Hubert ohne Staller

Hubert and Staller are called to open an apartment where water damage is suspected. It quickly becomes clear why no one had opened the door for the building superintendent: the young tenant has been bludgeoned to death with a frying pan! While Hubert and Staller are looking around the crime scene, events are unfolding rapidly elsewhere: The new bakery owner, Barbara Hansen, wants to buy some smoked ham at Farmer Meißner's farm. The easygoing and even-tempered "Räucherschorsch," as everyone calls him, seems restless and nervous that day. When Hansen also happens to discover a hiding place with blood-stained clothes, she gets an uneasy feeling.

Hubert and Staller are summoned to the community center. Cemetery caretaker Alois Berger was found dead in his apartment. Apparently, he took his own life by electrocuting himself with a power outlet. At the medical examiner's office, it turns out that Berger had already been stunned with a stun gun beforehand. So it was murder! The deceased's superior, Pastor Paul Wiedemann, seems above suspicion, but he knows a great deal about the victim's private life. Only recently had the cemetery caretaker mourned the loss of his beloved wife, Marie. The man prayed devotedly for Marie, but when that proved futile, he began to struggle with his faith in God.

Hubert and Staller are called to the Münsingen soccer field because 10-year-old Maxi has once again tried to steal the backpacks of players on the E-Youth team. The police officers are just leading the troublemaker to the patrol car when bizarre scenes unfold on the soccer field. Some players suddenly feel nauseous, while others begin to hallucinate—the coach so severely that, as if in a frenzy, he runs onto the adjacent country road and is struck by a car. The troublemaker Maxi is instantly forgotten; Hubert and Staller take care of the children. They suspect that drugs or alcohol were involved, but medical examiner Dr. Fuchs cannot confirm this and instead suspects food poisoning.

Hubert and Staller are met with a grim sight: rival pig farmers Ferdinand Mayer and Josef Schmidl are in the midst of a heated argument. Just as Hubert is about to intervene, Staller suddenly collapses. At the hospital, he receives a sobering diagnosis: if he doesn't get his high cholesterol under control by changing his diet, he faces the risk of a heart attack, stroke, and death. Staller plunges into a deep existential crisis and begins to question his entire life. Then pig farmer Josef Schmidl is murdered. Suspicion quickly falls on Schmidl's son, who was seen wandering the streets covered in blood and drunk.

A young woman lies dead in a cow pasture—drowned in a puddle! On her arm she wears a gold bangle engraved with initials, which doesn't quite match her simple clothing. But who is this beautiful stranger? Hubert and Staller are faced with a mystery. They have a suspicion that is soon confirmed: The pretty woman was drowned and was already dead by the time she was brought to the meadow. From the petty criminal Baldur, Hubert and Staller learn who the dead woman is: She is Danila, a Romanian guest worker who had been working some time ago at the bar run by the shady character Konopka.

Hubert and Staller witness a gas station robbery. The robber manages to escape, but the case seems to be quickly solved: The DNA traces at the crime scene belong to Heiko Martens. There's just one problem: The man is dead! Martens was reported missing after a boating accident and was only recently officially declared deceased. His grieving widow, Sabine Jäger-Martens, clings to the hope that her husband might still be alive. The deceased's sister, Roswitha Martens, has a theory of her own: her sister-in-law Sabine wanted to kill Heiko—who was deep in debt—on the boat back then to collect his life insurance, but her attempt failed.

Precinct Chief Girwidz dreams of a dazzling white Hollywood smile. Dentist Dr. Noll is supposed to make this wish come true. But the visit to the dentist doesn't go as expected: No sooner has the dentist fitted the first whitening tray than he is interrupted by a loud ringing at the office door. When Noll doesn't return, Girwidz goes looking for him and makes a horrific discovery: Dr. Noll is lying dead in front of the door with a syringe in his carotid artery. The cause is quickly determined: death by poisoning! Caroline Fuchs finds a highly toxic pesticide that was administered intravenously to the victim.

During a routine check, Hubert and Staller pull over the pretty Maria Strobl in her convertible. It isn't until the woman has driven off that Staller notices blood on his colleague's hand—he had been leaning against the trunk of the convertible. This needs to be investigated! Without further ado, they issue a search alert to their colleagues. Sure enough, shortly afterward, the convertible they're looking for pulls up at an intersection right in front of Riedl. He recognizes Maria Strobl behind the wheel but lets her drive on. Riedl keeps the encounter a secret from his colleagues and heads off on his own to the Strobl family's farm. Meanwhile, Hubert and Staller have Dr. Fuchs examine the blood on Hubert's hand.

Alerted by an agitated couple of tourists, Hubert and Staller discover the hunter Flachsbichler on a hunting blind—dead, with his hand on the trigger of his rifle! In the nearby meadow, they find eight hares—three of them shot, two more also shot but, strangely enough, tied down in the field, and finally, also tied up, three hares that are still alive! What on earth was going on here? The case takes a turn when the investigators learn from a mysterious Russian student—who had apparently worked as an interpreter for the deceased—that he had been planning to swindle a valuable piece of land from his neighbor, Sunninger, in order to resell it to the young woman's compatriots.

Lena Winter finds the owner of a designer traditional clothing store lying dead on the floor. An empty box of sleeping pills initially suggests that the businesswoman, Desiree Hopf, committed suicide. But the case doesn't seem to be solved quite so quickly, because Hubert and Staller discover scratches on the victim's neck, which would indicate a violent struggle. The investigation begins with the victim's husband, photographer Benedikt Bär, who is in the midst of photographing his mistress—and reigning "Miss Wolfratshausen"—Emily Müller in a dirndl. Hubert and Staller suspect him of committing the murder in order to seize control of the thriving dirndl business just in time for their divorce hearing.

Hubert and Staller find a saddled but riderless horse by the side of the road. In the saddlebag, the two police officers discover a cell phone and are able to identify the owner: Tina Sandler, the daughter of stud farm owner Wolfgang Sandler. It quickly becomes clear: The young woman has been kidnapped! A kidnapper demands two million euros for her release. Hubert and Staller plan to arrest the perpetrator during the ransom handoff. Unfortunately, the plan fails. The kidnapper escapes with the money, and Staller is ambushed. During the chase, the man locks him up—of all places—in the very basement where Tina Sandler is being held captive.

A farmer's complaint about overturned milk cans leads Hubert and Staller to a secluded country road. As they search the area for clues, they make a horrific discovery: a jogger lies in the roadside ditch, apparently having been run over. The victim is quickly identified: it is Horst Brendel, co-owner of the nursery in Ammerland. The search for the perpetrator, however, proves more difficult. His business partner and stepdaughter, Ulrike Lautner, as well as Boris Jablonski, the company's only employee, all describe their relationship with him as good.

Kerstin Wilm, the private cleaning lady of Precinct Chief Girwidz, is supposed to spruce up the police station for a press event. But just as she's about to clean up the mess left by Hubert and Staller, she dies of poisoning—from a tea bag! The first clue leads the two police officers to a luxurious breakfast café. According to a reservation confirmation, the dead cleaning lady had arranged to meet an unknown man there for breakfast. Surprisingly, the unknown man turns out to be Precinct Chief Girwidz. The cleaning lady had asked him for a favor in exchange for cleaning the station. Girwidz can't say what that favor was.

What a gruesome discovery for Hubert and Staller: The attractive brewery owner Sabine Münzer had been strangled and stuffed into a wooden barrel in her brewery's boiler house. For Hubert and Staller, one thing is clear: This was no random crime. During the autopsy, a cufflink featuring a ram motif was found in the victim's throat. Apparently, the killer deliberately placed it there. If that isn't a crime of revenge! After all, Sabine Münzer had many enemies in Wolfratshausen. She had fallen out with her brother Matthias when her father chose not him, but his younger daughter, to succeed him.