Blind ermittelt - Die nackte Kaiserin (2022)

In the seventh case of the duo Alexander “Alex” Haller and Nikolai “Niko” Falk, they investigate a robbery-murder in which the last photograph of Empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, from 1898, has disappeared. The image, which shows the murdered empress’s naked body, is supposedly cursed: according to the story, anyone who looks at it will die. After Charlotte Binder, the great-granddaughter of the court photographer of the time, comes into possession of the photographic plate following her father’s death, her husband, Navid Moradi-Binder, is stabbed with a letter opener and the plate is stolen. The photograph was supposedly taken secretly and without permission in the morgue by Kralik, an assistant to court photographer Binder. According to Mrs. Nowak, an acquaintance of Charlotte’s, Kralik himself died soon afterward. Among those who knew about the photograph were Gerlinde Wimmer of the Picture Archive at the Austrian National Library, who was supposed to take custody of the photograph, which was to be returned to the state, as well as the expert and the neighbors Norbert and Tina Steiner. Special investigator Alexander Haller and his partner Niko Falk suspect that someone wants to sell the image on the black market. Haller also considers a Sisi fan as a possible culprit, or someone who wants to prevent the photograph from becoming public for moral reasons. No one says they saw a fleeing suspect at the time of the crime, and nobody appears on the surveillance cameras either. Haller suspects that the culprit hid on the roof of the building, where investigator Laura Janda finds the murder weapon, and left the crime scene later via the exterior scaffolding. Haller and Janda therefore suspect tradesman Tobias Meindl, who was seen at the scene shortly after the crime and said he needed to carry out some work there. Meindl confesses to Navid Moradi-Binder’s murder. He had only intended to steal the photograph, but Moradi-Binder had resisted. Haller discovers that Meindl was having an affair with Charlotte and suspects that Meindl took the blame solely out of love for her. Soon afterward, Charlotte is found dead after she, too, had looked at the photograph. The expert discovers that the photographic plate secured by the police is made of laminated glass, which had not yet been invented at the time, and is therefore a fake. Haller suspects that the Steiners, who have since gone into hiding, forged and switched the images and were working with Navid Moradi-Binder. The tradesman had therefore stolen the fake. Charlotte may have recognized it as a fake, which could have led to a confrontation with the Steiners; during an argument with them, she may have fallen to her death from the balcony. Art dealer Wolfgang Gansmeir, who deals in Austro-Hungarian memorabilia, is offered the photograph for 1.5 million in a message left on his answering machine, made using a prepaid mobile phone. Voice recognition suggests that the caller is Norbert Steiner. The handover is to take place at an Austro-Hungarian costume ball, where all the guests, regardless of gender, are dressed either as King Ludwig of Bavaria or as Sisi. Among the guests are Gansmeir and archivist Gerlinde Wimmer; Janda’s assistant Peter Lassmann is the only one at the ball dressed as Emperor Franz Joseph. At the ball, Gansmeir gives the photograph to Gerlinde Wimmer so she can smuggle it out of the hall past the police, since otherwise it would be returned to the state, and he can retrieve it from her later. The Steiners are arrested. According to Norbert Steiner, the idea for the fake came from Navid. Norbert Steiner confesses to pushing Charlotte off the balcony.