Totengebet (2019)

Attorney Joachim Vernau is visited by a young woman who asks him whether he is her biological father. He says he is not. Rachel Cohen’s adoptive father has recently died, and she has now come from New York to Berlin. She found a photograph showing her late mother with four young men: Mike, her father, Daniel, and Rudolf. The photograph dates from the 1990s, when Vernau studied law in Boston for five months. His curiosity is aroused, so he sets out with Rachel to find his former classmates. Their search first takes them to a Berlin synagogue, where they meet Rudolf Scholl-Weissenborn. He is Jewish, like Rachel’s mother, Rebecca, and remained in contact with her and their classmate Mike even after she left for the United States. As far as he knew, Rebecca had thrown herself into the water from a ferry at the time and then disappeared. He tells Rachel to visit him at his shop that evening so he can answer more of her questions. Before that can happen, Rudi is murdered, and Rachel disappears. The investigating detective believes Rachel is the killer because her fingerprints are the only ones he finds. However, she is already on a plane to New York, so Vernau follows her there, wanting to prove her innocence. In Boston, he first goes to the address where Rachel grew up. The Cohen family is still observing shiva, the seven-day period when the relatives of someone who has died gather together. Vernau learns from Rachel’s younger half-brother, Joel, that his sister left the family after a quarrel. Following her brother’s clues, Vernau finds Rachel at a beach bar. She says she had nothing to do with the murder and had already felt she was being followed in Berlin. Vernau then goes to Boston University, hoping to find out what became of Mike Collins, who went to the United States with Rebecca at the time. Vernau finds him at the university, where Mike teaches lectures. Mike tells him that their classmate Daniel Schöbendorf also returned to Boston. Although Daniel had been friends with Rebecca, he suddenly disappeared to Thailand with her best friend, Carrie. When Vernau goes to look for Carrie, who is said to be living in Boston again, he finds a police presence outside her apartment; Carrie has apparently been murdered recently. Before Vernau knows what is happening, Rachel is in his car, forcing him to drive her away. According to her, someone is trying to pin the murders on her to prevent the truth from coming to light after so many years. Based on her research, Daniel Schöbendorf could be her father. Perhaps his disappearance was only staged because he had been murdered. The next day, as the two are driving, another car attacks them. Rachel fatally shoots the driver of the attacking car with her stepfather Uriel’s revolver. Both cars crash, and Vernau is taken to Brooklyn Medical Center, where Detective Lankster questions him. Rachel, however, has disappeared. She calls Vernau the next day. She has found out where her mother’s midwife lives and wants him to accompany her there. Mrs. Gutmann lives in a retirement home and, with a little help, is able to remember. Rebecca had given birth to her child at the time and then left it behind. Vernau notices that Mrs. Gutmann is very well cared for and receives fresh flowers every day. He makes inquiries and learns that a law firm is contributing to the cost of her accommodation. When he follows up on this, Rebecca suddenly appears before him. She is now a partner in the law firm. She says Mrs. Gutmann is the only family she has left. When Rebecca learned that Daniel had left her for another woman, her world had fallen apart, and she had not wanted to take on the responsibility of being a mother. Vernau suggests that she may have made her decision on the basis of false assumptions. After Rebecca tells Vernau that Mike Collins was the one who brought her the news that Daniel had run away, he tries to confront Mike. He finds him at the beach. Mike invites him on a boat trip, during which Vernau’s life is in danger as Mike takes him out to sea. Mike jumps overboard, leaving the boat with its steering locked and heading straight for the shore. Vernau manages to avert a disaster, while Mike remains missing. Before jumping, Mike had told Vernau what really happened. Twenty-nine years earlier, he had been celebrating with Carrie, Kurt, and Daniel. After an argument, Daniel fell to his death, and they threw his body into the water. To keep the two witnesses quiet, Mike had paid them a great deal of money, but after he was due to become president of Boston University, they wanted more. So he sent someone to them who was only supposed to scare them. At Uriel Cohen’s grave, Rebecca and Rachel meet again after 29 years.