Neben der Spur - Die andere Frau (2022)

Although psychiatrist Joe Jessen has been a widower for a year, he still has not fully come to terms with his wife’s death. He has been receiving therapy himself for some time, but hopes to return to working as a psychotherapist soon. Then another blow strikes: his father, Conrad, is in a coma after falling down a flight of stairs. When Joe visits him in the hospital, he meets a woman he has never seen before who claims to be his father’s wife. Joe is bewildered—his father is married to his mother, isn’t he? At least, that’s what he thought. Joe Jessen calls on Detective Vincent Ruiz for help and asks him to investigate. Ruiz concludes that the other woman is telling the truth. Dr. Karl Reiser, the family’s lawyer, also confirms that Conrad Jessen has been leading a double life for twenty years. Joe can hardly make sense of it all. At first, he assumes that Olivia Schwartz, a “Black Widow,” must have deliberately pushed his father down the stairs. So he persuades Ruiz to have his father’s house examined for forensic evidence. There are indeed several inconsistencies; however, as time goes by, Joe comes to believe that Olivia Schwartz is probably sincere after all. For a while, he even suspects his mother: she clearly knew about her husband’s way of life. Since she would financially benefit from his death through the multimillion-euro foundation he had established, that could be a motive. It had recently come to light, however, that large sums had been embezzled over the past few years. When Joe confronts him about it, the lawyer, Dr. Karl Reiser, reveals that tensions between him and Conrad Jessen had been mounting. Conrad had eventually ordered him to turn himself in and repay the embezzled money to the foundation. Because that would have ruined Reiser and his family, he felt he had to “take action.” That evening, so much anger had built up inside him that he wanted to “punish” Conrad Jessen. That was how Conrad fell down the stairs. Reiser then simply left him there. After Conrad Jessen wakes from his coma, it becomes clear that the fall will leave him with severe limitations. Despite everything, Maria Jessen stands by her husband.