Letzter Gipfel (2021)

In their second case, village policeman Franz Gasperlmaier and his easygoing superior, station commander Friedrich Kahlß, receive help with the investigation from Dr. Beate Weiss of the Liezen District Police Command. An anonymous phone call leads Gasperlmaier and Kahlß to Loser, where the bodies of two women who appear to have fallen to their deaths are recovered. Although the two bodies are found in the same place, their times of death seem to be at least a year apart. Gasperlmaier struggles not only with the altitude but also with his stomach because of the gruesome sight. The more recently deceased of the two victims was strangled before being pushed down the mountain. She is identified as teacher Simone Eisel, who was on sabbatical. Her husband, Magister Hubert Eisel, teaches at the secondary school in Bad Ischl. According to him, however, Simone was supposed to be at the thermal baths in Bad Schallerbach with her friend Susi Schneider. Hubert himself was on sick leave because of tinnitus. The principal of the Bad Ischl Tourism School tells the investigators about rumors that Simone Eisel had numerous affairs, including one with her colleague Fritz Wallner. Wallner now works in Bad Aussee. Another of her lovers was said to be a respected member of Bad Ischl society. Susi Schneider says she attended the tourism conference in Bad Schallerbach and, because she was not feeling particularly well, went home early. After that, she called in sick. After Beate Weiss and Hubert Eisel cause a traffic accident near Heli’s Loser Hut, Weiss, Gasperlmaier, and Eisel are treated in hospital. There, Weiss accuses Hubert Eisel of killing his wife out of jealousy over her numerous affairs, and of returning to Loser to destroy evidence. Eisel, in turn, says he had gone to Loser to say goodbye to his wife. Fritz Wallner says he ended his affair with Simone Eisel last summer and has not seen her since. At the time of the murder, he was at school. When a gold-colored VW Beetle drives past the police car, Gasperlmaier remembers seeing a vehicle like it near Heli’s Loser Hut and at the Tourism School. Gasperlmaier gives chase. He and Weiss eventually find the driver, Mag. Loisenhammer, a fellow teacher of Simone Eisel’s at the Bad Ischl Tourism School, at the Zauner pastry shop. Loisenhammer admits that he was at Loser at the time of the murder. He had followed Simone up the mountain but lost her trail. The second victim, who had died earlier, is identified as Marie Dorfer from Mondsee by comparing her dental records with those of missing persons. She had worked as a sales assistant at the Vinothek at the Weisses Rössl in St. Wolfgang in the Salzkammergut. In a photograph from an event at the wine shop, Marie Dorfer can be seen with Fritz Wallner and Principal Köberl of the Bad Ischl secondary school. According to journalist Maggy Schablinger of Salzkammergut News, Köberl was one of Simone Eisel’s lovers. Gasperlmaier happens to learn from Köberl’s daughter Katharina that her teacher Fritz Wallner let her class leave early on the day Simone Eisel died. Susi Schneider was also among the group with Marie Dorfer, Fritz Wallner, and Principal Köberl in the wine shop photograph. Friedrich Kahlß receives a call from Upper Austria’s criminal police saying that Principal Köberl has been shot dead and that they are searching for the suspected killer, Magister Hubert Eisel. Hubert Eisel is soon found dead by Bohuslav at Loser, together with a farewell letter. From there, Gasperlmaier watches Fritz Wallner drive up to Loser with Susi Schneider. Beate Weiss arrests Fritz Wallner for the murders of Simone Eisel and Marie Dorfer, but Wallner insists he is innocent. On the way down to the valley, Susi Schneider hits Gasperlmaier from behind with a rock, and he tumbles down the slope. Schneider and Wallner initially manage to escape while Weiss tends to the unconscious Gasperlmaier. However, Friedrich Kahlß intercepts and arrests them after spotting their car near Heli’s Loser Hut. Wallner says that on the day Simone Eisel died, he sent the children home early because the computers were broken. He himself, however, stayed at school with the IT specialist. Susi Schneider eventually confesses to killing the two women out of jealousy, because she feared they threatened her relationship with Fritz Wallner. Wallner admits that he made the anonymous call after Simone Eisel’s fall. Susi Schneider wanted to make the fall look like an accident and had blackmailed Wallner because he had seduced a 15-year-old student and Susi had found explicit photographs.