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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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