I was watching an old Columbo episode, “Etude in Black,” in which conductor Alex Benedict murders his star pianist Jenifer Welles, to prevent her from revealing their secret love affair.
As a musician myself, and knowing a little something about the piano, I thought it might be fun to rewrite one of the scenes of this episode, thusly:
Columbo: I’m very upset by this Jenifer Welles thing.
Alex Benedict: Yes. So am I.
Columbo: You know I was up half the night. I couldn’t sleep. I kept going over it in my mind. I couldn’t figure it out: why, why, why would a girl like this, young, beautiful, talented girl with everything to live for, why does she take her life like that?
Alex Benedict: Well, it was not widely known, but Jenifer Welles couldn’t actually play the piano.
Columbo: Really!?
Alex Benedict: Yes. See, she played back a recording, and then she moved her fingers over the keyboard to make it look like she was playing, at least to the untrained eye.
Columbo: Are you sure?
Alex Benedict: Absolutely! I mean, she wasn’t even holding her hands in the right position. The keys weren’t going up and down. It was obvious that she really wasn’t playing it.
Columbo: So then, why did you allow her to continue to sit in the orchestra?
Alex Benedict: I had a soft spot for Jenifer. I wanted to give her a chance, and I thought that if we handled it quietly, that she would have a chance to start playing honestly.
Columbo: I see.
Alex Benedict: And she was about to. But then the fame and accolades started coming, and critics started calling her a “world-class pianist,” and she just couldn’t turn back at that point, couldn’t admit the truth, because she was in too deep. Maybe her conscience just got the best of her. She couldn’t tell the truth, and she couldn’t bear to lie about it any more.
Columbo: Yes, it could have happened like that.
Alex Benedict: I never thought she’d commit suicide, though. And the ironic thing is that now, this is all bound to come out, now that’s she’s gone.
-TimK