The PMS Murder

by Laura Levine

  Maybe she didn’t change her mind about killing Marybeth.

  Maybe all she changed was her murder weapon.

  Now I had two suspects with motives, but not a shred of proof that either one of them doctored the guacamole. The only fingerprints on that damn bottle of peanut oil were Rochelle’s.

  Feeling frustrated by my lack of evidence, I decided to drive out to the beach to clear my head. It was an overcast day, cool and gray, the perfect day for walking and thinking, with no TV to distract me.

  I drove out to Malibu and parked on the Coast Highway, then scrambled down a steep pebbled path onto the beach.

  Hardly anyone was there. Just a few dog walkers and hardy joggers, tossing up clumps of wet sand as they ran. I took off my shoes and walked along the shoreline, sand squishing between my toes. The cool, damp air felt great on my face. True, my hair was frizzing like a Brillo pad, but I didn’t care. It was worth it.

  I walked along the shoreline, turning things over in my mind. And after forty-five minutes of deep thought, I reached an important insight:

  Dog poop doesn’t smell nearly as bad at the beach as it does in town.

  What can I say? My mind wandered.

  Annoyed at myself for having frittered away forty-five minutes, I headed back to the Corolla.

  I started the car and was about to merge into traffic on the Coast Highway when suddenly I heard an earsplitting explosion. Now I’ve seen my fair share of action flicks, so I know a gunshot when I hear one. Someone was shooting at me!

  With Herculean effort, I managed to keep my cool and steered the Corolla into the ongoing stream of cars on the highway.

  Yeah, right. You know me better than that. I immediately flew into an advanced state of panic and barely missed ramming my Corolla into a Mercedes SUV. The charming trophy wife behind the wheel flashed me an impressive set of diamonds as she gave me the finger.

  I gunned the accelerator, once again trying to merge into traffic, when another shot rang in the air. Why the hell wasn’t anyone stopping to help me? I could only pray that one of those cowards whizzing by on the highway would call the police.

  Suddenly the Corolla started bumping erratically. Damn. The shooter had blown out my tires. I wasn’t going anywhere. I was stranded, alone on the shoulder of the road with a would-be assassin.

  I crouched down in my seat and peeked out the windows, looking for the gunman. But all I saw were joggers on the beach. Then I checked out the rearview mirror and let out a terrified scream. Staring back at me was a wide-eyed derelict. Omigod, how did he get in my car? What did he want from me? Had Marybeth’s killer paid him to kill and/or seriously maim me?

  With my heart pounding, I sneaked another peek in the mirror. Strange, the derelict looked somewhat like me. I looked again. Oh, good heavens, it was me. My hair had gone completely haywire in the fog, giving me that finger-in-the-light-socket mental patient look.

  When my heart finally stopped racing, I took another look outside. Still no sign of any gun-toting bad guys. But I wasn’t taking any chances. No way was I getting out of my car. I got out my cell phone and called 911.

  Five minutes later, a squad car pulled up.

  Two Malibu cops, tan enough to moonlight as lifeguards, got out of the car. One of them approached my window while the other started examining the tires.

  “Someone tried to kill me!” I wailed to the cop at my window. “They shot out my tires.”

  “Nobody shot your tires,” his partner said, kneeling over the front passenger tire.

  “What?”

  “Come here and see for yourself.”

  Somehow I managed to pry my knuckles from the steering wheel and walked over to the front of the car.

  “Looks like you ran over a box of nails.”

  Indeed, my front tires were studded with dozens of industrial-strength nails.

  “Gosh, it sounded just like gunshots,” I said, making a mental note to never again jump to conclusions based on movie sound effects.

  The cop who discovered the nails shook his head, disgusted.

  “What sort of jerk throws nails on the highway?”

  “Probably kids,” his partner said. “Probably thought it was funny.”

  Maybe it was kids, I thought. But maybe not. Maybe it was someone who wanted to intimidate me, and get me to stop my investigation.

  No, I’d bet my bottom Pop Tart that the person who’d tossed those nails in the path of my car was Marybeth’s killer.

  Luckily, I have an instruction booklet called How to Change a Tire in my glove compartment, one of the many useful gifts my mom has sent me from the shopping channel. Which made for very interesting reading while the Triple A guy actually did the job. (C’mon now. You didn’t really think that I, Jaine Austen, a woman who has trouble changing an overhead light bulb, was going to change her own tire, did you?)

  By the time the Triple A guy drove off, my heart rate had finally returned to normal, and my hands had stopped shaking enough so that I could drive.

  Before starting the car, I took another look at myself in my rearview mirror. Yikes. My hair really was a disaster. I looked like a cross between Little Orphan Annie and Albert Einstein.

  I reached into my bag for my hairbrush to tame down my mop. But the brush I pulled out wasn’t mine. My brush is a $2.79 plastic SavOn special. This brush was one of those fancy British boar bristle models. And then I recognized it. It was Ashley’s brush, the one she was using at the Brentwood Day Spa. I must’ve grabbed it by accident in the locker room.

  As long as I was out in Malibu, I decided to stop by Ashley’s place and return it. If indeed the murderer was trying to get me to stop my investigation, it wasn’t going to work. I may be a sniveling weakling, but nobody can say I’m not a foolhardy sniveling weakling.

  Yes, I’d go to Ashley’s. It would be a perfect opportunity to ask her some more questions. Maybe this time she’d remember seeing something incriminating.

  If not, maybe she’d treat me to an expensive lunch. I sure could use one.

  I drove up the winding road to Ashley’s house—correction, palace—in Malibu. It was a sprawling Mediterranean extravaganza, studded with elaborate arches and balconies, very Tuscany-by-the-sea.

  I was puzzled by the landscaping, though. All the plants were overgrown, and the lawn looked like it hadn’t been mowed in weeks. Maybe this was the latest thing in landscaping: the Vacant Lot Look. Or maybe Ashley was simply between gardeners.

  I rang her doorbell, but no one came to the door. After a minute or so, I rang again. Still no answer. Which surprised me, because Ashley’s Jag was parked right there in the driveway. She had to be home. I pressed the buzzer one more time.

  “Who the hell is it?” she finally called out.

  “It’s Jaine. Jaine Austen.”

  I heard the sound of footsteps approaching. Ashley opened the door, in a flowing silk caftan, holding a glass of what smelled like gin.

  “Jaine!” She looked at me in dismay. “What are you doing here?”

  Not exactly the warm and fuzzy greeting I’d been hoping for.

  I smiled weakly and fished her hairbrush from my purse.

  “I took your brush by mistake the other day, and I happened to be in the neighborhood so I thought I’d return it.”

  “Thanks, hon,” she said, snatching it from me. “You’re a doll for bringing it by.”

  She made no move to invite me in.

  First Doris, now Ashley. Clearly these two were not fans of unexpected guests.

  “Actually, I wanted to ask you a few more questions about the murder.”

  “Oh.” She took a slug of her gin, still blocking the doorway.

  “Mind if I come in?”

  “Well, okay,” she sighed. She stepped aside with a forced smile and led me past a huge echoing foyer into her living room.

  I expected to see a room ripped from the pages of Architectural Digest. Instead, it looked like something from Better Homes & Hovels. There wer
e large faded spots on the walls where paintings had once hung. And indentations in the carpeting where furniture used to sit.

  Just a few pieces of furniture remained: A sofa, some folding metal chairs, and a cheap television perched on a card table. Throwaway newspapers and mail-order catalogues were tossed carelessly around the room.

  “Excuse the mess,” Ashley said, with a wave of her caftaned sleeve. “Maid’s day off.”

  It looked more like the maid’s month off. The dust was thick as velvet on the few pieces of furniture that were still in the room.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” she asked. “I’m having a teeny tiny martooni.”

  “No, thanks. I’m fine.”

  “Have a seat,” she said, slumping down onto the sofa. I know the place is a fright.” She took a slug of her ‘martooni.’ “Most of the furniture’s out being reupholstered.”

  Yeah, right, I thought, glancing up at the faded spaces on the walls. Since when do paintings get reupholstered?

  I guess she must’ve sensed my skepticism.

  “Oh, what the hell. I’m not fooling you, am I?” She polished off her booze in a single gulp. “I’m broke, honey. Busted. I can barely scrape enough together to afford this rotgut gin.”

  “But I don’t understand. The other day. At the spa. It must have cost a fortune—”

  “Gift certificates. I’ve been saving them for a special occasion. And when you called and said you wanted to come to the house, it was the first thing I could think of to keep you from seeing all this.”

  “I’m sorry you had to use up those certificates on my account.”

  “Don’t be. I had fun. Didn’t you?”

  “Of course I did.”

  And I meant it. I really did have fun. The gals in the PMS Club were some of the most fun murder suspects I’d ever met.

  “Remember that day I ran into you at Goodwill?” she said. “I wasn’t dropping anything off. I was shopping there. When I saw you coming, I dumped what I’d bought in the trash and pretended that I’d just made a donation.”

  “Really?” I said, trying my best not to look like someone who’d fished her dry cleaning out of one of the donation bins.

  “Yep, Goodwill’s my speed nowadays,” she said, nodding wistfully. “I’ve come a long way from Ferragamo.”

  “But everybody thinks you’re—”

  “Loaded? No way. Don’t have a pot to piss in. When my sonofabitch husband died, he left me up to my eyeballs in debt. Thank God we owned the house. Otherwise, I’d be living out of my Jaguar.” She gestured around the room. “For the past two years, I’ve been cashing in on the proceeds from our paintings and our furniture.”

  Why not do what the rest of the world does, I wondered, and get a job?

  “Have you tried looking for work?” I asked.

  “Easier said than done. You try competing for work with kids fresh out of college. Besides, employers don’t exactly come banging on your door when you’ve got a B.A. in art history. Sure, I’d like to work for the Getty, but so far, the only people who want me are the friendly folks at Taco Bell. Sometimes I work nights in the boiler room of a telemarketing company. It’s an absolute hellhole but it’s one place I’m sure I won’t run into anyone I know. Which reminds me, please don’t tell anybody about this. The one thing I’ve got left is my pride.”

  She brought her glass to her lips and then realized it was empty.

  “Sure you don’t want one of these?”

  I shook my head.

  “I don’t blame you. It’s awful stuff. You know you’re in trouble when your gin is imported from Guam.”

  She got on her knees and began fishing around under the sofa.

  “Where are you, you little devil?” Finally, she found what she was looking for.

  “Aha!” She pulled out a bottle of Brand X gin and filled her glass, licking a few drops that spilled onto her hand.

  So much for pride.

  “I won’t tell anyone,” I promised, “but I can’t believe anybody would think less of you if they knew the truth.”

  “Probably not. But I think less of me.”

  She slugged down some gin and belched softly.

  “Oops.” She covered her mouth and giggled. “Excusez-moi!”

  Somebody was well on her way to getting tanked.

  “I know it’s crazy to keep up the pretense,” she said, “but I can’t bear having anyone know how low I’ve sunk.”

  “You never told anyone? Not even Marybeth? You being such old friends and all.”

  She had a hearty chuckle over that one.

  “Yeah, I told Marybeth. And you know what she did? She offered to loan me some money. At one percent lower than the prevailing bank rate. Those were her exact words. Here I was at the end of my rope, and she was talking to me like a goddamn loan officer. I wanted to wring her neck, the little shit.”

  The veins on her neck throbbed in anger.

  So those tears at the spa were just an act. Now that she was three sheets to the wind, Ashley’s true feelings about Marybeth were coming out.

  “Colin told me she left you money in her will,” I said. “That has to count for something.”

  “Ten grand. Big deal. She knew how much I was hurting. She left millions to relatives she hadn’t seen in years, and I got ten grand. That’ll barely pay the pool man. But I forgot. I don’t have a pool man any more, do I?”

  She laughed bitterly.

  “You want to hear something funny? Back in college, I was the successful one, the one everybody said was going to go places, not Marybeth. She was a nobody. Barely managed to graduate. And you should’ve seen her back then—before her nose job, and her $500 highlights. You wouldn’t have looked at her twice.”

  She stared down into her empty gin glass.

  “But then everything changed. Marybeth was the one who went out and conquered the world. And me? I didn’t live up to my promise. All I did was marry well. And then, not so well after all, huh?”

  She looked up at me, her eyes hard and bitter. The bighearted, fun-loving gal I’d known at the PMS Club had vanished. Underneath that happy-go-lucky exterior, Ashley was a very angry woman.

  I wanted to tell her that it wasn’t too late, that she could still make something of her life, that all she had to do was sober up, and sooner or later she’d find a decent job and maybe even a decent guy. I wanted to tell her all that, but I didn’t get a chance, because just then the doorbell rang.

  “Get that for me, will ya, hon?” she said. “I got a headache.”

  I left her lying on the sofa, cradling the bottle of gin in her arms, and answered the door.

  A burly guy with a clipboard was standing outside. Behind him I could see a tow truck with the logo “Ace Reliable” emblazoned on its side.

  “You Ashley Morgan?” he asked, consulting his clipboard.

  “No, I’m afraid she’s not feeling very well.”

  “I’m here to repo her Jag. Either she makes it easy and gives me the key. Or I jimmy the lock and tow it without the key.”

  “Sorry, pal, I’m not giving you the key.” Ashley staggered into the foyer, clutching her bottle of gin. “You’re gonna have to work for your money.”

  Mr. Reliable shrugged. “Doesn’t matter to me, lady. I get paid by the hour.”

  He went over to his tow truck and pulled out a crowbar.

  “Screw you!” Ashley shouted out to his beefy back. Then she polished off the last of the gin and slammed the door shut.

  “My beautiful Jag,” she moaned. “I can’t bear to watch.”

  And while Mr. Reliable went about his business repossessing Ashley’s Jaguar, I led her upstairs to her bedroom, barren except for a table lamp and mattress on the floor. I settled her in bed with a cold washcloth on her forehead and then made my way downstairs, just in time to see the silver Jag being towed away.

  For the first time I noticed her vanity license plate: RICH B*TCH.

  Not anymore, I thought.
Not any more.

  It wasn’t until I was halfway home that I realized the implications of what I’d just seen.

  Ashley was in desperate need of money. Maybe she’d known that Marybeth was going to leave her money in her will and just assumed it was a bundle. Maybe she was getting tired of drinking rotgut booze and working nights in a telemarketing boiler room.

  And maybe—fueled by anger, jealousy and way too much gin—she decided to go after her inheritance with the help of a little peanut oil.

  YOU’VE GOT MAIL

  TAMPA TRIBUNE

  TAMPA VISTAS RESIDENT RUNS NAKED THROUGH STREETS OF RETIREMENT COMMUNITY

  Tampa Vistas resident Hank Austen was apprehended last night running through the streets of Tampa Vistas stark naked, a large rottweiler nipping at his heels.

  Witnesses said the dog belonged to the Reverend James Sternmuller, whose home Austen was seen breaking into earlier in the evening.

  Mr. Austen was incarcerated for several hours before being released into his wife’s custody.

  Reverend Sternmuller has agreed not to press charges.

  “The poor fellow needs counseling,” he said. “Preferably in a locked facility.”

  To: Jausten

  From: Shoptillyoudrop

  Subject: Your Daddy, The Ex-Con

  Hi, darling—

  I’ve been too miserable to write before now, but I suppose you’ve got to be told: Your Daddy is an ex-con!

  It’s true. He was arrested the other night and locked behind bars for three whole hours. And I had to go down to the jail to bail him out. Frankly, I was so disgusted with him, I almost left him there.

  You’re not going to believe this, but your father broke into Reverend Sternmuller’s house to look for Hugo Boss ties!

  He broke the window on his back door and busted in while Reverend Sternmuller was at the clubhouse playing bingo. Then he snuck upstairs to his bedroom and searched all his drawers and his closet. Naturally, there were no Hugo Boss ties. In fact, when he looked in the closet, he actually found a carton of Bibles! Not to mention a picture of Reverend Sternmuller with Billy Graham. So much for being a killer!