Der Auftrag - Mordfall in der Heimat (2003)

Frankfurt BKA profiler Michelle Eisner returns to her hometown of Alsfeld in the Vogelsberg district after many years, where she is to help solve two ritual murders. An analysis of the two cases reveals similarities, but also differences. Eisner therefore does some research on her computer and comes across a third murder that may be connected to the current one. The investigators still cannot find a motive, however. The two male victims came from the same town in Thuringia and were supposedly bought free by West Germany 15 years ago after being imprisoned for attempting to flee the GDR. That is what they had told their families, but when Eisner makes inquiries with the ministry, she gets no confirmation. No one in their supposed hometown knows them either, giving reason to suspect that the two men’s life stories were fabricated. Following this lead, the investigators learn that both men had been key witnesses against regional drug baron Schinkel, who has been serving a prison sentence for 15 years. Eisner and Schwerdtfeger now set out immediately to find two more of the four key witnesses from that time. The question of why a revenge campaign against the “traitors” is only happening now, after all these years, is answered by a national newspaper article by a committed journalist, which Schinkel himself may also have read. Headlined “From an East German Prison to a West German Boss,” it could have given him the idea. Eisner suspects that, besides the hired killer, there is someone else who murdered the first victim, a colleague of Schwerdtfeger with whom he had been in a relationship at the time. That murder may have served as a model for the killer’s crimes. The investigators are now able to set a trap for him when he tries to kill the last key witness. But the question of who murdered the first victim remains open. During the investigation, hidden threats are made against Eisner, which she does not want to take seriously, while Schwerdtfeger is deeply worried. He is still in love with Michelle; after all, they used to be a couple. But when an unknown assailant shoots at the investigators, Eisner is finally given pause for thought. Based on several clues, she has to suspect that her own sister became a murderer out of jealousy. After Eisner left her hometown and Schwerdtfeger, her sister fell in love with him and has never been able to bear other women showing an interest in him. When Eisner tries to confront her, her sister threatens suicide and falls to her death.