The Day it Rained.
No! I don't own this wonderfully rumpled little man. And sadly, no. I won't get paid a dime for spending a little bit of time with him. But I sure had fun. I do have to confess that I don't know the lieutenant as well as I want to. But I had to show him a little bit of love.
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Harry Freeden, owner of Freeden's Gas and Garage, sat back in the chair behind his grimy desk and stuck his feet upon its paper littered surface, a small grin lighting his beard stubbled face as he scratched his bald head under his dirty ball cap.
That Lieutenant Columbo was poking hard into Jason Melton's death, but Harry was pretty sure he wouldn't find anything.
There wasn't too much he could find. Though Melton was a semi-regular customer to the station, Harry and he could by no stretch of the imagination call each other friends. And since neither man moved in the same social or economic circles there wasn't anything that could tie them together.
Harry's grin widened as he thought of the gun and envelope, full of cash, he had stuffed in the big rusted red toolbox, hidden deep in the back of the garage section of his business. That money had been an unexpected surprise. He knew Melton was rich but he didn't know he carried money like that with him.
Of course, it wasn't the reason he'd killed the bastard. No, he'd killed Jason Melton because he'd been carrying on with Harry's wife. The money he'd found on him was a bonus and had nothing to do with it. But it did make a convenient motive for some one else.
That is if that rumpled homicide detective would actually use that clue and go looking elsewhere. Instead, he'd been harassing Harry almost constantly with one question after another and constantly telling him stories about his wife. Harry didn't care about Columbo's wife, any more than he cared about his own.
At least not now.
But at one time he had cared. He'd cared enough to kill the man she'd had an affair with. And he still cared enough to be happy about it. But nothing more than that. As soon as it was safe to do so, he was going to close up shop, sell the business, take the money he'd found on Melton and get out. All the way out. His wife could go to the devil.
He just had to get rid of Columbo first.
"Ah, excuse me!" The short frumpy man in the oversized and rumpled trench coat with the dark curly hair and raspy voice waved a cigar at the gas station attendant as he stepped out of the ancient foreign car. "Excuse me!"
Closing his eyes in frustration, Freeden got up from his desk and went outside, walking up to the Lieutenant. "Lt. Columbo. What can I do for you?" It was a more a polite question than anything. He actually didn't want to do anything for the irritating police detective. He wanted him to go away, permanently.
"Ah, yeah. Sorry to bother ya again, but I thought of another question. Ah, ya got a minute?" Columbo squinted a eye at him with a friendly smile.
Harry Freeden sighed heavily and crossed his arms across his chest. "Sure."
"Oh, good." Columbo scratched his eyebrow for a moment and squinted again at the burly man beside him. "You said, the last time we talked that you didn't know Mr. Melton before he came in here, right?"
Freeden nodded. "Yes, that's what I said. He stopped in here for gas occasionally but that's about it."
"Uh, uh." Columbo squinted at him for a moment as he took a silent draw of his cigar and then looked around at the gas station grounds. "And you said, you were in the back, back there when Mr. Melton came in and you didn't see anything, right?"
"That's right." Freeden glared down at him.
"Uh, huh." Columbo scratched his head and took another look around before returning his gaze to Freeden. "Any you said you didn't come outside just before the squad car got here. Right?" Columbo's face revealed nothing of his thoughts.
"That's right." Freeden sighed. He was growing tired of this.
"Well, see, I got a problem with that, Mr. Freeden." Columbo took a puff of his cigar. "Ya see, when I got here to the scene, you uh, you were standing over there by the pumps, by Mr. Melton's car, and you were wet."
"So?" Frantically, Harry tried to think what that had mattered. "It rained that day, Lieutenant. Folks generally do get wet when they're out in the rain."
"Oh, I know." Columbo agreed. "They surely do that. But well, it wasn't raining when they got here. In fact, it hadn't rained for about half an hour before the police got here." He studied the man's face as he spoke. Yeah, he was right. He had the right man.
"Well, well_ I_ I_ Well, I run a gas station, Luietenant." He finally thought of an excuse. "Just because it wasn't raining when the police got here, doesn't mean it wasn't earlier."
"Well, that's true, Sir." Columbo nodded. "That is true, indeed. But ya see, I got to thinking about something and I_ well, you know, it got to bothering me. And well, anyway_" He paused and scratched his eyebrow again as he looked quickly around him and then leaned in closer.
"Anyway what?" Freeden snapped, about to lose all patience and do something he surely didn't want to.
"Well, anyway." Columbo smiled up at him. "I got to thinking about time so I did some checking. Ya see, Mr. Melton, he_ well, according to the coroner, he died about eight thirty that morning. Just about a half hour after you opened up, right?"
"Riiiiiight." Freeden was wondering where this was going. "So?"
"So, I checked the weather service. You see it was pouring rain at about eight thirty. But that rain, ya see, that rain started about eight thirty and it only lasted about 10 minutes. So, ya see, my problem here?"
Freeden's face drained of color.
"Ya see, if you weren't out here when he died and you didn't come out until the police arrived, how'd ya get wet?"
Freeden said nothing as a police car arrived then and two uniformed officers got out an approached the two men.
"Lieutenant?" The driver of the cruiser spoke. "This the man?"
Columbo nodded, his smile gone. "Yeah, this is him." His voice actually sounded sorrowful. "Go ahead and take him. And send back a crew to search this place, will ya? I got me an idea, we'll find the money Mr. Melton was carrying and the gun that killed him right here."
The End