13. With the French Heel Back, Can the Nehru Jacket Be Far Behind?

Complete story — includes the ending

Carol, a fashion model ex-girlfriend of Rockford, telephones him panic-stricken one night, but by the time he gets to her hotel room she is dead in what the police decide was a suicide. Rockford strongly disagrees, but Dennis Becker cannot look into the case because he is tied up in the same-night murder of another model. Leaving the police station, Rockford hears a woman ( Erin Gray ) angrily disputing that Carol killed herself, and the two become friends. Rockford is hired by a pompous fashion designer ( Rene Auberjonois ) to investigate his theory, that Carol was being pressured by a rival design house to reveal the secrets of his latest clothing line. It gets Rockford looking into the haute couture ‘rag business’, complete with loan sharks, mobsters and oversized egos. With Michael Des Barres, Marisa Pavan, Howard Witt, Marguerite Ray, John Zenda, Jim B. Smith, Albert Carrier, Chris DeRose and W.K. Stratton.