Witch One Dunnit?: (A Tale of Mystery and Confusion)

A Psychic Witch Versus A Psychotic Killer(A Tale Of Murder, Mystery, Mayhem...Not To Mention Confusion) It's not always easy being a witch. Or a psychic. Rachael Penzra happens to be both, and to her extreme annoyance, she's not very good in either role. She's trying hard to improve her psychic skills, but it's difficult to do after a lifetime spent trying to suppress them. Now, it seems, it's their turn to hide from her. Being a witch seems to come naturally enough, but telling her conservative family about her conversion to Wicca doesn't seem to be quite so simple. When she inherits a huge old house with a built-in business from her eccentric Aunt Josie, she feels her new life should offer more than enough satisfaction to a single mother of three who had struggled for years as a cleaning woman. Her kids are now grown and life should be good. It would be great, if only she didn't have to cope with some of the people in her new life. She finds herself collecting a great majority of the eccentric, the unusual, and the just plain weird humanoids within a ten-mile radius-an unexpected legacy from her aunt. Even her new dog, George, is a little...different...but it's hard for her to find too much fault with a two-hundred-plus pound, good-natured, drooling eating-machine. After all, although it was most likely by mistake, he had saved her from an attack. Besides, she absolutely intends to find a new home for him-someday. (She's the only person who believes that.) Her niece, complete with nose ring and spiked hairdo, is spending the summer working in the shop, and it works out well. The other young-and extremely irritating-employee is less satisfying. She offends customers, sulks or acts superior to them, and is often more of a hindrance than a help. Still, it never occurs to Rachael that anybody annoying her could (much less should) be eliminated by such a simple act as murder. Somebody thought of it, though, and dumped the girl's body in her house. It's a deadly case of the body...in the parlor...with the knife. The problem is that nobody knows who-dunnit, and clues seem to be few and far apart. Adding insult to injury, Rachael finds herself not only being targeted as a suspect, but also being coerced by the victim's mother into promising that she'll try to use her errant intuitive powers to locate the killer. Unable to deny a grieving mother's plea, she agrees to help, but she has no belief that her feeble control over her psychic talents will achieve any useful results. It seems safe enough, and she's sure nothing will come of her endeavors. Unfortunately, nobody remembers to reassure the murderer that her powers are wobbly at best, and due to their unreliability, downright dangerous at times...usually to her. Murderers, she soon discovers, have nothing to lose by killing more than once, particularly if the deed will keep them out of jail. The killer agrees with the old saying that dead men tell no tales, but more importantly, dead psychics can't testify in court.