Episode list

Fire on board. At the very place where Lake Constance is at its deepest, the millionaire heiress Marita Schiller has to flee her yacht with her life jacket. An expensive piece of jewelry that the woman had kept in a safe on board also sinks with her boat. At least that is what she reports to the water police, who fish the helpless woman out of Lake Constance. But Nele Fehrenbach and her colleague Paul Schott soon have doubts. The alleged millionaire had money problems and had only recently insured the jewelry... The safe at a depth of 130 meters also arouses the desire of the scuba diver Jonas, who found out about the treasure from his girlfriend Svenja and no longer wants to be a burden on his rich father. He decides to recover the safe before the police do. The nighttime dive is successful. But Jonas makes a fatal mistake. Nele's son Niklas would have loved to take diving lessons from him. While the police are still puzzling over what could have happened to the safe and Marita Schilling is desperately trying to avoid being charged with insurance fraud, Svenja and Jonas are not only having problems opening the safe. Suddenly it's a matter of life and death. Niklas becomes the center of the action.

A rude awakening at the school camp. 17-year-old Lea, a classmate of Niklas, is found dead on the shore of Lake Constance. The supervising teacher Andreas Ritter quickly comes under suspicion. He had supervised the class alone, which was not permitted. His wife Heike, also a teacher, stayed at home because she was ill. The autopsy reveals that Lea is pregnant early and Julia hints in conversation with the teacher that her husband could be the father. She has no idea what a disastrous spiral of desperate acts she is setting in motion. The jealous Heike Ritter throws her husband out and writes a farewell letter. Meanwhile, Nele and Paul discover that Lea and her classmate Fynn have been blackmailing older men together, including the self-confident writer David Schneider, who has an open marriage with his wife and runs a reading room in which Nele's mother Mechthild is a member. Nele's son Niklas was in love with Lea and is now under pressure. A double showdown ensues in which Julia - who has just been reprimanded by her boss - rises above herself and reveals a trauma from her childhood.

Does Nele have a new admirer? Her mother suspects it and sets her subtenant and colleague Jakob Frings on her own daughter. But she has to find out who is responsible for Niko Schöller's death. The police discovered the dropout beaten to death on the yacht he had bought with inherited money. The investigators quickly target the old noble family von Lubitz, who run a winery. Niko had last worked here and - it can't be hidden any longer - had a relationship with the youngest, life-hungry daughter Jana, who is due to marry the rich businessman Johannes Endingen in a few days. His money could save the estate, which is on the verge of bankruptcy. But both Jana and her older sister Friederike and her overprotective mother Emilia have alibis. The investigation, during which Paul Schott shows off his terrible table manners at the nobleman's lunch, seems to be going in the wrong direction. But then Jana's confiscated cell phone is brazenly stolen from the police station during a break-in at night - and Max also makes a fatal mistake in his search for Nele's Rosenkavalier. Instead, he discovers a lot of hidden money on Niko's yacht.

Paul Schott duly protests that he and other colleagues feel shoved aside as Nele's in-living hotshot Jakob Frings seems to settle most cases with her almost exclusively. Everyone can input their talents in the next case, which ties the drowning of abusive husband Robert Karl with a series of jewel thefts. Suspects include the wife who reported Karl missing, jeweler fence Florian Arlen and foreign cleaner Maria Obrigas, key being how they are liked.

The catch of a huge catfish holds an unpleasant surprise for two anglers. In the belly of the fish is a severed woman's finger with a wedding ring. The search for the woman that belongs to the finger proves difficult for the WaPo Bodensee. Finally Julia finds a first lead. It leads to a professional fisherman, Johannes. He claims not to have heard from his wife Greta since she went to Australia with her new boyfriend. Their son Michael is obviously upset. His uncle Andreas reacts dismissively to the visit from the police and directs suspicion towards Johannes. He becomes more and more entangled in a web of lies, so that even his son no longer trusts him. The fisherman was already investigated when his wife disappeared twelve years ago. Then a card from his wife from Australia saves him... Meanwhile, Jakob and Paul have tracked down the man who is said to have gone to Australia with Greta. He now calls himself Chandrabanbdhu Shan and, as a guru, takes money out of single women's pockets. Paul doesn't like the enlightened man and chases after him. Shan anchors with his charges in a nature reserve. But then danger suddenly threatens from a direction that no one had previously expected... In her private life, Nele is taken by surprise by a message from her son Niklas. He wants to travel to Hamburg for his father's 50th birthday. Nele learns that her ex is happy with a new woman. Her mother Mechthild parries her bout of bitterness with an important insight. In an act of female solidarity, she can now even laugh at Niklas' father.

Julia and Jakob were not prepared for this situation: They had to ask their boss Nele to give them her ID and the gun. Nele has been suspended from duty until further notice. The head of the department is still in shock: she shot the petty criminal junkie Kevin Krause during a failed arrest. All attempts to resuscitate him with the help of emergency doctor Martin Dillinger were ineffective. Nele blames herself for being responsible for Kevin's death. It's a good thing that the attractive Dillinger offers Nele help that goes beyond the norm. A fact that does not go unnoticed by mother Mechthild. Jakob is also heavily flirted with. Campsite manager Lina Hofbauer is happy to help him with his research and shows him where Kevin's camper van is. Jakob finds an old ID there. The trail leads to Christiane Fahlbusch, who still hasn't gotten over the fact that Kevin dragged her daughter into the drug world two years ago. She blames him for her daughter's death and makes no secret to the police that she is not mourning Kevin's death. Now events take a turn for the worse. The lab results vindicate Nele. Someone has laced Kevin's last dose of crystal meth with peanut powder... Then the police foil an assassination attempt on Lina Hofbauer, who had kept something important from Jakob... At least for Nele, everything is rosy in private. Dr. Martin Dillinger stayed until breakfast.

The happy bride Sandra thought she was in heaven. But now a short sentence tears her from all her dreams: "Tim is dead." Mother Roswitha can only comfort her daughter in her arms. Nele and her colleague Paul fished Tim Kreindel's body out of Lake Constance that morning. All hopes of resting on the talented young chef to restore the once renowned restaurant "Fischerhütte", whose boss is Roswitha, to new splendor. Sandra's brother Stefan, whose down-to-earth cuisine had caused the restaurant to decline, was a guest at the fatal bachelor party. But is his demotion to assistant chef enough to murder Tim? And what about Urs Holtmann, who is discovered sleeping on a park bench not far from the crime scene by Jakob and Julia, bare-chested and with a blood alcohol level of 1.4 per mille. He greets Jakob with a black eye and gives Julia a huge fright. She was once in a relationship with Urs and quickly finds herself in a dilemma. Urs pretends to have a blackout and quickly becomes the number one murder suspect. But a feeling and a message from the public order office make Julia doubt Urs' guilt. Does she still have feelings for her ex? First of all, Julia gets reprimanded by Nele for her thoughtless solo action. Another act of her own accord puts her life in danger in the "fisherman's hut". But Jakob senses the danger.

The actor Michael Hartmann has seen better days. The TV star, once celebrated as the "Alpine Bull", is now reading from his new book to an exclusive audience in Meersburg. Among them are Nele and Paul, who knows Hartmann from school. That's why the "Alpine Bull" invites the two to an Italian restaurant to refresh their memories. But suddenly the door to the tower room closes behind the three of them and a ghostly bomb construction with a timer causes horror. This increases when a caller, the former KSK fighter Rainer Schladen, makes it clear what he is after: the detectives now have three hours to get Hartmann to reveal the truth about the sailing death of his wife, who ran off with the Alpine Bull. He killed her. If Hartmann does not confess to the murder, all three must die... Meanwhile, Julia and Jakob are called on an emergency call to a bad-tempered fisherman who sees his fish being chased away by stone-throwing youths. Jakob is furious. Neither of them yet suspects what a decisive role Eugen Schlesinger will play that evening. Meanwhile, events in the tower room are coming to a head. Paul realizes that there is no escape. Hartmann is diabetic and will soon be unconscious. The bomb maker has been traumatized since a war in Afghanistan... When Nele's mother Mechthild, who actually wanted an autograph from the "Alpine Bull", shows up at the door, the always level-headed Nele gradually threatens to lose her composure. The blackmailer has meanwhile noticed that a police bomb squad is working feverishly to defuse the explosive charge. He makes a momentous decision.

It is rare that such an innocent hobby as bird watching ends in death. For the unemployed amateur ornithologist Sam Birkner, this passion ends with an illegal waste disposal on the shore of Lake Constance. The police find him there and quickly find out that the man in his Canadian car had not only observed birds but also people. For example, the judge Marla Kohnen, who regularly dropped Birkner's complaints because they were trivial. But the judge was biased, as Nele finds out. She knows Ludwig Kienast, against whom most of Birkner's complaints were directed. Troublemaker Birkner also attacked the renowned ornithologist Kati Hendricks. Sam Birkner accused her of making mistakes in her doctoral thesis and wanted to make this public. Finally, Jakob and Julia ask themselves why the resolute Mrs. Nökel of all people claims to have had a good relationship with the dead man. The nosy neighbor missed the burglary in which a computer was stolen. The case is becoming increasingly opaque. To make matters worse, Nele fasts during the investigation out of solidarity with her mother Mechthild, who has bad blood values. And then, during an observation, she discovers something terrible: Mechthild is betraying her.

Nele and Paul only just manage to fish Helmut Pohl out of the water. He attacked the sailor Lorenz Haller on his boat. Haller was able to fend off the attack. Pohl lands in the water and falls so badly that he falls into a coma in hospital. The victim - it soon turns out - is the real owner of the boat. Haller had seen it on the Internet and bought it in good faith - from a fraudster. Julia and Jakob find out that the payment was made to the account of 19-year-old Mila Simic. But this trail goes cold. Because Mila is also a victim. She had fallen in love with Jonas, who only used her for his own purposes. His real name is Maximilian Hofer. He is known to the police as a violent repeat offender. Disappointed Mila does not want to let the matter rest. She meets Maximilian. A big mistake. Because Nele and her team are also on the trail of the unscrupulous guy... Julia has had a problem ever since she listened to the paramedic Jan after a mission. The shy guy falls in love with Julia and pursues her. At home, Nele learns from her mother Mechthild that she was once the victim of a marriage scammer.

Jakob is courting. Vanessa is the woman of his dreams. His happiness comes to an abrupt end. Vanessa is recovered dead from Lake Constance. Drowned. Paul wants to take his colleague off the case immediately because of bias. But the worldly-wise Nele fears Jakob will go it alone and keeps him on the team. He immediately sets his sights on Vanessa's ex-boyfriend Bastian. He has traveled to Vanessa from Düsseldorf to settle debts from a joint business. Bastian claims to have spent the night with the receptionist Marianne Tillich. A shaky alibi. But what about Yvonne, Vanessa's sister? She lives with her boyfriend Georg in a house on the lake with a boat rental service. She would have had to give up the idyll and sell the house in order to pay Vanessa's share of the inheritance. Yvonne gives the investigators another version. She wanted to sell the house and emigrate to Spain with her sister - without Georg, but also without Jakob. He is having an existential crisis. Nele proves to be a comforter. And her mother Mechthild finds a surprising connection with Jakob, who secretly investigates - until the surprising showdown on the lake.

A lifeguard who drowns? In the case of Daniel Seeger, the head of the local DLRG station had to be incapacitated with knockout drops. Nele and Paul investigate the dead man's professional environment and come across his assistant Leon Berg. The quiet drone expert and motorcycle freak is obviously playing a double game. Then there is the argumentative environmentalist Carl Weyrich, who felt disturbed by the bathers and provoked by Daniel. Is that a motive for murder? The WaPo team realizes that they have to operate in a completely different way. Because little by little, more and more victims of knockout drops are found who almost drowned. For Nele, the case thus takes on a personal dimension. Her son Niklas, who is skipping school and wants to move out, is in mortal danger. And Anna, who knows Noah from school, is also part of the DLRG team. She is happy with her colleague Yannik. Meanwhile, Nele's mother Mechthild is working on a plan to keep the family together.