Blind ermittelt - Tod im Prater (2022)

In the sixth case involving the duo Alexander “Alex” Haller and Nikolai “Niko” Falk, they investigate the death of successful businessman Tom Wahrmund, who fell to his death from the sixth floor of his office building, which overlooks the Wurstelprater. The dead man had a blood alcohol level of two per mille. Aneta Wahrmund, the victim’s wife, was found by Detective Laura Janda shortly after the incident with an overdose of pills and has been in a coma ever since. A confession letter was found on Aneta. However, special investigator Alexander Haller and Detective Janda have doubts about the wife’s guilt. According to Tom’s boss Walter Eckmann, CEO of a company that sells cash registers, Tom Wahrmund was his best employee. Tom’s colleague Ella Meisner tells Haller and Falk that lately he had outperformed all the other sales managers; his wife was said to have suffered from psychological problems. There had been no signs that Tom was having an affair with another woman. According to the surveillance-camera footage, Aneta Wahrmund was near the crime scene at the time of the incident. Aneta’s records show regular appointments with Mia Seeberger, a former college classmate of hers. According to Mia, Aneta suffers from panic attacks and anxiety disorders, among other things, especially a fear of heights. For that reason, she had not set foot in her husband’s sixth-floor office for a long time. Seeberger suspects that Aneta was having an affair. The neighbor Isabella Zhang saw a visitor at the Wahrmunds’ apartment on the evening of the incident. In Tom Wahrmund’s safe, they find a photo album from the Ghost Castle haunted-house ride, whose operator is Mr. Maringer. Ludwig Rabitsch, operator of a stall called the “Vienna Derby” and known as “handsome Lu,” also has a cash register from Eckmann’s company. The decision to use the system was made by the Prater association; Rabitsch himself was less enthusiastic about it. The association’s chair is Bertha Nemecek, and the contracts with Tom Wahrmund were signed about six months earlier. Wahrmund’s rise to become a star salesman at Eckmann’s company was connected to these contracts. After Tom’s death, his former customers were transferred to his colleague Ella Meisner. Based on records from a car service that Aneta Wahrmund had used every Friday evening, Janda suspects Aneta had regularly booked a hotel room with her lover. Ella Meisner says that Maringer had received special terms from Tom Wahrmund. After an argument with Maringer, the tires on her vehicle were slashed. Maringer, who has numerous prior convictions, might therefore have had a motive to kill Wahrmund over a dispute about the contract. Haller and Falk also discover that Tom had blackmailed Ludwig Rabitsch and Bertha Nemecek with information about embezzlement and illegal employment, respectively. They too are therefore possible perpetrators. Bertha’s sister Elvira runs a café; she also has Wahrmund’s cash-register system and was likewise put under pressure by him. However, she has an alibi. Maringer tells Janda that he had recently learned that Tom Wahrmund was his son. Maringer then wanted to help Tom and supplied him with information about the illegal activities of other stallholders, such as Rabitsch and Nemecek, which Tom used to blackmail them. According to Maringer, Tom had also suspected that his wife was having an affair. Maringer himself has no alibi for the time of the incident. Meanwhile, Falk discovers that the surveillance-camera footage showing Aneta Wahrmund in Tom’s office building at the time of the incident had actually been recorded earlier. Janda informs Ella Meisner that Aneta will be brought out of her medically induced coma the following day. Meisner had been having an affair with Aneta; Ella wanted Aneta to leave her husband for her. Meisner is arrested at the hospital on suspicion of attempting to murder Aneta and murdering Tom. She had tampered with the surveillance-camera footage and slashed her own vehicle’s tires.