Three months after a bomb wrecked his bar, Niklas remains worried- sick about his disappeared mate, its owner Karl-Heinz "Carlo" Funke, son in no mood to help Mario plan his promotion celebration. Grün and Bannenberg are reluctant, failing proof, to press Heldt's theory Carlo's was burned like five other hospitality business by the local racketeers queen Sofia Cassano. The apparent latest victim, cafe keeper Klaus Risse, was brutally beaten into hospital by her thuggish henchmen Matteo and Angelo but dares not speak up, only his clueless wife Ilka spills the beans, so...

Grün sadly finds his retired predecessor and mentor Erich Kisters, formerly nicknamed 'the elephant' thanks to his memory, who is caught burglarizing near-neighbor Stefan Winkler, is and Alzheimer patient, who recently turned too unpredictable for his loving wife Agathe to handle since med student Bastian Hallerbach since moved in next door, whom Erich attacked instantly. Kisters wanders off shortly after into a clinic, searching for a girl using a newspaper picture of Emma Watson. Heldt suspects the senior may be working on some confused recollection and enlists ...

The precinct drops everything to search for missing schoolboy Elias Müller (ten), who is found unharmed in the car-booth of family father Richard Menden, whose alibi checks out. Cool cop Nikolas bonds with Elias over superhero comic "Laserman" and gets the enterprising knave to admit he staged his own abduction as cry for attention from his ever-absent workaholic father Markus Müller, who goes missing the next day. .Meanwhile Grün must tell bankrupt, fatal car crash victim Paul Klausmann's brother Robert and fresh widow Carla it was a poorly cover-up suicide, hence no...

Heldt is ex Julia Tietz's only hope to find out who stalks her without her looking paranoid. Pretending they jointly prepare a seminar, Heldt checks Julia's three pending cases, but finds neither convincing. Alkohol addict Arndt Recker is charged with domestic abuse. Cocky student Lukas Ahrberg, whom only widowed father Thorsten Ahrberg can control, risk juvenile time for ear-boxing a bitch teacher. Arrested pimp Frank Struck's accomplices may be pressuring Julia to clear him. Receiving roses, Julia admits there's another suspect: court employee Jonas Pauser, whom she...

Heldt's beloved vintage car in a parking lot clash with hare-costumed Britta Clemens , whom he must hospitalize with a stick-induced head wound. The lonely rest home orderly was taking therapist Frederike Faust's 'cuddling course', which the team screens, first focusing on married, apparently unfaithful florist Tobias Weiss, whose alibi checks out. Britta lent hers savings to 'patient' Falk Schmidt, a serial wedding scammer's alias, so Niklas and Heldt set an undercover trap, but Brita's helpful neighbor Arne Seehusen inspires another angle.

Heldt and Bannenberg compete in a team-building-seminar in a rustic castle against Duisburg and Essen police-judicial detective duos, in bad mood two days after their joint Westphalian human traffic bust was sabotaged by an unknown mole. Grün and Mario Korthals resent being left behind at the precinct, fearing Heldt will wreck Bochum's reputation at the prestigious event, so they resort to legally dubious reactivation of an undercover bug. Only Heldt quickly warms to the old-fashioned who done it murder game, solving a murder staged by seminar host-director Kleine (...

After a night in the castle, romantic notably for Ellen and Heldt, who sneaked out of his shared room, seminar director Kleine alias Baron von Protznitz is missing as 'victim', but actually also in reality, all participants, cook Meisterjahn and Butler Hackforth (both hired actors) finally want to end the game fast. Despite some rivalries, state attorney Sebastian Pringel and commissioners Kathrin Hardt and Erik Schubert applaud Heldt working out the clues to the murder mystery. Kleine is found really stabbed in a storage room. Ellen claims nearest jurisdiction and ...

Bird-watching off duty from a forest observation post, commissioner Grün must call in he's sitting on a bomb, which is defused just in time. While evacuating anglers Axel and Kai Uwe at the nearby trout fishing pond, Heldt is commandeered by neighboring kiosk owner Simone Milowski to find half-wit pond employee Andreas 'Andi' Wolters, who was analyzing the water, and tells instant buddy Niklas his guardian Hartmut Haschek, the pond owner, and he normally shared coffee that observation platform at the time of the explosion. Heldt assumes Hartmut was the target, but he'...

While investigating with Grün Bochum's part in a wider crime wave of identity theft to have online orders -mostly luxury goods- fraudulently delivered at addresses, like food at Nikolas's former primary school teacher Waschke's home, Heldt finds it fits many cases in that neighborhood since three months, actually supplied over Darknet. Heldt wonders why 'cheap' food and stakes out a delivery, so he can observe 15 year-old paperboy Adrian Schlosser, whose mother Nina 'manages' his even less caring stepfather's DJ-career, leaving Adrian to look -well- after kid brother ...

Only Heldt sympathizes immediately when unsavory Iggy reports the disappearance of his fellow homeless street mentor, Horst Wilmenrod, after the pair spent the night in the local 'ghost house'. Believer Mario Korthals looks into the history of the house, property of wheelchair-ridden antiquarian Harald Waldheim and his daughter Carolin, Grün laughs at such superstition but is chicken-dared by Niklas to help stake-out the house anyway. Iggy invites himself, eager to illegally 'assist Heldt' in the case, the more worrisome as former literature professors Dr. Wilmenrod '...

After another -discrete- romantic night in Ellen's office, Heldt is in a jolly mood. Grün wonders about it and rivals with him, so they jump each at one of two new cases, apparently unrelated. Heldt looks into local radio talk show host Toto Emmerling, who claims amnesia after beating into hospital with concussion just after his last show before moving to Costa Rica. Grün looks into the escape from jail, shortly before his scheduled release, of diamond robber Daniel Keller, whose loot was never found, and suspects he contacted his -denying- brother and presumed cahoot...

While Heldt in away for a mandatory police ITC seminar, secret lover Ellen, ITC buddy Mario and section chief Grün examine nocturnal Molotov arson in the practice of reputed plastic surgeon Dr. Jochen Seligmann and his devoted gay husband and sub-standard assistant Christoph Schober, who was jealous of fired predecessor Astrid Enders, who ended up with a better job. Botched-up patient Wolf Neuhaus has an alibi. Mario Korthals must try to go undercover as potential patient to meet regular queer customer Harald Pfeiffer, and sneakily get access to the practice computer ...