathias only sighed and held back the urge to deck the smug american in the face as he pulled his hand from his side for the case file.
Alfred pulled out the file from a briefcase he had sitting next to him on the ground, but when he held it out to Mathias, he didn't give it to him right away. He just teasingly held it above his partner's hand.
"Don't lose this like you did the last one."
Mathias grabbed for the manilla file,only to have the file quickly avoid his hand.
"Hey I still solved it!" Mathias pouted, sticking out his lower-lip in a face similar to what most people would call a 'puppy face'.
"Yes you did, but you lost the case file and we had to make a new one." Alfred abruptly dropped the file into Mathias's hands.
After skimming over what little information on the killer Alfred had come up with so far, Mathias decided it was about time to start visiting the victims families.
After seeing the list of victims,he knew he had a long couple of nights ahead of him.
The first victim on the list was one by the name of Feliciano Vargas. His brother, Lovino Vargas was living in a small apartment about ten minutes away so for convenience's sake ,Mathias went there first.
When he gets to the apartment he heard lots of loud thumping and figures that the man inside is drunk. After knocking on the door he gives his usual speech about being a detective and how he needs to interview him. He hears a few drunken hiccups so he assumes that the man is right up against the door.
"Go. Just go I don't want to talk to you!" Mathias can hear the sobbing through the door "Please , please just talk to me. This will help us protect people!"
"YOU COULD HAVE PROTECTED HIM! You could have made sure that this didn't happen! Now go away you cock sucking bastard I'm not going to talk to you."
"Sir please. If you're not going to talk to me then I will leave but please consider calling the agency. I'm going to leave my card under the mat. Please call whenever you're ready." Mathias walks away sadly. They always cry, and even though he's rather used to it, it always bugs him when he has to talk to close family members. He moves on to Feliciano's close friend Ludwig Beilschmidt who lives about five minutes from Lovino's apartment.
Walking down the street he finds the larger apartment that must belong to Ludwig. He knocks and gives the same speech that he gave at Lovino's place. To his surprise the door actually opens. Finally, someone who wants to talk.
"Guten tag. Please come in. Would you like anything? A beer?" The seemingly friendly German opens the door wide, welcoming Mathias into his apartment's living room.
"Got any Carlsberg?" Mathias asks, walking into the the doorway.
"No, sorry. Please come sit down. You're here about Feli right?" The german's voice sounds rather upset at the mention of his now deceased friend's name. He continues to walk towards his couch, sitting down right in the middle.
Mathias rather awkwardly places himself in the leather recliner and makes himself as comfortable as he can in a few seconds, which isn't very much. "Yes. Can you please tell me about his personality and show me some recent pictures?" "Well, Feli was an amazing person." Ludwig paused in thought, or maybe he was preparing himself to continue with what he was going to say, "He was always happy and he could always cheer me up and always made pasta with his brother Lovino." Another pause. His face had already become a little red and puffy around his piercing blue eyes. Though, his eyes themselves were now glassed over, and the whites of his eyes were more of a pink shade now. "Please excuse me." Ludwig wiped his eye with a rough hand, the tears that were welled up in his eyes were flowing now. "I didn't mean to cry- he was just... He was my best friend." He was near sobbing now, his once stoic features were now twisted into one of distraught."His death was so unexpected... We were actually about to go to Italy together to visit his grandfather."
"I'm sorry about that. Can I please see some pictures?" It was hard for Mathias to not try to reach out a comforting hand, Mathias assumed that the German would find the embrace rather awkward.
"Ja. Here." He wipes his eyes once more and then pulls out his wallet and shows it to Mathias. "These are a few. If you need some to take with you I have many copies of these."
The pictures are all of Ludwig and Feliciano on a picnic or sitting on a bench. In the pictures, Ludwig looks like he's so happy he can't contain it. Mathias couldn't help but give a subtle smile back to the two happy men in the photos.
"You two must have been very close." Mathias said half to himself, half to the man sitting across from him.
"Ja, we were. I think...It should have been me instead of him who died."
"Don't say that." Mathias handed back the photos the Ludwig, his face stern. "I have all I need to continue the investigation. Thank you very much. Your cooperation will help protect many people." Mathias then made sure his departure was quick and painless.
"I hope so. Auf Wiedersehen." The german man waved sadly behind Mathias, his face still showing traces of puffiness and tears.
When Mathias got to a nearby street, he hailed a cab and went back to the agency to show Alfred all he had found about Feliciano.
"Mat, dude! It's ten o'clock at night! I thought that you said it would be a short visit." Alfred seemed a little more overzealous than upset at Mathias.
"It was supposed to be, but his brother wouldn't talk to me. I had to go to his friend's place." Mathias just grumbled, he really didn't want to deal with Alfred at the moment.
"Oh. Well I'll take the rest of night researching. You can go get a drink or something."
"Ok." He took the chance right when he saw it. He'd rather be in the company in a bunch of drunken men than someone who'll just get excited by everything. Sometimes Alfred would get way too into case-solving.
At the bar closest to the agency, Mathias plopped down in a seat next to a slim blonde man and orders a Carlsberg. He couldn't help but notice the familiarness of the odd cross-pin in the man's hair.
"Hey. I'm Mathias. What's your name?" He turns to the man, hoping to have some sort of interesting conversation while he's taking a break.
"I'm Lukas." His voice sounded rather monotone, and his dark blue eyes held an expression that was a mixture of boredom and irritation.
"Thats cool. Why aren't you drinking? We are at a bar." He points out the lack of alcohol by the thin man's side.
"I don't drink. Not often." A non-drinker hanging out at a bar? Curious to say the least. Though, Mathias had suddenly found a name to the oddly familiar face before him.
"Oh, Hey you know- You look really familiar. Is your last name Bondevik by any chance?"
"Yes it is, and how do you know my name?" The fact that Mathias knew his name seemed to strike some interest in his dark, dull eyes.
"Don't you remember? We were roomies in college!" Mathias grins madly before giving the man a hearty pat on the back.
"Oh. You."
"Yeah me!"
"Well it's been wonderful but I think I'm going to take my leave if it's all the same to you Mathias." Lukas seems about ready to leave his seat, and the bar within the next few seconds, but Mathias instantly takes notice.
"What? At least let me get you a drink!"
"Fine. Nothing alcoholic though." Lukas seemed about ready to make some sort of grand escape from Mathias,but instead was more or less obligated to stay.
"Okay." Mathias just smiled sweetly at him.
The rest of the night is a bit of a blur for the detective after his fifth Carlsberg. He wakes up in a strange, well decorated house the next morning with a terrible hangover.
"Hey, uh, where the hell am I?" He yells to no one in particular, his voice and expression both very confused.
"You're at my house." A very familiar and calm voice answers.
The shocked Mathias tries to remember everything he had done the night before, but draws a blank.
"Lukas? Why am I at your house?" Mathias asks suspiciously.
"You passed out drunk at the bar and I hadn't been able to find any addresses on you, so I took you back to my place."
Looking around for the first time Mathias sees a posh living room complete with a chandelier hanging down from the ceiling.
"Are you rich or something?"
"That is none of your business. I would think that you have work at this hour so I suggest you get going."
"Oh shit. Here take my phone number so that we can go drinking some other time."
Mathias scrawls out a barely legible series of numbers on a random piece of paper found inside his large black jacket and hands it to Lukas.
"Where is your house anyway?"
"I live just outside of the city limits. It's eight o'clock, you should run to get a taxi."
"I will. Lets get drinks later this week okay?"
"Sure."
When he finally got through the traffic and back to the agency he saw Alfred waiting impatiently outside the front door. "Mathias where the hell were you? It's ten o'clock! You said you would be here at nine!"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I got kind of drunk last night and one of my old college buddies took me back to his place."
"You drink way too much dude. Anyway I did a bit more research on the case and I think you're going to have to go talk to more of the families."
"Why do I always have to talk to them? You know how much I hate it when they cry!"
"You're way better at talking to them than I am so you have to talk to them."
Mathias wasn't in the mood to talk to more families especially with his hangover, but he looked at the next victim on the list. Emil Steilson. The name rings a bell somewhere in the Danes mind but he can't place where he knows the name from until he looks at the family. Lukas' little brother.
_
Thanks for reading the first chapter of Cold Case. This was a collaboration between me and my friend Shay. We will try to update it frequently but since it's a collaboration there may be a bit of trouble. Ok thats all I'm going to say for now. Bye!