Free Whittaker 03.5 If Nothing Changes by Donna White Glaser Page A

stupid platitude like, “Well, at least she died sober.” It was a good thing, of course, that she’d died sober, but mostly as reassurance for those of us still trying to find the silver lining in sobriety. At least no one’s last memory of her would be face down in the gutter with a mouthful of her own puke. There, but for the grace of God, go I.
    “ Have the police been by?” I asked.
    “ Yeah, I talked to them. You?”
    “ They took a statement from me that night.”
    “ I bet they loved your costume,” Sue smirked.
    I gave her the evil eye. Apparently, my Wonder Woman costume had been quite a hit, both before and after my gruesome discovery. There’d been more than a few jokes about using the Lasso of Truth, and I was pretty sure the cops hadn’t meant on criminals. Even while I was being questioned, I’d heard some joker in the background, humming something about all the world waiting for me.
    Time to change the subject. “What did they ask you?”
    “ If she was seeing anyone, if she had any enemies, if she was in trouble with anyone. The usual.”
    Sue watched the same crime shows I did, and we traded Jonathan Kellerman and Kathy Reichs novels back and forth like … well … addicts.
    “ Was she?” I asked. “Seeing someone, I mean?”
    “ She’d been with Jay N. for the last four months. They seemed to be getting along just fine. She even got him to wear some hokey animal costume, which, if she hadn’t been murdered, would have made him the laughingstock of the club for the next year. Now that I think about it, making a guy wear that costume is a pretty good motive for murder.”
    I dimly recalled seeing somebody dressed up as a fluffy white cotton ball wandering around the dance floor. The fact that there was a brass sheep bell hanging around his neck made a tad more sense now. Sue was right. No man should ever be dressed up as a fluffy lamb.
    “ She must have traded some pretty hefty sexual favours for that getup,” Sue mused.
    “ Or maybe he’s in love?”
    Sue made a face. She didn’t believe in warm-and-fuzzy motivations. “Well, there’s always her ex-boyfriend,” she added. “Quinn. You know him, right? That Johnny Depp clone?”
    “ Everybody knows Quinn. Do you know he showed up at the Halloween party as Jack Sparrow?” At Sue’s look of confusion, I added, “The character Depp played in   Pirates of the Caribbean? Anyway, he spent the whole night swaggering around, waving a cutlass in everyone’s face, acting dashing. He’s so arrogant.”
    “ He didn’t ask you to dance, huh?”
    “ Oh, shut up. How long did he and Jillian date?”
    “ Just long enough for her to figure out he was screwing two other women. About a month and a half. She caught him schnogging one of them in her apartment. I guess he didn’t want the chick to know where he lived. Or maybe he got a thrill out of doin’ it in another woman’s bed. Who knows? And, you know, the guy still acted surprised when she dumped him.”
    “ I-can’t-believe-you-won’t-give-me-another-chance surprised or I’m-going-to-kill-you-dead surprised?”
    “ I’d say the former, except Jillian’s stuck in a coffin at Becks Funeral Home.”
    “ You think he did it?”
    Sue gave me a “duh” look that she must have seen a gazillion times when she taught middle school. It didn’t look any better on her grizzled face than it would on a sulky teen.
    “ Anybody else?” I asked.
    “ You mean, who else should we put on the suspect list, Nancy Drew?” Her frown served to remind me of the times I’d been caught up in unexpected and highly dangerous situations. None of them my fault, I might add.
    “ Look, I’m just trying to make sense of this. It’s not like I found her on purpose.”
    “ What were you doing in the supply closet, anyway?”
    “ Looking for toilet paper.”
    “ Would’ve been better if you’d just drip-dried. I’m sure it wouldn’t have been the first time.”
    “ I’ve got higher