Mortician to the stars Eric Prince, kills gossip reporter Verity Chandler, who had knowledge of skeletons in Prince's closet. Columbo must figure out what happened to her and why.

Hollywood film composer and conductor Findlay Crawford has been mentor to a talented young composer who has been ghostwriting most of Crawford's work for the last few years, and penned Crawford's entire last movie score, which won an Oscar. When the protege wants to venture out on his own, Crawford, whose own talent seems to have run dry, concocts the perfect murder, made to look like a suicide.