(Editor’s note: at this point I start weeping as I realise we’re only halfway through the episode) Melissa is spared having to trade tragedy stories, though, as he’s spiked her drink with a sleeping pill and, for the second time in their brief acquaintanceship, she’s out for the count. He laments that his dear, dead mother won’t be able to join them for it, casually dropping it into the chit-chat that his mother had her throat cut by his father when he was 8 years old – and that his father then cut his own throat leaving the lad an orphan. The weary snapper agrees to assist.īack in her dungeon, Melissa is now conversing with her subjugator who explains that she will be detained until 3pm, then freed to prepare for an as-yet undisclosed event that will take place at 3.45pm. He wants copies of all the photos from the day to cross-reference against the guest list. Columbo himself, meanwhile, is making a late-night call to wedding photographer Alex Varrick. Then he locks her in her room again and beetles off, doubtless to commit more unsung wicked deeds.Īt this point, viewers disappointed not to have enjoyed some steamy viewing of the newlyweds canoodling get some steamy action of a very different kind as Columbo sidekick Sergeant Goodman visits a Turkish baths establishment to seek intel from Jabba the Hutt stand-in (and police informant) Tubby Comfort on the whereabouts of Albert Wagner. He claims her marriage is a sham because it hasn’t been consummated and reveals that all he wants from her is for her to love him. She has no idea who he is, but he knows all about her. Her mysterious, soft-voiced captor introduces himself and frees her from her bonds. They’re going to need to check out everyone on the guest list – no small task for the detective team.īack to Melissa – still lolling on the stinky mattress in near total darkness. Or could vengeful ex-con Albert Wagner be looking to punish Andy after he shot and killed his brother three years earlier? Andy even admits he only personally knew about 20% of the wedding attendees, most of whom were Melissa’s guests from the fashion industry. Could Melissa have been kidnapped for a ransom? Her dad is a squillionaire, after all. LAPD’s finest, meanwhile, are racking their brains over doughnuts and cigars at the hotel.
Wherever she is, it certainly ain’t the honeymoon suite no mo’… As she stirs into consciousness, we see a flashback of her hanging her bridal gown in the hotel suite, during which she is disturbed by a galloping man in a green surgical hat and mask who threatens her with a scalpel before zonking her out with the chloroform. He didn’t see the driver, but it’s a useful start to the investigation nonetheless.Ĭut to a dingy, sparsely furnished room, the dim light from under the door illuminating a bound and gagged Melissa as she lies in a negligee on a rancid mattress. Helpfully, Bill saw a white delivery van reversing down the alley shortly before Melissa went missing – and heard it being loaded and departing some minutes later. At the bottom of the hotel’s service stairs he spots the kitchen of a local restaurant and thoroughly pumps pot wash Bill for details on what he might have heard and seen outside in the past hour. Leaving Andy to light the Bat-Signal and muster their fellow detectives, Columbo goes snooping. Summoning Uncle Columbo to help establish the facts, the two men swiftly deduce that Melissa was immobilised by assailant or assailants unknown and bundled away unconscious down the conveniently close service stairwell. His joy is short lived, however, when he steps out of his post-party shower and finds that his blushing bride isn’t lying coquettishly in wait for him in the marital bed, but has instead vanished without trace.Īt first assuming it’s part of a prank laid on by his frat boy-esque detective pals, Andy soon finds evidence of foul play in the form of a chloroform-soaked cotton wool pad carelessly left on the floor. LAPD detective Andy Parma – nephew to the one and only Lieutenant Columbo – has married the girl of his dreams, supermodel Melissa Hayes, at a lavish ceremony bankrolled by her wealthy father.
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