COLUMBO: UNDERCOVER (TV)

Summary

One in this series of police dramas in which Los Angeles homicide detective Lt. Columbo's unassuming manner masks his keen intelligence and sharp investigative abilities.

A small-time criminal named Eugene Edward Ehrbach breaks into the apartment of another small-time criminal, J.J. Dillinger, and finds a fragment of a photograph in a hidden spot. Dillinger returns and the two of them face each other, killing each other. The police investigate the scene on Wednesday night, along with Columbo, who finds the photo fragment on Ehrbach's person. It has been deliberately cut to resemble a jigsaw-puzzle piece. On Thursday morning, Columbo analyzes the photo fragment along with Detective Sergeant Arthur Brown. They are visited by an insurance investigator named Irving Krutch, who says he has information pertaining to the double homicide. He explains that six years ago, a gang of four men robbed a local branch of the National Savings and Loan, making off with four million dollars. The gang was led by infamous gangster Anthony "Tony the Nose" Bonamico, along with Leo D'Amore, Mikey Ryan, and David Stein. They got into a traffic accident and were killed in a police shootout shortly thereafter, but the money was nowhere to be found. He investigated the case for two years without any success, but reopened it a few months ago when Tony's widow Mary passed away. She left her sister Lucia a list of names, torn in half so as to render some of them illegible. Dillinger and Ehrbach both appear on the list, and Krutch believes that each listed person possesses a fragment of the photo. He already has one, and believes the police will locate another at Ehrbach's home. According to Krutch, Lucia told him that the photograph will reveal the location of the missing money.

In accordance with Krutch's advice, Columbo and Brown find another fragment of the photo hidden in Ehrbach's residence. The chief authorizes Columbo to go undercover in order to investigate Mo Weinberg, a hardened criminal who is the first name on the list. Columbo and Weinberg meet at a café, where Columbo introduces himself by the alias "Artie Stokes." He claims he got his fragment of the photograph from an ex-convict contact of his and wishes to exchange names and fragments with Weinberg. Weinberg is initially uneasy at working with "Artie," but goes along with his plan so that they can get a chance to recover the four million dollars for themselves. After a brief altercation, Columbo and Weinberg successfully exchange photo fragments and find that the pieces fit together, as expected. Weinberg also tells Columbo about Geraldine Ferguson, owner of an art gallery and possessor of another fragment of the photograph.

On Saturday morning, Columbo visits Ferguson at her art gallery. She is immediately suspicious of Columbo and suspects that he is an undercover policeman. He tells her about the photograph and she says that Weinberg has been snooping around the art gallery several times under an assumed name. She claims she doesn't have it, but her assistant Bramley Kahn interrupts and says that she does, offering to sell it to Columbo despite Ferguson's protests. Kahn reveals that Ferguson's brother-in-law was Leo D'Amore, one of the robbers from Tony's heist. Columbo decides to leave for now, but promises that he will see Ferguson again. Columbo calls Krutch and tells him that he has secured Weinberg's fragment of the photo. An hour later Columbo is attacked in his hotel room by a masked assailant, who knocks him unconscious and ransacks the place. Brown arrives and finds an injured Columbo, taking him to a hospital over his objections. Brown goes to investigate Weinberg's apartment and Columbo is unable to call him to warn him about potential danger. Brown finds Weinberg dead via gunshot wound. Columbo calls him there and Brown relays his findings to him; Columbo convinces Brown to help him get out of the hospital and continue the investigation.

At three in the morning they visit Krutch and wake him up, interrogating him about his whereabouts. He claims that he went out to dinner with his girlfriend Suzie Endicott and that they both returned to his apartment afterwards; Suzie is still there and corroborates Krutch's story. Columbo asks Krutch to make a time-table of all his activities during that day just to be sure. On Sunday morning, Columbo looks around on the street outside Weinberg's apartment building and notices something about the local parking regulations. Brown searches Weinberg's room and concludes that his fragments of the photo were stolen. Columbo assumes another undercover identity, this time as a member of the mafia, to visit Lucia, still grieving for her departed sister. She claims that while she gave her fragment of the photo to Krutch, she did not give him the list of names he presented to the police. She also reveals that Ferguson and Tony were carrying on an affair at some point. Brown sneaks into Ferguson's gallery and tries to locate her photo fragment in a lockbox. Instead he discovers the second half of the list of names and photographs it.

Columbo visits Ferguson again and tells her about Weinberg's murder and that he knows about her affair with Tony. She says that her brother-in-law gave her the photo fragment just before the robbery, and that she also has no knowledge of any list of names. She still refuses to hand over her photo fragment. After securing the aid of a security guard named Zeke for unstated reasons, Columbo and Brown inspect the completed list, revealing a pair of names formerly inaccessible to them: Dorothea McNally and Derrick Combs. They also deduce that the first four people on the list (Weinberg, Dillinger, Ehrbach, and Mary Bonamico) are all dead, and that the police possesses all of the photo fragments formerly held by them. Zeke is called upon by Columbo to gather information about the parking situation near Weinberg's apartment. Columbo decides to find and question McNally, who lives in Skid Row. He learns from her that her nephew was Mikey Ryan, another of the gangsters involved in the robbery. Columbo convinces her to allow him to search through a tin left to her by her sister, and discovers two photo fragments therein, one of them with a note on the back from Combs, who evidently passed away in a hospital from illness.

The police assemble the six pieces of the photograph they possess, but it reveals very little to them. Columbo guesses that each member of Tony's gang was given two pieces of the photo, leaving only two remaining. Krutch submits his time-table, which appears to account for his whereabouts precisely. He asks Zeke to step up his fact-finding, as they have just secured a warrant to search Ferguson's safe for her photo fragment. On Monday morning Columbo and Brown arrive at the Ferguson gallery and find Kahn unconscious outside, and they awaken him. Inside they discover Ferguson, dead from a gunshot wound; her safe has been opened. They interrogate Kahn, who claims not to know anything about McNally, Combs, or the list. However, Kahn raises Columbo's suspicions when he indicates that he has knowledge about the circumstances of the attack on Columbo a few days ago. Soon Kahn breaks down and admits that he was the masked assailant, and that he merely wanted to obtain the photo fragments for himself. In exchange for a relaxed prison sentence, Kahn reveals that Ferguson's photo fragment was not taken, and produces it from behind a canvas in her office.

The piece provided by Kahn reveals much about the photograph: it is an aerial shot of a road by the ocean. They believe that the final piece will reveal the exact location of the hidden money cache. Columbo brings Krutch in for further questioning; he claims that Lucia is lying about her ignorance of the list and that at the time of Ferguson's murder he was with Suzie again. Suzie is brought in to corroborate Krutch's story again, but this time Suzie is also questioned alone by Columbo, assisted by Zeke. He tells her about Weinberg's murder, which took place on the previous Saturday at 5:30 PM. He has Zeke produce a parking meter from in front of Weinberg's apartment building and shows her the coins inserted into it from Saturday between the hours of 1:00 PM and 6:00 PM. He singles out one quarter in particular which bears a fingerprint matching Krutch's, which seems to contradict his time-table, stating that he was with Suzie at the time. Aided by this evidence, Columbo convinces Suzie to admit that Krutch left the apartment for several hours on Saturday afternoon just after Columbo called him, and again on midnight Sunday, corresponding with Weinberg and Ferguson's deaths exactly.

Krutch admits to the murder charges and produces the final piece of the photograph, which was in Mary's possession and which he managed to secure after her death. He went to the police with information about the photo fragments in order to secretly aid his search for them, and he tried to stay one step ahead of them at all times. He visited Weinberg to get his fragment and killed him and Ferguson as "insurance" that his plan would work. Using the completed photograph, the police are able to locate the chest marked in the photograph and fish it out of the bay, and find that it contains the stolen four million dollars. Commercials deleted.

Details

• NETWORK: ABC
• DATE: May 2, 1994 9:00 PM
• RUNNING TIME: 1:33:03
• COLOR/B&W: Color
• CATALOG ID: B:75955
• GENRE: Drama, police/private detective
• SUBJECT HEADING: Drama, police/private detective
• SERIES RUN: NBC - TV series, 1968-1978; ABC - 1989-2003
• COMMERCIALS: N/A

CREDITS

• Peter Falk … Executive Producer
• Vincent McEveety … Producer, Director
• Christopher Seiter … Producer
• Jack Horger … Co-Producer
• Lisa Tygett … Associate Producer
• Richard Levinson … Created by
• William Link … Created by
• Gerry Day … Writer
• Ed McBain … Based on a story by
• Dick de Benedictis … Music by
• Peter Falk … Cast, Columbo
• Ed Begley Jr. … Cast, Irving Krutch
• Burt Young … Cast, Mo Weinberg
• Harrison Page … Cast, Detective Sgt. Arthur Brown
• Shera Danese … Cast, Geraldine Ferguson
• Edward Hibbert … Cast, Bramley Kahn
• Kristin Bauer … Cast, Suzie Endicott
• Albie Selznick … Cast, Detective McKittrick
• Joe Chrest … Cast, Mercer
• Robert Donner … Cast, Zeke
• Tyne Daly … Cast, Dorothea McNally
• Penny Santon … Cast, Lucia
• Marla Adams … Cast, Sheila Byrnes
• Marianne Muellerleile … Cast, Nurse Hilda
• Ora Frosh … Cast, Woman Down Hall
• Jeff Michalski … Cast, Medical Examiner
• Alexander Folk … Cast, Patient
• John William Young … Cast, Man in Pajamas
• Kay Yamamoto … Cast, Front Desk Nurse
• John Dunbar … Cast, Photographer
• Jon Beshara … Cast, Dillinger
• Hank Garrett … Cast