![]() There’s an immediate fly in the ointment of his perfect murder plan, though. It is here that he meets Kinsley for the first time, the murderer present under his guise as head of the LAPD’s Forensics Unit. Naturally enough, one Lieutenant Columbo is amongst the officers investigating said murder – and he’s in high spirits, handing out bananas to his fellow cops like candy at Halloween. ![]() Back inside, Cathleen convinces Clifford to share a slow dance and discreetly rubs the cat hairs and carpet fibres all over the back of his jacket in a manoeuvre that will place her bad-tempered husband at the scene of the Seltzer killing. The wily dame is actually collecting a cannister of cat hair that lover boy Kinsley secreted into her car before vanishing into the night. Meanwhile, across town, Cathleen and Clifford are enduring one another’s presence at the wedding when she excuses herself to get some fresh air. A police officer is on the scene within minutes – his opening of the door allowing Seltzer’s aggressively furry cat to bolt away in terror. These he places in a plastic tub and gets the heck out of there – wiping his prints off the phone and setting the house alarm system to PANIC mode as he makes good his escape. He then snips off the end of one of Clifford’s trademark Cuban cigars with his ever-present Swiss army knife and leaves it in an ashtray before whipping out a DUSTBUSTER mini-vac and hoovering up some cat hairs and fibres from the carpet around the corpse. 38 calibre pistol Cathleen swiped from Clifford’s desk drawer. After ascertaining that no one else is at the property, Kinsley guns Seltzer down using a. Timing the murder to occur when Clifford is driving between office and a family friend’s wedding, Kinsley inveigles his way into Seltzer’s house under the pretence that he must borrow his phone to ring his ailing daughter in hospital. This known animosity makes Clifford the perfect fall guy when Cathleen and Kinsley conspire to eliminate poor Mr Seltzer. After the pair publicly row at a swanky dinner, Clifford gleefully decks his rival in front of a sea of witnesses. ![]() As a result, she easily convinces lover and LAPD forensics expert Patrick Kinsley to join forces with her in a murderous scheme that will get Clifford out of the picture without cramping her style.Ĭlifford is being sued by weedy finance broker Harry Seltzer, who claims he was duped into investing based on fraudulent financial information. If that sounds like pretty formulaic stuff, take heart! Her partner in crime (David Rasche) is a police forensics expert and a colleague of Columbo’s, offering the potentially delicious twist of a murderer actually having sufficient expertise to baffle the wily Lieutenant.īut is A Trace of Murder something to get excited about, or is it yet another disappointment in a revival era that has seen more misses than hits? Let’s get in amongst the cat hair and carpet fibres and have a very close look…Ĭathleen Calvert, peevish wife of jillionaire business mogul Clifford, wants out the loveless marriage – but is unwilling to commit to a divorce that would seriously limit her cashflow. Billed as a celebratory special to mark Columbo’s 25th anniversary (more about that later), A Trace of Murder saw the Lieutenant rise Phoenix-like from the ashes of the Strange Bedfellows debacle of two years earlier.Īiring on May 15, 1997, A Trace of Murder granted Peter Falk’s wife Shera Danese her sixth series appearance and biggest to date as she played one half of a pair of murderous lovers who offed an innocent pencil neck in order to frame her boorish husband for a crime he didn’t commit. ![]()
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