it turns out your buisness partner had a secret night life of being a drag performer. Columbo found what he initially thought was a long golden hair not belonging to anyone known to be involved, until tests came back for it being made of nylon and likely to have come off of a wig.
under the microscope the hairs had evidence of having been re-styled with curling iron multiple times.
the dress closet at your coworker's home had one wig holder empty. the closet was otherwise well stocked and organised in such a way that there wouldn't be an empty space there for no reason. Which brings up the question of where that wig could have gone. it wasn't at the crime scene. Secondly what kind of drag queen only grabs the wig and not the rest of the outfit?
So I went back to the closet to see if I had missed anything. and I did. there was dress that smelled different than the others. more industrial and less flower. that dress had remnants of a plastic tag strip still pinned through the frabric at the breast. So I called up every drycleaner in town to ask about the dress. big fancy thing, one of a kind.
I found a cleaner who recognised it but could only provide a date of service as the person who brought it in payed in cash and the cameras were on the fritz. the date that that dress was brought in to be cleaned had to have been after the victim had already been dead for a couple of days. I told him it must have been a ghost.
The thing is, the cleaner had no reccord of a wig having come in with the dress. And the person that brought it in could never fit into a gown that size.
So we have a missing wig and a chemically cleaned dress.
The people at the club that your coworker used to frequent said that she never made it to the schedualled show time.
Which got me thinking that, between him leaving the office and the show that night something happened.
I drove the route between here and there having a good lookaround and wouldn't you know it. I found one of your coworker's high heels. He still has both feet so the other on has to be somewhere.
Then I remembered that you fixed that odd squeeling that your car was making. Like there was something awful stuck between moving parts somewhere. I looked around your garage and wouldn't you know it? The other heel was in the trashcan. So I had the boys check out your car. They found more wig hairs twisted up in the tire parts.
The Victim's body was found wearing a suit. So either somebody changed his clothes, or he wasn't in drag when he was killed but had the clothes with him.
the fire pit in your back yard had what appears to have been the burned remants of canvas and a melted zipper. not my choice of kindling but you do you.
Everything we have found so far all leads back to you. We are missing one thing, and that is the motive.