Schutzpatron. Ein Kluftingerkrimi (2016)

Almost 30 years ago, Kluftinger, then a young police officer, witnessed a robbery at the regional history museum. Without hesitation, he gave chase and managed to catch the culprit. But before he knew what was happening, the man took his pistol from him and held Kluftinger hostage in front of the colleagues who had just arrived. The culprit escaped with his accomplices and the loot. Even after the culprit, Rösler, was later held responsible for the robbery and imprisoned, the stolen goods remained missing for decades. Now the rediscovered monstrance is to be ceremonially returned to its home in the Allgäu. Before that, Chief Inspector Kluftinger has to solve the murder of an elderly woman who was strangled. During an inspection of the old sawmill where the woman lived, her husband, who has difficulty walking, tells him that his wife had been excessively curious and that this may have cost her her life. Although he admits that he himself had “often felt like strangling her,” he says he was hardly capable of doing so physically. Kluftinger is very interested in the clue about a garage that had been rented out until recently. Unfortunately, the old man can offer no information about the tenants or what they stored there; the investigators would have to look through his wife’s papers. The disorganized files make this a rather time-consuming task. At the police headquarters, Kluftinger is also irritated by his colleagues, and he is annoyed that his colleague Maier, rather than he, has been put in charge of the special commission “Monstrance.” He also comes to realize that the relic is going to be stolen a second time, as the murder case keeps giving him more and more clues pointing in that direction. While searching for the mysterious tenants of the garage at the old sawmill, Kluftinger finds a suspect, but when he tries to question the man, someone deliberately runs him over right before his eyes. Nevertheless, Kluftinger obtains documents outlining the plan for the new robbery. In connection with the case, he even travels to Vienna, where the robber from the original crime is still in prison. A conversation with the now very frail Rösler points to a religious motive for the robbery: in Rösler’s view, the relic belongs in a church, not behind glass. He therefore believes a new theft cannot be prevented. He advises Kluftinger to try praying. The inspector takes his advice and travels with his colleague Maier from Vienna to the chapel where a copy of the monstrance is displayed. There, he finds a clue to Rösler’s accomplice, Albert Mang, whom he believes to be the murderer of the elderly woman and the garage tenant who was run over. To find Mang, Kluftinger has Rösler brought from Vienna to Germany. He also hopes that, with Rösler’s help, he can prevent another theft of the monstrance. On the big day of the relic’s return, everyone is extremely tense. Kluftinger positions Rösler in a police van so he can identify Albert Mang from there. Rösler advises the officials to swap the monstrance for a copy as a precaution. They do so, unaware that this sets the theft in motion, just as Rösler planned: it allows him to remove the original from the unattended adjoining room without being noticed. To distract everyone, he has hired a decoy, and the police fall for it completely. By the time the officers realize the trick, Rösler has disappeared too, since he was nowhere near as frail as he had made himself out to be. Searching for him and the relic, Kluftinger reaches Mang’s hideout. The police arrest the crook there along with two other accomplices and recover the monstrance. Rösler, however, remains missing for the time being. Kluftinger finds him in the chapel, just as he is putting the real monstrance in place. Amid all the commotion, Rösler had simply swapped the artwork once more and left Kluftinger to find the copy.