Recap / Columbo S 03 E 08

People only dress like that for murdering.

Episode: Season 3, Episode 8
Title:"A Friend in Deed"
Directed by: Ben Gazzara
Written by: Peter S. Fischer
Air Date: May 5, 1974
Previous: Swan Song
Next: An Exercise in Fatality
Guest Starring: Richard Kiley, Michael McGuire, Rosemary Murphy, Val Avery

"A Friend in Deed" is the eighth and last episode of the third season of Columbo.

When Hugh Caldwell (Michael McGuire) finds out that his wife Janice is cheating on him and is about to leave to see her boyfriend, he strangles her to death in a fit of rage. Shaken, he then visits his good friend and neighbor Mark Halperin (Richard Kiley) at the social club where he plays dice to ask for help. Mark comes up with an idea: he tells Hugh to go to a bar and make sure that he's seen. Hugh then calls home, where Mark answers and allows Hugh to pretend to have a conversation with his wife, all for the benefit of the bartender's ears. Mark then dresses the deceased Janice in a nightgown and stages the scene to mimic the MO of a burglar (Val Avery) that has been plaguing Bel Air recently. After going back to his own house across the street Mark pretends to have seen a burglar leave Hugh's house. He calls the police.

Mark is in a position to know about the Bel Air burglar because he's the deputy police commissioner. Not only that, but the reason he chose to help Hugh cover up Janice's murder is because he's realized this is his opportunity to do something he's apparently wanted to do for a while: murder his own wife, Margaret (Rosemary Murphy), because she's extremely wealthy, yet he feels that at the rate she's using her fortune to help the unfortunate and support various charities, he'll be left with nothing in her inheritance by the time she finally passes on. Having established in the minds of the investigators under him that the Bel Air burglar has graduated to murder, Mark then stages another burglary at his own house, and drowns his wife in the bathtub. He then arranges for Hugh to be seen dumping the body while disguised as the burglar.

However, Mark makes one very serious mistake: he assigns Lt. Columbo to the case. Columbo starts spotting some oddities like he usually does, such as a lack of prints on the phone where Janice supposedly received a call, or how a second nightie was left untouched under Janice's pillow.

"A Friend in Deed" was released as a theatrical feature in Europe.

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Tropes:

• Absence of Evidence: Columbo's instincts first start tingling by the things they didn't find at the Caldwell house, namely, Janice's prints on either the closet where she supposedly retrieved a nightgown or the phone that she supposedly used to talk to her husband (the house having been cleaned shortly before her murder).
• Accidental Murder: What starts as a domestic fight between Hugh Caldwell and his wife turns to him inadvertently killing her.
• The Alleged Car: More jokes about Columbo's decrepit old Peugeot. In this one he's late to the Caldwell murder scene because his car wouldn't start. It stalls out again in front of Halperin's house.
• Artistic License – Biology: It takes about five seconds for Mark to drown his wife in the bathtub. Shortly after, Hugh throws her supposedly unconscious body into a pool in full view of the police and she is pulled out almost immediately, yet nobody is suspicious at "how quickly" she drowned, only that she seemed to have drowned somewhere else.
• Artistic License – Law: Halperin demands Columbo, a homicide detective, come and investigate the Caldwell burglary case, when he shouldn't possibly have any idea that someone has been killed. This becomes a piece of evidence against him.
• Asshole Victim: Janice, the first victim. Not only was she having constant extramarital affairs, but she paid her lovers with family money, and later with money gotten from selling her husband's gifts.
• Batman Gambit: Columbo gives Halperin the file of a man he suspects in the burglaries, knowing Halperin will attempt to plant evidence in the burglar's apartment to frame the burglar. When the police search the apartment and find the planted evidence, Columbo reveals that he had changed the address in the file to an apartment that Columbo had just rented himself so the evidence must be planted.
• Bullying a Dragon: A murderer who not only is the boss of the best investigator he's ever had, but also repeatedly threatens to pull rank as he tries to cover up two murders? This was only going to end in his inevitable arrest.
• Catchphrase: Halperin likes to end phrases with "-my friend." Rather insincerely. His final example is when Columbo accuses him;
  Halperin: You just lost your badge, my friend.
• Clear My Name: In a way. The robbery detective tells Columbo that, until the murders, the Bel Air burglar's M.O. perfectly fit Artie Jessup's—but Artie has a good alibi for the murders. However, Artie's offended enough at the notion of being mistaken for a murderer that he agrees to help Columbo catch the real killers.
• Deadly Bath: Halperin drowns his wife while she's taking a bath.
• Death Glare: Halperin shoots Columbo a terrifying one near the end when Columbo finally comes out and says that he thinks Halperin killed his wife.
• Detective Mole: Deputy Commissioner Halperin is heading up an investigation into murders he either committed or helped cover up. Fortunately he tries to use Columbo as his Detective Patsy.
• Crime After Crime: Deputy Commissioner Halperin first covers up a murder, then commits one of his own.
• Dirty Coward: Hugh Caldwell. He was scared of facing the consequences for killing Janice, which in turn gave Halperin the cover he needed to murder his own wife.
• Enemy Mine: Of a sort. Columbo doesn't chase burglars by profession, but has no compunction about asking one for help in catching a murderer.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Artie Jessup, the actual Bel Air burglar, is incensed at the thought that he could be accused of murder.
• Exact Words: Halperin orders Columbo to focus on the robbery theory for the murders, so Columbo finds the real Bel Air burglar and enlists his help in busting Halperin and Caldwell.
• Face–Heel Turn: Halperin, a police chief, covers up a murder then commits one himself. Downplayed in that the murder of his wife was something he wanted to do for a while, he just decided to do it now because he now could cover it up with the help of an accomplice.
• Heel–Face Turn: Hardened criminal Artie Jessup happily assists Columbo in catching the real perp.
• Inheritance Murder: Mark murders his wife so he can have her family's money to himself.
• In Medias Res: Unlike other Columbo episodes where we see the lead-up to the murder, here Janice Caldwell is already dead on the floor when the show starts with Hugh's frantic call to Mark.
• Irony:
  • Caldwell was correct to suspect his wife was cheating on him; what he never fathomed was that she was cheating on him with Halperin, the very man he turned to in the first place.
  • Halperin is a highly-ranked cop who masterminds a double murder plot and the coverup, uses his power to frame an innocent man for it, and doesn't want his wife to give charity to the needy even though they're clearly well off. In short, he's literally everything a cop (or any public servant) should not be.
  • A veteran cop didn't realize that the autopsy would find soap in his wife's lungs, and no chlorine. Which means she didn't actually drown in the pool, but a bathtub.
  • He's ultimately caught because he puts Columbo on the case, to look like it's being taken seriously.
• Jerkass: Mark Halperin is one of the least pleasant Columbo killers. He's an adulterous cad with a gambling problem who married his wife for her money and is annoyed at her because she gives some of it to charity, and pounces on the opportunity to kill her when his neighbour confesses to accidentally killing his own wife in a fit of rage, manipulating a man wracked with guilt into becoming his accomplice. He also tries to frame a non-violent crook for both murders as well, and is so arrogant that he puts the best Homicide detective on the force on his case just to make it seem like he is taking it seriously, because he wrongly (and with no justification whatsoever) thinks he is smarter than said best detective.
• Just for the Heli of It: Halperin orders helicopter patrols of his neighborhood after the death of Janice Caldwell as cover so that the helicopter pilot sees Hugh in his burglar disguise carrying out Margaret's body, while Halperin is flying in the helicopter, seemingly establishing his alibi.
• Never One Murder: After starting out the episode by helping to cover up a murder, Halperin commits one of his own.
• Not Me This Time: Four consecutive burglaries are attributed to Artie Jessup, who had been recently released from jail. While Artie does admit to the initial three burglaries that he committed, he is furious about being suspected to be the alleged Bel Air Burglar who murdered Janice Caldwell, and later assists Columbo with catching the real culprit.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: While he was starting to suspect Halperin by that point, the point where Columbo clearly confirms his suspicions about his boss' Detective Mole act is when Columbo comes to him with clearly compelling evidence, along with a well reasoned lead that leads nowhere near Caldwell and himself, and Halperin nevertheless stonewalls it for little apparent reason - except that it doesn't line up with the narrative he is trying to build to obscure the crime. Since it's bizarre behavior for a cop, this confirms to Columbo into the fact that Halperin isn't actually interested in investigating the case.
• Phoney Call: Hugh pretends to be calling home from the bar and talking to his wife. He's actually talking to Mark, who has become an accomplice after the fact and is cleaning up the scene.
• Profiling: In a rather progressive background scene, a black man who knows Mrs. Halperin arrives at the scene of her murder as Columbo is responding to the crime (delivering what turns out to be a crucial piece of evidence). Despite the fact that he just arrived, the cops who intercept him immediately start hassling him - up to and including dismissing his alibi and implying that he was responsible on no evidence - until Columbo casually bursts their bubble by telling them to leave him alone.
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Just in case the audience might have any leftover sympathy for Halperin, the first sign of how much of a Jerkass he is is how his only motive to murder his wife is simply that she is donating her money to help disenfranchised groups - people he despises and calls "losers with sob stories" - who he feels don't deserve money as much as himself.
• Recruiting the Criminal: Halperin tries to pin the murder on the Bel Air Burglar. Columbo doesn't buy it, and goes to consult none other than the real Bel Air Burglar.
• Skeleton Key Card: How Halperin gains entrance to Artie's ratty apartment to plant the evidence, by jimmying the lock with a credit card.
• Smug Snake: Halperin clearly thinks he is a criminal mastermind who has pulled off the perfect crime, but he's actually an arrogant moron who intentionally puts his best detective on the case simply to make it look like he is taking the crime seriously, without considering that the best detective is the most likely to see through his ruse and is probably smarter than him. Part of his motive is also just that he is a lousy gambler and wants his wife's money to pay off his debts, yet he has the gall to refer to those vulnerable people she helps with her charity work "losers" when clearly his only connection to money at all is that he married into it, and he clearly isn't good at keeping it.
• "Strangers on a Train"-Plot Murder: Sort of. Mark helps Hugh cover up the murder of Hugh's wife, in return for Hugh helping Mark cover up the murder of Mark's wife. The thing is, Mark only lets Hugh know about his end of the deal after he's killed Mrs. Halpern.
• Suspect Is Hatless: Used deliberately by Halperin, who claims to have seen a burglar running from Caldwell's house but describes him only as a man wearing dark clothes with a dark cap, with no indication of age or build. This is vague enough that later Caldwell himself, in front of several witnesses, can believably be passed off as the same man.
• That's an Order!: Halperin directly orders Columbo to pursue the burglary angle of investigation. Columbo, who's on to his boss by now, ignores it.
• Toxic Friend Influence: Caldwell is clearly wracked with guilt over the murder of his wife, but every time he considers turning himself in Halperin convinces him to continue to go along with his plan to get them both off, until he's far too complicit to back out. Late in the episode, Halperin quips over the fact that Caldwell did try to go to the police to confess immediately, it's just that the policeman he picked was Eviler than Thou.
• Turn in Your Badge: After Columbo outright tells him he thinks he killed his wife, Halperin declares he just lost his badge. Fortunately, it doesn't stick once Columbo proves him guilty.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: If Hugh hadn't killed Janice, perhaps Margaret would still be alive.
• Wham Line: Columbo is accusing Halperin of the murder as the other cops, per Halperin's warrant, are searching Artie the burglar's room. Shortly after this they find Janice's stolen jewels hidden under the bed. Halperin is ordering Artie's arrest when Artie shouts "I don't even live here!" That's followed up by Columbo quietly saying "He doesn't live here. I live here." Columbo rented a fleabag apartment, dummied up a rap sheet for Artie with that address on it, and contrived for Halperin to see that dummy rap sheet. When Janice's jewels were found hidden in an apartment that only Columbo and Halperin knew about, Halperin was proved to be the murderer.