by William Link
“I guess not. I just do my job as I see it.”
She wasn’t satisfied, obviously getting annoyed with his lackadaisical manner. “You don’t believe he actually confessed to me?”
Columbo began opening the buttons on his raincoat. “Oh, I believe that’s a strong possibility. Although I think you’re a pretty devious person. I mean, you told me yourself how you manipulated him into confessing.”
“So why aren’t you out of here questioning the hell out of him?”
Columbo clasped the fingers of both hands around his raised knee. “Because it’s not that easy. He might have confessed to you, and he might not have, but why would he confess to me? This is what we call a ‘he said, she said’ situation. I guess you don’t have anything on tape, do you? Or anyone to corroborate it?”
“You think I carry a mini-recorder around in my handbag just in case somebody might confess to me?”
Columbo smiled. “Silly question. I’m sorry. Although you did engineer the tryst, you might also have thought to have a recorder with you.”
Her laugh was this side of sarcastic. “And another thing, lieutenant. Do you make love to your wife with other people standing around to corroborate it?”
Got him. She saw a faint flush rising from his neck to the roots of his hair. She knew instantly that she had caught him off balance and she delighted in the moment.
“Oh, no, no, no way! Sorry again. But I had to check because you never know in certain situations.”
Now she laughed just a laugh. “So you’re not going to question him? Is that it?”
“Oh, I’ll question him all right. But he might say you were in it with him.” Short beat. “And maybe you were.”
Unfazed by his supposition, she said, “Don’t worry, I can handle him. How long are you going to be clasping that knee?”
“Oh, yeah, you’re right,” he said, lowering his leg to the ground. “I get so tied up with stuff I sometimes forget what I’m doing.”
She couldn’t help looking amused. “Okay. You know he’ll deny ever having that postcoital conversation with me. So what are you going to do when he does?”
“Keep plugging.”
“And what exactly does that mean?”
Columbo got to his feet. “It means I’ve gotta come up with something that’ll stick. And I’ve got to do it before either one of you gets half of your uncle’s money.”
She was interested. “And why is that?”
“Because then either one or both of you can buy the best defense counsel in the country. The D.A. doesn’t like going up against people like that. Do you blame him?”
“Yes, I do. He wants everything nice and easy so he won’t be late for dinner? That’s not my idea of a perfect, hard-working civil servant.”
Columbo shrugged again. “Well, that’s what we’ve got. I thank you for telling me all this. I really do.”
She got up too. “My pleasure. If I need any help fending Troy off, I’ll let you know.”
Columbo wasn’t finished. “I guess if you’re the guilty party you would’ve had somebody else do it for you. A hitman, a friend, maybe even a cousin.”
“What, and leave myself open to blackmail? Do you really think I’m that stupid?”
“Oh, no, no, miss, believe me, I don’t.” He edged toward the door. “Have a nice day.”
And he was off, unbuttoned, flapping raincoat and all.
Around three that afternoon, Troy was in Columbo’s office. He had received a message after lunch that the cop wanted to see him again.
“What is it this time, lieutenant?” he asked.
“I was talking to your cousin.”
Troy tightened up. “Oh?”
“She told me something very interesting about you. That you had confessed to the murder after you two had sex.”
Troy covered up his anger at the betrayal with a big smile. “That’s right, I did.”
Columbo looked surprised. “You did?! You admit you were the perp?”
Troy appeared perfectly relaxed in his chair. “That’s what she wanted to hear more than anything else after our love making. So I took the hint and indulged her. I suddenly understood that it was to be a sex game with her. That’s what she wanted, a sex game, and that’s what she would get. It was a great ploy to make sure she would keep coming back for more. Apparently, the thought that I had killed my uncle seemed to intrigue and titillate her. A little sick, perhaps, but not criminal.”
Columbo looked surprised. “Boy, oh boy, oh boy, that is really something. That is a good one. And I gotta say that’s a new one on me. I never heard that used for slipping out of a bear-trap before. You two are really two pieces of work.”
Columbo secured both his hands on the desk and leveraged himself to a standing position. “Guess what? I don’t think it was a lie at all, Mr. Pellingham. She suspected you were the killer and you admitted it. Either that or she convinced you to kill your uncle.”
Troy stamped an angry foot on the floor. “Screw you. It was a lie to get her on her back some more, maybe plenty more. Now let’s see the color of your evidence if you’ve got any—which I know you don’t.”
“That kind of arrogance can get you in a lot of trouble, sir.”
He was not to be deterred: “I’m still waiting to see your evidence. So quit stalling.”
Columbo picked up a sheet of paper from his blotter. “You think I’d accuse you of murder just as a lark?”
Troy leaned back in the chair as if someone had pushed him. “I’m still waiting.” His voice had lost some of its conviction.
“You pushed that bookcase over on your uncle and when that didn’t do the job, you bludgeoned him to death with that book.”
“Can the suppositions. They’d get you laughed out of court.”
Columbo looked down at the sheet of paper. “This lab report isn’t a supposition.”
“So what’s in the goddamn report? This better be good.”
Columbo tossed the report back on his desk. “It was the murder book that gave you away.”
Angry disbelief: “What?”
“You see, you wiped your prints off the cover. But you still left a print on the book.”
“Where?”
Columbo picked a book up from his desk. “You see on the side where all the edges of all the pages are lined up perfectly in a block?”
He saw—and he could feel the sweat crawling in his palms.
“That’s why I had your prints taken. There was a fair to middling partial print on those lined up edges. When the pages are flipped through, the print vanishes.” He riffled through the pages. “When the book is closed, when you used it as a weapon, you inadvertently left your print on the tight block of pages.” He picked up a volume from his desk. “Here, try it with this one.”
Troy hesitantly reached out for the book and Columbo handed it to him. He looked at the block of page edges, but said nothing.
“Take a look at the title,” Columbo said, punching in an extension on his phone.
Troy did. The California Penal Code. He looked up at Columbo, his face a grim mask now.
“You’ll have plenty of time to read it after you’re sent up for twenty years for Murder One.” He said to the receiver when someone picked up: “Come on in, Pagano. I want you to make the arrest.”
Troy flung the heavy book back on the desk.
“Now your sexy, ruthless cousin will get all of your uncle’s fortune,” Columbo added.
“The little bitch,” he mumbled.
“She knew you did it, Mr. Pellingham, but she didn’t have our expert lab.”
“Or you,” he said bitterly.
Columbo shrugged with his usual modesty. “Or me.”
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
copyright © 2012 by William Link
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