The Westing Game

The Corpse Found

The Halloween moon was full. Except for her receding chin Turtle Wexler looked every inch the witch, her dark unbraided hair streaming wild in the wind from under her peaked hat, a putty wart pasted on her small beaked nose. If only she could fly to the Westing house on a broomstick instead of scrambling over rocks on all fours, what with all she had to carry. Under the long black cape the pockets of her jeans bulged with necessities for the night's dangerous vigil. Doug Hoo had already reached the top of the cliff and taken his station behind the maple on the lawn. (The track star was chosen timekeeper because he could run faster than anyone in the state of Wisconsin.) Here she comes, it's about time. Shivering knee-deep in damp leaves that couldn't do his leg muscles much good, he readied his thumb on the button of the stopwatch. Turtle squinted into the blackness that lay within the open French doors. Open, as though someone or some Thing was expecting her. There's no such thing as a ghost; besides, all you had to do was speak friendly-like to them. (Ghosts, like dogs, know when a person's scared.) Ghosts or worse, Otis Amber had said. Well, not even the "worse" could hurt Turtle Wexler. She was pure of heart and deed; she only kicked shins in self-defense, so that couldn't count against her. She wasn't scared; she was not scared. "Hurry up!" That was Doug from behind the tree. At two dollars a minute, twenty-five minutes would pay for a subscription to The Wall Street Journal. She could stay all night. She was prepared. Turtle checked her pockets: two sandwiches, Sandy's flask filled with orange pop, a flashlight, her mother's silver cross to ward off vampires. The putty wart on her nose (soaked in Angela's perfume in the event she was locked up with the stinking corpse) was clogging her nostrils with sticky sweetness. Turtle took a deep breath of chill night air and flinched with pain. She was afraid of dentists, not ghosts or...don't think about purple waves, think about two dollars a minute. Now, one—two—three—three and a half— GO! Doug checked his stopwatch. Nine minutes. Ten minutes. Eleven minutes. Suddenly a terrified scream—a young girl's scream— pierced the night. Should he go in, or was this one of the brat's tricks? Another scream, closer. "E-E-E-e-e-e-e-e-e-e!" Clutching the bunched cape around her waist, Turtle came hurtling out of the Westing house. "E-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e!" Turtle had seen the corpse in the Westing house, but it was not rotting and it was not sprawled on an Oriental rug. The dead man was tucked in a four-poster bed. A throbbing whisper, "Pur-ple, pur-ple" (or was it "Turtle, Tur-tle"—whatever it was, it was scary), had beckoned her to the master bedroom on the second floor, and... Maybe it was a dream. No, it couldn't be; she ached all over from the tumble down the stairs. The moon was down, the window dark. Turtle lay in the narrow bed in her narrow room, waiting (dark, still dark), waiting. At last slow morning crept up the cliff and raised the Westing house, the house of whispers, the house of death. Two dollars times twelve minutes equals twenty-four dollars. Thud! The morning newspaper was flung against the front door. Turtle tiptoed through the sleeping apartment to retrieve it and climbed back into bed, the dead man staring at her from the front page. The face was younger; the short beard, darker; but it was he, all right.

SAM WESTING FOUND DEAD

Found? No one else knew about the bedded-down corpse except Doug, and he had not believed her. Then who found the body? The whisperer? Samuel W. Westing, the mysterious industrialist who disappeared thirteen years ago, was found dead in his Westingtown mansion last night. He was sixty-five years old. The only child of immigrant parents, orphaned at the age of twelve, self-educated, hard-working Samuel Westing saved his laborer's wages and bought a small paper mill. From these meager beginnings he built the giant Westing Paper Products Corporation and founded the city of Westingtown to house his thousands of workers and their families. His estate is estimated to be worth over two hundred million dollars. Turtle read that again: two hundred million dollars. Wow! When asked the secret of his success, the industrialist always replied: "Clean living, hard work, and fair play." Westing set his own example; he neither drank nor smoked and never gambled. Yet he was a dedicated gamesman and a master at chess. Turtle had been in the game room. That's where she picked up the billiard cue she had carried up the stairs as a weapon. A great patriot, Samuel Westing was famous for his fun-filled Fourth of July celebrations. Whether disguised as Ben Franklin or a lowly drummer boy, he always acted a role in the elaborately staged pageants which he wrote and directed. Perhaps best remembered was his surprise portrayal of Betsy Ross. Games and feasting followed the pageant, and at sunset Mr. Westing put on his Uncle Sam costume and set off fireworks from his front lawn. The spectacular pyrotechnic display could be viewed thirty miles away. Fireworks! So that's what was in those boxes stamped Danger—explosives stacked in the ground floor storeroom. What a "pyrotechnic display" that would make if they all went off at the same time. The paper king's later years were marred by tragedy. His only daughter, Violet, drowned on the eve of her wedding, and two years later his troubled wife deserted their home. Although Mr. Westing obtained a divorce, he never remarried. Five years later he was sued by an inventor over rights to the disposable paper diaper. On his way to court Samuel Westing and his friend, Dr. Sidney Sikes, were involved in a near-fatal automobile accident. Both men were hospitalized with severe injuries. Sikes resumed his Westingtown medical practice and the post of county coroner, but Westing disappeared from sight. It was rumored, but never confirmed, that he controlled the vast Westing Paper Products Corporation from a private island in the South Seas. He is still listed as chairman of the board. "We are surprised as you are, and deeply saddened," a spokesman for Julian R. Eastman, President and Chief Executive Officer of the corporation, stated when informed that Westing's body was found in his lakeside home. Dr. Sikes' response was:

"A tragic end to a tragic life. Sam Westing was a truly great and important man."

The funeral will be private. The executor of the Westing estate said the deceased requested that, in place of flowers, donations be sent to Blind Bowlers of America. Turtle turned the page of the newspaper, but that was all. That was all? There was no mention of how the body was found. There was no mention of the envelope propped on the bedside table on which a shaky hand had scrawled: If I am found dead in bed. She had been edging her way against the four-poster, reading the words in the beam of the flashlight, when she felt the hand, the waxy dead hand that lay on the red, white, and blue quilt. Through her scream she had seen the white-bearded face. She remembered running, tripping over the billiard cue, falling down the stairs, denting Sandy's flask and dropping everything else. There was no mention of two suspicious peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on the premises, or a flashlight, or a silver cross on a chain. There was no mention of prowlers; no mention of anyone having seen a witch; no mention of footprints on the lawn: track shoes and sneakers size six. Oh well, she had nothing to fear (other than losing her mother's cross). Old Mr. Westing probably died of a heart attack—or pneumonia—it was drafty in there. Turtle hid the folded newspaper in her desk drawer, counted her black-andblue marks (seven), dressed, and set out to find the four people who knew she had been in the Westing house last night: Doug Hoo, Theo Theodorakis, Otis Amber, and Sandy. They owed her twenty-four dollars. At noon the sixty-two-year-old delivery boy began his rounds. He had sixteen letters to deliver from E. J. Plum, Attorney-at- Law. Otis Amber knew what the letters said, because one was addressed to him: As a named beneficiary in the estate of Samuel W. Westing, your attendance is required in the south library of the Westing house tomorrow at 4 P.M. for the reading of the will. "Means old man Westing left you some money," he explained. "Just sign this receipt here. What do you mean, what does 'position' mean? It means position, like a job. Most receipts have that to make sure the right person gets the right letter." Grace Windsor Wexler wrote housewife, crossed it out, wrote decorator, crossed it out, and wrote heiress. Then she wanted to know "Who else? How many? How much?" "I ain't allowed to say nothing." The other heirs were too stunned by the unexpected legacy to bother him with questions. Madame Hoo marked an X and her husband filled in her name and position. Theo wanted to sign the receipt for his brother, but Chris insisted on doing it himself. Slowly, taking great pains, he wrote Christos Theodorakis, bird-watcher. By the time the sun had set behind the Sunset Towers parking lot, Otis Amber, deliverer, had completed his rounds.