“Pity,” she sighed. Then she got in her Jaguar and sped off, undoubtedly to work on her Black Belt in shopping.

As long as I was in Brentwood, I figured I’d swing by Doris’s place. I’d checked out her address and saw that she lived not far from the spa, off San Vicente Boulevard, on Darlington Avenue.

Darlington was a leafy street lined with condos and townhouses. Parking was tight, but I managed to squeeze the Corolla between two SUVs and walked the half-block to Doris’s New Englandy clapboard townhouse. I climbed the steps to her tiny front deck, lined with pots of hot pink impatiens, and rang the bell.

She came to the door in jeans and a denim work shirt. Her steel gray hair glinted in the morning sun.

“Jaine!” she said, flustered. “What are you doing here?”

“Actually, I wanted to talk to you about Marybeth’s murder.”

“Oh?” She stood there, making absolutely no move to invite me inside.

“Do you mind if I come in?”

I could practically see the wheels turning in her brain as she tried to think up an excuse to turn me away.

“It won’t take long,” I promised.

Reluctantly, she stepped aside.

“Why don’t we go into the kitchen?” she said, taking me by the elbow and steering me straight toward the back of the townhouse. “I’ll warm up some coffee.”

Aloe had warned me not to drink coffee or alcohol for at least 24 hours, while I cleansed my system with herbal tea, preferably made from lemongrass, tree bark, or sassafras root.

Yeah, right. One of my major principles in life is to never drink shrubbery.

“Sure,” I said. “Coffee sounds great.”

Doris plunked me down in her tiny white-tile-and-pine kitchen, while she bustled around, fussing with a Mr. Coffee machine.

“Pam told me you were investigating the case,” she said. “But it’s so hard to picture you as a hardboiled private eye.”

“Everyone says that. I guess I’m more the soft-boiled type.”

She shot me a blank stare. There was absolutely no sign of the hip, wisecracking Doris I’d met at the PMS Club. This woman getting mugs from her cupboard was a Stepford Doris.

“So what did you want to know?” she asked.

“Can you think of anyone other than Rochelle who might have had a motive to kill Marybeth?”

“No, not really. Except maybe Colin. I mean, she did pass him over for that job, didn’t she?”

She handed me my coffee and faked a stiff smile.

“Really, Jaine, I already told the police everything I know, which isn’t much.”

“If you don’t mind,” I said, tossing a fake smile right back at her, “I’d really appreciate your going over it with me.”

She sat down opposite me and began stirring her coffee.

“Did you see anyone go into the kitchen alone that night?” I asked. “Anyone who could’ve doctored the guacamole?”