The PMS Murder (25 page)

I grabbed my purse and was halfway out the door when I realized I wasn’t wearing any shoes.

Damn. I raced back to my closet and put on a pair of Reeboks. What the heck. No one was going to see them under all those mountains of chiffon.

The rest of me was in such pain; at least my feet would be comfortable.

Then I headed out into the night in my Cinderella ball gown. Too bad my Fairy Godmother was taking the night off.

Chapter 24

Traffic was a nightmare. Traffic is always a nightmare in L.A. Dinosaurs were probably backed up on the Santa Monica Freeway in the Mesozoic era. Which means I had plenty of time to put on my makeup. Heck, I had enough time to do the makeup for the cast of
Phantom of the Opera
.

Needless to say, my good mood was history.

I looked crummy and felt crummier. What’s worse, I’d lost all confidence in my ability to help Rochelle beat her murder rap. What on earth made me think the cops were going to take me seriously? Suddenly I wasn’t even sure Marty was the killer. All the facts pointed to him, but something was bothering me. I had this strange feeling that I’d been given a valuable clue that day, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

By the time I got off the freeway, I was already forty-five minutes late. Nothing like getting off to a great start on my first assignment. I seriously considered turning around and going home. But I’d come this far; I might as well see it through.

I checked myself out in my rearview mirror and sighed. No miracle had happened on the ride 246

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over. I still looked like crap. I reached for a tissue and blotted my lipstick.

Isn’t it strange how little things can be so important? If I hadn’t blotted my lipstick, I never would’ve figured out the truth.

Because when I glanced down at the tissue, that elusive little clue swimming around in my brain came bubbling up to the surface. At last I knew what had been nagging at me—the lottery ticket I’d found in Pam’s purse at lunch that afternoon.

At the time, I’d noticed a red stain on the ticket. I thought it was the jelly from Pam’s donut. But now, looking down at my tissue, I realized it wasn’t a jelly stain I’d seen on the ticket—but a
lipstick blot
.

I remembered that first meeting of the PMS

Club, when Marybeth held up her winning lottery ticket and kissed it. She’d left a candy red lipstick blot on the ticket. The same blot I’d seen on the ticket in Pam’s purse.

What,
I wondered,
was Pam doing with Marybeth’s
ticket?

Suddenly I felt queasy. A horrible thought struck me. Could Pam have possibly killed Marybeth for the $50,000 lottery money? Maybe there was no Bucko Burger commercial. Maybe the windfall she was about to receive was from the State of California. Maybe she stole Marybeth’s ticket and then killed her before Marybeth could figure out what she’d done.

I pulled up to the Stratford and gave my car to a valet.

“You going to the Chang-Germanetti wedding?” he asked, eyeing my ghastly bridesmaid gown.

“No, the Union National party.”

“Really? You’re wearing
that
to the Union National party? Major fashion boo-boo.” THE PMS MURDERS

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Okay, he didn’t really say that. He just shrugged and said, “Rooftop Terrace.”

I headed inside and crossed the lobby of the venerable old hotel, with its original architectural moldings and massive crystal chandeliers.

Could it be?
I thought, as I rang for the elevator.

Was Pam, my new second-best friend, actually a killer?

But that was impossible. Pam had been by my side the night of the murder. She never left me, not for a moment. She was never alone in the kitchen that night.

But what if Pam was there earlier in the day?

Maybe it was Pam—and not Marty—who’d managed to sneak into the house on the afternoon of the murder. Rochelle said that the only people who’d been at the house that day were the plumbers and the building inspector. Could one of them have been Pam in disguise?

Pam was, after all, an actress. She had access to makeup. And Pam was a stocky woman. With a phony beard or mustache, she might easily pass for a guy. Hadn’t she been a very convincing man all those years ago in
The Odd Couple?

Yes, Pam could have been one of the guys at the house that day. And Rochelle, distracted as she was that afternoon, would never have recognized her.

She couldn’t have been one of the plumbers, though. Surely, they would have noticed a stranger in their midst. But what about the building inspector? What if Pam was the inspector?

When the elevator came, it was empty. The only other passengers who got on with me were an elderly couple and a room service guy with a cart. I wasn’t surprised it was so deserted. The Union National employees had probably all shown up ages ago.

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The elevator, like the rest of the hotel, was a relic from yesteryear, a spacious cabin with burnished mahogany walls and gleaming brass railings. We pressed the buttons for our respective floors, and the elevator began its slow and stately ascent. At this rate, it would take forever to reach the Rooftop Terrace, but I was already so late for the party, it hardly mattered.

Then suddenly I remembered something Pam had said at lunch today. She’d said Marty probably doctored the guacamole
while Rochelle was preoccupied with the building inspector.
How did she know about the inspector’s visit? I’d never mentioned it to her.

No, Pam knew about the building inspector because she
was
the building inspector. While she was upstairs “inspecting” the master bath with Rochelle, she could’ve easily invented an excuse to check something downstairs and dashed to the kitchen to add a fatal dose of peanut oil to the guacamole.

Oh, God. Pam really
was
the killer.

The trouble with this case all along was that everyone in the PMS Club seemed so nice. No one seemed capable of murder. I knew one of them had to be acting a part. I just never dreamed it was the actress.

The elevator stopped on the fourth floor and the elderly couple got off. The doors slid shut and I was alone with the room service guy. Strange that he was on the guest elevator. Didn’t waiters usually ride the service elevators? For the first time I noticed his jacket, and a frisson of fear ran down my spine. If this was the Stratford Hotel, why did his lapel say The Plaza? Was that unnaturally black hair of his actually a wig? And was it my imagina-THE PMS MURDERS

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tion, or was one side of his mustache slightly lower than the other?

Then I looked down at his hands and saw he was wearing something room-service guys rarely wear—

nail polish.

“Pam!” I blurted out, before I could stop myself.

“It’s me, all right.”

There was a manic gleam in her eyes that froze my blood. Gone were all traces of the friendly woman I’d met at the Bargain Barn.

“Too bad you had to drop my purse today. Once you saw the lottery ticket, I knew it was only a matter of time before you figured things out. So I rented this costume and took a chance I’d get you alone in the elevator. Guess I lucked out, huh?” And with that, she tossed aside the metal cover from the room service tray, to reveal a butcher knife.

Oh, Lord. It was big enough to gut a whale.

Frantic, I sprinted for the control panel to push the alarm button, but before I could reach it, Pam yanked me back by my ponytail and hurled me against the wall. I howled in pain.

She was stronger than me. A lot stronger.

“Don’t be crazy,” I said, holding my throbbing head. “The elevator could stop any minute. What if someone sees you?”

“They won’t see me. They’ll see a deranged room service waiter.” She picked up the knife and I felt a wave of bile rise in my throat. “When they find your body, they’ll think a man did it. Maybe even Marty. Don’t forget. I’ve got that paper you signed this afternoon blaming him for your murder.”

I cursed myself for writing that damn statement.

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Thanks to my stupidity, Pam was going to get away with murder—twice.

But I couldn’t just stand there and let her slice me open like a Benihana chef. I had to keep her talking and somehow get that ghastly knife away from her.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “Why did you have to kill Marybeth? Couldn’t you have just stolen the ticket?”

“She saw me take it from her purse. The bitch had eyes in the back of her head. She threatened to tell everybody. Can you imagine? Telling everyone that I was a thief?”

I refrained from pointing out that’s exactly what she was.

“I gave her a sob story about how sorry I was and begged her not to say anything. She said she wouldn’t, but I knew that sooner or later she’d blab. And until then, she’d torture me with the threat of exposure every chance she got. She’d enjoy that. And besides, I wanted that fifty grand.

You may not mind shopping at the Bargain Barn, honey, but I’m sick of it.

“So you see,” she said, her knife poised to attack, “I had no choice. Just like I don’t have any choice now. Which is really too bad. I tried to warn you, you know.”

“By putting those nails under my tires?”

“I thought for sure that would scare you off. It’s a shame you were so damn persistent. Now I have to kill you. What a pity. I like you, Jaine. We could’ve been friends.”

“Can’t we still be friends? I won’t tell anyone; I promise. Marybeth deserved to die. You were doing the world a favor. And I’m sure Rochelle’s lawyers will get her off on a technicality. Let’s for-THE PMS MURDERS

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get about this silly murder thing and head on over to Ben & Jerry’s.”

“You don’t really think I’m going to fall for that, do you?”

No, actually I didn’t, but it had given me time to inch over to the metal lid she’d tossed on the floor. I grabbed it now and swung it with all my might, knocking the knife from her hands.

As I lunged for the knife, she lunged for me, grabbing me by the train of my bridesmaid dress. I heard the rip of the seams, already
thisclose
to bursting, as they tore apart. Then, just as I was about to grab the knife, I felt a searing pain in my legs as Pam rammed me with the room service cart and sent me sprawling to the floor.

Before I knew it, she was on top of me, frantically searching for the knife, which had disappeared from sight, hidden somewhere under the mountains of chiffon in my dress. At least the dratted dress was good for something. We spent what felt like centuries but was probably only seconds clawing at each other, my dress now completely torn from my body.

By this time I was screaming for help at the top of my lungs. Where the hell were all the people in this hotel anyway? Couldn’t anybody hear me?

Then, to my horror, I saw Pam retrieve the knife from under a pile of chiffon.

“Sorry, Jaine,” she said, holding it aloft. “Oh, and by the way, thanks again for the resume.” Then, just as she was about to plunge the knife into my chest, the elevator door dinged open, and we were on the rooftop terrace, surrounded by a crowd of gaping Union National employees. Thank heavens. Someone
had
heard me.

The next thing I knew, a couple of security 252

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guards were prying Pam off me and hauling her away. And then the hunkalicious Andrew Ferguson stepped out of the crowd and kneeled down next to me.

“I’ve heard of bad room service,” he said, “but that was ridiculous. Are you okay?” Was I okay?? Of course I wasn’t okay!! I was lying there in front of half the staff of Union National Bank, practically naked in my waist-nipper pantyhose and Reeboks!

“Yes,” I managed to say. “I’m okay.” He glanced down at my waist nippers and whispered: “You know, ever since I saw those pantyhose on my desk, I’ve been wondering what you looked like in them. And out of them.” Then he smiled a smile that made me blush right down to my Reeboks.

What do you know? Looks like my Fairy Godmother was working that night, after all.

Epilogue

Needless to say, the cops released Rochelle and arrested Pam. Her lawyer’s going to have one hell of a time explaining the “building inspector” costume the cops found in her apartment.

After all that happened, it was no surprise that the PMS Club broke up. Not long ago, we met for lunch and caught up on the events in each other’s lives.

You’ll be happy to learn that Doris is engaged to a widower she met at a “How to Survive the Loss of a Love” support group.

Ashley is no longer pretending to be rich and seems a lot more at peace with herself. She’s rent-ing out her house to movie production companies and got herself a job as a personal shopper at Saks.

Last I heard, she was dating a guy in ladies’ lin-gerie. (No, not a cross-dresser, but a buyer from the New York office.)

Colin landed a terrific gig as a personal assistant with one of L.A.’s hottest new caterers. And you’ll never guess who that caterer is. Rochelle! Yep, she divorced her ratfink of a husband and went into business doing what she does best—cooking.

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After catering some movie shoots at Ashley’s house, the word spread, and now Rochelle is whipping up empanadas and margaritas for Hollywood’s “A List.” (One thing she refuses to make, though, is guacamole. If a customer insists on it, she buys it at the market.)

Marty Meyers is living with his latest mistress—

not poor Cissy, but the 19-year-old bimbette he hired to replace Nurse Medusa. Pam was lying about seeing him on the day of the murder. At the time Pam claimed to have seen him outside Ralph’s supermarket, he was actually holed up in his office, drilling his bimbette.

Colin and Lance were a hot and heavy item for a couple of months, until Lance let Colin redecorate his living room. I warned him not to do it, but did he listen? Nooo. They got into a huge fight over the coffin Colin expected Lance to use as a coffee table, and things went pffft from there.

Bad news about Kandi. She’s single again. Steve dumped her. It seems he fell in love with Armando, the wedding planner. I guess they bonded all those nights when Kandi was working late. At first, she was devastated, but you know Kandi. A month later, she was signing up for a course in Singles Kickboxing.