Wade Anders is a former security consultant, and now host of the popular
America's Most Wanted-esque crime show CrimeAlert. One day, he gets an
unexpected visit from his rival, the chain-smoking newscaster Budd Clarke,
whom he blocked from becoming the CrimeAlert host. Clarke has resented that he
was snubbed in favor of Anders, but now, he has got some leverage that he
hopes will get Anders out of the CrimeAlert chair: a porn video that Anders
starred in many years ago. Clarke plans to go public with the tape unless
Anders resigns from the show. Anders decides to kill him rather than be
disgraced by a scandal. He palms a pack of Clarke's cigarettes, which he
doctors with a few drops of alkaloid poison nicotine sulfate. Anders then pays
two visits to his production office, once that night and again the next
morning - so a surveillance tape there will show him at the office all day.
Anders then drives to Clarke's house, and switches a cigarette pack for the
poisoned pack. Once Clarke takes one of the poisoned cigarettes and dies,
Anders makes it look like Clarke had a heart attack at his desk.
Final clue/twist: Columbo can prove that the surveillance tape was fabricated,
because the trees and bushes visible in front of the office appeared to have
been trimmed in the morning, but had supposedly grown again by the evening.
The fact that Clarke's dog scratched Anders' car, making distinctive marks
because of its missing claw on one of its paws, provides further evidence that
Anders had indeed visited Clarke's house before.
Directed by: Daryl Duke. Story by: Sonia Wolf, Patricia Ford, and April
Raynell.