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?