Fri, Feb 5, 2021
Major, domineering farmer near Wiesbaden Thomas Dittmann is shot dead while cuffed on his tractor. He made enemies of most villagers. Ex-girlfriend Saskia Loos lost her family heritage to him. Former youth and pub buddies Jens Ruff and Rudi Manske returned to town the previous day and had a row with him, as he blackmailed each of them to sign over the rights to a novel apple cider-like beverage which he got a contract for with a major firm to commercialize nation-wide. The fatal gun refers to he unsolved non-lethal shooting of publican Klaus Brandes, who runs the inn with wife Carmen Brandes and teen model son Gerold, but Reuther senses dark secrets, also with Thmas's uncooperative crone mother Ilse Dittmann, who mysteriously tried to delete an old child picture from his notebook.
Fri, Feb 12, 2021
Contractor Holger Ahrens was fatally shot, tied to his vehicle. He employed underpaid employees and subcontractors to fake competition. Niko and Birte Tennberg claim Ahrens's failure to properly connect a pond pump caused their young son to die from a fatal shock. Virtual foreman Valentin Guga, who already moonlighted on the side, now inherits most clients, but suffers non-fatal sabotage himself. Ahrens and Guga's latest, major renovation client Angelika Lorenz and her daughter Daniela Falk discretely have more personal links to Holger.
Fri, Feb 19, 2021
Konrad Braach drowned beaten and pushed with a heavy wooden pole in the pond on his vehicle breaks industrialist family's grand estate. He seemed heir to the throne of his father, domineering patriarch Gernot Braach, who prepares withdrawing to the background due to bad health. Conrad's brother and only confident in the family Henry was the only one without a role in management, but all kin shares are needed to prevent a much larger Chinese competitor's hostile take over plan. Gernot got his devoted ex-con driver Viktor Lukov to serve as Henry's alibi. Max Fischer and Kerstin Klar discover first that Conrad spied for rival Sophia von Stern, later Gernot orchestrated that and Henri is the one whol secretly sold his shares to buy into the Chinese competitor. After pulling off a takeover counter-move and nominating Conrad's widow Janine new CEO, pending (grand)son Wilhelm growing up to ultimate new patriarch, Gernot makes a confession dismissed by Reuther, who doesn't believe it was indirectly by Viktor's hand either. Gernot produces a medical 'exemption from arrest or trial. A paternity test for pre-tee,n prince Wilhelm opens new investigative avenues.
Fri, Feb 26, 2021
Tom Perscha was knocked-out in the elevator of his IT firm Perol which censures web sites, bound up gagged in the generator room and thus mechanically strangled by the emergency test. Co-founding manager and former partner Sandra Ohlig, no alibi, tontine-inherits instead of having to sell out cheap, as she already signed for. Employee Jenny Messner recently resigned, blaming the stress from unclear instructions. The parents of suicided employee Ben Lesch tried to sue the firm but were scared off by firm lawyers. Their anonymous source was non other then fired public official Rolf Brackner, a skilled hacker and conspiracy theory believer, seeking revenge for Perol helping to expose him, whom Jenny sent evidence files anonymously, after lover Ben's death. team Reuther finds more secrets.
Fri, Mar 5, 2021
Traditional bakery owner-manager Lars Wagner is murdered in his office. Industrial 'competitor' Karl Reinhardt failed to buy him out. Lars and his brother Tobias inherited the Wagner bakery, but also a dark family secret involving founding patriarch Harald Wagner, whose constant abused killed their mother, but now he seeks reconciliation, diagnosed with terminal cancer. Even psychotherapist Tamara Runge doesn't understand the complex family traumas. Fresh widow Sibylle Wagner is very close with Tobias's son Simon, who soon disappears and is found fatally stabbed in a public place.
Fri, Mar 12, 2021
River patrol emergency medic Frank Droste was drowned in the Rhine with lead on his diver's belt, after a non-fatal head wound. The water destroyed most traces. Reuther and Max duly question Kerstin Klar's blind faith in her friend, a decorated hero. Frank Droste and his predecessor as chair of the aquatic sports club Micha Haustedt blamed each-other for major accounting discrepancies, concerning forged equipment orders from Dirk Eisfeld's sports shop. Droste needed money to support his wife Hanna and his mistress Isabell Schuster who loves in another home with their kid son. Micha Haustedt's partner Vanja Resch is wheelchair-stuck since a diving accident Reuther looks into again.