Accessory for Murder  
By Martin Ross

 Columbo, Man of Mystery. Perhaps no fictional character is such a human cipher. We know the raincoat, the Peugeot, the cigars, and, of course, Dog. But what do we truly know about the Good Lieutenant, his hidden dreams, the razor-sharp ego and intelligence that may lurk beneath that sad raincoat?
    In Rest In Peace, Mrs. Columbo, we finally learn that Columbo’s better half is not merely a disassociated personality created to mask the detective’s keen intellect. But what of all the talented and eccentric cousins and nephews and brothers-in-law who are the stuff of Columbo’s maddening ramblings? Has the Columbo gene been expressed in a new generation of would-be bloodhounds?
    Indeed, certain aspects of the Columbo mystique may never be decrypted. But in the tale you are about to read, we venture into one dank, chaotic corner of the Columbo mythos. You are about to enter…the house of Columbo.
    Meet Marla Sterling, TV’s reigning queen of home décor, fine living, and homicide sweet homicide. She knows how to clean up a wine spill and evidence of a messy murder with equal aplomb, but she’s about to meet her match – an ill-made bed named Lt. Columbo. But Columbo may have met his match, as well – a killer who’s about to make over his house. Will our hero solve the case before his comfy armchair gives way to an ergonomic Swedish futon and Marla rearranges his deductive feng shui?
    Prepare a cool drink and an attractive and appetizing tray of soft cheeses and orchard fruit, and prepare for today’s match-up between the Slovenly Sleuth and the Empress of Elegance…

Martin Ross has been a print journalist for more than 22 years. He currently covers agricultural policy and technology for Illinois FarmWeek. Ross also has written fanfic focusing on The Rockford Files and the X-Files for his own and other sites

Dedicated to Rei Nakazawa, who helped find the crucial clue

“Marla,” Jean Taulby began, with the sympathetic intensity that had made her a household presence for two decades. She leaned in, studiously ignoring the camera pointed her way.

For a fleeting moment, Marla Sterling imagined the newsmagazine icon falling off her chair and onto that Botox-enhanced, saucy-but-stern face. Although that moment, had it occurred, would not have been broadcast live, Marla smiled in what the bimbette imagined to be an expression of cool grace.

          “At a moment like this,” Taulby continued, contemplatively, “as you look at all you’ve managed to accomplish and amass in your 50 years on this planet…” Bitch, Marla thought, smiling. It was a totally unnecessary piece of data, and besides, Taulby herself hadn’t seen 50 since Clinton had groped his first intern. “…and as you consider the future, what are your thoughts, your feelings?”

It was Marla’s third appearance on Byline, and Taulby related to the Countess of Color like a sort of sorority sister in crime. At the same time, as is the case with most sorority sisters, it was clear the Des Moines weatherwoman-turned-tabloid trashwoman was reveling in her guest’s downfall.

“In short, if you could attribute your current circumstances to one miscalculation, one personal weakness or flaw, what might that be?” Taulby inquired, brow furrowing only enough not to spoil the line of her marble-smooth forehead.

Marla considered for a second, consulting the tastefully appointed file case that was her mind and reviewing the last few tempestuous months.

“My innate sense of style,” she concluded, shooting one limp cuff of her cotton prison blouse with elegant yet becomingly self-deprecating irony.

 
Six months earlier

          As the red fog cleared from Marla’s brain, it registered one surreal and inappropriate observation.

          What a mess.

          The latte’d coffee, the sugar, the Half-and-Half, and, of course, the blood was forming a swirling reservoir about the exquisitely carved legs of Teri’s teak kitchenette table. Teri herself was the source of the scarlet gouts that clashed violently with the banal pinks and grays (Marla had always thought, anyway) of her kitchen. Her tangerine locks were streaked with arterial red, and one hand stretched over the irrevocably stained linen of the tabletop, fingers curled into claws futilely grasping for life.

          Marla jumped as the ornate grandfather clock in the main hallway chimed 11 times. She had always hated the thing – heavy, baroque, and as ostentatiously feminine as all of Teri’s furnishings – but it broke the spell, and the full import of what she’d done suddenly came home. Marla dropped the murder weapon; it landed with a thud just clear of the blood.

          Any thought of adequately cleaning up the scene, disposing of Teri’s body, was insane. Teri had a maid service in twice weekly, and, if forced in a line-up, would identify Mr. Clean as former wrestler and Gov. Ventura. Marla had seen enough old mystery shows to know she’d attract undesirable attention if she – a high-profile media personality – ran down to the Safeway at 11 p.m. on a Wednesday night to buy Pine Sol and an O-Cedar mop.

          Marla steeled herself, and attacked the problem with the same analytical acumen she’d applied to making over that NBA center’s crib on last Thursday’s show. Teri had been violently bludgeoned, her head turned into a bowl of summer squash (Marla had just done a New England Harvest Supper segment two days before, and the image jabbed at her gut). A lone woman, enjoying a late-night cup of coffee, attacked in her kitchen. Think.

          A lover’s spat ?, Marla considered. No, she reconsidered – that was the spite talking, and besides, Boy-Toy might this moment be at one of his second-tier celebrity parties with second-tier rap stars and ex-celebrity husbands and Susan Lucci. An attempted frame might come back around on her. No, it might be a cliché, but this was definitely a robbery, one gone tragically awry. The class war in America , with Teri one more well-coiffured casualty of some deprived street felon.

          Marla reevaluated the scene, her unerring eye catching the accessories, the accoutrement that didn’t work. She gingerly removed her half-emptied coffee cup from the spreading mess of high-fat creamer and brain splatters and used a napkin to nudge blood over the clean ring it had left. Marla washed and wiped the cup thoroughly, and, for good measure, placed it in the half-full dishwasher (one appliance Teri had mastered). The bloodied napkin she flushed in the hallway half-bath.

          A half-dozen remnants of her presence were easily spotted and eliminated, but the scenario before her still didn’t seem quite right. Plus, there was the matter of an alibi, should anyone ever make the quantum leap between this tableau of carnage and America ’s Hostess Haute Supreme.

          A late night cup of coffee. Didn’t seem like something one would do alone. In fact, that had been the first warning signal for Marla – Teri had a taste for sicky-sweet, high-proof nightcaps, and the fact that she’d offered Marla coffee had indicated Teri had something serious in mind. Marla now wondered dryly if Teri might still be alive had she opted first for the “good news” part of Teri’s annoying “Good news or bad news first?” query.

          It made a lot more sense that Teri’s cushy domicile would be burglarized in the wee hours, and Teri frequently arose at the ass-crack of dawn to get to the studio. The spilled coffee would tell the story, help fix the time of the murder. Hadn’t Marla heard on some Court TV documentary that the police could only fix time of death within a period of a few hours? Marla spotted the red digital readout on the expensive high-tech coffeemaker, and the last element fell into place.

          Assuming Teri routinely made a full 10-cup pot – she brought her own brew to the office in a brushed steel Scandinavian carafe, Marla filled the coffeemaker’s own Pyrex carafe to just short of the nine-cup mark. The Queen of the Kitchen quickly located a half-depleted bag of an organic, migrant labor-friendly Kona blend, and dumped two scoops into an unbleached filter. Marla deftly set the timer on the front of the coffeemaker.

          Leaving her shoes in the kitchen, (no blood, thank God -- they’d been a steal at $430 on Rodeo Drive ), Marla sprinted upstairs to Teri’s bedroom. Perfect: The semi-weekly maid had been in that day, and the bed was as neat as a career Marine’s bunk. Marla yanked the horridly floral spread down and began to undress. She’d had David Caruso on two weeks ago, and she remembered his secondhand expertise on fiber and other trace evidence.

          Teri slept in the raw, a confidence she’d shared freely with the younger stagehands, and she and Marla attended the same gym, so Marla was reasonably certain she could leave convincing anatomical ballistics marks on Teri’s silk sheets. The nude Mistress of Makeovers spent the next 10 minutes simulating several hours of tossing, turning, and unconscious rolling, pressing her form firmly into the thick silk sheets.

          Once redressed, Marla examined the pillow and, satisfied, salvaged a few of Teri’s tangerine hairs from a brush in the adjacent bathroom. She dropped them on the pillow, surveyed the mussed bed and surrounding carpet, and, with a grimace, retrieved the kimono she’d once helped Teri select on the Ginza (expensed as part of a Sushi September segment Marla later had nixed after discovering firsthand a rather severe allergy to fish and other marine species).

          Marla sprinted back downstairs, halting soberly in the kitchen doorway. She took a long breath, heart pounding.

          Now for the really fun part, she moaned…

**

          Sgt. Kramer was the first to hear the backfire. Despite all of the State of California ’s militantly green efforts to regulate the ravages of carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxide, sulfur, and other greenhouse gases on the ozone layer, there remained at least one vintage Peugeot that defied efforts to bring said emissions under control. Kramer sighed and stuck his head into the hallway.

          “Send the lieutenant in pronto,” the sergeant called to the patrolman on the door. He turned back to the kitchen, where one of the LAPD techs was taking a virtual House Beautiful photo layout of the vic and her now blood-soaked furniture. The broken pane in the back door told the tale – there’d been three burglaries in this cushy little neighborhood over the past two months, though none of the previous crimes had entailed any violence.

          “OK I start on the scene?” the tech grunted.

          “Let the lieutenant have a look-see first, OK?” Kramer requested. The tech shrugged and snapped a few more shots.

          Columbo entered, bleary-eyed, his hair a rat’s nest and his chin perpetually smudged from a brief encounter with a razor. Kramer could see he was exhausted, though the distinction between the detective’s current slovely, half-awake state and his customary condition was a fine one.

          “Sergeaaaahhh-gent,” Columbo yawned, flashing a few childhood fillings. “Sorry, Sergeant – I been havin’ an awful time trying to get to sleep the last few nights. I think I got that thing, you know, where you can’t get any sleep.”

          “Insomnia,” Kramer provided patiently. “Look, we got a Teri Racine here – 48, producer some cable TV show. You know a Marla Sterling?”

          Columbo stopped suddenly, just short of a puddle of Teri Racine’s coagulating blood. He scratched his forehead in astonishment. “Do I know Marla Sterling?”

          “Yeah.”

          “Do I know Marla Sterling? Sergeant, Marla Sterling’s the Queen of Color, the Princess of Parties, the Duchess of Dips. Why, she’s got a daytime show, a nighttime show, a radio show goes out all over the country, three or four books out on decoratin’ your house, throwin’ fancy parties, everythin’ you could imagine, Sergeant. Plus, they got all that gardening and bath stuff at the Megalomart with her picture all over it. An’ if that ain’t enough, she’s been on CNN all the time the last few weeks over some kinda stock market thing. Marla Sterling’s one ver-ry famous lady, Sergeant.”

          “Sorry I asked,” Kramer rumbled. “Marla Sterling’s her boss. We already notified her – the victim, Racine, didn’t have any relatives except a couple ex-husbands.”

          A muted burst of applause caught Columbo’s attention. He glanced at a small color TV tucked in among the kitchen cabinets.

          “That was on already,” Kramer explained.

          “That’s her,” Columbo announced, sidestepping the blood and gore and tapping the screen. “That’s Marla Sterling.” As if acknowledging his recognition, the smartly styled ash blonde in the scarlet blazer beamed graciously. The lieutenant chuckled, shook his head, and caught sight of the back door. He eyed the broken glass on the marble floor beneath the door, frowned, and glanced over at Teri Racine’s lifeless form, slumped over the tabletop.

          “Nobody moved the victim?” Columbo demanded.

          “Nobody touched her – your orders,” Kramer nodded.

          The lieutenant turned back to the door, then toward Racine , then back to the door. “That’s verrrry strange, isn’t it, Sergeant?”

          “I don’t get you.”

          Columbo extended his arms, pointing simultaneously at the body and the door. “Well, just look at this. The burglar breaks a window to get in, just shatters it.”

          “What it looks like…”

          “But, Sergeant, you gonna tell me the victim, Ms. Racine, you gonna tell me this guy breaks in her back door and she just sits here, waits for him to come rob her.”

          Kramer arched an eyebrow and reexamined the scene. “She coulda been in shock. Maybe he had a gun or something, and he ordered her to sit at the table ‘til he figured out what to do.”

“If he had a gun,” Columbo objected, “then why beat her to death? That reminds me – where’s the murder weapon?”

Kramer shook his head. “No sign of one, Lieutenant. Killer musta taken it with.”

“Very odd,” Columbo mumbled. “Very, very odd.” He perked up, raising his nose to the air. He turned abruptly toward the kitchen counter. “Who made the coffee? Smells real good.”

“Victim made it,” the sergeant responded. “Checked the timer gizmo – three. Must be an early riser.”

“You think anybody’d mind if I just drained off a cup?” Columbo asked hopefully. “I really could use a little wake-up juice.”

“Crime scene,” Kramer reminded him.

“Yeah,” the lieutenant sighed. “I guess you’re right.” He wandered over to the table, bending down beside Racine ’s battered head. He froze. “Sergeant, you got a pen on you?”

“What do you got?” Kramer asked, pulling a Bic from his shirt pocket. Columbo waggled his fingers, and his underling handed it over. Whistling “This Old Man” rustily, he gently pried back the collar of Racine ’s kimono. “Sarge, look at this, will you?”

Kramer leaned in over Columbo’s shoulder. “What are we looking at, precisely?”

          “See that dried blood there, right above her shoulder blade? What’s that look like to you?”

          Kramer squinted. “It’s like a pattern.”

          “A weave, Sergeant, a weave,” Columbo sang. “And you can even see a few fibers sticking to the blood.” He straightened. “You know what I think, Sergeant? I think this woman was put in this robe.”

          “Kimono.”

          “…this kimono. I think the killer changed her clothes.”

          “And why would he do that?” Kramer inquired, starting to replace his pen but remembering where it had been.

          “I don’t know, Sergeant. I don’t know… Hey, just a minute.” Kramer looked on hopelessly as Columbo disappeared into the hall. The sergeant waited for a minute, then another. Eventually, he stuck his head into the hallway.

          “Hey,” Kramer called. The patrolman jumped. “Where’d he go?”

          “Ah, who?” the patrolman asked slowly.

          “Lt. Columbo. Where’d he go?”

          “I, ah…” the cop was rescued by the sound of Columbo’s footfalls on the carpeted stairs. The lieutenant grasped the newel post, panting.

          “She slept in the bed, Sergeant,” Columbo gasped.

          “Yeah?” Kramer waited.

          “But, Sergeant, the clock…” Columbo exhaled raggedly. “See, I was thinking maybe Ms. Racine never even went to bed in the first place, so I went upstairs to take a look. The bed was all rumpled – you could still see where she’d been laying, and there was even a couple red hairs on the pillow.

          “But the problem, Sergeant, the problem was the alarm clock. It was set for five o’clock .”

          Kramer inhaled slowly. “Maybe she got up at five.”

          Columbo shook his head vigorously. “No, I don’t think so.” He edged past the patrolman and Kramer. “C’mon.”

          Kramer looked to the patrolman, who shrugged. The sergeant trailed the lieutenant.

          Columbo was waiting by the counter. He tapped the top of the coffeemaker. “See, Sergeant. We got a coffeemaker like this at home, Mrs. Columbo and me. Well, not as nice as this one. A Mr. Coffee, actually. But they all work the same. See, you don’t want to leave the coffee on all day by accident. Heck, that could start a fire or something. So these gizmos, they got what they call an automatic shutoff. After two hours, it shuts off by itself.

          “So Ms. Racine, she sets her alarm clock upstairs for five but her coffeemaker for three. Now, why would she set her coffee so it would turn off the minute she woke up? Wouldn’t she set the coffee for four or four-thirty or something, so the coffee would be fresh and hot for a while?”

          Kramer was at a loss for a moment. “OK,” he finally recovered. “Maybe she got up earlier than usual this morning, and set the clock back to the usual time for tomorrow after, so she wouldn’t forget.”

          Columbo squinted at the ceiling and nodded appreciatively. “Yeah, yeah, that might work. Or maybe she didn’t even make the bed yesterday. Maybe she never even went to bed. See if she’s got a maid or something might know if the bed was made yesterday.” He leaned back on the counter, yawning. Then his eyes widened, and he leaned over the counter, placing his chin on the marble top. “What have we here?”

          “Now what?” Kramer asked with foreboding.

          “Sergeant, come over here,” Columbo murmured. “Look at this. What is that?”

          Kramer craned over Columbo’s shoulder. “I dunno. Looks like flour, maybe.”

          Columbo wet a forefinger, dipped it in the tiny pile of white powder next to the marble backsplash, and tasted it. He made a face. “Naw, that ain’t flour. Sergeant, you wanna get this analyzed at the lab?” Columbo lifted his chin from the cold counter. “Sergeant? Oh, Sergeant?”

          “Right here, Lieutenant,” Kramer breathed.

          “While you’re at it, see if you can’t get a few samples off the floor, too.”

          “Blood? You don’t think it’s the victim’s?”

          Columbo shook his head. “No, sergeant. Not the blood.”

          “Where is she?” The woman’s voice, out in the hall, was insistent and agitated. “I want to see her NOW.”

          “Ma’am, I don’t think you want to—” the patrolman sputtered.

          “How dare you presume to tell me what I want and do not want,” the woman snapped icily. “I see the LAPD still needs a few gender sensitivity training sessions. You must have a superior around here – I can imagine it wouldn’t be difficult to find yours’…”

          “Excuse me, Sergeant,” Columbo mumbled anxiously, shoving past Kramer and the corpse. He found the non-plussed patrolman attempting to bar entry by a slim, middle-aged blonde just a bit too sharp in the chin and nose to qualify for a modeling career. The lieutenant slapped his forehead. “Oh, my gosh . You’re not…her?”

          The woman momentarily halted her barrage on the uniformed officer. “I very likely am. And who might you be.”

          “Lt. Columbo, ma’am,” he flustered, stepping forward with outstretched hand. “I’m with Homicide.”

          Marla pulled her exquisitely manicured and moisturized hand away, fingering the gold pendant that hung in the V of her cream-colored blouse. “Where is she?”

          Columbo sobered, clasping his hands before him. “Ah, Ms. Racine, your friend. Ma’am, I’d say I have to agree with the officer here. I really don’t think you want to go in there. It’s, well, it’s a very disturbing scene. Lot ’s of blood and everything. And I’m not saying that ‘ cause you’re a woman or anything – I seen big guys, I mean really big guys get a little green around the gills at murder scenes.”

          “Nonsense,” Marla ruled, and Columbo trailed her into the kitchen. “Oh, my God.”

          She leaned back against the doorway, blood draining from her face as she took in the gore and destruction. After an appearance on Everybody Loves Raymond that had required 22 takes, Marla didn’t delude herself about her thespian abilities. She knew she wouldn’t be able to convincingly fake wailing and gnashing of teeth, so she’d come across all bluff and bluster at the door so her half-natural response to Teri’s battered corpse would sell.

          Columbo grasped her arm and pulled her back toward the hallway. “Ma’am, we better…”

          “No,” Marla gasped, pulling free. “I just didn’t expect anything this, this gruesome. Just give me a moment.” The lieutenant protested as she stepped forward, the toe of her undoubtedly costly suede pump sending sluggish ripples through the mingled coffee and blood. Marla looked down, reeled against the table, and then recoiled from the blood-soaked wood.

          “Jeez, ma’am, you got some, um, some stuff on your pants there,” Columbo moaned. Marla glanced down at the dime-sized patch on her light brown slacks. “Sergeant, you wanna see if you can find some soda in the refrigerator, something clear, not a Cola. See, I saw somewhere where if you get to a bloodstain real quick with some club soda, you can…”

          “”Lieutenant,” Marla sighed with the merest wisp of a smile. “I would imagine I know best how to treat a bloodstain, don’t you?”

          Columbo grinned sheepishly. “Gee, yeah, I guess you would at that. My wife’s always tellin’ me all those little tips you put out on the Internet, about getting out stains and not burnin’ meat and things…”

          “Lieutenant, please. Can you tell who would have done such a ghastly thing to Teri?”

          “Well,” Columbo drawled as Sgt. Kramer and the department tech continued to pore over the room, “there have been several break-ins in the neighborhood, and Ms. Racine’s back door glass had been busted. We’ll be taking an inventory for any stolen items, jewelry and such. Hey, maybe you could help us with that.”

          Maybe I could, Marla mused. She’d selectively looted several of Teri’s pricier objects as well as some cheap crap she figured some street thug wouldn’t know from Cartier’s. All would be dumped in the Pacific in good time, or perhaps dropped surreptitiously in some homeless person’s cardboard condo.

          “Whatever I can do to assist you.And my apologies to both you and the officer for my brusque behavior. When I got the call at the show, I guess I kicked into some kind of automatic drive.”

          Columbo frowned and scratched his head. “Wait a minute. I just saw you on your show a few minutes ago. You were even wearing the same outfit – a very smart outfit, if you don’t mind me saying. How did you…?”

          “We’re live on tape with a studio audience. I know it sounds like an oxymoron, but I didn’t get your message about Teri until we’d completed this morning’s taping.”

          “Ahhh, that makes sense. And did you happen to talk to your friend this morning, before she died?”

          “It would have to have been at that point, wouldn’t it, Lieutenant? No, although…” Marla nibbled a sculpted nail.

          “What, ma’am?”

          “Well, I can’t say for sure it was Teri. You see, I’d had a full day yesterday – the show, a commercial shoot for Megalomart, and a cocktail reception for some network executives at Century City . I was exhausted, so I dropped into bed about 10 and let the voicemail handle my calls. This morning, when I checked my messages, there were three hang-ups. You know, they didn’t leave any message. Teri hated voicemail, was a real throwback that way, so I suppose they might have been hers’.”

          Columbo looked excited. “Ma’am, you didn’t erase those messages, did you?”

          Marla smiled. “I may know how to assemble a five-course dinner for kings, but technology continues to elude me. Half the time, I let the messages pile up 20 deep until my assistant can erase them for me.”

          “Well, this is great, ma’am, I mean it may be great,” Columbo enthused, rubbing his hands together. “See, we can check the phone company records, and if those calls were from your friend, then we can help narrow down the time of death.”

          “Well, obviously, it was this morning,” Marla said, instantly regretting the observation.

          “Yes, ma’am,” Columbo said quietly, with an uncertainty that put her on guard.

          “Lieutenant,” Kramer suddenly said, urgently, saving Marla from formulating further dialogue. “You’ll wanna see this.”

          Columbo turned toward the table, where the Latex-gloved tech was holding a cloth napkin by one corner. Sitting on a clean swatch of tablecloth under the miniature tent was a box. A velvet, rounded box. Marla’s heart jumped.

          “Can we open that?” Columbo asked, pulling a pair of reading glasses from his shirt.

          Kramer looked at the tech questioningly and nodded, and the tech eased the box out with a pair of surgical clamps, carried it delicately to the counter, and pried it gently open, as if seeking a pearl.

          “Well, I’ll be,” Columbo marveled. “I guess our burglar musta missed this little prize.”

          Marla gaped, and then good breeding reminded her to close her mouth. Inside the forest green jewelry box was the largest, gaudiest diamond ring she’d ever seen outside a bad heist movie. Now she recalled her curiosity at the tented napkin in the center of the table – the one Teri had steadfastly refused to look at. For the second time in some 12 hours, she regretted not having asked for the “good news” first.

**

GFL Productions housed 23 kitchens – 12 lab-like research/test kitchens; the institutional network cafeteria kitchen; the glass-fronted galley of La and nine sets for The Gourmet/Fine Living Channel’s in-house hosts, including Marla Sterling, Jake the Bachelor Chef, Dr. Paprika, and the channel’s undisputed king, Milo LaFontaine. Unlike Milo, with his house band, celebrity guest tasters, and slavish yuppie audience (the mere addition of garlic to a dish was enough to send this group into frenzied applause, while Milo’s signature catch-phrase, “Baa-boom!” often drew a whooping ovation), Marla’s late afternoon show was filmed in-studio and on location, sans audience. Her kitchen was a countrified but feminine salute to New England flair.

The Empress of Entertaining wanted a crisp contrast between her glitzy syndicated morning chat-fest and her more sedate network offering. If she couldn’t be the white Oprah or the straight Rosie -- possibilities growing dimmer with each hourly news update of her entanglements with the Securities Exchange Commission – then she could at least remain America ’s reigning queen of taste and elegant living. Marla knew these were values Joe and Jane Sixpack and the media alike disdained – she’d seen the relentless parodies of the Hitlerian “Mistress Marla” on SNL, and had been talked out of suing over a three-week series of Doonesbury panels that had Saddam Hussein consulting Marla on “tips for making that unfinished basement room more than merely a torture chamber and nookie parlor.”

But Marla’s glacial smile frequently shared space at Barnes and Noble’s with Queen Oprah, Dr. Phil, and Sen. Hillary, and the familiar mauve-and-gold Sterling Collection label – bearing the unspoken promise of suburban refinement at trailor park prices -- had more than tripled Megalomart’s soft goods sales over the past two years. Marla knew that despite their democratic spirit and rebellious slobbery, most Americans dreamed of living as untitled royalty outside their nine-to-five daily drudgery.

She was their queen, and, whenever Milo was out of the building, ruler of GFL’s 14th floor. Marla held the gilded platter before her, in the face of one of the production assistants, as if the Hostess Supreme expected to see the peon’s head served up on it.

“This is a quince-and-persimmon turnover, Dana, not a McDonald’s freakin’ fried apple pie.” Marla’s restrained voice was like silk washed in boric acid. “First of all, I want a triangle the Yale mathematics department would approve of. Sides A and B equal in length, and precisely identical corner angles here and here. Buttery flakiness is the goal here – not NASCAR-caliber lubrication. I can almost see clear through the phyllo to the fruit. Did this pastry fall into an Alaskan oil slick before Hans threw it across the room onto this plate? Which, by the way, bears enough greasy fingerprints for an entire season of CSI, CSI: Miami, and whatever inane spinoffs Bruckheimer may dream up for next season. What are we going to do with this, Dana?”

          The assistant accepted the platter, imagining Marla turning on a spit, marinated with citrus and cilantro. “Re-shape, re-bake, and replate.”

          “Remarkable,” Marla said dryly, and spun on her Gucci heel into the corridor outside Test Kitchen #7. Blake was leaning on the wall opposite, shaking his bald head.

          “Always wondered what little Dana would taste like, infused with Venom a la Sterling and verbally parbroiled,” the native Texan mused.

          “I should’ve hired one of those gay personal assistants who know how to be oozingly obsequious and who don’t harbor culinary fantasies about the female help.”

          Blake came off the wall. “Don’t you think maybe you shoulda called in sick today, after what happened to Teri? We coulda plugged in a ‘Best of Marla’ or even yesterday’s ep, and nobody woulda been the wiser.”

          Marla tossed him a reptilian glare. “Consolation of the bereaved isn’t your strong suit, Blake. And counterproductive sentiment isn’t mine. I’ve lost one of my oldest, dearest friends, and sitting on my deck in the Valley with a pitcher of margaritas isn’t going to help things. Did you track those Victorian fixtures?”

          Blake sighed, and fell into step with his taller, leaner employer. “They shipped them to the New York offices. It’ll be at least a day, maybe two, Fed Ex Overnight.”

          “Goddamit,” Marla snapped. “Now I’ve got to come up with a new segment. We still got those paper animals, that origami shit?”

          “Yup.”

          “OK. We’ll slot the window treatments piece where the doorknobs would’ve been today, and I’ll talk about cunning little folded rats tomorrow.”

          “Origami shit, check. Letterman wants to know if you’re open next Tuesday.”

          “Screw him. Let him rerun that clever little ‘Top 10 Marla Sterling’s Stock Tips’ piece he seemed to relish so much.”

          “Self-fornication, check.”

          The pair stepped into an elevator just ahead of Jake Moulton, AKA The Bachelor Chef. “Hey, Marla – sorry to hear about Teri,” the beefy, unshaven, T-shirted King of the Weber said, squeezing her arm and standing at least a half-inch inside her discomfort zone.

It wasn’t a “move” – Moulton’s interests generally lie in the twentysomething arena, though Teri had made a drunken run at him during a cable convention a few months earlier. But Marla stepped off an inch, anyway. Blake studied the digital floor readout near the ceiling.

“You know, I don’t mean anything sexist here or anything, but it really isn’t safe for a woman out there on her own,” Moulton continued as the doors closed. “I know Teri was all antigun and shit, but that doesn’t mean you can’t protect your ass, you know? My agent, he got me this sweet gig pitching home security systems, high-tech crap? I bet I could hook you up, Marla.”

“No thanks,” Marla murmured.

“I mean, they’re real easy to operate – it’s like a keypad, You could probably get one of those kids on your crew to come over and help you figure out how to work the thing. Hell, I got my mom up on the Internet over the weekend.”

Blake backed up a step and began checking his PDA. Marla turned to The Bachelor Chef with a sweet, grandmotherly smile, and her mouth opened as the elevator stopped with a chime and the doors slid open.

“Ms. Sterling!” Lt. Columbo clapped his hands. “This is a lucky coincidence. I was just headin’ for Ms. Racine and your offices.”

“Later, Babe,” Moulton said, squeezing the High Priestess of Homemaking’s elbow and edging past the rumpled cop. Columbo did a double-take, and glanced at Moulton’s retreating back.

“Geez, that’s that guy, right? The bachelor guy, makes all the stuff with beer and Cheese Whiz and stuff? He’s great – not like you, not classy or nothing, but I made those pork chops soaked in Jack Daniels he made on his show a few weeks ago, and, well, lemme tell you, it was the hit of my niece’s cosmetology school graduation party.”

“Wish I’d been there,” Marla smiled as she brushed past him. Columbo pursued her as she approached the suite she and Teri had shared with Blake.

“Just wanted to let you know we’re checking some leads in your friend’s murder,” he said. “That’s what we’re calling it now, by the way.”

“I thought murder was what we always called it when someone is brutally killed,” Marla commented casually as she checked an appointment book on Blake’s marble desktop.

“Well, yessss,” Columbo drawled, momentarily nonplussed. “That’s true, and in fact, when somebody’s killed in the commission of a felony, technically, that’s a murder, a felony murder. But, no, ma’am, what I think we got here is a homicide, clear and simple.”

“Homicide?” Marla looked up, arching a perfectly tweezed brow. “Whoever would want to kill Teri?”

“Well, I know she was your best friend, ma’am…”

Marla held up a finger. “I wasn’t being maudlin or naïve, Lieutenant. Teri may have been my best friend, but to risk sounding insensitive, she very frankly wasn’t one to inspire strong emotions in others, like homicidal rage.”

Columbo nodded, then stopped. “Why do you say homicidal rage, ma’am?”

Marla bit the tip of her tongue to prevent a stammer from escaping. “What do you mean?”

“Why do you think Ms. Racine was killed in a homicidal rage, instead of, say, in cold blood.”

“Well, the bloodshed, the severity of the beating she took,” Marla countered, defensively. “I don’t know – I’m not a homicide detective – but it just seemed obvious.”

Columbo scratched his forehead. “Yeah, I suppose it would. I wonder, ma’am, if you could do me a favor?”

She consulted her tennis watch. “I suppose I could.”

“Great. I wonder if you might help me look through Ms. Racine’s office for a moment. You might know where she keeps a few things.” Columbo’s eyes grew wide with concern. “Unless, of course, it might be a little too soon…”

“Nonsense,” Marla sighed, marching to her former producer/partner’s office.

Columbo glanced around at the colorful drapes, the thick rug, the Scandinavian furnishings. “Wow, this is very, ah, very…”

“Conspicuous?” Marla supplied. “There is a theory in workplace décor that less frequently can prove more. That subtle style can project a quiet efficiency and excellence – a nuance in style that suggests a nuanced personality. Teri didn’t subscribe to that theory. She leaned more toward the Austin Powers School of Decorating.”

“And it really works,” Columbo marveled. He searched for a starting point, and then spotted a framed color photo on the wall above one of the white guest chairs. “Say, look at that. That’s you, isn’t it, ma’am? With Ms. Racine?”

“Yes,” Marla answered, rooted near the door. She knew the picture: She and Teri grinning and gripping the Golden Ladle Award the San Francisco Restaurateur’s Society had given them for excellence in catering. Two weeks later, Teri and the gilded spoon had blown town, along with Sterling Service and her man of the month.

“Wow, you were sure a looker back then,” Columbo observed, peering at the photo. He turned, blushing. “I mean, you still are, ma’am. Attractive, I mean. In fact, more attractive, in a more mature way…”

“Please, Lieutenant; I’m likely to swoon any second. What, precisely, are you looking for?”

“Hard to say, ma’am – hard to say,” Columbo murmured, pawing away at Teri’s expansive and geometrically chaotic desk. “Maybe something that might give us some kinda clue about that ring we found this morning.”

“Yes,” Marla said. “The mysterious ring. How do you think the killer missed that?”

Columbo halted his search of Teri’s underworked desk and perched a buttock on its edge. “Well, actually, that’s one reason I don’t think this was a simple burglary. I mean, we had that thing appraised, and it easily costs $15,000.”

Marla looked at the floor in mock thought. “Of course, who’d think to look on a kitchen table for such an extravagant item?” She looked up. “What if our thief left the ring on the table by accident after he killed Teri? Perhaps the shock of what he’d done…”

“But why under a napkin?” Columbo interrupted. “You see what I mean? There was a dry spot under that cloth napkin we found the ring under. That means the ring was there before Ms. Racine was killed – probably before the burglary? Now, you gotta admit that ain’t a very secure place to hide your jewelry.”

“I’ll stipulate that,” Marla said.

“But,” Columbo started, waggling a finger, “but what if Ms. Racine was only hiding that ring temporarily? What if she wanted to surprise somebody with it?”

“Lieutenant, you’d have had to know Teri to realize how absurd that would be. Teri was one of the most frugal women I’d ever met. When we had a catering business together back in college, she’d collect all the unused napkins and place settings, one by one, from each table, to recycle. As you said, I was her closest friend, and her Christmas gift to me was a middle-of-the-line VCR-DVD combo with the rebate coupon clear cut off the box.”

“Oh, I don’t mean she wanted to surprise somebody by giving them that ring. It’s a more romantic kinda gift and, well, I assume Ms. Racine wasn’t, well, you know…”

“Oh, no,” Marla caught on, smirking despite herself. “Teri definitely leaned toward the male of the species. Leaned toward, on, and frequently over.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Columbo chuckled, face reddening. “No, what I meant to suggest was that maybe she wanted to surprise somebody by showing them what somebody had given her. I mean, that was a fairly impressive ring, wasn’t it?”

“Reasonably so,” Marla assented. “A very expensive bauble. It wasn’t an engagement ring, but it would seem to represent strong feelings. Or at least it would be aimed at eliciting strong feelings.”

“Ma’am?”

“Let me be charitable in saying my friend was impressionable when it came to men, and the bigger the bauble, the greater the impression it made on her. But go on – you were deducing, I believe.”

“Oh, yeah, yeah. Where was I? Lemme show you something.” Columbo removed an old-fashioned white handkerchief from a pants pocket, searched Teri Racine’s desk, and finally selected the half-sized mock Emmy she used as a paperweight. The policeman draped the handkerchief over the statuette. “This is how the ring box was hidden on Ms. Racine’s table. Now, why would she hide this valuable ring this way? If she was showing it to a neighbor or a coworker, wouldn’t she just take it out of her safe – I’m assuming here, cause she did have a safe in the back of her bedroom closet – and just put it out on the table? This is more like, how would I put it? – like a presentation, ma’am.”

With a flourish, Columbo whipped the handkerchief from the pseudo-award. “Ta-da! See what I mean? Like Ms. Racine wanted to impress somebody with this ring. Now, I’m not a woman…”

“God was no doubt kind.”

“Huh? Oh, I get you,” Columbo chuckled, shaking his head. “You oughtta see my second cousin – she’s had three electrolysis operations, and still… But you don’t wanna hear about that. My point is, this kinda dramatic presentation, showing off a beautiful piece of jewelry like this, that seems like something a woman would do for a woman, a close woman friend, maybe.”

Marla nodded slowly. “You have a keen understanding of the female mind, Columbo. Are you fumbling toward some kind of allegation or something?”

Columbo blinked, then held up both palms. “Oh, gee, ma’am, I didn’t mean…I mean, gosh, I’m just trying to work all this out in my mind. I certainly didn’t mean to imply…”

“Because,” the Princess of the Place Setting interjected, “I can think of at least two other scenarios that might explain why we found that ring under the napkin.”

“Can you, ma’am? Cause it’s a real puzzler for me?”

Ziploc bags are no doubt a “puzzler” for you, Marla reflected. “All right. Scenario One: Teri’s amour du jour stops by to present a token of his undying passion. Of course, like most men in love, he wants to make a melodramatic show of his romanticism, so when Teri isn’t looking, he slips the ring under her napkin, so when she picks it up, she’ll discover his love bauble.”

Columbo pursed his lips, brows knitted in thought. Then his shaggy head moved from side to side. “Nooo, I don’t think so, ma’am. See, the napkin was in front of the seat opposite Ms. Racine.”

“Don’t nit-pick, Lieutenant,” Marla snapped. She composed herself with a smile. “Perhaps Teri’s lover planned to unveil the ring himself. My point is, what if Teri rejected his token, rebuffed his passion. I daresay hell may have no more fury than a woman scorned, but the male of the species tends to be more, ah, demonstrative in the way he expresses his scorn.”

“Definitely, ma’am,” the cop nodded vigorously. “But do you think this man would leave a $15,000 ring behind? Not to mention it would be a highly incriminating piece of evidence.”

“Who knows what goes through someone’s mind in the heat of murder, Lieutenant? But if you don’t like that scenario, how about this? It’s also part of the feminine mystique – at least, one form of feminine mystique – that expensive jewelry has a mesmerizing effect on women. Particularly an impressionable woman like Teri. I can imagine her taking that ring out of her safe just to sit and gaze at it at the breakfast table. She’s lost in her trance when she hears a window break at the back door. Realizing she’s being burglarized, Teri quickly throws a napkin over the ring box, in the hopes her robber won’t see it.”

Columbo already was frowning. “Gee, I dunno, ma’am… If somebody, maybe even somebody dangerous, was breaking into your house, wouldn’t you grab the ring and run out the front door, lock yourself in the bedroom and call 911, something besides just sitting at the table and waiting to be robbed? Besides, I just don’t buy this burglary theory.”

“You have a very convoluted mind, Lieutenant,” Marla said tersely.

“Thank you, ma’am,” Columbo smiled gratefully. “Well, I got some leads to follow up on, so I guess I’d better take off. Oh, and Ms. Sterling?”

Marla tensed. “Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Could you ask the cleaning crew to leave this office alone for a couple of days? I’ll call when it’s all clear.”

“I’ll talk to Building Maintenance immediately.”

“I’d sure appreciate it, ma’am. Good day.”

Marla watched the wrinkled raincoat disappear into the suite, then walked over to the portrait of herself and Teri taken during their younger, happier days. Did that little Cro Magnon – no, make that Neanderthal – suspect something? How could he possibly have fixed on her? On the surface of it, there was no obvious motive for her to kill Teri, particularly not that viciously…

“Ms. Sterling?” Marla jumped, and she pivoted to find Columbo standing in the doorway, a woman’s jacket in his hand. “Geez, I’m sorry if I scared you, Ms. Sterling. Is this Ms. Racine’s jacket? I found it in the closet over there.”

“Yes,” Marla said through her teeth. “Teri tended to be more casual around the office, but she’d wear it on the set and to meetings.”

Columbo’s hand disappeared into the fabric of the navy women’s blazer. “See, you can learn a lot about a person by goin’ through their pockets. Little notes, business cards, candy. I got like a whole library in my coat here. Maybe we can get some idea who gave Ms. Racine that ring. Heeere we go…”

The policemen displayed a sheaf of multicolored sticky notes. When Marla refused to move, he ambled over and dropped the stack on the desk. “Okaaayy… ‘MS B-Nob Brtwd.’ Ma’am?”

Marla sighed. “I had a book signing three nights ago at a Barnes and Noble in Brentwood. Teri was frequently absent-minded. She wrote those notes to remind herself of events and ideas.”

“‘T-M CBk.’”

“Teri thought I should do a Tex-Mex cookbook – kind of haute cuisine meets hot tamales. I vetoed the idea.”

“Mmm…This one’s kind of mangled.” Columbo smoothed the crumpled sky-blue note with his palm. “ ‘Coho.’ ‘Coho.’ Now, what’s that mean?”

“Salmon.” Columbo and Marla turned toward the doorway, where Blake stood with his arms crossed. “Twenty pounds of Grade A Coho salmon, for next week’s ‘Saltless in Seattle’ segment. Low sodium seafood recipes, Lieutenant. I didn’t come up with the title, by the way.”

“Ah,” Columbo nodded. “Catchy. Well, I guess that didn’t tell us anything, huh? I’ll just say goodbye, then.”

“Goodbye, then,” Marla chirped.

The lieutenant waved cheerfully as he headed past Blake. Then he froze and turned. “Uh, just one more thing, ma’am. Do you remember I mentioned that white dust we found on the counter in Ms. Racine’s kitchen?”

“Vividly,” Marla said tonelessly, shrugging slightly at Blake. She’d kicked herself for missing that bit of evidence, but she was ready.

“I had it analyzed, down at the lab. It was plaster, ma’am – plaster dust.”

“Astounding.”

Columbo nodded, grinning. “Now we just gotta figure out why it was there. Well, you folks have a nice afternoon.”

Blake stood silently while his employer lowered herself carefully into Teri’s leather chair. She regarded the stoic Texan for an equally tacit moment before speaking.

“Saltless in Seattle,” she murmured. “I don’t recall that in the program notes.”

“You want to cancel the segment?” he asked casually.

“No,” Marla smiled slightly. “It sounds interesting. In fact, didn’t that Seattle radio shrink’s agent make a pitch to you for a guest spot?”

“Frasier Crane,” Blake supplied. “Amateur gourmand and wine connoisseur, matter of fact. It would get that piranha Bebe off our ass, I suppose.”

“And see if he’ll prepare the salmon,” Marla added. “Unless you want to see me swell up, turn purple, and my windpipe close.”

“Always watching out for you, Babe,” Blake saluted. He vanished without another word, and Marla sat, wondering.

**

          “Columbo, you no good son-of-a-bitch!”

          The lieutenant turned abruptly toward the source of the affectionate epithet – a small, blunt-featured fireplug of a man with curly black hair. Milo LaFountaine, who most closely resembled the Third Mobster in any given Sopranos episode, sprinted down the hallway toward Columbo, the tails of his unbuttoned chef’s tunic flapping aside staffers and guests.

          “Milo,” Columbo said warmly, pumping the renowned gourmet’s thick paw. “I’ll be a son-of-a-gun. How you doing?”

          “Any better, they’d haveta shoot me with a rhinoceros dart,” Milo rumbled. “Hey, you ain’t been around the restaurant for months – you too busy chasin’ down the bad guys?”

          “Yeah, sorry about that. How’s your pop?”

          “Still drops down to the station house every day, gives the young guys hell,” Milo said. “You know, he asked about you the other day, how the ‘Whiz Kid of the Bronx Division’ was gettin’ along. I had to remind him neither me or you’re spring chickens any more.”

          “Ahhh,” Columbo dismissed. “I seen you on the tube just last night, runnin’ around and flirtin’ with that girl in the audience like you were 20 or something. And how many of those restaurants you got now.”

          “Thirty-five -- just opened one in Tokyo,” Milo grinned. “Hey, we ain’t taping for another four hours – visit for awhile.”

          “Geez, I’d love to, Milo, but I got this big murder case I’m in the middle of,” Columbo sighed. “Teri Racine? You know her?”

          Milo turned somber. “Nice gal. Little ditsy, kinda full of herself, but a nice enough gal. C’mon, we’ll talk about your case and I’ll fix you one of my international gourmet specialties.”

**

          “International gourmet specialty,” Columbo grinned euphorically as Milo set the steaming bowl of chili with beans, onions, and cheese before him. “I think you were pulling my leg.”

          “Hey,” Milo protested as crew members flowed around the pair’s table at center stage of the Milo Live set. “You think it’s easy to duplicate Barney’s famous Chili Con Carne Con Columbo?”

          The homicide detective peered into the rich rust-red concoction. “You didn’t put nothing strange in here, did you? No ostrich meat or truffles or cilantro or nothing?”

          “I even recreated the famous puddle of grease on top,” Milo said. “The American Heart Association’s gonna take my certification away.”

          Columbo happily dug in. “You know this Marla Sterling, do you?”

          “America’s Happy Homemaker? Oh, you bet. She ducks in a doorway every time I come down the hall. You’d think she hadn’t grown up in Flatbush.”

          “You’re kiddin’ me? She sounds all, I don’t know, all classy. Like somebody on a yacht or something.”

          “Aaah, don’t let her fool ya,” Milo laughed. “She’s just another New Yawk girl with a few electrocution lessons. She came out here in the ‘80s to go to school, and that’s where she and Teri got together. They started up a catering business, got pretty famous up north, I hear.”

          “That how Ms. Sterling got started on this homemaking thing?” Columbo asked through a mouth full of meat and beans.

          “Teri and Marla were tight since their early twenties, at Berkley,” Milo explained. “They were hotel/restaurant students together, and they started their our own catering service. Teri had the culinary touch, Marla the eye for color, panache, all that style crap. The San Francisco Chronicle did a big spread on ‘em, and they graduated from servin’ Nouveau Kosher at Bay Area bar mitzvahs and veal cordon bleu at political fundraisers to doing a city councilman’s daughter’s wedding and a governor’s reception.

          “That’s where I understand all hell broke loose between the two of ‘em. They were about ready to lay out a big spread for the governor and some Japanese VIPs, and Teri breaks it to Marla she wants out. Seems she met some beefcake at the councilman’s shindig, and the two of ‘em decided to go do Europe. Accordin’ to the legend, Marla tried to drown her in a tureen full a’ gazpacho. Good thing it wasn’t a hot soup, right?

“‘Course, with Teri outta the equation, all there was was gold parchment menus and radish rosettes and no coq au vin, which ain’t very fillin’. Marla went back to school, and Teri got left high and dry in Paris three months later when the boyfriend got busted with three kilos of Coke. Flash ahead 10 years. Marla’s managed to build up a pretty hoity decorating business in L.A., makin’ a name for herself, and Teri’s all cozy with some cable network program chief. They run into each other at some party or somethin’, and it’s all hugs and tears and forgiveness. OK, at this point, you gotta remember, there ain’t a half-dozen home improvement channels on the air. But Teri says, ‘Hey, I bet people’d wet themselves for good, cheap decoratin’ advice.’ Well, maybe, she didn’t say it that way, but you get the drift. Teri takes the idea to her squeeze, and he slots Marla in between his TV plumber and an Australian wombat hunter. Marla beats the crud outta both in the ratings, and baa-boom! – a legend is born.”

“Wow,” Columbo breathed, his spoon at parade rest.

“Don’t wow yet,” Milo cautioned. “They’re about six months into the show’s run, Marla the star, Teri the producer-manager. Marla’s got her first how-to book out, and Teri pressures the squeeze to up the ante. Unfortunately, when he don’t pop, she threatens to go to the wife – I forgot to mention the wife, didn’t I? Well, turns out the guy was on the verge of callin’ his divorce lawyer, anyway, an’ he tells Teri to take a flyin’ leap at a beignet.”

“Pardon?”

“Snooty doughnut,” Milo explained. “The guy bumps Marla to like two in the afternoon on Saturdays, and when the ratings start to sag cuts her loose. What he don’t know is one of the big communications-fast food-Internet combines is lookin’ to start their own network all about making foofy ceiling borders, driftwood conversation pieces, and theme-based Columbus Day parties, and they’ve had their eye on Marla for nearly three months. They get her cheap but not too cheap, she gets a bump up on the cable dial, and all’s forgiven with Teri. No harm, no foul.”

“Sounds like Ms. Racine maybe didn’t have the best judgment about her men friends,” Columbo commented, chasing the last surviving pinto bean around his bowl.

“You know the old sayin’, about where men do most a’ their thinkin’,” Milo rumbled quietly, mindful of network sexual harassment directives. “Well, Teri seemed to have a similar female ailment. But she is – was – a helluva marketer and promoter, and truth to tell, a large part a’ why Marla’s America’s No. 1 hoity-toit to the masses and pillowcase pitchwoman is ‘causa Teri. Hey, you don’t mind, why you askin’ about those two? You don’t think Marla whacked Teri, do you?”

Columbo set his spoon on Milo’s faux-marble studio table, wiped his mouth, and leaned forward. “Tell you the truth, Milo, only since before I met her.”

**

          “Hey, Artie,” Columbo called out, two fingers poised over his computer keyboard. The device was a recent addition to the lieutenant’s scarred desk – the homicide detective had resisted the move from a manual to an electronic typewriter in the mid-‘70s, and he’d surrendered to the forces of cyberspace only because Procurement finally refused to replace his broken Remington.

          Artie Brown, who’d been enjoying a Starbuck’s Grande Chai Latte Frappucino, sighed, and terminated his Lakers discussion with Sgt. Burke. Burke fled as the lieutenant turned. “Can I help you with?” Brown asked Columbo.

          “Sorry to bother you, Artie, but is moulding spelled with a ‘U’ or without one?”

          “Like in ‘ The body was molding?’”

          Columbo squinted over his bifocals. “Like in, ‘I detected plaster dust at the base of the moulding.’”

          “Why not keep it simple?” Brown suggested. “Just say you found the dust on the floor right next to the wall.”

          “Nah, I been thinkin’ lately my reports’ve lackin’, you know, that French word?”

          “Panache’?”

          “Naw, not that one. I thought maybe I’d dress ‘em up a little. Besides, it wasn’t the moulding on the floor where I found the dust – it was the moulding up on the kitchen counter.”

          Brown sipped his chai confection. “That’s a backsplash, Lieutenant, not a moulding. That’s what you call it.”

          Columbo scratched his chin. “Well,   I’ll be damned. You learn somethin’ every day, don’t you? Splashguard – that one or two words?”

          Brown again sighed. Burke leaned into the Homicide Division, saving him further educational effort. “Hey, Lieutenant? I think you just won something.”

          “I did?” Columbo stood up, spilling potato chip crumbs on his keyboard. “How’d I do that? I don’t even remember tryin’ to win anything.”

          “All I know is, you’re on TV,” Burke shrugged. “In the breakroom. You better hurry.”

          “I hope I won something I want,” Columbo mused as he scrambled out of his chair.

          As he entered the breakroom, he found Hunter, Becker, McNorris, and McCall in a ring around the ceiling-mounted Zenith, staring at Lt. Columbo and Mrs. Columbo. Columbo. The lieutenant recognized the photo from their recent vacation to Trinidad, the one that’d been interrupted by the impossible murder of a steel drum player.

          “What’d she do now?” Columbo murmured, rubbing his face.

          “As part of the Columbos’ Complete Life Makeover, they’ll learn how to prepare a complete five-course French dinner on Milo Makes It, get a yard manicure from The Green Thumb Gang, enjoy a state-of-the-art home music system installed by Soon ‘Hy’ Teck, and a Total Home Makeover by none other than the Maven of the Makeover, Marla Sterling…”

          “Well, I’ll be…” Columbo shook his head.

          “They’re gonna need a crew from EPA to do that makeover,” Hunter quipped with his trademarked crooked grin.

          “Great,” Becker complained. “Right when Peg’s about to drop a fortune on the kitchen. It couldn’t have been us.”

          “Knock it off, guys,” DeeDee McCall sighed. “That’s great, Lieutenant. Congratulations. Marla Sterling.”

          “Figure your place is decorated in Early American Firing Range, McCall,” McNorris scoffed, leaning on the coffee machine.

          “You’ll never find out.”

          “I can’t believe she did this,” Columbo mumbled.

**

          “I can’t believe you did this,” Felipe snarled, shaking the legal document in Tracee’s pert but furious face.

          “Believe it,” Tracee snapped back. “I stood by you when you slept with my sister and my mother, when you hired that hitman to kill Father, when you ordered the cave-in at that Congolese diamond mine, trapping those poor, innocent Congolese miners – including your half-brother! But this, this – you’ve gone too far. It’s just lucky the cops raided the Colombian white slave ring before they put me on that plane for Bogota’.”

          “They got white slave rings in Colombia?” Columbo whispered to the stagehand.

          “Shh,” the hand scolded. “I meant it before. One more question, and you’re out.”

          The lieutenant nodded and pantomimed locking his lips and discarding the key.

          Felipe grinned, his dark brows beetling satanically. “Go ahead, divorce me, you whore! I’ll have half of everything you own!”

          “Not according to that pre-nuptial agreement I had you sign on our honeymoon!”

          “That was the lease to the summer house!” Felipe gasped.

          Tracee cackled bitterly. Felipe glared at his soon-to-be former wife, nostrils flaring.

          “Annnnnndddd, CUT!” the director droned. “Take, ah, 15 – some guy wants to talk to you, Seth. And after that, get over to make-up and have ‘em trim, you know…” The director pointed vaguely to his own nose.

          “Hey,” Seth Carmichael, AKA “Felipe Mendoza,” exclaimed, eyes darting self-consciously around at the cast and crew of Sunset Heights.

          “Mr. Carmichael?” Columbo ventured behind the soap star’s elbow. Seth whirled, grabbing his chest.

          “Who the hell are you?” the actor demanded.

          “I’m Lt. Columbo, LAPD Homicide,” the cop offered cheerfully. “My wife just loves you. I mean she loves Felipe Mendoza, actually. Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn’t get one a’ those channel lock things for the TV, she loves you, ah, him so much.”

          Seth looked down incredulously. “You want a picture? Come on back to the dressing room.”

          “Hey, that’d be great,” Columbo enthused. “Could you sign it Felipe Mendoza? Cause, I mean, that’s who my wife is crazy about.”

          “Tell me about it,” Seth grunted, sidestepping a coaxial cable beyond the cabana set.

          “By the way, is that true? That they’re gonna kill you off?”

          Seth stopped. Columbo nearly collided with him. “How’d you know that? I mean, I’m not at liberty… Wait, are you some kind of undercover guy for Entertainment Tonight ?”

          “Oh, geez, no,” Columbo blushed. “The wife heard it last night on Leno. It was a joke or something.”

          “Some joke,” Seth darkened. “Fifteen years on this show, and cause I’m getting a little gray, they wanna have me whacked. Hell, we jumped 10 points in the ratings when the aliens brought me back last season.”

          “Yes, sir. Actually, Mr. Carmichael, I needed to ask you about Teri Racine?”

          “Teri? Racine?” he amended. “Isn’t that the lady got killed by some gangsta or something last night?”

          Columbo half-smiled and waggled a finger at the soon-to-be former leading man. “Now, Mr. Carmichael, I think you know who Teri Racine was. You’d been into Peri’s Jewelers at least five times for stuff for her in the last month. You even had a bracelet engraved for Ms. Racine two weeks ago.”

          Carmichael tugged Columbo toward his dressing room. “Jesus, Lieutenant. Not so loud. I’m still hoping maybe they’ll resuscitate me after the big earthquake. Oh, man, don’t tell anybody that – that’s supposed to be a secret.”

          “On my honor, sir,” Columbo pledged. “But you were dating Ms. Racine?”

          “Well, that’s one way of putting it,” Carmichael grinned with lascivious fondness. “We had some fun.”

          “A $15,000 ring is a lot of fun, sir.”

          The actor sighed. “Oh, all right, Detective.”

          “Lieutenant, sir.”

          “Yeah. We’re a couple of guys, right, Lieutenant?”

          “Yes, sir, I would suppose so.”

          “Well, here’s the thing,” Carmichael confided. “I liked Teri and all, and we had a great physical chemistry, but she was also looking into some business opportunities for me.”

          “Business opportunities, sir?”

          “Look, I’ve known for two months now they were gonna let me go here. I ran into Teri at one of Susan Lucci’s parties, and after a few dates, she suggested, well, that she might have an opportunity for a guy like me on her network. I thought, what, was she whacked? I can’t cook shit, and if my maid skipped me for two days running, the city’d probably condemn my condo. But what the hell, beggars can’t be choosers, you know, Lieutenant?”

          Columbo nodded sagely, just one of the guys. “So the ring and all that was just to kinda grease the wheels.”

          “Well, that’s kind of a cruddy way to put it, but yeah, I guess so. The bigger the bauble, maybe the bigger the business she throws my way. By the way, why’re you interested where I buy my jewelry?”

          “Because, sir, we found that $15,000 ring of yours at the scene of Ms. Racine’s murder.”

          Carmichael leaned back against the wall, face draining of color. “Christ. Hey, you don’t think I killed her, do you. ‘Cause I was at an electronics store opening last night in Mendocino, personal appearance thing with about   200 overheated witnesses, and I went home with a couple of twins. Call ‘em, go ahead. Besides, Lieutenant, Teri was the golden goose. Why would I kill her?”

          Columbo considered. “Why would anybody, sir?”

**

          “When women have worked so hard to get out of this sitcom mom-happy homemaker mold, don’t you feel like maybe you’re kind of setting us back a few centuries or something?”

          Marla’s smile flickered briefly – she knew this was coming the minute she’d entered the auditorium and surveyed the hostile student faces. This one was probably hardcore feminist studies, double the smug disdain of your average Gen-Nexters.

          “Well,” Marla began, looking straight down over the podium at the coveralled girl studded seemingly in every fleshy lobe of her face, “if the objective of the Feminist Movement of the ‘70s was to break through the glass ceiling and equalize gender-based economic power, then I’d point out in my defense that I am founder and chairman of a Fortune 500 company with fiscal 2003 net profits in the neighborhood of $375 million. Our CEO, Avery Timmons, is a woman, as are a number of our senior executives. I was Forbes’ Woman Businesswoman of the year in 2002, and I am the second-highest-paid woman in cable broadcasting, according to Newsweek.

          “My books and network and cable programs are directed at helping both men and women enjoy their leisure time and enjoyment of their lives, with an emphasis on domestic task-sharing between husband and wife. My company has contributed $2 million a year to community domestic abuse shelters and an equal amount to burgeoning women’s business ventures in the developing world. And I work tirelessly in my own way to debunk gender stereotypes and roles on an everyday basis. Does your question have a second part, Miss…?”

          Columbo chuckled from the wings as he watched the student, dazed, knuckles white on the arms of her auditorium seat, shake her head vigorously.

          “Well, then, thank you for having me.” The crowd appeared to be waiting, and Marla beamed. “Now, go and live.” The throng burst into enthusiastic applause as she delivered her catchphrase.

          “Why, Lieutenant,” Marla breathed, strolling up the auditorium aisle after signing a few programs and consulting with university representatives. “It was so gallant of you to come and walk me to my car, but I assure you I know Hokkaido and kick-boxing.”

          Columbo grinned broadly. “From the looks of that young lady after you got through with her just know, it might be better you protect me.”

          “Well, they crank them out by the dozen on university campuses – supremely self-confident in their vision of the world and of their womanhood, ready to slay old dragons like myself. Then they meet some young hunk with all his nose rings in the right place, and their resolve crumbles in seconds.”

          “Kinda like Ms. Racine, huh?”

          Marla stopped, her hand on the handle of the front auditorium door. “Pardon me?”

          Columbo held up his palms with a conciliatory gesture. “Well, I just meant that your friend seemed to have a sort of weakness for the opposite sex, sometimes maybe against her better judgment.”

          “That’s rather personal, don’t you think, Lieutenant?” Marla said briskly, letting a gust of warm air into the building. Columbo scrambled after her across the campus quad.

          “I didn’t mean to offend you or anything, ma’am,” he offered.

          “I’m not offended, Lieutenant,” she smiled, having won the point. “I was acutely aware of Teri’s shortcomings and how they occasionally interfered with her business sense. But there’s no sense in recriminations, now, is there, Lieutenant?”

          “No, ma’am,” Columbo nodded soberly, dodging a running boy with an armful of heavy texts. “No sense in that. Oh, hey, by the way, we solved the mystery of the plaster dust.”

          Marla turned. “The plaster dust?”

          “That little pile of plaster dust at the base of Ms. Racine’s splashguard. You know, the thing…”

          “I know what a splashguard is, Lieutenant. You have an explanation?” Marla’s heart quickened.

          “She hung a picture. Ms. Racine. There was something up on the wall right above where that dust was, and she took it down and hung a picture in its place. And she had to have done it almost right before she was killed.”

          “How can you know that?”

          “Well, we looked under the picture on Ms. Racine’s kitchen wall, and there were two patched holes. Spackled and touched up to match the paint on the wall almost perfectly. Ms. Racine, she musta picked up a few tips from you, huh? The lab guys, they ran a test on that spackle, and they could tell it was almost brand-new, that it couldn’t have been put in much before Ms. Racine was killed.

          “The problem is, we can’t see no sign of any cleanup. No empty or recently opened spackle containers, no recently used trowels or brushes. And we looked through all the trash – it hadn’t been taken out yet. But there it was – plaster dust by the splashguard. The maid had been in that day, and she assures me she’s verrry thorough.”

          “Of course she would,” Marla smiled in the twilight. “Why in the world is this significant, Lieutenant? So Teri did a patch job in her kitchen.”

          Columbo spread his hands. “Well, it’s just real strange, ma’am, is all. Everybody I talked to today agreed Ms. Racine was no homemaker or handywoman, and the picture she hung in the kitchen had been in her closet for years. Why, after a busy day at work, would she suddenly replace whatever was hanging on her kitchen wall? I’ve asked the maid, and she says she never really noticed what was on the walls, except to dust. And then there’s the timing, Ms. Sterling.”

          “Timing?”

          “Of Ms. Racine’s death. She had to have put that picture up within an hour or maybe minutes of when she was killed.”

          “Are you still going around about when she was murdered?” Marla sighed. “It certainly looked like she’d been murdered in the morning. Her clothes, the fresh coffee.”

          “Yesss, the coffee, ma’am. And I would agree with you, ma’am, that the coffee in the coffeepot was fresh. Fresh, fine-ground Kona coffee. That’s what it says on the bag of regular coffee in her pantry. But the coffee on the floor, funny thing is , it didn’t match what was in the pot.”

          Marla’s heart jumped as they entered the university parking garage. “Didn’t match?”

          “No, ma’am. Thing is, ma’am, when I was a young guy in the department, I just about lived on coffee. You about had to to get through the late night calls, the early morning homicides. I’d drink a whole pot in an evening, sometimes two I was pulling an extra shift for somebody. But the last 20 years or so, I’ve had to ease up a little. I drink a pot of coffee after about six now, I’m up half the night watchin’ infomercials or sometimes even the reruns of your show.

          “Problem is, I sure love my coffee – it’s like a habit, ma’am. My wife, she said to me a couple of years ago, ‘Why don’t you take a second Thermos of that decaffeinated coffee to the squadroom with you, to drink after six?’ And that’s what I started doin’, and now, I sleep like a baby.”

          “Lt. Columbo, ever the trendsetter. What is your point, if I may ask?”

          “The coffee on Ms. Racine’s floor,” Columbo summarized. “It was decaffeinated.”

          Marla’s hand stopped momentarily as she pointed her remote at her black Lexus. Then she beeped the car open. “Decaf? That’s very…curious.”

          “What it means is, if she was like me, bothered by caffeine at night, she probably fixed some decaf, maybe for whoever she meant to show that ring to. I talked to my captain this afternoon, and we’re pretty convinced Ms. Racine was killed that night, instead of in the morning. Whoever killed her musta made a pot of fresh coffee and made it look like she’d been to bed.”

          “Well, you’ve been very busy, Lieutenant,” Marla commended the cop, closing her door and rolling the window down. “And so have I, Lieutenant, so I’ll say good evening now. Keep up the good work.”

          Columbo leaned on the window frame. “Well, at least we’ve solved the mystery of the plaster dust. Now, if we can only solve the mystery of the murder weapon.”

          “I thought Teri was clubbed to death or something.”

          “Yeah, but the M.E. – this isn’t too graphic for you, is it, ma’am?”

          “I’ll try to hold off the vapors, Lieutenant.”

          “The M.E. says we’re looking for a very unusual weapon. Something with a long handle and a rounded head, very heavy to make the dent it did in Ms. Racine’s skull. Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am. Well, you have a good evening, Ms. Sterling. I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.”

          “Tomorrow afternoon?” Marla squeaked. “Lieutenant, I’m beginning to grow—“

          “For the meeting about you decorating my house. Didn’t they tell you my wife and I won your contest?”

          “No,” Marla said, silently cursing Blake. “They didn’t.”

**

          “Ms. Sterling,” Ted, or Tod, or Tim the night security guy greeted. Marla nodded politely with a cool smile – he might have thought something was up had she been uncharacteristically conversational. At the elevator bank, she slid her keycard into the slot beside the executive car.

          The suite was dark as she entered. One of Columbo’s uniformed minions had “sealed” Teri’s office after it had been searched, and Marla limbo-ed under the yellow tape.

          Where might she have hidden it? Probably a safety deposit box somewhere, in which case her ass was grass. But Teri could easily have concluded the SEC people would never have searched her files, such as they were. The allegations against Marla hadn’t touched Teri or the network, and America’s Goddess of Grout wondered how her air-headed friend had ever worked out the value of the memos and papers she claimed to have.

          A half hour’s digging through Teri’s double file cabinet failed to yield much beyond a sea of her famous undecipherable sticky notes, a few dozen glamour and gossip magazines, and a complete set of A.C. Nielsen reports for the past six months. Testament to Teri’s dual personality – the soul of a sorority girl melded with the survival sense of a Los Angeles trial lawyer.

          Marla surveyed the semi-darkened office for a potential hiding place. Then her decorator’s eye targeted a spot on the far wall. It was subtle, the framed photo angled less than three or four degrees off plumb, laying just a little wrong against the pastel wall. Columbo and his merry crew of beer-guzzling Neanderthals would never have spotted it – hell, they wouldn’t have known what to look for. Marla smiled and walked over the the photo.

It would be just like Teri to hide the papers inside the frame of the Golden Ladle picture – the symbol of her initial betrayal on the altar of smoldering, vapid manhood. The way she’d waved her latest conquest in front of Marla… She shuddered at the memory as she pulled the photo from its hook and worked the hardware that secured the frame’s composite board backing.

Marla sighed. Nothing but photo. Then she spotted the torn corner caught in the crevice between glass and frame. Pulling it free, Marla’s gut chilled as she identified her stationery pattern.

And she was flooded with light. Marla swirled, half expecting to see the omnipresent Lt. Columbo in the doorway.

“Columbo’d be real upset with you,” Blake mused, playing with the zipper of his motorcycle jacket. “This is a genu-wine crime scene. Ever tell you I almost went out with Marg Helgenberger back in the day?”

“Christ,” Marla hissed, flopping onto Teri’s permanently vacated Italian leather couch. “You scared the living shit out of me.”

“Your accent’s slipping, Babe,” the Texan advised. “Little Bronx showing through.” Blake reached around back and pulled a folded sheaf of papers from his jacket. “This what you were looking for, Marla? ‘Cause I found it in the strangest spot.”

“Those are mine,” Marla said, feeling instantly foolish. “What do you want, Blake? Because if I go away, so does this show and probably your career in cable.”

“Yow, that hurt,” he laughed laconically. “I don’t want nothing from you, Marla. You been good to me, and I’ve never had a nicer gig. But you know how this business is – fleeting fame and fortune. One minute, you’re an MTV VJ, the next you’re counting down the top five favorite ice cream flavors on the Food Network. So I just wanna make sure that if the bottom falls out tomorrow, I get a taste of the financial security you’ve built for yourself. Unreasonable?”

“I don’t suppose so,” Marla said congenially, picturing her assistant’s head on a china platter surrounded by arugula and capers. “But isn’t the knowledge enough? Why don’t you let me have those papers? The SEC guys can always track down more if you decide to rat me out.”

          “But see, this way, I got the papers should anything happen to me, you know?” Blake drawled. “Not that I think you’d try nothing like that. I mean, you really didn’t kill Teri over this, right? I think I got that part all worked out.”

          “As long as Columbo doesn’t, your little retirement plan stays intact,” Marla reminded him.

          “We best both be careful then,” Blake said, saluting his employer and disappearing back into the darkness beyond Teri’s door.

**

          “Oh, dear,” Marla whispered as she stepped into the Columbo living room. In the three days since Blake had uncovered her secret, she and her assistant had subtly switched roles as subordinate and superior, and she was happy to get out of the office, even if it meant wandering into the den of this dissheveled rain-coated lion. “I wonder if we could just settle with them for a few hundred thousand dollars.”

          “It’s not that bad,” said Trish, the young producer on the Life Makeover project. “A little Ralph Kramden meets Roseanne , but I’m sure you can work with it.”

          “It’s a little rough, I’ll admit it,” said Columbo, dressed jarringly in a pair of tan khakis and a rumpled polo shirt with the silhouette of some unidentifiable animal on its breast. “But it’s our little castle, Mrs. Columbo and me.”

          Marla turned on her full-wattage hostess smile. “And where is your lovely wife, Lieutenant?”

          Columbo pursed his lips and shook his head sadly. “I’m afraid her Aunt Lydia took ill, and Mrs. Columbo had to go to Fresno to take care of her.”

          “Nothing serious, I hope.”

          “Gout, ma’am,” Columbo informed her. “That Lydia can put away the capicola and beer, lemme tell you. So whattaya think, Ms. Sterling? I can hardly wait to hear what you want to do with this place.”

          “Plasticine,” Marla suggested. “A little joke, Lieutenant. Let me ask you a question just to set some boundaries. Are you married to that print over the couch?”

          The cop looked stricken. “Well, I suppose not. Only thing is, I had to do a lot of yard-saling to find that one – never could find the one where they’re playing poker – and, well, Dog, our dog, he’s kinda attached to it. Personally, I think he’s got a crush on that basset with the ping pong paddle, on the left there? I don’t really care for it, myself. But when Mrs. Columbo tried to put it in the garage, Dog went off his food for three days.”

          “Well, we can talk about it later.”

As Columbo headed off to see if the coffee was ready for the crew, Trish sidled up to Marla. “This guy’s great – a reality producer’s dream! And you say he’s actually a cop?”

“Gives you a warm feeling about public safety, doesn’t it?” Marla mumbled. “OK, why don’t we get going here? How about we begin with the intro?”

“Sure, lemme see if Chad’s ready to go.” Trish approached a burly man in a Cartman T-shirt who was wrestling with a battery pack.

“Ma’am?”

Marla jumped, and Columbo stepped back, coffee cup in hand. “Geez, Ms. Sterling. I didn’t mean to scare you or nothing? You want a cup of coffee. My wife says you always take it with cream and light sugar. She’s seen how you fix it on the show.”

“Mrs. Columbo would appear to be a very observant woman,” Marla said, regaining her composure. She accepted the cup and sipped, her left brow arching. “This is actually quite wonderful, Lieutenant. What blend is this?”

“Chock Full O’ Nuts, from the Safeway,” Columbo boasted. “I always put a little cinnamon, nutmeg, and black pepper in the filter when I make it. Gives it a little zing.”

“It certainly does,” Marla agreed. “You’re rather full of surprises, Lieutenant.”

Columbo smiled somewhat cryptically. “I hope so, ma’am. So, you got any idea where to start yet?”

“It’s certainly a challenge,” Marla said diplomatically. “Ah, Chad and Trish would appear to be all set. You ready to be immortalized on tape, Lieutenant?”

“Took a little shot of grappa before you got here to kinda calm my nervousness. If you’re ready, I am, ma’am.”

The pair took their marks in the center of the sunny Columbo living room, and after submitting to sound and light checks, Marla looked briefly into the camera.

          “The California Bungalow style was most popular between 1900 and 1920,” the Professor of Perfection began. “It was characterized by a simple, rectangular one-story floor plan, a prominent front porch, and a stucco exterior. With few material details, an offset entryway, and a projecting bay on the façade, the California bungalow was a model of simplicity – an antidote for the ornate and often ostentatious Victorian homes that preceded it. It perfectly embodies the California paradigm – cheerful, well-lit openness. For that reason, the bungalow is enjoying a major revival – bookstores and the Internet are doing a brisk business in California bungalow floor plans especially for younger couples seeking understated elegance in their personal life.

“The Columbo home is a nearly prototypical example of the classic California bungalow, and at first glance, the Columbos would appear to have made few modifications or additions to the basic structure. Lieutenant, when did you and your wife move into this home? What appealed to you about this particular house?”

As he had been coached, Columbo focused on focusing on Marla rather than the camera. “Well, I came out here with Mrs. Columbo in 1958 – I’d been a cop in New York, and one of my superiors, Detective Sgt. Gilhooley, had talked to the LAPD about getting me into the department here. Mrs. Columbo and I didn’t have much money or nothing’, but we got lucky and the guy that owned the house before us got transferred to Cleveland. I guess maybe that wasn’t so lucky for him, but he was in a hurry to get outta town, so we got the place real cheap. I guess I was just real happy to find a nice place we could afford – back then, well, a cop didn’t make too much, especially a rookie detective. I guess it was the cheapness that appealed to me most. Yeah, it was cheap, and we liked that. That was about it.”

Marla took a deep breath – she’d learned to do so without the camera catching it. “Well, Lieutenant, you certainly found the bargain of the century here, and you’ve taken wonderful care of it. However,” she said, turning to the camera, “There is room for improvement. The caramelized ochre of the living room tends to darken the relatively small space. Perhaps a peach or a bright citrus hue – highlighted with ivory mouldings -- will accent the essentially sunny California air of the room. And while the Columbos’ furnishings are quirkily eclectic, showcasing a wide variety of woods, plastics, metals, and time periods, the spatial flow of the room is, well, there simply is no flow. A more uniform style, arranged with space and flow in mind, would psychologically expand this room by at least a factor of two. I’m thinking Mission, with a rich oiled leather sofa/love seat/armchair ensemble. In this way, we capitalize on the simple retro lines of the bungalow style while creating a comforting personal space.”

“Ah,” Columbo began, his face lined with pain. Then he glanced at the camera, and put his hand to his mouth.

Marla signaled facially to Trish, and smiled. “Yes, Lieutenant. You had a thought?”

The cop looked nervously at the red light atop the camera lens. “Well, the leather couch and the love chair, those sound really great. I mean, I guess if I come home real sweaty some night, I can always lay down a beach towel or something. But this armchair--” Columbo caressed the back of a radioactive green naugahyde pseudo-Barcalounger accessorized with electrician’s tape and cigar burns – “well, I’ve had it for, gee, about 30 years, and it’s just breakin’ in good. Plus, I had to go to every hardware store in town to find the right color tape.”

          “Excuse me, Lieutenant,” Marla looked to Trish.

          “There was a pretty good pause before he started talking,” the producer said. “I think we can clip it after the ‘simple retro lines’ thing.”

          “You need me to repeat something?” Columbo asked.

**

          By the union-enforced noon lunch break, Marla was ready for a pitcher of margaritas and a handful of Valiums. Columbo had reacted with mounting panic to the proposed replacement of his white high-gloss cabinets with ergonomically efficient faux-‘40s pine pantries and cases; the removal of the back bedroom wall in favor of sliding patio walls; and the installation of a kitchen skylight. The threat to his recliner continued to weigh heavily on the policeman.

          “How are you enjoying your crab cakes, Lieutenant?” Marla inquired, depositing her own plate on the backyard picnic table. One of L.A.’s finest seafood bistros had been commissioned to cater the Columbo home makeover.

          “Oh, they’re great, ma’am, very tasty,” he grinned, chopping one in half and swabbing it through a thick, sweet concoction. “What’d you say this sauce was, Ms. Sterling?”         

          “It’s a kiwi chutney, Lieutenant – a sort of variation on a favorite British condiment.”

          “Well, it’s very nice – kinda like mincemeat pie without the crust,” Columbo said, masticating the fried crab patty.

          ‘Yes, sort of, I suppose,” Marla said dryly. “By the way, how are you coming with your little mystery? The Episode of the Mismatched Coffee and the Rehung Picture?”

          Columbo sipped his peach ginseng tea. “Well, I’d say I’m almost positive Ms. Racine was murdered the evening before the body was found. The fabric pattern in the blood on her body – like somebody changed her into her robe. The decaf on the floor and the real coffee in the pot. The coffeemaker timer on, the timer on the bedroom clock set two hours later. And, as you yourself pointed out, ma’am, that rehung picture. Did I tell you what was strange about those patched holes we found under that picture?”

          “I don’t believe you did, Lieutenant.” Marla glanced back into the house, where Trish and the crew were dishing up their lunch.

          “Well, first of all, like I said the other night, the way those holes were patched, that was an expert job. Now, Ms. Racine’s housekeeper, she tells me your friend wasn’t real handy – frankly, she said Ms. Racine couldn’t hammer a nail. So how’d she do such an expert job of patching? And why didn’t we find any sign of whatever she took off the wall? There weren’t any paintings or plaques or anything that mighta been on that wall – not in any of the closets, not in her garage, not in the garbage. I gotta be honest with you, Ms. Sterling – I think the killer, for whatever reason, took something off Ms. Racine’s wall and put that picture up in its place. Now, why would she do that?”

          “She?” Marla asked, calmly applying a layer of chutney to her entrée. “You continue to believe a woman did this.”

          “Well, there was the jewelry under the napkin, ma’am,” Columbo said.

          “But the violence, Lieutenant. Do you seriously believe some delicate woman could inflict that kind of damage?”

          Columbo smiled and waggled his fork at Marla. “I think you’re playin’ with me, ma’am. I been doing this for a lotta years, and I’ve seen men, women, even kids do amazing things, things that would make your skin crawl. Especially when they’re mad, when they’ve been cheated on or jilted. Or betrayed.”

          “But I thought you said ‘she.’ It sounded almost as if you were describing Teri’s hunky half-wit ham.”

          “Mr. Carmichael, ma’am?” Columbo asked. “Oh, no, ma’am – Mr. Carmichael has an absolutely airtight alibi for the night of the murder. No, I think Ms. Racine got somebody else mad. I think she did something that sent the killer into a murderous rage.”

          “And just what might that be, Lieutenant?” Marla challenged, smiling. Columbo smiled back, eyes locked onto hers’. Finally, she picked up her plate. “Let me know when you’re finished.”

          “Oh,” the detective murmured, “I’m not nearly finished yet, ma’am.”

**

The audience leapt to its collective feet as a wall of brass erupted. A pair of studio doors flew open, and Milo LaFontaine strode in, fists in the air, to the accompaniment of jazz fusion and cheering yuppies. His fresh chef’s tunic gleamed as he grabbed extended hands and slapped shoulders on his way to the fashionable kitchen-stage. The applause subsided as he settled in behind the range.

“Hey, you guys hungry?” the fireplug gourmet demanded. The crowd howled. “Well, tonight, we’re gonna whomp up a mess of chili.” More wild applause; he could have offered up the contents of a septic tank, and the audience would have shown the same enthusiasm.

“Now, according to an old Southwestern American Indian legend  -- the legend was old, not the Indian -- the first recipe for chili con carne was created by a beautiful nun named Sister Mary of Agreda of Spain. The Indians called her ‘La Dama de Azul,’ or the lady in blue. Accordin’ to this legend, Sister Mary would go into trances for days, and when she woke up, she said her spirit had been to a faraway land where she preached Christianity. Now, sposedly, Sister Mary never left Spain, yet Spanish missionaries and King Philip IV of Spain believed that she this lady in blue. After one of her trances, Sister Mary wrote down a recipe for chili made with venison, onions, tomatoes, and chile peppers.   Now, where I went to school, the nuns weren’t all that beautiful, they never fell asleep in class, and the hottest thing they ever cooked up was your hindquarters if you talked back.”

The studio erupted with laughter, and Milo shrugged self-effacingly. “OK, enough a’ that. I want you to meet my special guest tonight, and this is one special guy, all right. Lt. Columbo’s been with the L.A. Police Department for about 45 years, and he’s solved more murders than any other cop in this city’s history. Plus, Lt. Columbo is an old family acquaintance – he and my pop used to walk a beat together in New York, and he was a regular guest in our home. I want you to give it up for my old pal, winner of the Gourmet/Fine Living Channel’s Life Makwover, Columbo.”

Columbo, perched on a high stool at Milo’s serving counter, grinned and waved self-consciously as the audience hooted him as if he were marrying Jennifer Aniston.

“In honor of my paisan, I’m gonna fix several variations on his favorite dish. I’m gonna start with one of the more unusual versions, Cincinnati chili, which has a very unique flavor causa the cloves and other spices they use in it. Then I’m gonna put together a white chili – yeah, you heard me, white chili. And for those a’ you who don’t like the carne in their con carne, we’re gonna make a batch of vegetarian chili. And finally, I’m gonna get out the beef and the beans and the garlic and dish up some good old-fashioned firehouse chili. You got anything to add, Columbo?” the chef asked his guest.

          Columbo smiled mischievously. “You gonna stop yappin’ and make me some chili?”

          The audience erupted in glee at Columbo’s unexpected barb. Milo grabbed a spatula and brandished it at Columbo with a menacing look. Then he broke out in a broad grin.

          “You heard him! Stick around, ‘cause I’m gonna take this puppy to A WHOLE ‘NOTHER LEVEL!!”

          The crowd shrieked at Milo’s famous catchphrase, and ‘Prof’ Peters and the Milo LaFountaine Orchestra broke into a bouncy bumper tune. Columbo, suddenly silent, heard none of it.

          “And clear!” the director’s voice droned over the studio speakers.

          Milo saluted the audience, then turned to his friend at the counter. “Hey, buddy, they loved you. Hey, Columbo? Columbo?”

          Columbo blinked and looked up. “What?”

          “You just went into a trance like that nun with the chili. What’s up?”

          The policeman smiled. “I think maybe you just solved the case.”

          “No shit. Teri’s murder? Was it Marla did it?”

          “It was Ms. Sterling, all right.” Columbo frowned. “I just gotta prove it quick, Milo, before that woman wrecks my house.”

**

          “A source within the Securities Exchange Commission last night suggested home entertaining maven Marla Sterling soon could be called before a federal grand jury on charges of insider trader. Sterling’s attorney deemed the SEC’s focus on the network and cable television personality a ‘high profile witch hunt’ aimed at scapegoating Sterling…”

          Witch hunt – nice going, Arnie, Marla thought, turning onto Wilshire. The imagery of broomsticks and cauldrons had followed her ever since her first TV appearance. She’d initially tried to add some warmth to her screen persona, but it fit like Mr. Rogers’ sweater on O.J.

          “In an odd related development,” the radio announcer continued. “Megalomart Inc. this morning issued a product recall for the Sterling Yardfountain Sprinkler after an Akron, Ohio, man reportedly was seriously injured by a loose fitting while irrigating his lawn.”

          “Jesus,” Marla moaned, neglecting the red light above her. Her cell phone warbled. “Sterling,” she snapped into her mouthpiece.

          “ Times just called for a comment,” Blake informed her.

          “About the SEC or the sprinklers?”

          “Sprinklers?”

          “Forget it. Find Becker and tell him to get his firm on a countersuit against Megalomart. And get him down to the Federal Building – I want to know what the SEC’s up to.”

          “Got it. By the way, you know a Seth Carmichael?”

          Marla foot slipped from the brake, and she swerved before striking a mauve Jaguar in the other lane. “What about him?”

          “His agent called about five minutes ago to get the Columbos’ address. What’s the dea—"

                Marla disconnected and pumped the gas.

**

          “Ma’am?” Columbo asked solicitously as Marla shoved into the living room, holding two neckties aloft. “Which of these two ties should I wear today – the sienna or the regular brown? Ms. Sterling? You all right?”

          “Marla!” The handsome not-so-young man leapt from Columbo’s venerable armchair. “I am so grateful for this opportunity. I just know we’re going to rock! We’ll be the Regis and Kathie Lee, er, Kelly Ripa of Home Décor!”

          Marla stared at Seth Carmichael as if he were a viral organism. “What. Is. This?”

          Seth blinked. “My agent said the network gave me the green light and told me to get over here. Now, am I gonna have to hammer or anything, ‘cause I’m not really manually skilled, you know?”

          “Trish,” Marla barked, glacially. The producer appeared at her elbow. “What the hell is going on here?”

          “Programming e-mailed this morning,” Trish began cautiously. “I thought Ms. Racine had discussed this with you…”

          Seth threw an arm around Marla’s shoulder. “I just wish Teri was around to see this. She was some special lady, right, Marla?”

          “What is this?” Marla breathed, squirming free. “This is insane – Teri said she hadn’t--” The Goddess of Greenery stopped and swirled on Columbo.

          “Teri said she hadn’t what, ma’am?” the lieutenant asked calmly.

          “You,” Marla growled, glaring at the policeman. “You engineered this little farce, didn’t you, Columbo?”

          “What farce, ma’am?” Columbo asked, dropping onto the arm of his recliner. “What did Ms. Racine say?”

          Marla peered at the lieutenant. “Take five. Take 15. Make it 60, actually.”

          “Lieutenant?” Carmichael queried.

          “You can go, Mr. Carminchael,” Columbo nodded, eyes locked with Marla’s. “Terrific performance, sir.”

          “Tell it to the network,” the actor lamented, swaggering toward the front door. The crew shuffled after him, Trish turning to address Marla and then thought better of it and retreated with the pack.

          “All right,” Marla  said. “Why don’t we clear the air here so we can finish this makeover from hell? From the moment we met at Teri’s house, I’ve felt you’ve entertained the preposterous notion that I killed her.”

          “I know you killed her,” Columbo said, matter-of-factly. “And you just proved my theory about why you did it.”

          “And what led you to this absurd conclusion, Lieutenant?” Marla demanded. “Your ludicrous theory about Teri supplanting me with this over-UV’ed boy-toy?”

          “It was the note, ma’am – the one in Ms. Racine’s jacket?”

          “Teri was always jotting down those little cryptic notes. I’m afraid you’ll have to be specific.”

          Columbo nodded and brought a handful of rainbow sticky noted from his raincoat pocket. He dropped them on a scarred end table and began spreading them out. “You’re right, ma’am – we found notes like this all over her home and office. But this one stands out, don’t you think?”

          The policeman tapped a wrinkled note with a single word on it. Marla knew which one it was, but she peered at it nonetheless.

          “Yes, the salmon.”

          Columbo smiled. “No, I don’t think so, ma’am. See, I checked with your production crew, and your program schedule had been filled for the next three weeks. Nothing about salmon or Seattle or anything like that. Plus, and Mrs. Columbo told me this – I told you she was a big fan – you have a horrible allergy to fish, even to touching them. Do you realize haven’t fixed a fish dish on either of your shows for more than a year, since you had that one episode on the air?”

          “Everyone must adapt, Columbo. The coho salmon was a last minute idea, and besides, I’m going to have my guest prepare it.”

          “A guest your assistant booked after you told me about the salmon? That just doesn’t make sense, Ms. Sterling. So, if Ms. Racine’s message wasn’t about coho salmon, then what did it mean, and why didn’t you or your assistant want me to know?

          Columbo clapped his hands together. “There was only one word I could come up with that starts with ‘coho’ that makes sense. Cohost. Ms. Racine wrote – or should I say, started to write – a note to herself about a cohost. And given that she worked exclusively with you and your show, she could only be thinking about a cohost for you, for your show. But that’s an awful big thing to have to write yourself a note to remember. I’m guessing this note was for somebody else.

          “I checked around the network, and I found out Ms. Racine wore the jacket this note came out of three days before her murder. That was the day you and her went to a meeting of the network program executives. Now, when all these other notes are smooth, unwrinkled, unfolded – well, at least before I put them in my pocket, ma’am – why’s this one all wrinkled? Maybe because before she could finish writing it, she crumpled it up and shoved it in her pocket. So you wouldn’t see it.  She was a pretty sharp businesswoman, Ms. Racine – you said so yourself. I think she wanted those network guys to hire a cohost for you, but she wanted the idea to come from somebody else, one of the others. But maybe you looked her way while she was getting ready to pass her note, and she shoved it in her pocket.

          Columbo sobered. “And I think we both know who that cohost was supposed to be – you just proved it. Ms. Racine had been seeing Seth Carmichael, and like everybody who knows her has told me, she had a weakness for the opposite sex. Ms. Racine knew her boyfriend was about to lose his job on that soap opera, and with you getting all that bad publicity about the stocks and all, she figured she could convince the network to hire a backup for you – somebody the public knows, a handsome fella women would watch. That’s what the jewelry on the table was about – she was gonna brag about the gift Mr. Carmichael gave her in the same breath she was gonna tell you Mr. Carmichael was gonna be your new partner. Only, you killed her before she showed you the ring. That must’ve been a real shock for you, ma’am, to find out your friend was about to betray you again for a man.”

          Marla stared at the lieutenant, and then began to clap lightly. “Excellent. Seth must have coached you with a few of those melodramatic plot twists he manages to mangle every day. You’re forgetting, Columbo, that I have controlling interest in my production, and the way my contract is structured, I could shop it out to one of a half-dozen hungry networks. I would throw Teri into the street before I’d let her bring that big hunk of braised beef into our studio.”

          “Unless,” Columbo said, “unless Ms. Racine knew something that would force you to go along with a cohost. Like maybe proof – legal proof – that you knew a lot more about that insider trading thing than you’ve told the SEC or the reporters. Blackmail -- maybe that’s what pushed you over the edge. Right now, Sgt. Kramer – you met him at the murder scene – is talking to your assistant, Blake Yarbro. Sgt. Kramer can be very persuasive, and it may be interesting to see what he has to say now that the stakes have been raised to murder.”

          Marla nodded, and lowered herself onto the arm of the Columbo couch. “You know, there’s no way you could have concocted this fantasy so quickly, and yet, I can’t shake the feeling I became your chief suspect the moment I walked into Teri’s foyer.”

          “Matter of fact, I suspected you before we ever even met,” Columbo said.

**

          “Never can work these things right,” the lieutenant murmured. “My wife, Mrs. Columbo, I have to get her to tape for me when they have one of my favorite movies on cable, or Celebrity Jeopardy or something else on. Oh, sorry, ma’am. No, Ms. Sterling, it wasn’t your motive that tipped me off. That didn’t occur to me until much later.”

He turned the videotape around, examining the sprocketed wheels on its undercarriage. Columbo then righted it and inserted it into the machine atop his ‘80s model Zenith with a gratified sigh. “Actually, ma’am,” Columbo murmured, fiddling with the VCR buttons, “what got me thinking about you for the murder was your outfit.”

          “My--?” Marla’s befuddlement was interrupted by a sudden explosion of brass and strings from her house band. As the show’s jazz fusion theme squealed to a conclusion, Marla strode loose-limbed from stage right, smiling and waving with aristocratic humility. A tastefully frenzied whoop went up from Marla’s assembled cult of tucked and aerobicized doctors’ and directors’ wives, plump vacationing housefraus, emphatically non-hetero Marla-worshippers, and the squirming spouses of the aforementioned housefraus, who likely had been promised lots of red meat and courtside seats in exchange for their indulgence.

“And riiiiiight heeeeere….” Columbo mumbled, punching the Pause button. Onscreen Marla froze, her derriere poised halfway over her trademark watered-silk wing chair. The detective turned to the Maven of Makeovers, who stared uncomprehendingly at the screen. “That’s a lovely outfit, ma’am. The one you were wearing the morning after your friend was murdered, that is. I mean, I’m certainly no fashion expert, I’ll be the first one to admit. When I’m in the men’s department at K-Mart, I usually have to ask…”

          “Columbo.” Off-screen Marla held up an impeccably manicured hand. “Before I cross forever into some heretofore-unknown region of insanity, would you please come to your central point?”

          The lieutenant grinned. “Jeez, I really do love the way you talk, Ms. Sterling.”

          “Your point, Sling Blade?”

          He nodded, and tapped the TV screen. “It’s just this, ma’am. Creative people – writers, painters, my wife, folks like you – get their ideas, their inspiration, if you like, from the craziest places. And sometimes, it’s like they don’t even realize it. It’s kinda like that for me, too, even though I’m definitely not any kind of artist. I see something little, something trivial, and it just sticks in my mind until I see a crime scene, a situation that doesn’t quite, and bang, that fact, that little something pops right up to the top of my brain. It’s kinda -- what’s the word I’m looking for – kinda self-conscious.”

          “Subconscious, Lieutenant. Subconscious.”

          “Yeah, that’s right. Subconscious. Well, that’s what tripped you up, Ms. Sterling. You wanna tell me what you see there on that tape?”

          Marla sighed and peered at the screen, then glanced up dispassionately. “Why don’t you share your perceptions with me, Lieutenant?”

          Columbo’s face grew serious, and he stared right into her hazel eyes. “I see murder, ma’am.” The policeman’s hand slid into his raincoat pocket and emerged with a Polaroid. He proffered the photo to the Doyenne of Décor, who frowned and finally accepted it. A second later, she gasped and thrust the Polaroid back at the lieutenant.

          “What?” she snapped. “Are you merely trying to shock me now? Your frustration at being unable to solve this case giving way to sadism?”

          Columbo’s expression remained unchanged. “No, ma’am; not at all. I’d just like you to indulge me. What do you see in this photo and on the TV screen there?”

          Marla reluctantly accepted the crime scene snap. Teri’s body already had been removed when the picture was taken, but it was a graphic image nonetheless. The former producer’s blood covered the oak dinette top, mingling with the coffee au lait and cream that had spilled during Marla’s frenzied assault. A puddle of mingled scarlet, mocha, and cream had accumulated on the terra cotta tile beneath.

          Marla’s expertly frosted locks bobbed as her head jerked up. Off-screen Marla stared, heart pounding, at Onscreen Marla, poised above her chair. Exquisitely turned out, emanating grace and hospitality. The crisp scarlet blazer, the rich cream silk blouse, the mocha linen slacks…

          “You gotta admit,” Columbo murmured appreciatively, “it’s certainly a striking color combination. It must’ve stuck in your head, subconsciously, while you were cleaning up the murder scene. It’s a very eye-catching ensemble.”

          “A killer outfit, you might say,” Marla mumbled.

**

          “At the same time,” she added a beat later, as Columbo turned off the TV, “I suspect my attorneys could make fairly quick work of your ‘evidence.’ Coincidental color coordination is scarcely in the same class as DNA screening or fingerprint analysis.”

          Lt. Columbo blinked as he straightened. “Oh, I dunno, ma’am. Judge Schielein downtown, he thought it was pretty compelling evidence. That and the other inconsistencies in the case, that is. Like Ms. Racine's bed -- the way it was all smushed in and rumpled in just the right places. The places where the shoulders, the hips, the, uh, the other parts were pressed into the mattress, well, you'll pardon me for saying, ma'am, but you and Ms. Racine have very similar body types. You must work out. And if she didn't sleep in her bed the night before her body was found, well, you see where I'm going, don't you? It was enough to get the judge to listen to my request for a search warrant for your home, your safety deposit box, and your office.”

          The Queen of Cleaning flared. “Based solely on this ridiculous theory of yours?”

          “He didn’t think it was so ridiculous, ma’am. Of course, it didn’t hurt that he’s taken a beating with his Enron and Sterling Limited stock. He’s got a very tough attitude toward white collar crime, Judge Schielein does.”

          “This…is…despicable,” Marla choked.

          Columbo held up a hand. “Just a minute, ma’am. I think I heard somebody I know outside.” His hand remained aloft as he rushed to the front door and peered out the porthole. “Yeah, that’s him, all right.”

          As Marla floundered for her next move, the lieutenant admitted a young police officer. The patrolman, armed with a large paper bag, glanced around the room.

          “Ah, nice place, Lieutenant,” he offered.

          “ Geez, thanks,” Columbo beamed. “Officer Nakazawa, this is Marla Sterling.”

          Nakazawa removed his cap and offered a hand. “Wow, my wife, Teresa, loves your show. Oh, and, hey, I think we got one of those sprinklers you sell at the Megalomart…”

          “Thanks a lot for bringin’ this by, Ray,” Columbo interrupted diplomatically. He leaned in toward the cop, as if this strategy would somehow impair Marla’s ability to hear their conversation. “The guys have any trouble?”

          “Once they knew what they were looking for, not a big thing,” Nakazawa whispered back, going along with his superior’s ineffectual attempt at confidentiality. “Anything else, Lieutenant?”

          Columbo clasped his hands and looked at a water stain on the ceiling. “Nah, guess not. Thanks again, Ray, and you say hi to your beautiful wife for me, OK?”

          “Sure thing, Lieutenant.” The patrolman disappeared back into the L.A. sun, and Columbo closed the door.

          “She really is a beautiful girl, that Teresa,” he told a nonplussed Marla Sterling. “Puts me in mind of a young Natalie Wood, you know her? Ms. Wood, I mean, not Teresa…”

          “Columbo,” Marla said through her teeth, “I believe you were about to mount my case for a massive civil rights suit?”

          A flash of concern crossed Columbo’s lined features. “Ma’am, I really think I had probable cause. I really am pretty sure about that.”

          “Save it for my lawyers,” she snapped. “What’s in that bag? My silverware?”

          “Oh, no, ma’am,” Columbo murmured, peering inside the sack. His arm disappeared, emerging a second later with a large Ziploc evidence bag. “Ah, yeah; here we gooo. You recognize this, Ms. Sterling?”

          America ’s Home Creator stared in icy fury at the lieutenant as she regarded the contents of the plastic bag. “You will be the most chronically unemployable man in America by the time my attorneys pick over your bones. Your décor will be corrugated cardboard.”

          Columbo nodded. “She kept it, didn’t she? Ms. Racine? That must’ve been pretty tough for you. You two, on the verge of all that fame and fortune, and Ms. Racine leaves you in the lurch for a man she barely knows. And on top of it, she takes the award you two had earned together.”

          Marla laughed harshly. “Together. Teri had a rudimentary skill for food preparation. I refined it, added a sense of flair and style. You can serve a can of Spam and some barbecued beans, and with the right presentation, it’s haute cuisine. Serve pate foie gras on a Saltine, and it’s chopped liver. But when Teri begged to keep that gaudy thing, I gave in. The irony is, it wasn’t out of friendship or generosity – it simply didn’t fit my décor.”

          “It was hanging on her kitchen wall, wasn’t it?” the lieutenant asked. “It’s about right – the M.E. said we were looking for some kind of club, something with a good long handle and a heavy head. Gold is one of the heaviest metals around, and if you took a good swing with something like this, I bet it wouldn’t take much strength to do some damage. Ms. Racine broke it to you she was bringing in a cohost, and worse, it was her new boyfriend. You must’ve been very angry, ma’am, and you grabbed the closest thing available.” Columbo swung the object in the bag by its handle. “That’s why you hung that picture to disguise the fact something had come off that wall.”

          “Sorry to disappoint you, Columbo, but Teri gave me that trophy after her divorce, as a gesture of reconciliation,” Marla said smoothly.

          “Thing is, gold’s also one of the softest metals, too. You can see how this has gotten kind of pitted over the years. I’m betting if we took your trophy to the lab downtown, we’d find enough blood and DNA in these crevices to link it to Ms. Racine. You should’ve gotten rid of the murder weapon, ma’am, even though I do understand why you couldn’t bring yourself to do that.” Columbo smiled sadly. “But even if you’ve done a good job of cleaning it up, I can prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that your trophy was hanging in Teri Racine’s kitchen before her murder.

“You already know about Ms. Racine’s little habit of stuffing notes to herself in her pockets, in her purse,” the policeman drawled, scrounging through his own raincoat pockets. “Well, you remember this one?”

Marla glanced at the pink sticky note. “HOw Ins – Pix. I’m sorry, Columbo…”

“I know – I was lost, too. Until I got home night before last.My wife – Mrs. Columbo? – told me my insurance guy had called, wanted to see if we wanted to expand our homeowner’s insurance.” Columbo waved an arm at his humble abode. “You can see we got a lot of valuable stuff here, so I said, sure. Sorry, ma’am. The point is, couple of years ago, my insurance guy suggested I take Polaroids of every room in the house, said it would make it easier to ‘inventory’ our stuff if we got robbed or something. Well, I can’t take a picture to save my life, so we had a nephew of mine – he works in the photo department at Sears – come in and shoot everything. Great pictures, almost hated to give ‘em to my insurance guy. The kid has a real eye for composition.

“Anyway, my insurance guy tells me a lot of people do that these days, ‘ specially since so many folks have digital cameras. That got me thinking: I’d been wondering why Ms. Racine capitalized the H and the O in HOw. Maybe she meant to remind herself to send some pictures to her insurance guy, for her homeowner’s insurance.”

“Agent, Columbo,” Marla sighed.

“Her agent, yes, ma’am. Well, me and the boys looked all over her house and her office for photos of her house, but we couldn’t find anything. Then, Sgt. McCall – she’s a real high-tech kinda gal – says, ‘Maybe she took digital photos.’ And I ask what are digital photos, ‘cause I can just barely manage an automatic typewriter, and the next thing you know, Sgt. McCall’s just tearing through Ms. Racine’s automatic drive.”

“Hard drive.”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. And the sergeant finds a whole file folder full of pictures. Turns out Ms. Racine’s camera has one of those time stamp things, so you can tell when a picture’s been taken, and she’d taken those pictures the night before she was murdered. You wanna see one, ma’am?”

Marla felt a cold draft move through the room. “Thank you, no. The fact remains, my lawyers will get this whole thing thrown out of court once your judge’s corporate biases and your laughable ‘evidence’ come out in the press. Try to explain to Entertainment Tonight how a sticky note and my blood-red jacket was enough to warrant your men pawing through my utensil rack.”

Columbo suddenly smiled. “That was a brilliant touch, ma’am. Like that Edgar Allan Poe story, where the guy put the secret envelope with the other mail? Nobody thought to look for a letter in the middle of a stack of letters. And nobody would think to look for a gold ladle on a rack full of ladles and cooking tools. The problem is, ma’am, if you’re friend had given you that ladle years ago, why was it on her wall the day of the murder? And why hide it in your kitchen? Why not display it in the open? You obviously were very proud of it. I’m afraid, ma’am, that your pride was your downfall. Just a moment, Ms. Sterling, if you don’t mind. I gotta make a call.”

As Columbo retreated to the phone and punched in a series of numbers, Marla noticed he’d left her bagged trophy on his new chromium end table. She picked it up, knowing it would probably be the last time she saw it, and sought out the inscription on its handle.

America ’s Duchess of Design caught a breath as she listened to the lieutenant.

“Yeah,” the detective said briskly, glancing at Marla frozen to her spot. “The big rack in her kitchen, where she keeps all her cooking tools, you know. I think Judge Schielein oughtta issue the warrant now. Uh huh. Yeah. OK, I’ll be here. Thanks, Sergeant.”

Columbo turned to the stricken woman. “That was Sgt. Kramer. He’s gonna go get a search warrant from Judge Schielein and take a couple of the guys over to your house. I’m gonna read you your rights, now, then you can call your lawyer if you want.”

“You tricked me,” Marla murmured, recovering quickly and waving the ladle. “This is entrapment. ‘San Francisco Golden Ladle Award 1989 – Jimmy Chiung, Mandarin Kitchen.’ This is not my trophy, Columbo.”

Columbo’s eyes widened. “Your trophy? Oh, no, ma’am; I certainly wouldn’t mislead you. I just brought this along to demonstrate how you killed Ms. Racine. I had a heck of a time getting Mr. Chiung to part with it, even for a couple of days…”

“But the judge – you said he issued your warrant.”

“No, ma’am,” Columbo said, and Marla thought she saw something shrewd and glinting pass through his eyes. “I said he thought the case I’d built against you was compelling. Just not from a legal standpoint. I said Judge Schielein listened to my request for a warrant. But he wouldn’t let me have one. He told me I needed something solid before he’d issue a warrant – something like your confession about the whereabouts of the murder weapon. Which you just gave me.”

Marla rallied haughtily. “You expect anybody to believe your word about this shoddy little sham?”

“No, ma’am; probably not.” The lieutenant then moved to her crew’s abandoned camera, where his alternate tie was draped. “I better not leave this lying around. My wife would kill me.”

Columbo swept the tie from the camera with the style of a Copperfield, and Marla saw the glaring red light hidden beneath it. She leaned back on the arm of Columbo’s battered armchair.

“I guess your friends musta left awful quickly,” the cop said, reaching around and turning the camera off.

Six months later

          Jean Taulby ignored Camera 2 as she frowned significantly at Marla Sterling. Marla smiled serenely.

          “A story of friendship gone wrong, of loyalty and a life lost,” Taulby concluded dramatically. “Any regrets, any final thoughts, Marla?”

          Marla looked momentarily at the drab prison ceiling, biting her lower lip in a gesture her agent and her attorney had advised would lend her an air of vulnerability. Then she looked at the walls, studied the floor, and examined the chair in which the network newswoman sat.

          “Yes,” Marla nodded, contemplatively. “This dump really needs some work.”