THE WITCH AND THE TEA PARTY (A Rachael Penzra Mystery) by Elizabeth Shawn

remained in my brain. “I wonder what he’s a captain of. Most civilians don’t run around calling themselves titles like that. I mean, an airline pilot is more apt to be introduced as John Hastings, not Captain Hastings. Am I making any sense?”
    “Maybe he’s an imposter,” Aunt Myrtle said, delighted with the idea. “There are lots of them in the old mysteries.”
    “I think it’s probably a little more difficult these days,” Patsy told her. “But we can check up on him later. You said she hung on him, but he didn’t seem too interested?”
    “Some women have no pride,” my aunt sniffed.
    “He was more interested in the Mandrell woman,” Dora said. “She’s married, but he acted as though her words were all pearls of wisdom.”
    “She is kind of pretty,” Aunt Myrtle reluctantly said. “But her husband was right there beside her. It really looked odd.”
    “The captain, or whatever he really is, seems to think he’s God’s gift to women. He looks kind of like that actor, the one who never marries his girlfriends.”
    “George Clooney?” I guessed. They nodded. “He probably is a hit with the ladies if he has any charm to go with the looks.”
    They reluctantly agreed that he did. Apparently he hadn’t wasted any on them, or I was sure they’d be much more impressed by him.
    “Okay, that’s Rita, our questionable captain, Mrs. Mandrell… Helen, it says on the list, and her husband is Brandon. Do you have any idea what these peoples’ relationships with the dead woman were?”
    “Business,” Dora spoke with assurance. “At least the Mandrell guy. I heard him speaking of Mrs. B-H as his boss.”
    “Her? Not her husband?”
    “Sounded like he meant her, but maybe it was the two of them he meant.”
    “I think that must be the connection,” my aunt said, excitedly. “Now that you mention it, I heard the Lang wo man making a snide remark about Karen Powell having a thing about her boss’ husband, so it must be the dead woman who’s the one with the money.”
    “The guy with that Karen was her brother, I think,” Dora thought about it for a minute. “I think she said something to him about not acting the big brother again, that she didn’t need his advice.”
    “What about the husband, Mr. Brown-Hendricks?” I asked. “What did he seem to think of the whole fortune telling thing?”
    “He was nice about it,” Dora, the toughest nut to crack when it concerned men, seemed to have fallen victim to the man’s charm. That said a lot about him. “He came over and talked to me about Eloise, was really interested in how you found her and how she was an herbivore and had such different hair patterns than most rats.” Aha, that explained it.
    “And he wanted to know how we had decided to start up the fortune telling business and how our clients reacted to their fortunes,” Aunt Myrtle, too, found him charming. “He said that he could understand wanting to know the future, but that it might be a little frightening.”
    “Well, don’t forget that the spouse is always the most likely killer,” Patsy scolded them, half laughing. “Still, until we know if it was a murder and not just something natural, I guess we shouldn’t tar and feather him.”
    “Oh, I don’t think someone like that would commit murder,” my gullible aunt cried.
    “Wouldn’t think he’d have to.” Even charm couldn’t completely bury Dora’s practical view of life. “I would think he got most anything he wanted in life.”
    “Well, he couldn’t have wanted to be married to that woman,” Aunt Myrtle said, decidedly. “She was just as nasty to him as she was to everybody else. You’d never know she was the same woman who pleaded with us to have the readings.”
    “She wasn’t in control then. Told you that once she paid the money she thought we were automatically her slaves.”
    “It isn’t as though we’d sold our souls,” my aunt said.
    “The way she acted, I would guess anybody who worked