The Westing Game

Fact and Gossip

 Friday was back to normal, if the actions of suspicious would be heirs competing for a two-hundred-million-dollar prize could be considered normal. At school, Theo studied, Doug Hoo ran, and Turtle was twice sent to the principal's office for having been caught with a transistor radio plugged in her ear. The coffee shop was full of diners. Shin Hoo's restaurant had reopened, too, but no one came. J. J. Ford presided at the bench, and Sandy McSouthers presided at the front door, whistling, chatting, collecting tidbits of gossip and adding some of his own. Flora Baumbach, her strained eyes shielded by dark glasses, drove Turtle to school on her way to the broker's office and picked her up in the late afternoon with a sheet of prices copied from the moving tape. They had lost $3,000 in five days. "Paper losses," Turtle said. "Doesn't mean a thing. Besides, I didn't pick these stocks. Mr. Westing did." Did he? The dressmaker thought of the clue Chris had dropped; no stock symbol had five letters or even resembled the word plain. But Flora Baumbach played fair and kept the secret to herself. Four people stood in the driveway's melting snow, shivering as the sun dropped behind Sunset Towers. The fifth jogged in place. No smoke had risen from the chimney since that fateful Halloween; still they stared up at the Westing house, murder on their minds. "He looked too peaceful to have been murdered," Turtle said. She sneezed and Sandy handed her a Westing tissue. "How would you know?" Doug replied. "How many people have you seen murdered?" "Turtle's right," her friend Sandy said. "If Westing expected it, he'd have seen it coming. His face would have looked scared." "Maybe he didn't see it coming," Theo argued. "The killer was very cunning, Westing said. I read a mystery once where the victim was allergic to bee stings and the murderer let a bee in through an open window." "The window wasn't open," Turtle said, wiping her nose. "Besides, Westing would have heard the buzzing and jumped out of bed." Doug had an idea. "Maybe the murderer injected bee venom in his veins." Otis Amber flung his arms in the air. "Whoever said Sam Westing was allergic to bees?" Doug tried again. "How about snake venom? Or poison? Doctors know lots of poisons that make it look like heart attacks." Turtle almost kicked Doug, track meet or not. Her father was a doctor. She would not have minded if he had said "interns." "I once heard about a murderer who stabbed his victim with an icicle," the doorman said. "It melted leaving no trace of a murder weapon." "That's a good one," Turtle exclaimed appreciatively. Sandy had more. "Then there was a Roman who choked on a single goat hair someone put in his milk. And there was the Greek poet who was killed when an eagle dropped a tortoise on his bald head." "Maybe Westing was just sleeping until Turtle stumbled and fell on his head," Doug suggested. "That's not funny, Doug Hoo." How could she ever have had a crush on that disgusting jerk? Doug would not let up. "And who was that suspicious person in red boots I saw opening the hoods of cars in the parking lot the other morning?" He looked at Turtle's booted feet. "The thief stole my boots and put them back again. They leak." "A likely story, Tabitha-Ruth." Doug pulled her braid and ran into the lobby at full speed. Sandy placed a large hand on Turtle's shoulder, a comforting hand, and a restraining one. Otis Amber hopped on his bike. "Can't stand around chitchatting about a murder that never happened. Sam Westing was a madman. Insane. Crazy as a bedbug." He pedaled off, shouting back, "We ain't murderers, none of us." Theo could not agree. If there was no murderer, there was no answer; and without an answer, no one could win. "Sandy, did anybody leave Sunset Towers on Halloween night, before Turtle and Doug?" The doorman scratched his head under his hat, thinking. "One day seems like the next, people coming and going. I can't remember." "Try." Sandy scratched harder. "Only ones I recall are Otis Amber and Crow. They left together about five o'clock." "Thanks." Theo hurried into the building to check his clues. Turtle had no reason to suspect Otis Amber or Crow or any of the heirs. Money was the answer. Her only problem was that dumb stock market; it didn't want to play the game. "Sandy, tell me another story." "Okay, let's see. Once, long ago in the olden days, there was this soothsayer who predicted the day of his own death. That day came, and the soothsayer waited to die and waited some more, but nothing happened. He was so surprised and so happy to be alive that he laughed and laughed. Then, at one minute to midnight, he suddenly died. He died laughing." "He died laughing," Turtle repeated thoughtfully. "That's profound, Sandy. That's very profound." "Where's everybody?" The apartment was empty, as usual. Jake Wexler decided that Shin Hoo's was going to have a paying customer. "I'd like a table, if you're not too crowded." "I think I can squeeze you in," Hoo said, leading the podiatrist through the empty restaurant. "You must have liked those spareribs." "Yeah, sure." Jake watched his wife slowly stack her papers at the reservations desk. At last, seeming to recognize him, she walked over. Jake returned his unlit cigar to his pocket. (Grace hated the smell.) "I've already eaten," Grace said, sitting down. "Hello to you, too," Jake replied. He probably thinks that's funny. Since when do people go around saying hello to their husbands? "What's new with you, Grace? Where are the kids? And what are all those presents doing on the coffee table? It's not your birthday and it's not our anniversary." What was she so upset about. "Or is it?" "No, it isn't. Those are gifts for Angela, the wedding shower is tomorrow. Don't worry, you're not supposed to be there, just the girls. The doorbell was ringing all morning, I couldn't leave the apartment for an instant; one at a time he delivered them, the smirking fool, and each time he shouted 'Boom!'" She looked especially attractive today, Jake thought. Between the ringing doorbell and the booms, she had managed time for the beauty parlor and the sunlamp. Mr. Hoo set the spareribs on the table and lowered himself to a chair. Grace lost her scowl. "Since you're here, Jake, I'd like your opinion on the advertising campaign I'm planning. Jimmy and I are having a slight disagreement. I say that Shin Hoo's sounds like every other Chinese restaurant to Englishspeaking ears." English-speaking ears? Jake bit his lip in an effort to keep silent. "I say the restaurant needs a name people won't forget," Grace continued. "A name like Hoo's On First." Jake could not help himself. He tried to cover a loud guffaw with louder coughing. Hoo pounded him on the back and apologized for the ginger. "You remember that old baseball routine, Jake," Grace prompted. Yes, he did. "Who's on first? No, What's on second; Who's on first." "It's an idiotic name," Hoo argued. "Hoo's On First sounds like my restaurant is on First Street, or worse yet, on the first floor. Customers will end up in the coffee shop drinking dishwater tea." "Not the way I'll promote it, they won't," Grace insisted. "Well, what's your opinion, Jake?" The podiatrist put down the sparerib he was about to bite into. "Hoo's On First is a dandy name." Before he could pick up the rib again, Hoo whisked the plate off the table. "Who elected you judge, anyhow?" The judge returned to Sunset Towers with clippings from the newspaper's files. Faithful Sandy was waiting. Hoping to interrogate both George Theodorakis and James Shin Hoo, they alternated their dinner orders. One night they would order up, the next night they would order down. To their disappointment Theo delivered up. They had no questions to ask him, but he had one for the doorman. "Chess?" Sandy replied. "Sorry, don't know the game. I'm a whiz at hearts, though. 'Shooter,' they call me." Theo left them to their sandwiches and their work. The private detective the judge had hired was still investigating the heirs, so tonight's project would be the Westing family. Judge Ford opened the thin folder on Mrs. Westing. Mrs. Westing—no first name, no maiden name. In the few newspaper photographs in which she appeared, always with her husband, the captions read: Mr. and Mrs. Samuel W. Westing. A shadowy figure, a shy woman, she seemed to slip behind her husband before the camera clicked, or had her face masked by a floppy hat brim. A slim woman dressed in the fashion of the time: long, loose chemise, narrow shoes with sharply rounded toes and high spiked heels. A nervous woman, her hands, especially in the later pictures, were blurred. In the final photograph a black veil covered her face. She seemed to lean unsteadily against the stocky frame of her husband as they left the cemetery. Sandy reported his findings. "Jimmy Hoo never met Mrs. Westing. Neither did Flora Baumbach. She said Violet's fiancé brought her to the shop for fittings. She says it's bad luck for a groom to see the bride in the wedding gown before the wedding; I guess she's right. Well, that's it. Nobody else admits to having known Mrs. Westing, except me." "You knew her, Mr. McSouthers?" the judge asked. "Well, not exactly, but I saw her once or twice." The doorman described Mrs. Westing as blonde, full-lipped, a good figure though on the skinny side. "Mostly I recall those full lips because she had a mole right here." He pointed to the right corner of his mouth. Judge Ford did not remember a mole; she remembered copper-colored hair and thin lips, but it was so long ago, and, well—Mrs. Westing was white. Very white. Next, Westing's daughter. The judge studied the photograph under the headline: VIOLET WESTING TO MARRY SENATOR The senator turned out to be a state senator, a hack politician, now serving a five-year jail term for bribery. But Flora Baumbach was right about the resemblance. Violet Westing did look like Angela Wexler. And that was George Theodorakis, all right, dancing with her in the society page clippings. "What does it all mean, judge?" Sandy asked, squinting at the pictures through his smeared glasses. "Angela looks like Westing's daughter, and Theo looks like his father, the man Violet Westing really wanted to marry." "How did you know that?" Sandy shrugged. "It was common gossip at the time, that Westing's daughter killed herself rather than have to marry that crooked politician...." Now the judge remembered; her mother had written her about the tragedy. "Tell me, Mr. McSouthers, you seem to know what's going on in this building: Is Angela Wexler involved with Theo in any way?" "Oh no." Sandy was certain of that. "Angela and her intern seem happy enough with each other. At least, I hope so. I mean, if Sam Westing wanted to replay that terrible drama, Angela Wexler would have to die."