Mr Lacey talks about them getting rid of him, and he is some kind of accountant, seemingly. Later, Columbo refers to it as an employment company where he called Mr Lacey's answering machine. And if Mr Lacey was an employment agency person there should not be many staff and the Tricon lady maybe should have known him well?

My thinking is, the Tricon lady was not interested in engaging in conversation. She may or may not have know Lewis Lacey, but even if she did, I don't think she would have wanted to discuss it.

The Tricon lady says, "Sir, the Tricon Delta 214
is a total spectrum retrieval system. You'll find all the information you need right there."

That about sums it up to me. I took that to mean, "look, dude, whatever you want to know is on the printout. I really don't have the time nor the inclination to let myself be bothered by you."