Recap / Columbo S 02 E 06

Evil Spock! He should have a goatee.

Episode: Season 2, Episode 6
Title:"A Stitch in Crime"
Directed by: Hy Averback
Written by: Shirl Hendryx
Air Date: February 11, 1973
Previous: Requiem for a Falling Star
Next: The Most Dangerous Match
Guest Starring: Leonard Nimoy, Anne Francis, Will Geer

"A Stitch in Crime" is the sixth episode of the second season of Columbo.

Dr. Barry Mayfield (Leonard Nimoy) is a hotshot surgeon. He and his mentor, the elderly Dr. Edmund Heideman (Will Geer) are working on a revolutionary drug which promises to end the problem of organ rejection in transplants. Dr. Mayfield is dissatisfied at the slow pace that Dr. Heideman is forcing on their research, and he wants to hog the credit anyway. So when Dr. Heideman starts suffering from chest pains and requires immediate surgery on a valve in his heart, Dr. Mayfield senses an opportunity. He will use dissolving sutures instead of permanent sutures when performing the surgery. When the sutures fail, as they will in a couple of days, Heideman will die of what will look like a heart attack.

The one thing he doesn't count on is one of the nurses, Sharon Martin (Anne Francis, in her second Columbo appearance, having appeared in the first season's "Short Fuse"). Sharon notices something off with the sutures that Mayfield used in the operation. Unwisely, she confronts him about it. Mayfield beats her to death with a tire iron in the hospital parking lot, and plants drugs in her apartment to make it look like she was into some bad business that got her killed. What Mayfield doesn't reckon on was Lt. Columbo of the LAPD, who notices strange things, like how Mayfield was setting a clock while receiving the supposedly disturbing news of his nurse's murder through his desk phone, and how professionally careful the killer was to not leave finger prints on the murder weapon or the planted drugs, leading Columbo to become suspicious of the villainous surgeon.

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Tropes:

• All for Nothing: Because of Columbo's investigative work, Barry ends up having to abandon the plan to kill Dr. Heideman.
• Ambiguous Ending: The episode ends rather abruptly after Columbo reveals that he knew about Mayfield hiding the dissolving sutures on him, so the latter's reaction to this incriminating evidence being found is never shown.
• And Starring: Will Geer gets the "Special Guest Star" credit so often seen on Columbo.
• Angry Collar Grab: Mayfield seizes the persistent detective by his overcoat lapels, seemingly in a passion to perform surgery over answering questions. However, Columbo notes that this behavior is an Out-of-Character Moment for Mayfield, and correctly deduces that Mayfield used this collar grab to conceal damning evidence.
• Bludgeoned to Death: Dr. Mayfield kills Sharon by braining her in the head with a tire iron.
• Call-Back: Columbo, who for a homicide cop is awfully squeamish about blood and gore, can't bear to watch a surgery as another doctor explains to him about sutures. That's why it's notable later in the episode, when he's looking through that same observation window, observing Mayfield perform his second surgery on Heideman.
• Deceased Fall-Guy Gambit: Mayfield's particularly cruel second murder involves him murdering poor Harry Alexander and making it look like a drug overdose, thus setting up Harry to look like Sharon's killer after Mayfield planted drugs in her apartment.
• Didn't Think This Through:
  • Mayfield counts on nobody noticing that he is using dissolving suture dyed to look like permanent suture, but Sharon foils this when she feels the suture and realizes that something is wrong with its texture. This ruins Mayfield's perfect murder right off the bat, inspiring him to hastily murder Sharon to silence any witnesses. However, this brings Columbo on the scene who quickly zeros in on Mayfield when he catches Mayfield resetting his desk clock rather calmly while receiving news over the phone about Sharon's murder.
  • Mayfield's murder of Harry Alexander to frame him is an act of desperation that serves only to make Columbo even more suspicious of Mayfield due to performing an injection on the left arm and not knowing that Alexander is left-handed.
• Frame-Up: Mayfield concocts a frame in which Sharon will appear to have been selling drugs, and her old boyfriend Harry Alexander, a drug addict, will have appeared to kill her for her drugs and then died of an overdose.
• Gaslighting: When Sharon notices that Mayfield's suture of choice feels like dissolving suture, she unwisely confronts Mayfield about it not feeling right (because he dyed dissolving suture to look like permanent suture), and tells him about how he'd receive credit for Heideman's work if they die. Mayfield tries to throw Sharon off by suggesting that her dislike of him is causing her to lose herself in hysteria, and sarcastically suggests that the police may want to hear about this. Sharon isn't fooled by this psychological warfare, and schedules a meeting with a suture supplier to get the dyed suture looked at, but Mayfield eavesdropped on the call and bludgeons her at her car.
• Idiot Ball: If Sharon had kept the evidence incriminating Mayfield to herself and kept him in the dark, she would have been able to have a suture supplier check her suture sample and proceed to report anonymously to the police, leading to the possibility of trying Mayfield for at least attempted first-degree murder.
• Impairment Shot: A lot of optical effects simulating Harry Alexander's impaired vision as he falls down the stairs and dies after Mayfield has given him a hot shot.
• The Killer Was Left-Handed: Harry Alexander supposedly died of a drug overdose injected into his left arm. But Columbo notes that Alexander was left-handed, which makes it most unlikely that he injected himself.
• Make It Look Like an Accident: Mayfield stages Harry Alexander's death to look like a drug overdose.
• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Mayfield earns this distinction by default for using premeditated murder to take over Dr. Heideman's project to develop a revolutionary drug that ends organ rejection. He also wants to rush the drug out the door without proper testing.
• Near-Villain Victory: Mayfield very nearly managed to fool Columbo into leaving him alone by planting the dissolving suture on the lieutenant, as the police can't find it despite combing the operating room. However, just as Mayfield is able to breathe a sigh of relief when Columbo admits defeat and seemingly leaves from his office for the last time, the latter comes back in and reveals that he's found the suture.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: A heroic example; Columbo eventually drops his usual fawning over the perp and makes it clear to Mayfield that he's suspecting the doctor of the murders, warning him that he will order an autopsy if Dr. Heideman dies from the wrong kind of sutures. The lieutenant even briefly watches Mayfield like a hawk during the second operation on Heideman.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • Mayfield's Evil Laugh causes Columbo to do something that he virtually never does: get angry. Columbo slams a carafe down on Mayfield's desk and tells him that he'd better take good care of Dr. Heideman, because if Heideman dies, Columbo will order an autopsy and they'll see whether or not those sutures were the right kind.
  • This also ends up screwing Mayfield over in the end. When Columbo enters the operation room to search for the dissolving suture, Mayfield gets in his face and shoves him. It hits Columbo that Mayfield has been so cool and collected up until now, it seems odd he would lose his temper like that. There's only one reason Columbo thinks of why the doctor did this: to plant the dissolving suture on Columbo, the one place they wouldn't think to look... and he's right.
• Recurring Riff: During Mayfield's party, the relaxed variant of the Ransom for a Dead Man theme plays.
• Staggered Zoom: Onto Harry Alexander's face as he lies dead at the foot of the stairs.
• Survivor's Guilt: The victim's roommate has a surprisingly realistic reaction to her death. When being questioned by Columbo she can barely stay on topic, veering off to talk about how kind and perfect the victim was, and deprecating herself for not being as virtuous. While it wasn't helpful for the investigation, its common for people stricken by grief to feel a need to confess any wrongdoing that might have lead to the death, even if it was just her feeling guilty that she survived while her friend could not.
• The Stoic: Dr. Mayfield doesn't show much emotion, even killing Sharon with all the coldness of a hitman.
• Too Clever by Half: If Mayfield had been content to just bash Sharon's head in with a tire iron he probably would have gotten away with it or at least delayed forensics in finding a link to him. But the whole business with the fake drug scheme just gets too complicated and just presented more ways for Mayfield to trip up.
• Unexpectedly Dark Episode: Mayfield being portrayed as having few if any redeeming qualities makes this episode have a creepy vibe to it. The killer surgeon tries to kill his mentor Dr. Heideman through sabotaging his heart valve and he's gleeful about taking all the credit for their revolutionary heart transplant research. Even Columbo gets fed up with how ruthless he is and gets very stern with him about the suspicion of Mayfield murdering Sharon to cover up premeditated murder.
• The Unfettered: Dr. Mayfield is deeply obsessed with taking over Dr. Heideman's project and will go to great lengths to get his way. When Sharon confronts Dr. Mayfield over his scheme to rig Heideman's heart to fail, and is soon-after overheard by Mayfield scheduling a visit to the hospital's suture supplier, he bludgeons Sharon at her car without even flinching. Columbo quickly picks up on how trivial Sharon's murder is to Mayfield, which eventually culminates in Columbo becoming angry with him.

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