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.

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.