Und tot bist Du! - Ein Schwarzwaldkrimi (2019)

Lioba Natterer, the sister of the mayor of Klosterbach, is found dead in nearby Lake Elfental. Although the evidence points to suicide, detectives Bächle and Diener investigate. Before long, the equally young Vanessa Cabell crashes her mountain bike near the Natterers, for equally inexplicable reasons. Lioba’s death had hit her friend hard, but is that reason enough to take her own life voluntarily? Both women had been in close contact with Professor Hans Katrein, who grew up in the town before moving abroad. Some time ago, he returned to his home in the Black Forest. Lioba’s ex-boyfriend Michael is suspected of having driven her to suicide: a few days after they broke up, he had forced her to have sex with him. Since she did not report it, however, there is now no legal basis for action against him. A short time later, he is found with his throat slit on the viewing platform overlooking Lake Elfental. The case presents the investigators with one mystery after another. A third young woman, Therese Sieber, was friends with both women, and there are signs that she too is in danger. When Therese Sieber is kidnapped and a ransom demand is sent to her father, the town’s brewery owner, a connection becomes clear. The plan was presumably laid over a long period, with everything arranged to make Professor Hans Katrein appear to be the culprit. He and Hermann Natterer, the grandfather of the first victim, had lived through the turmoil of the postwar period together. Natterer had sided with the French occupying forces, making himself unpopular with the rest of the villagers, especially Katrein. The culprit took advantage of this old enmity in carrying out the plan. The deaths of the two women make Thomas Sieber realize how serious the ransom demand is, and he wants to pay. Nevertheless, he contacts the police, who immediately begin searching. Katrein has also disappeared, making him look suspicious once again, especially since more detailed forensic examinations of the female victims revealed a South American drug. This explains their suicides and thus points to a motive of revenge on Katrein’s part. Investigations into the events of the past strengthen this suspicion, but also uncover another motive: Thomas Sieber inherited the brewery only because his father had taken it over after the war, since his father’s brother had been killed in the war and his sister-in-law had allegedly taken her own life. In reality, Hermann Natterer had pushed her. The search for Therese Sieber leads to an old hotel, where she and Katrein are being held captive by her kidnappers. The kidnappers are descendants of Mechthild Sieber, the brewery’s rightful heir. Although Mechthild’s mother had died, the inheritance should have gone to her. But after the war, Mechthild was put up for adoption as an orphan and “disappeared” abroad. By chance, her son Achim Brugger learned about the postwar events in his mother’s hometown, and he and his sister, Camille Roloir, decided to claim their inheritance this way. For years, Brugger had worked for Katrein and had learned to use Katrein’s past for his own purposes. The police catch up with him at the old hotel, but he initially manages to escape. As the hostages are being freed, Brugger manages to take his own life beforehand. Camille Roloir is arrested during the ransom handover at an old monastery.