Die Bestatterin - Die unbekannte Tote (2021)

The Taubenbaums’ family-owned funeral business is still struggling, so Lisa Taubenbaum takes a side job. Work suddenly comes her way when a dead woman is found sitting at a bus stop. Nothing points to a crime, so the body is handed over to the undertaker without further investigation. Lisa decides to try to identify the dead woman on her own and distributes photographs around town. But the reported cause of death—a cardiac arrest—also gives her pause, since the woman was actually too young for that. Lisa’s detective instincts are aroused, and there are clues that the victim had been working as a con artist while alive. A young man also comes forward, claiming to be the victim’s brother, but he cannot identify himself and disappears again. Things become even more mysterious when Lisa finds in the woods the car that matches the ignition key the dead woman was holding. Apparently, the driver had hit a wild animal and then walked to the bus stop. In the trunk, they find the body of Alfred Dürr, who has been missing for some time. Detective Thomas Zellinger, who has joined the investigation, wonders why the woman would have kidnapped old Mr. Dürr. What is clear is that Alfred Dürr had been pressured for some time to sell his land: an investor from Stuttgart wants to build a golf course, while farmer Rolf Zerwegg needs adjoining fields to expand his organic farm. Lisa meanwhile gets hold of the unidentified woman’s handbag. Inside, she finds a hotel room key and goes to investigate the room it belongs to. Along with various items the woman had stolen from elderly people, the room contains many credit cards belonging to victims she had swindled. Days later, a cyclist who saw one of Lisa’s missing-person posters gets in touch with her. He knew the dead woman as “Steffi.” He tells Lisa how she cheated him out of 70,000 euros two years ago. Recently, he had run into her at an investors’ party for the golf resort at the Waibel riding stable. She had fled from him in a car. Lisa realizes it must have been Dürr’s car, and that its owner was already lying in the trunk. Lisa’s suspicion that Jörg Waibel, the riding stable’s owner, had wanted to force Dürr to comply by locking him in the trunk proves correct. Waibel could not have known that a party guest might use the car to escape, or that Dürr had meanwhile suffered a heart attack from the excitement. Waibel and investor Paul Geller are arrested for kidnapping. The autopsy of the unidentified woman reveals that she died of internal injuries caused by the collision with the wild animal.