Schnee von gestern (2024)

A man’s body is found in Lake Tristach, and Chief Inspector Martin Steiner and Chief Inspector Melanie Grandits begin investigating, assisted by Gustav Moser. The dead man is Konrad Kofler, a 58-year-old Tyrolean provincial councillor for the environment. According to the autopsy, he had alcohol in his blood and drowned; there are no signs of violence. After a meeting with the provincial councillors for finance, Kofler was on his way to Inner Ainöd, but he never arrived. Further investigation, based on water samples from the lake and his lungs, shows that Kofler did not fall into Lake Tristach while drunk: he was already dead when he was thrown in. The water in his lungs came from the reservoir at Inner Ainöd. Surveillance-camera footage shows his vehicle there at a time when he was already dead. Kofler had gone to Inner Ainöd to discuss approval for a snowmaking system; the snow cannons had already been delivered. The municipality had applied for approval five times before. After a factory closed and jobs were lost, the remaining residents were at risk of moving away, so the mayor expected the application to be approved this time. A company sign for Snowland Resort GmbH is found by the reservoir. The company belongs to the villagers, who were in debt. The provincial councillor for the environment was therefore in their way. The local inn is run by Gerry Fiala, who had served time in prison for drug trafficking. Egbert Kollreider, a tobacconist who was constantly drunk, is found frozen to death outside his house in the morning. According to the local police station commander, there are witnesses who say Egbert and Steiner had an argument, though in fact no such argument took place. The villagers then bully Steiner, lock him outside in the cold after he visits the sauna, and beat him up in the church at Kollreider’s funeral. Fiala, whom Steiner had put in prison, is the only one who comes to his aid and advises him to leave the village quickly. Moidl Schirnhofer, the mayor’s aunt, has not spoken since her daughter Waltraud drowned in the lake a few years earlier. At the time, everyone blamed Alfons Hochstoder, who was banished as a hermit. Steiner suspects Hochstoder murdered the provincial councillor so he could return to the village. Hochstoder’s sister Maria runs the lodging where Steiner is staying. When Alfons realizes that, contrary to the mayor’s promise, he will not be allowed back into the village after the provincial councillor’s murder, he takes his own life with a pistol. The police arrest the mayor.