May 29th, 2012 → 6:19 pm @ Robin Donovan // No Comments

Last night I finished writing the second Donna Leigh Mystery: I Didn’t Kill Her, But That May Have Been Short Sighted. In this second novel of the series our menopausal protagonist gets a major shock; a former colleague from the Northeast has moved to Omaha and is telling everyone she and Donna are going into business together. She does all of this without Donna’s knowledge, and then she gets murdered. What’s worse is that when they did work together the murdered woman went out of her way to damage Donna’s career. Enough motive for murder? You decide. The following is an excerpt depicting Donna’s first conversation with the homicide detective in relation to this latest murder:

“This time you brought us our vic from your old stomping ground, eh?  Were you worried that things might get a little boring for the old Omaha PD, eh?” Warren continued.

See, she’s got that lingo down too, though I suppose you’d expect that from a police detective, and eh, what was with eh? I guess the good detective had spent some time in Canada. The mind tends to wander when serious trouble appears imminent. As I thought that, I could feel my damn menopausal furnace starting to crank up in preparation for a full on power surge. Menopause has an uncanny ability to smell fear and ensure, by virtue of turning you into a wet dish rag, that you look even worse than you feel! That old ad campaign about “never letting them see you sweat” – HA! And don’t even get me started about bloating, weight gain, sleepless nights and on and on, but I digress.

Straining to regain focus on the issue at hand, the thought crossed my mind that Warren had a right to be concerned about my involvement.  I certainly was.  I only hoped that this second murder would not cause her to wonder if I were not, ultimately, the cause of all the problems after all.  In our last encounter, she’d been surprisingly adept at sifting through the facts and eliminating elements that only circumstantially appeared incriminating. Not once, in the entire investigation, did she jump to ridiculous conclusions like the clownish TV cops always do.  Her assumptions were always that I should be treated as a resource, a distinction that met with my utmost approval and gratitude. I’d hate for that to change with this untimely second murder cropping up and ensnaring me, in what appeared to be a far more damning way.  No, I wouldn’t blame Warren if she turned on me, but I would deeply regret it.

Look for more excerpts in the months to come!

Tags: cop, detective, homicide detective, menopause, Murder, murder mystery, murder victim