Columbo: Candidate for Crime

SYNOPSIS

It's a week before the election and Senate candidate Nelson Hayward seems to have a good chance of winning, particularly since his campaign manager Harry Stone started rumors that someone was out to kill him. Hayward has now had a good deal of publicity over standing strong in the face of danger, but the demanding Stone now insists that the married Hayward drop his girlfriend Linda Johnson. Hayward kills Stone and uses Stone's own rumors of political assassination as the reason behind the killing. His alibi for the time of the killing is that he was at his wife Victoria's birthday party. Colombo is puzzled by a number of things, including how a killer could have killed Stone in the dark or how Hayward knew to order a new jacket to replaced the one damaged in the shooting before the shooting occurred. To allay growing suspicions, Hayward tries to stage another attempt on his life but Colombo is one step ahead of him.