The Westing Game (16 page)

Sandy fidgeted with his pen. “There’s something I didn’t write down. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you, you being a judge and all, but, well, Jake Wexler . . . he’s a bookie.”

No, he should not have told her. “A small-time operator, I’m sure, Mr. McSouthers,” the judge replied coldly. “It can have no bearing on the matter before us. Sam Westing manipulated people, cheated workers, bribed officials, stole ideas, but Sam Westing never smoked or drank or placed a bet. Give me a bookie any day over such a fine, upstanding, clean-living man.”

The doorman’s face reddened. He pulled the dented flask from his hip pocket and downed several swigs.

She had been too harsh. “Would you like me to fix you a drink, Mr. McSouthers?”

“No thanks, Judge. I prefer my good old Scotch.”

“Windkloppel!” The judge’s outburst was so unexpected, Sandy had a hard time keeping down the last swig.

“Grace Wexler’s maiden name is not Windsor, it’s Windkloppel,” the judge exclaimed, riffling through the pages of Sandy’s notebook. “Here it is: ‘Berthe Erica Crow. Ex-husband’s name: Windy Windkloppel.’”

Sandy stopped coughing, started laughing. “Grace Windsor Wexler is related to somebody all right; she’s related to the cleaning woman. Think she knows, Judge?”

“I doubt it. Besides, we cannot be certain of the relationship. I’d like to see the documents in Crow’s folder again.”

“I’m sure it’s Windkloppel, Judge, I checked all my spellings three times over.”

Judge Ford reread the private investigator’s reports. “Mr. McSouthers, it is Windkloppel, but look carefully at the name of the woman in this interview.”

“Pulaski!” the doorman said.

“Not just Pulaski,” the judge pointed out. “
Sybil
Pulaski. Sam Westing wanted Crow’s childhood friend, Sybil Pulaski, to be one of his heirs. He got Sydelle Pulaski instead.”

“Gee, Judge, I never noticed that; boy, am I dumb. But what does it mean?”

“What it means, Mr. McSouthers, is that Sam Westing made his first mistake.”

FRIDAY CAME QUICKLY to the Westing heirs. Too quickly. Time was running out.

Turtle skipped school. She was in trouble enough, but she could build her own school and hire her own kind of teachers once she became a millionaire.

In spite of having Turtle at her side, Flora Baumbach still stared at the ever-changing, endless tape from the edge of the chair, chewed what remained of her fingernails, and uttered an “Oh my!” each time WPP went by. At two o’clock Westing Paper Products sold at fifty-two dollars a share, its highest price in fifteen years.

“Now, Baba. SELL!”

 

 

Doug Hoo had a legitimate excuse from classes: tomorrow was the big track meet. He jogged, he sprinted, he ran at full speed—not on the track, but on the trail of Otis Amber. Back and forth from the shopping center to Sunset Towers, again and again and again and . . . hey, this is a new direction.

Otis Amber parked his delivery bike in front of a rooming house and went inside. Doug waited, hidden in a doorway across the street. And waited. People came and went, but no Otis Amber. Doug jogged up and down the block for two hours. Still no sign of Otis Amber.

Doug was cold and hungry, but at least his feet didn’t hurt anymore. Last night when he asked Doc Wexler about the blisters, the podiatrist told him to see his father—his father, of all people. But those paper innersoles really worked.

At five o’clock Otis Amber skipped out of the rooming house, hopped on his bicycle, and returned to Sunset Towers empty-handed. Doug’s assignment was over, well, almost over. Where was Theo?

 

 

Theo was being patched up in the hospital emergency room after a slight miscalculation in his “solution” experiment. Fortunately, no one else was around when the lab blew up.

“You like playing with explosives, kid?” the bomb squad detective asked. Accidents in high-school chemistry were not unusual, but this student lived in Sunset Towers.

“I was experimenting on chemical fertilizers,” Theo replied, wincing as the doctor probed his shoulder for a glass shard.

“The first bomb went off in your folks’ coffee shop, right? Your mother and father work you pretty hard, don’t they?”

“They work harder than I do. Why all the questions? Your captain said the Sunset Towers explosions were just fireworks.”

“Sure they were, but bombers have a funny habit of going in for bigger and bigger bangs. Until they get caught.”

Theo had an alibi. He was nowhere near the Wexler apartment the day the third bomb went off. The detective grunted a warning about careless chemistry, but Theo had already learned his lesson. “Ouch!”

 

 

At last the coffee shop owner himself delivered the up order. The judge came right to the point. “Mr. Theodorakis, tell me about your relationship with Violet Westing. I have reason to believe a life is in danger or I would not ask.”

It was a question he had expected. “I grew up in Westingtown where my father was a factory foreman. Violet Westing and I were, what you’d call, childhood sweethearts. We planned to get married someday, when I could afford it, but her mother broke us up. She wanted Violet to marry somebody important.”

The judge had to interrupt. “Her mother? Are you saying it was Mrs. Westing who arranged the marriage, not Sam Westing?”

George Theodorakis nodded. “That’s right. Sam Westing tried to involve Violet in his business. I guess he hoped she’d take over the paper company one day; but she had her heart set on being a teacher. Besides, Violet didn’t have much of a business sense. After that her father never paid her much attention.”

“Go on.” The judge held the witness in her stare.

The subject was becoming painful, and Mr. Theodorakis faltered several times in the telling. “Mrs. Westing handpicked that politician—probably figured the guy would end up in the White House and her daughter would be First Lady. But Violet thought he was nothing but a cheap political hack, a cheap crook. Violet was a gentle person, an only child. She couldn’t turn against her mother, she couldn’t face marrying that guy. . . . I guess she couldn’t find any way out, except . . . Mrs. Westing sort of went off her rocker after Violet’s death, and I . . . well, it was a long time ago.”

“Thank you, Mr. Theodorakis,” the judge said, ending the interrogation. The man had a different life now, different loves, different problems. “Thank you, you have been a big help.”

Sandy was now able to complete the entry:

“I hear the new medicine they’re trying out on Chris is doing some good,” Sandy reported. “But the poor kid needs more help than medicine. He’s real smart, you know. Chris could have a real future, be a scientist or a professor, even; but it will take a pile of money, more money than his folks could ever make, to put him through college with a handicap like that.”

“The parents interest me more,” the judge said. “Why are they not heirs?”

Sandy had some thought on that, too. “Maybe Sam Westing didn’t want to embarrass George Theodorakis, him being married and all. Or maybe Westing figured he’d be too busy with his coffee shop to stay in the game. Or maybe Westing blamed him for his daughter’s death, figuring they should have eloped.”

“No, if Sam Westing blamed Mr. Theodorakis, he would have made him an heir in this miserable game,” the judge replied. “There are too many maybe’s here, which is what Sam Westing planned. We must not allow ourselves to be distracted from the real issue: Which heir did Sam Westing want punished?”

“The person who hurt him most?” Sandy guessed.

“And who would that be?”

“The person who caused his daughter’s death?”

“Exactly, Mr. McSouthers. Sam Westing plotted against the person he held responsible for his daughter’s suicide, the person who forced Violet Westing to marry a man she loathed.”

“Mrs. Westing? But that’s not possible, Judge. Mrs. Westing is not one of the heirs.”

“I think she is, Mr. McSouthers. The former wife of Sam Westing
must
be one of the heirs. Mrs. Westing is the answer, and whoever she is, she is the one we have to protect.”

THE DOOR TO apartment 2Copened. Flora Baumbach screamed, and Turtle flung herself on the pile of money they had been counting.

It was Theo, not the thief. “Can I borrow your bike for a few hours? It’s very important.” Theo was not a runner like Doug, who was fuming about his being so late. He needed the bicycle to follow Otis Amber, right now.

Turtle stared at him in stony silence.

“I didn’t make that sign in the elevator; besides, you already kicked me for it. Please, Turtle.” She still wouldn’t answer, punk kid. “I had a long talk with the police today, but I refused to tell them who the bomber was.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

What does she think it means? It means that he and everybody else knows that Turtle is the bomber. “Never mind. Can I have your bike or not?”

“Why do you want it?”

Theo ground his teeth. Take it easy; anger won’t help any more than blackmail did. Try being a good guy. “I saw Angela in the hospital today. She sends her regards.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You let me have that bike, Turtle Wexler, or—or else!”

Turtle did not have to ask what “or else” meant: police—bomber—Angela, but how did Theo find out? “Here!” She threw the padlock key across the room and waited for him to rush out before she let go of the money.

“He’s such a nice boy,” Flora Baumbach remarked.

“Sure,” Turtle replied, dialing the telephone number of the hospital. “Angela Wexler, room 325.”

“Room 325 is not accepting any calls.”

Turtle hung up the phone. If Theo knew, others knew. Angela had set off those fireworks wanting to get caught, but it was different now. Now she was confused, now she was just plain scared. They could force a confession out of her in no time, the guilt was right there staring out of those big blue eyes. Maybe they’re questioning her now. “Baba, I’m not feeling so good; I think I’ll go home to bed.”

 

 

Weaving through rush-hour traffic on Turtle’s bike, Theo trailed the bus to a seamy downtown district across the railroad tracks where Crow and Otis got off. Skid Row. The pair wandered through the dimly lit, littered, and stinking street, bending over grimy bums asleep in doorways, raising them to their unsteady feet, and leading the ragtag procession into a decaying storefront. Paint was peeling off the letters on the window: Good Salvation Soup Kitchen.

A drunken wreck of a man lurched into Theo, who put a quarter into the filthy outstretched hand, more out of fright than charity.

Snatches of hymn-singing drifted toward him as the last of the stragglers staggered through the door. Theo crossed the narrow street and pressed his nose against the steamy soup-kitchen window. Rows of wretched souls sat hunched on wooden benches. Crow stood before them in her neat black dress, her hands raised toward the crumbling ceiling. Behind her Otis Amber stirred a boiling mess in a big iron pot.

Theo pedaled back to Sunset Towers at a furious pace. Whatever brought Crow and Otis Amber to these lower depths was none of his business. He hated himself for spying. He hated Sam Westing and his dirty money and his dirty game. Theo felt as dirty as the derelicts he spied on. Dirtier.

 

 

The judge thought they had finished with the heirs.

“Not quite,” the doorman said.

Sandy turned to a blank page, pushed his taped glasses up the broken bridge of his nose, and looked at the judge. “Name?”

It had not seemed sporting to investigate one’s own partner, but McSouthers was right, this was a Westing game. Of course, she had kept some facts from him about the other heirs, but only because she did not trust his blabbering. “Josie-Jo Ford, with a hyphen between Josie and Jo.”

“Age?”

“Forty-two. Education: Columbia; law degree, Harvard.” The judge waited for the doorman to enter the information in his slow, cramped lettering. He had to be meticulous in order to prove he was better than his eighth-grade education. It’s a pity he had not gone further, he was quite a clever man.

“Jobs?”

“Assistant district attorney. Judge: family court, state supreme court, appellate division.
Appellate
has two
p
’s and two
l
’s. Never married, no children.”