The Westing Game (10 page)

Theo recognized the sprawling handwriting of the next question: “Who got kicked last week?” Chris did not receive an answer. The meeting was adjourned due to panic.

IT WAS SO sudden: the earsplitting bangs, the screams, the confusion. Theo and Doug ran into the kitchen; Mrs. Theodorakis ran out. Her hair, her face, her apron were splattered with dark dripping red.

“Blood,” Sydelle Pulaski cried, clutching her heart.

“Don’t just sit there,” Catherine Theodorakis shouted, “somebody call the fire department.”

Angela hurried to the pay phone on the wall and stood there trembling, not knowing whether to call or not. They were snowbound, the fire engines could not reach Sunset Towers.

Theo leaned through the kitchen doorway. “Everything’s okay. There’s no fire.”

“Chris, honey, it’s all right,” Mrs. Theodorakis said, kneeling before the wheelchair. “It’s all right, Chris, look! It’s just tomato sauce.”

Tomato sauce! Mrs. Theodorakis was covered with tomato sauce, not blood. The curious heirs now piled into the kitchen, except for Sydelle Pulaski, who slumped to the counter. She could have a heart attack and no one would notice.

Mr. Hoo surveyed the scene, trying to conceal his delight. “What a mess,” he said. “That row of cans must have exploded from the heat of the stove.” The entire kitchen was splattered with tomato sauce and soaked in foam from the fire extinguishers. “What a mess.”

George Theodorakis regarded him with suspicion. “It was a bomb.”

Catherine Theodorakis thought so, too. “There was hissing, then bang, bang, sparks flying all over the kitchen, red sparks, purple sparks.”

“Cans of tomato sauce exploded,” Doug Hoo said, defending his father. The others agreed. Mrs. Theodorakis was understandably hysterical. A bomb? Ridiculous. Sam Westing certainly did not appear to have been killed by a bomb.

Judge Ford suggested that the accident be reported to the police immediately in order to collect on the insurance.

“You might as well redecorate the entire kitchen,” Grace Wexler, decorator, proposed. “It should be functional yet attractive, with lots of copper pots hanging from the ceiling.”

“I don’t think there’s any real damage,” Catherine Theodorakis replied, “but we’ll have to close for a few days to clean up.”

Mr. Hoo smiled. Angela offered to help.

“Angela, dear, you have a fitting this afternoon,” Grace reminded her, “and we have so much to do for the wedding shower on Saturday.”

In thumped Sydelle Pulaski. “I’m fine now, just a bit woozy. Goodness, what a nasty turn.”

 

 

Having recovered from the nasty turn, Sydelle Pulaski settled down to transcribing her shorthand to Polish, then from Polish to English. Startled by loud banging on her apartment door, she struck the wrong typewriter key.

“Open up!”

Recognizing the voice, Angela unbolted the door to a furious Turtle. “All right, Angela, where is it?”

“What?”

“The newspaper you took from my desk.”

Angela carefully dug through the embroidery, personal items, and other paraphernalia in her tapestry bag and pulled out the newspaper folded to the Westing obituary. “I’m sorry, Turtle. I would have asked for it, but you weren’t around.”

“You don’t also happen to have my Mickey Mouse clock in there, too, do you?” Turtle softened on seeing her sister’s hurt expression. “I’m only kidding. You left your engagement ring on the sink again. Better go get it before somebody steals that, too.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry about anyone stealing Angela’s ring,” Sydelle Pulaski remarked. “No mother would stoop that low.”

The thought of Grace being the burglar was so funny to Turtle, she plopped down on the sofa and rolled about in laughter. It felt good to laugh; the stock market had fallen five points today.

“Angela, please tell your sister to get her dirty shoes off my couch. Tell her to sit up and act like a lady.”

Turtle rose with a tongue click very much like her mother’s, but she was not about to leave without striking back. Arms folded, she leaned against the wall and let them have it. “Mom thinks Angela was the one who stole the shorthand notebook.” That got them. Look at those open mouths. “Because Mom asked to see it, and Angela does everything she says.”

“Anyone could have stolen my notebook; I didn’t double-lock my door that day.” If Sydelle couldn’t trust her own partner, she was alone, all alone.

“Did Mom really say that?” Angela asked.

“No, but I know how she thinks, I know what everybody thinks. Grown-ups are so obvious.”

“Ridiculous,” scoffed Sydelle.

“For instance, I know that Angela doesn’t want to marry that sappy intern.”

“Ridiculous. You’re just jealous of your sister.”

“Maybe,” Turtle had to admit, “but I am what I am. I don’t need a crutch to get attention.” Oh, oh, she had gone too far.

“Turtle didn’t mean it that way, Sydelle,” Angela said quickly.

“She used the word
crutch
as a symbol. She meant, you know, that people are so afraid of revealing their true selves, they have to hide behind some sort of prop.”

“Oh, really?” Sydelle replied. “Then Turtle’s crutch is her big mouth.”

No, Angela thought, hurrying her sister out of the door and back to their apartment, Turtle’s crutch is her braid.

 

 

The newspaperman called again to say he had found some photographs taken at Westingtown parties twenty years ago. “One of those names appears in a caption as Violet Westing’s escort: George Theodorakis.”

“Go on,” the judge said.

“That’s all.” He promised to send her the clippings in the Westing file as soon as he was shoveled out.

The judge now knew of four heirs with Westing connections: James Hoo, the inventor; Theo’s father; her partner, Sandy McSouthers, who had been fired from the Westing paper mill; and herself. But she had to learn more, much more about each one of the heirs if she hoped to protect the victim of Sam Westing’s revenge.

She would have to hire a detective, a very private detective, who had not been associated with her in her practice or in the courts. J. J. Ford flipped through the Yellow Pages to
Investigators—Private.

“Good grief!” Her finger stopped near the top of the list. Was it a coincidence or dumb luck? Or was she playing right into Sam Westing’s hand? No choice but to chance it. The judge dialed the number and tapped her foot impatiently, waiting for an answer.

“Hello. If you’re looking for a snowbound private investigator, you’ve got the right number.”

Yes, she had the right number. It might be a trick, but it was no coincidence. The voices were one and the same.

NO ONE WAS in in the kitchen of Shin Hoo’s Restaurant when the bomber set a tall can labeled “monosodium glutamate” behind similar cans on a shelf. The color-striped candle would burn down to the fuse at six-thirty; whoever was working there would be at the other end of the room. No one would be hurt.

Grace Wexler tacked her sign to the elevator wall as she rode up to her new job. She was going to be the seating hostess.

“Where’s the cook?” Mr. Hoo shouted (meaning his wife). He found Madame Hoo in their rear fourth-floor apartment kneeling before her bamboo trunk, fingering mementoes from her childhood in China. He hurried her up to the kitchen, too harried to find the words that would explain what was happening. Now where was that lazy son of his?

Doug jogged in from a tiring workout on the stairs. How was he supposed to know the restaurant would open early? Nobody bothered telling him.

“Some student you are; anyone with the brain of an anteater could have figured that out: people are short of food, the coffee shop is closed for repairs. Stop arguing, go take a shower, and put on your busboy outfit. Get moving!”

“Don’t you think you’re rather hard on the boy?” Grace commented.

“Somebody’s got to give him a shove. If he had his way, he’d do nothing but run,” Hoo replied between bites of chocolate. “You’re not so easy on Angela, either.”

“Angela? Angela was born good, the perfect child. As for the other one, well . . .”

“It’s not easy being a parent,” Hoo said woefully.

“You can say that again.” Grace held her breath. Her husband would have done just that, said it again, but Mr. Hoo only nodded in shared sympathy. What a gentleman.

Only Mr. and Mrs. Theodorakis ordered down. The other tenants of Sunset Towers lined up at the reservations desk, waiting for Grace Windsor Wexler to lead the way. Oversized menus clutched in her arms, Grace felt the first proud stirrings of power rush up from her pedicured toes to the very top curl on her head. If Uncle Sam could pair off people, so could she.

“You see your brother every day, Chris, how about eating with someone else for a change?” She wheeled the boy to a window table without waiting for an answer. It would have been yes.

The two cripples together, Sydelle Pulaski thought. She’d show that high and mighty hostess, she’d show them all. She and Chris could have private jokes, too, and everybody would be sorry they weren’t sitting with them.

“Whas moo g-goo g-gipn?” Chris asked, baffled by the strange words on the menu.

“I think it’s boiled grasshopper.” Sydelle screwed up her face and Chris laughed. “Or chocolate-covered moose.”

“Frenssh-fry m-mouse,” Chris offered. Now Sydelle laughed. They both laughed heartily, but no one envied them.

 

 

“Your brother seems to be enjoying Ms. Pulaski.”

Theo nodded, awed by the beautiful Angela, three years older than he, so fair-skinned and blonde, so unattainable. Here he was sitting at the very same table with her, just the two of them, and he couldn’t think of a single thing to say that wasn’t stupid or childish or childishly stupid.

Usually the quiet one, Angela tried again. “Are you planning to go to college next year?”

Theo nodded, then shook his head. Say something, idiot. “I got a scholarship to Madison, but I’m not going. I’m going to work instead.” What big, worried sky-blue eyes. “The operation for Chris will be very expensive.” That was worse, now she’s feeling sorry for him. “If Chris had been born that way, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, but he was a perfectly normal kid, a great kid. And he’s smart, too. About four years ago he started to get clumsy, just little things at first.”

“Perhaps my fiancé can help.” Angela bit her lip. Theo was not asking for charity. And
fiancé
, what an old-fashioned, silly word. “I went to college for a year. I wanted to be a doctor, but, well, we don’t have as much money as my mother pretends. Dad said he could manage if that’s what I really wanted, but my mother said it was too difficult for a woman to get into medical school.” Why was she gabbing like this?

“I want to be a writer,” Theo said. That really sounded like kid stuff. “Would you go back to college if you won the inheritance?”

Angela looked down. It was a question she did not want to answer. Or could not answer.

 

 

Long before becoming a judge, Josie-Jo Ford had decided to stop smiling. Smiling without good reason was demeaning. A serious face put the smiler on the defensive, a rare smile put a nervous witness at ease. She now bestowed one of her rare smiles on the dressmaker. “I’m so glad we have this chance to become acquainted, Mrs. Baumbach. I had so little time to chat with my guests last night.”

“It was a wonderful party.”

Flora Baumbach appeared even smaller and rounder than she was as she sat twisting her napkin with hands accustomed to being busy. Was her face permanently creased from years of pleasing customers, or was a tragedy lurking behind that grin? “Have you always specialized in wedding gowns?”

“Mr. Baumbach and I had a shop for many years: Baumbach’s for the Bride and Groom. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”

“I’m afraid not.” The judge would have said no in any case to keep her witness talking.

“Perhaps you’ve heard of Flora’s Bridal Gowns? That’s what I called my shop after my husband left. I don’t know much about grooms’ clothes, they’re mostly rentals, anyway.” Flora Baum bach lost her timidity; the judge let her chat away. “I’m using heirloom lace on the bodice of Angela’s gown; it’s been in my family for three generations. I wore it at my wedding, and I dreamed that someday I’d have a daughter who would wear it, too, but Rosalie didn’t come along until I was in my forties, and . . .” The dressmaker stopped. Her lips tightened into an even wider grin. “Angela will make such a beautiful bride. Funny how she reminds me of her.”

“Angela reminds you of your daughter?” the judge asked.

“Oh my, no. Angela reminds me of another young girl I made a wedding dress for: Violet Westing.”

 

 

The heavy charms on Sydelle Pulaski’s bracelet clinked and clunked as she raised a full fork and flourished it in a practiced ritual before aiming it at her open mouth. Chris’s movements were even jerkier. She’s a good person, he thought, but she thinks too much about herself. Maybe she never had anybody to love.

“Here, let me help you to some of this delicious sweet and sour ostrich.”

Their laughter drowned out the loud groan from another table where Turtle sat alone, a transistor radio plugged in her ear. The stock market had dropped another twelve points.

“I’m starved, let’s sit down to eat.” Head held high, Grace Wexler led her husband across the restaurant. “All I want is a corned beef sandwich, not a guided tour.”