“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 were 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—”