“I was just about to leave for the Brentwood Day Spa,” she said. “Why don’t you meet me there? I’m having a full-body seaweed wrap. You can have one, too.”

“A seaweed wrap?”

“It’s marvelous, darling. Your pores won’t know what hit them.”

Now I was born in Hermosa Beach, so I know all about seaweed. It’s brown stinky stuff. The last thing I wanted to do was wrap my body in it. But I had a murder to solve. And if I had to turn myself into a seaweed sandwich to do it, so be it.

An hour later I was lying naked on a massage table while a nymph named Aloe (I’m not kidding; I came thisclose to asking if her middle name was Vera) slathered my body with a vile-smelling brown gunk.

“I know it smells awful,” said Ashley, who was being slathered on a table next to me, “but the stuff works miracles.”

“Yes,” Aloe enthused, “kelp is nature’s antioxidant. It sucks all the impurities out of your pores, and it breaks down your cellulite, although with all your cellulite, I’m not sure kelp will be strong enough. We may need to use dynamite.”

Okay, she didn’t really make that crack about dynamiting my cellulite. But I saw the look in her eyes when she was putting the seaweed on my thighs. She was thinking it.

“Don’t you feel marvelous?” Ashley sighed.

Yeah. Like a crab at high tide.

“Marvelous,” I echoed feebly.

At first I’d felt embarrassed about getting naked in front of Ashley. But I was heartened to see that, out of her designer clothes, Ashley was packing a few extra pounds of her own, in the dreaded hip/thigh area. Nothing like somebody else’s fat to improve your own body image.

Once we were covered head to toe in marine ooze, Aloe and her fellow masseuse left Ashley and me alone in our private massage room.

“We’ll be back in a half-hour,” Aloe chirped, “as soon as you’ve absorbed your kelp.”

“I thought they’d never leave,” Ashley said the minute they were gone. “Now tell me about your investigation. I think it’s wonderful that you’re trying to help Rochelle. And I’m so impressed that you’re a private eye.”

“Just part-time.”

“It sounds so exciting. Except for the footwear.” Her brow furrowed, turning the seaweed on her forehead into tiny rivulets of mud. “I suppose you have to wear sensible shoes on the job?”

“Usually, yes.”

“Too bad. There’s always something, isn’t there?”

I liked Ashley, but I was beginning to think she was just a tad shallow.

“So how can I help you?” she asked. “What did you want to know?”

“For starters, did you see anyone go into the kitchen alone the night of the murder?”