Episode list

The trucking firm boss sees no reason why his long distance driver Jacek Nowak was beaten to death, and his all-knowing secretary goes missing. Heldt befriends also Polish trucker Birgit Kempowski to learn more about the staff and the business, including tariff-cutting and 'private freight'. Achmed, Nowak's former cab colleague, pays a heavy but necessary price the crucial clue that Jacek supplied him with popular 'tax free' Polish "King Pap" cigarettes, and competition in the illegal trade is truly murderous, yet some personal staff links are equally crucial to the plot.

The Bochum PD looks into the Ruhr region's recent wave of recycled copper thefts after night watchman Kovacic was knocked down heavily in Willi Magnus's garage. For lack of a camera or proper witness, Heldt hopes a recent tag may be placed by an unwilling witness, and manages to infiltrate that scene by challenge. The DA isn't amused when the minor 'graffiti artist' Melek rather sprays her office then informs, yet Nikolas makes good use of her and works out how the gang works, just in time to react when another theft is about to turn even more violent.

Horst Moltke dies in the precinct just after whispering to state attorney Bannenberg "Martin Walden must inherit all!" '*Widow Simone Moltke is appalled by his death, as turns out poisoned, but mainly that the inheritance falls to their manipulative relational therapist. Failing to find a suitable female cop partner to go undercover, Heldt and Ellen enjoy playing 'troubled spouses' more then the proper date they never had. While Heldt and Ellen spy on staff and fellow couples, Grün and Mario examine Walden's session videos. The place proves infested with lies, infidelity and even drug trade.

Retired maverick commissioner Harry Fahrenhorst's death renders Heldt, Mario and Grün too gloomy to seriously investigate a decomposed corpse found in a large pond rather then reminisce. 'Strangled' by his necktie, pallbearer Heldt drops the casket, thus literally discovering not Harry's corpse but sand bags. Despite state attorney's instructions to leave this to another squad, they rather look into the cemetery, form where a ghost hunter points to the funeral undertaker. This turns out to receive a startling amount of nocturnal visitors, from a Gothic couple 'partying' with fresh bodies to the posthumous beautician and Harry's doting voluntary assistant in countless freelance investigations, recently including his neighbor Gregor Lenz's 'missing' wife.

Heldt, Mario and uniformed colleagues witness at their favorite coffee stand, held by Daniela Mühling, how her teen brat niece Martha collapses and must be hospitalized for a synthetic party drug overdose. Petty student dealer Marcel from her school gives enough hints to raid the improvised lab, from which the well-prepared pro escapes, but was bitten by Mario's sniffer dog 'Junkie'. Heldt is sure the painful cry was from local cocaine baron Wild Willy Wilke, but his slick lawyer Anwalt Teppenborn opposes comparing the teeth marks. Before a court order can be obtained, Junkie is abducted while Mario walks him in the park. While team Heldt races to rescue the canine key witness by identifying an ex-con suspect, Daniela, who minded her sister daughter for a few weeks, deals too badly with her guilt over Martha's fate.

Agreeing a serious of shop vandalism crimes 'without witnesses' suggests extortion, Niklas's nose (and rapport with his robbed tattoo artist) and Grün's file study point to backward quarter Hustadt and local ex-con Guido Prowaznik, who confesses only seven of ten cases. NIklas realizes the suspect description green bomber jacket also fits his in-living stepson Tony, whose street gang, allegedly reformed by street worker Sebastian Borchert, may well have copied Guido's MO. Heldt risks his budding affair with state attorney Ellen Bannenberg to protect Tony against precipitous severity while clearing the case his way.

Local football (soccer) fan-club "Never steig ab" (NSA)-president Gerd Schäfer's skull is fatally smashed with a victory cup, the meager club treasury robbed, yet fans like Heldt believe it was about the also stolen NSA-flag, which was a classic target of rival pranks. Heldt thus suspects the bitterly-rivaling Schalke-04-fan-club, and bribed colleague Mario to infiltrate posing as new fan. Pouting state attorney Bannenberg however instructs Grün to consider other suspects, also within Heldt's fan club.

Heldt and Ellen Bannenberg were to meet a witness in a mall, but are stuck in the elevator, which was expertly sabotaged by mini-bomb. Before they are liberated -just about to kiss- petty robbery was committed by a masked man, which the bomb signature links to Wolfgang Golotkowski, whose fingerprints are found, and his former cellmate, a mall employee. Police cadets Tim Eschkern and Layla Chalid even use unorthodox Heldt methods to trap them. Heldt senses this isn't all the plot even before shopping back on site inspires him the real coup was digital, the robbery an elaborate diversion.

Yuppie Johnny Käfer's home party gets out of control after paramedic Matthias Sattler's colleague Martina Neumann refuses to let guest Carsten Hesse claim priority for his merely high girl Mandy. Martina is found fatally fallen down a staircase, with fresh marks from a struggle and push, the punch bowl contained LSD but didn't cause the fall. After he gives Heldt's team -with Leyla joining-in as eager intern, filling in for Mario- a guest list (well, Internet aliases) the guests are trick-invited to a follow up-party and screened. Brewery employee Hesses's family past proves most interesting, but also a surprising third person's traumatizing professional frustrations.

Heldt duly doubts that state attorney Bannerberg's brat Emily (12), who walked home trough the quarter she was most forbidden, was targeted when a probably stray bullet is found in her math book. While overprotective self-blaming mother Ellen orders a checkup on all fiends she recently made into enemies, and focuses on the one with opportunity, Heldt takes Grün to the neighboring popular garden quarter, where the shot must have come from. It provides alternative suspects, such as the rowing grumpy neighbors Ruhrpott-Rentnern Sieling and Domscheidt or hippie couple Jan and Marion, on account of means and/or motives.

Eco-farmer Harmus Lemcke dies from bee-stings, being allergic and locked-up in is barn. Heldt feels sympathy for the prime suspect, unconventional beekeeper Sabine Pelzig, who rowed with him, claiming he started using pesticides due to bad harvest-caused financial troubles. Harmus's in-living near-deadbeat, eco-skeptic big brother Matti arouses Heldt's suspicion, but also the farm's dispute eco-label.

Walter Krattwinkel, who runs Bochum's most popular curry sausage snack-bar, is found fatally stabbed inside at night. To son and heir Sasha's horror, the top-secret family sauce recipe on which their success depends is missing from the safe, and he never got to read it. Heldt tricks first Grün, then Ellen into helping him reconstruct the recipe from a bit Ahmed never got round savoring, but even the crime lab's analysis of ingredients doesn't get them near enough. Meanw grump Walter made potential enemies on a daily basis so Heldt goes the extra mile to check them out, even if that means going undercover with the despised industrial competitor, who bid to buy out Walter and plotted with the sausages supplier, who wanted out of an exclusivity contract.

Bochum's family brewery heirs Sebastian and Sybille Heinrich are blackmailed for a million Euros cash, to stop poisoning their new citrus-flavored "Funky-Lemon", just launched with grand marketing, which their future depends upon, but now even the production is interrupted preventively. Heldt and Grün supervise the ransom delivery, but catch only a dog-obsessed tramp who probably found the bag by coincidence. Heldt looks into the family firm, where Sebastian's old-faschioned stepfather Erwin Heinrich was shoved aside, and tails recently fired brewer master Ernst Sawitzki, who didn't just bend over. he even stumbles upon a takeover plot.* "Carlo's" hätte sich daran halten müssen. Doch Mario Korthals schmuggelte vorher eine Flasche aus dem Lokal und gab sie seiner Mutter. Daraufhin landete diese im Krankenhaus. Bei ihrem Sohn führt ihre Abwesenheit zu ungeahnter modischer Emanzipierung.

As undercover croupier, Heldt helps clean up an illegal, tax-evading poker circuit, but at least two big fishes escape. Contacted independently by Jutta Krüger and Marlene Krüger to find their missing husbands, Grün and he find both are married to the same bigamist, Jens Krüger, who faked a job for each of them. His real income came from gambling, so when Heldt discovers forensic expert Dr. Hannah Holle has also shifted into poker, he gets her to organize a trap tournament at Carlo's. Break-ins at both homes duly point at imminent danger.

Heldt investigates a shooting in a park on a disguised woman, who gets away. At his steady pub, owner Carlo presents Nikolas, who smells a rat, to his first and last great love, Anne Lerch, finally returned after the murder on Heldt's parents 20 years ago. Indeed she may have been the target, although a motive isn't obvious for notary Florian Reben's clerk, engaged a few months ago. State attorney general Böger shuts the investigation down to protect a top-secret one, but even Grün refuses to bow out except in name. Carlo dismisses Heldt's theory as 'jealousy', yet encourages him to finally asks Ellen on a date, which she accepts. However it gets canceled as Nikolas manages to ties the ends, including a mysterious hired killer whose robot hand rekindles Nikolas's worst memories, with dire consequences.