PLOT: Lesley Williams decides to murder her husband Paul in order to get her hands on all his money. In order to do this she stages a fake kidnapping of her husband after she has already killed him. By using a tape device she cuts two snippets from her husband's recorded conversations and strings them together. Then she sets the phone to dial her home number at a time when she knows the police will be there. They record the 'ransom call' and Mr. Williams' voice is heard briefly, but his voice is cut off after he says 'now listen carefully'. Lesley shows the police ransom notes and a map of where the money is to be deposited. Lesley manages uses virtually all of her husband's money to 'pay' the ransom, including a lucrative trust fund for her step-daughter. Lesley takes the money by helicopter at night to a desterted spot. However, her husband is not released and not long afterwards his body turns up at the wheel of his abandoned car. Although on the surface it may look like the kidnappers killed him Columbo is immediately suspicious of Lesley Williams, who was very cool and unemotional throughout the time when her husband was missing. Columbo begins asking awkward questions on a seemingly innocent premise and to add to Lesley's problems her step-daughter Margaret turns up from Switzerland, where she is a student. Margaret is immediately suspicious, because she knows Lesley never loved her father and only married him for the money and status it gave her. Margaret slaps Lesley round the face at the funeral and tells Columbo of her suspicions. Besides Lesley's cool manner, Columbo has a couple of other little things that are bothering him: the angle of the bullet, the type of the bullet (the sort that was designed not to go through the body) and the position of the car seat (pushed forward as if a smaller person was last driving it). Also the car keys weren't in the car, leading Columbo to think that the person who last drove it (the killer) still had them. Then Margaret plants a set of car keys on Lesley and tries to persuade Columbo to arrest her. However, Columbo's men have been following Margaret and he knows that she falsified the evidence. Columbo leaves the house and says to Lesley 'that would be wrong if you were convicted on the wrong evidence', leaving Lesley to wonder what he meant. Margaret continues to hound Lesley and Lesley is worried. Lesley offers Margaret the money from her trust fund in order to disappear back to Switzerland. Margaret takes the money at the airport and seemingly leaves to get on a plane. Then, on her way out of the airport Lesley bumps into Columbo, who she thinks must be working on another case (as if). They sit down and have a drink and then Columbo explains that he set the whole situation up and the case full of cash is brought forth to the table. Columbo says that Lesley had no conscience and her mistake was thinking that everyone else was the same. It hadn't occured to her that it might be a set up because she had assumed Margaret was as greedy and selfish as she was. Columbo has all the evidence he needs.
VERDICT:
This is rather a dull episode. There is not enough plot to sustain 90 minutes and the by-play between Columbo and villain is a bit stilted. It's surprising that after this pilot episode they decided to commision a series. Fortunate because virtually all of the episodes in the first series were excellent.
Written by Mark Wilson
(C) Copyright Wilson/Young Enterprises 2006.
CAST:
Lesley Williams..........Lee Grant
Margaret Williams.Patricia Mattick
Michael Clark............John Fink
Agent Carlson.........Harold Gould
Hammond..................Paul Carr
Phil.....................Jed Allan
Richard...........Charles Macauley
Paul Williams.........Harlan Warde
