Columbo: The Game Show Killer

by William Harrington

  “We can write a description of them,” said Faye.

  “I can do better than that,” said Victoria. “Six or eight years ago, when Dad was out on location somewhere, I hired a professional photographer to come here and make high-quality photographs of all the paintings. I knew Dad didn’t want it done, but I felt it should be. I have an album of all those pictures.”

  “I don’t know where he bought them,” Faye said. “Len would just come home with a picture—sort of grinning sheepishly—and hang it on the wall.”

  “Could I borrow that album, Mrs. Glassman? It’d help if we could circulate copies of the photo of the missing painting. You know, to other police departments, to art dealers, and so on.”

  “It’s at home. Would you like to stop by and pick it up? If so, when.”

  “If you won’t mind my comin’ on Sunday, I’ll stop by on Sunday afternoon.”

  “Lieutenant… The funeral is Sunday afternoon.”

  “Oh. Forgive me, both of you. I’ve been so busy chasin’ around, asking questions, I— Well, I’m sorry.”

  “That’s alright, Lieutenant Columbo. Make it Monday afternoon. And I’ll bring the album here. We’ll see you here, at, say, two or so?”

  “I’ll be here. And, uh, look— I know this is a strain, and I don’t want to take too much of your time this morning, so I’ll just raise one more subject. Do either of you know of any reason besides the burglary why somebody’d want to harm Mr. Wylie? Did he have any enemies?”

  Faye lowered her head and sobbed.

  Victoria spoke. “I don’t think Dad had an enemy in the world. I never knew anybody who didn’t like him. Not everyone was a fan of his film work, but nobody disliked him.”

  Columbo nodded. “That’s the way I always heard. I’ve seen many of his pictures myself, and he always seemed to me like the most likable, most honorable man in the world.”

  Faye settled a steady gaze on him for a moment. “I hope you don’t find out the contrary, Lieutenant Columbo.”

  VIII

  1

  FRIDAY, APRIL 14—4:41 P.M.

  Columbo had promised to be home in time for dinner. He had a list of people to see, though, and if he could interview one more—

  “Mrs. Coleridge? I’m Lieutenant Columbo. I called.” The woman in the doorway of an apartment on California Avenue opened the door wider and welcomed him in. He knew her age was seventy, roughly the same age as Faye Wylie—which made sense, because she was one of the women who played bridge with Faye every Thursday evening.

  “I’m Letitia Coleridge. Come in.”

  This woman conspicuously shared with Faye a determination not to surrender to her threescore years and ten. He had checked her history before he came here. The fact was, she was almost exactly the same age Marilyn Monroe would have been if Marilyn Monroe were still alive— and there was a hard fact to believe, that MM would be sixty-nine. Letitia Coleridge might well have achieved the success Marilyn had achieved. She had the same assets.

  She had once been blond. He had seen pictures of her as a blond. Sometime she had given it up, and her hair now was light brown. Her eyebrows were plucked into thin arches, darkened with mascara. She wore eye shadow and some sort of foundation makeup that smoothed her complexion. Her full lips were highlighted by pink lipstick. She had not undergone the plastic surgery that would have removed the wattle under her chin.

  She wore a tight pink sweater, thrust out by breasts he had to guess were supported by nylon and rubber, and a pair of knit khaki slacks.

  “I’m sorry to bother you, Ma’am.”

  “Au contraire,” she said. “How often do I receive a visit from a homicide detective? It will relieve the boredom that has been my lot the past twenty years. Sit down. Anticipating you, I’ve made a pitcher of martinis.”

  “I… Well, just one maybe. I won’t be here long. I just have one or two questions. Nothin’ really important. Just clearing up a minor point or two.”

  She left him alone while she went into the kitchen of her small apartment and returned with a pitcher and two glistening stem glasses.

  “I have anticipated your question. Was Faye with me and the others from, say, seven-thirty until, say, eleven, last night. She was. That’s what you want to know, isn’t it? If she was with us, she couldn’t have killed him.”

  “I didn’t really think she had, Ma’am.”

  “Oh, you had to wonder! ‘Cherchez la femme.' The wife is always a suspect.” Letitia paused to smile. “I played too many femmes fatales. I could have had the Marilyn Monroe part in The Asphalt Jungle. I was too stupid to see the potential. I wanted to be the smart, wisecracking broad who second-guesses the detective. That was my role. That was what I played. Did you ever see me on the big screen, Lieutenant?”

  “Yes, Ma’am. I remember you.”

  “Then you’re no spring chicken, Columbo. What were you doing in life when you saw me?”

  “I was a cop. That’s what I’ve always been. I was a uniformed patrolman in New York, and Mrs. Columbo and I loved to go to the movies.”

  “Ahh… Twenty years ago, I’d have autographed a picture for you.”

  “I’d be honored to have one now, Ma’am,”

  “Well, quit calling me ‘ma’am,’ and I’ll see if I can find one for you. Seriously… Faye was with us all evening. ‘The girls.’ We play bridge every Thursday. That’s all we’ve got left, most of us.”

  “Ladies from the movie community,” said Columbo.

  “Not ‘ladies,’ Columbo. Women. Blanche Truman was a stunt rider. Tough as nails. Myrt Philips put makeup on the likes of Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Eleanor Laurel was condemned by the Legion of Decency for being filmed in bed—not six feet away in her half of a twin bed, notice—with Tyrone Power.”

  “I remember Miss Laurel. She was one of the really big ones.”

  “Because she had really big ones.”

  Columbo smiled—not too broadly. “But Mrs. Wylie was never an actress. She—”

  “Think not? She’s been one hell of an actress all these years.”

  “Which means?”

  “All these years she’s pretended she was married to Dauntless Tim, the straight arrow. But she’s not stupid, Lieutenant. Faye knew. She’s always known.”

  “Known that he—?”

  “If he’d been murdered twenty years ago, even ten maybe, I’d be telling you to go looking for the jealous husband or the outraged father.”

  “Sure is different from his image.” Columbo shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll even tell Mrs. Columbo. She’d be awfully disillusioned. Y’ know?”

  “A lot of people would be disillusioned. Len’s whole life was an illusion—a fraud, if you want to use the word.”

  “’Course, what you’re telling me gives Mrs. Wylie a motive for wanting him killed.”

  “So she hired somebody, you’re suggesting? No way. If Faye had wanted him killed, she’d have had it done forty years ago. She sort of settled into comfortable acceptance of him and had no reason anymore.”

  “Jealous husband or outraged father,” Columbo mused. “Well… Some people have long memories. Some people hold long grudges.”

  Letitia Coleridge frowned and smiled at the same time. “Are there things that bug you, Lieutenant Columbo? I mean, things that really make you uncomfortable, so much that you can’t just leave them alone.”

  “Loose ends—”

  “You got it! If you don’t let me cut off that thread that’s hanging from the bottom of your raincoat, it’s going to drive me nuts! I’ve got a pair of scissors right here—”

  He stared at the thread, six inches long. “Odd I didn’t notice that. My wife makes a point of my not being neat enough. Which I guess I’m not.”

  The scissors had been within reach in her handbag, and she snipped off the thread. “Seeing that was like hearing chalk squeak.”

  “Well, I sure thank ya. I’ve gotta go.”

  “There’s half a drink api
ece left in the pitcher. A lonely old woman doesn’t very often get to talk with a homicide detective. Tell me, Lieutenant, how do you… ? How?”

  “I just plug away at it, Ma’am— Excuse me, Miss Coleridge.”

  “Letitia!”

  “Letitia. When I tell Mrs. C. I spent some time chatting with you, she’s gonna say, 'Why couldn’t I have been a cop? You get all the fun.’ ”

  "But tell me something about how you solve cases.”

  “Uh… I just do it the only way I know how. I try to find out everything I can, then match all the facts to each other. I’m not a man who gets brilliant insights. I guess I’d have to say I do it reasonably well because I work hard at it. And I do that… uh, Letitia. I work hard at it.”

  She nodded. "That’s the way I managed to act in films. I didn’t have any talent. I just worked at it. That’s how Len worked it, too. He had no particular talent. He just built a persona for himself and worked all his life at it. ’Course, he was fool enough to risk it constantly. Constantly. Faye could have shot him down anytime. So could a lot of others. I never understood why no one ever did. The bastard was charming, Lieutenant. He was charismatic. That’s the word. Charismatic. And a fraud.”

  IX

  1

  SATURDAY, APRIL 15—9:08 A.M.

  Sergeant Jesús Ruiz came to Columbo’s desk just as he was pulling on his raincoat and leaving headquarters. “Uh… it’s not raining.”

  “Some guys carry briefcases. Me, I stuff all kinds of good things in my raincoat pockets. Cigars, matches, my notebook, a hard-boiled egg or two. And, speaking of matches, got one?”

  Jesús handed over a lighter. He didn’t smoke, but Sergeant Martha Zimmer had told him that if he was going to work with Columbo, he had better carry matches or a lighter.

  “What’s up, Jesús?”

  “Well, you asked me to inquire around the neighborhood more, to see if anyone heard the shots.” He shook his head. “No one did. But one of the neighbors had a few things to say about Wylie and his friends. You may want to talk to him.”

  “ ’Bout what?”

  “ ’Bout what kind of guy he was. ’Bout who his friends were. He may give you a little different idea about what kind of guy Tim Wylie was.”

  “What’s the name of this neighbor?”

  “Victor Harris. This is his address.”

  2

  9:51 A.M.

  Columbo found Victor Harris riding around his lawn on a power mower. He was a man of seventy or so: trim, muscular, and vigorous, though deeply lined around his eyes and mouth and all but totally bald.

  He glared for a moment at Columbo, then switched off the engine on his mower. “Who you?”

  “Lieutenant Columbo, LAPD Homicide. Mrs. Harris let me in.”

  Harris climbed off the mower and extended his hand. “I guess Sergeant Ruiz did say you might stop by. What can I do for you, Lieutenant?”

  Columbo raised his eyebrows and turned down the corners of his mouth. “Prob’ly nothin’ much, Sir, and I’m sorry to be taking your time.”

  “How do you detectives say? 'Who got dead?’ Well, Len got dead. I don’t give a damn what you have to do to find out who did it, I want you to do it. I’m not one of those bleeding-heart liberals who worries about the 'rights’ of murderers. I want the man who killed Len caught and locked up for the rest of his life.”

  “That’s what I got in mind, Mr. Harris.”

  “Come over by the pool and sit down, Lieutenant Columbo. At this hour a civilized man can have a drink, no matter what the goddamned doctors say. I’m going to have a light Scotch. Winston Churchill did, in the morning, and he lived into his nineties.” Harris pressed a beeper he carried on his belt. “Summons the houseboy. Imagine that! Didn’t have that sort of thing when we were boys, did we?”

  “Sure didn’t.”

  “Got any leads?”

  “Well, Sir, I… Actually, Sir, I guess I have to say I really don’t.”

  Harris sat down in a chair by the pool. “God, I hope Faye has an ironclad alibi. I promise you she didn’t do it. I know you guys look at the spouses first, but—”

  “Mrs. Wylie is not a suspect, Sir.”

  “Glad to hear it.”

  “Are you retired, Sir? Were you involved in the movie business?”

  “I am retired. My sons run my business now. Our company creates special effects. One of our specialties is building models. Spaceships mostly, these days. In the past we did warships a lot. If you see a film where ships are firing at each other, damaging and sinking each other, you’re likely looking at some of our work.”

  “You and Mr. and Mrs. Wylie were friends as well as neighbors?”

  ‘Wes. Faye is a bit reclusive. She didn’t invite people to the house much. Len did. He liked to sit down with a bunch of guys, watch a ball game on the tube, toss down a few. When he was younger he liked to organize a softball game—pickup teams, guys in the neighborhood and some friends. I can remember Jack Webb playing softball over there. Ralph Bellamy. Bill Holden. Steve McQueen. Lome Greene. Len liked to do ‘man’ things. Except he wouldn’t box. Some of the older guys did. Errol Flynn, for instance. But not Len.”

  Columbo nodded. “Interesting. Sergeant Ruiz says you didn’t hear the shots.”

  “My wife and I would have been in the den on the other side of the house, watching television. Anyway, Lieutenant, I suppose you’ve heard the sound of a .32 Colt being fired.”

  “Can’t say that I have.”

  “It’s a sharp little crack, not a big bang. The sound would dissipate quickly in the structure of the house and in the distance between our two houses.”

  “Where did you hear one fired, Sir?”

  “At a pistol range up in the mountains. I’m something of a collector. I have a Colt like that. I’ve fired it many times.”

  “Mr. Wylie had a gun collection, too, but he didn’t have a .32 Colt.”

  “That’s right, he didn’t. If you were thinking he was maybe killed with his own gun, he wasn’t—at least, he wasn’t unless he had one I didn’t know about. Some of us were interested in guns, you know, and we used to compare our guns.”

  Harris paused and grinned. “Lieutenant, I’m going to tell you something about Len. I liked the man. He was a friend, and I’m goddamned upset that he was murdered. But the unhappy fact is, Len was an awful fraud. He wasn’t the cowboy he pretended to be. He hated horses. He was afraid of them. And he never fired that old .44 he always claimed was his favorite gun—not even blanks, not even once. You look at his films. You never see him actually fire that .44. He said the damned thing would make so much noise, it would damage his hearing.”

  Columbo frowned. “I’m sorry to have to ask you this, Mr. Harris, but would you mind my taking your Colt into headquarters and letting the ballistics boys fire it into a box of sawdust?”

  Harris stiffened and glared for a moment, then softened and smiled. “I didn’t realize I was a suspect.”

  “You aren’t. And the ballistics test will eliminate you absolutely. Won’t it?”

  The houseboy came with a bar cart. Columbo accepted a light Scotch and soda, and Harris sent the boy to bring out the Colt.

  Harris told a story about Wylie bringing a girl home when Faye was in the hospital having a face-lift. “Hell, he invited me to come over and meet her. She was just eighteen, he said. She was drop-dead beautiful, and he was swelled up like the cat that swallowed the canary. He wanted to show her off and was sorry I was the only one he could call over to see her. He liked to talk about his amorous exploits. Some of the other guys did, too, but Len gloried in it. He was not a very nice guy in that respect, to tell you the truth. Faye put up with a lot.”

  The houseboy returned with the little automatic. It was not cocked or loaded. The clip was full of cartridges, but it was not in place in the pistol grip. Harris handed gun and clip to Columbo, who handled them gingerly. He put the pistol in one raincoat pocket, the clip in the other.

  “
I thank ya, Sir. I better not take any more of your time. I’ll send your gun back as soon as it’s fired—in an hour or so, I’d think.”

  “No hurry, Lieutenant. It’s just a collector’s item. I have no plans to fire it again soon.”

  Columbo stood. “I’ll let you get back to your mowing. I guess I can go around the house and out to the driveway. Right?”

  “Right.”

  Columbo walked toward the house. “I thank ya again for your time and the drink.”

  “Anytime, Lieutenant. And good luck.”

  “Thank— Oh, say.” Columbo stopped and came back a few paces. “I guess I oughta ask about one other thing. Uh— Did Mr. Wylie ever mention Erika Björling?”

  “No. I never heard him mention her name. I don’t see how you guys can think she killed Len. Why would she do it?”

  “Well, there’s some evidence. I’m not free to discuss it yet.”

  “Somebody killed him so they could steal his art. Isn’t that obvious?”

  Columbo nodded. “I’d say that’s the most logical explanation.”

  3

  11:21 A.M.

  Victoria Glassman lived in a Spanish-style house in Santa Monica, and Columbo drove out there. She had left a message for him: that what she had to tell and show him should not wait until Monday, that he should come and see it now. He’d called her and said he’d be there a little after eleven.

  He rang the doorbell. A maid answered and ushered him into the living room, saying that Mrs. Glassman expected him.

  Victoria Wylie Glassman was a different woman at home than she was with her mourning mother. She was casually dressed in faded blue jeans and a white T-shirt with no bra under it. She was barefoot, and she was smoking a cigarette. He glanced around her living room, trying not to be conspicuous about it. He knew that she was divorced from Glassman, who owned six automobile agencies in Southern California; and he guessed she received handsome alimony.

  “Well, Lieutenant Columbo, I appreciate your coming.”

  “Glad to, Ma’am.”