The Westing Game (22 page)

“You are excused, Ms. Pulaski,” Turtle said offhandedly, her eyes on the will. The judge was right. Sandy had joked about ashes scattered to the winds. Winds, Windy Windkloppel, no, it still didn’t make sense.
It is not what you have, it’s what you don’t have that counts
—maybe no word was ever there. She read on:

“Judge Ford, could you introduce as evidence the letter that brilliant young attorney handed over to you?”

“It is just the usual certification of sanity, signed by Doctor Sikes,” the judge replied as she removed the envelope from her files. But the letter was gone; the envelope now contained a receipt:

“I’m afraid the original letter has been replaced by a personal message. It has no bearing on this case, and . . .”

“Yes, please.” A trembling Madame Hoo stood before the judge. “For to go to China,” she said timidly, setting a scarf-tied bundle on the desk. Weeping softly, the thief shuffled back to her seat.

The judge unknotted the scarf and let the flowered silk float down around the booty: her father’s railroad watch, a pearl necklace, cuff links, a pin and earrings set, a clock. (Grace Wexler’s silver cross never did turn up.)

“My pearls,” Flora Baumbach exclaimed with delight. “Wherever did you find them, Madame Hoo? I’m so grateful.”

Madame Hoo did not understand why the round little lady was smiling at her. Cautiously she peered through her fingers. Oh! The other people did not smile. They know she is bad. And Mr. Hoo, his anger is drowned in shame.

“Perhaps stealing is not considered stealing in China,” Sydelle Pulaski said in a clumsy gesture of kindness.

The judge rapped her gavel. “Let us continue with the case on hand. Are you ready, counselor?”

“Yes, Your Honor, in a minute.” Turtle approached the frightened thief. “Here, you can keep it.”

With shaking hands Madame Hoo took the Mickey Mouse clock from Turtle and clutched the priceless treasure to her bosom. “Thank you, good girl, thank you, thank you.”

“That’s okay.”

The heirs were anxious for the trial to continue. They pitied the poor woman, but the scene was embarrassing.

 

 

One half hour to go. Turtle was so close to winning she could feel it, taste it, but still the answer eluded her. “Ladies and gentlemen, who was Sam Westing?” she began. “He was poor Windy Windkloppel, the son of immigrants. He was rich Sam Westing, the head of a huge paper company. He was a happy man who played games. He was a sad man whose daughter killed herself. He was a lonely man who moved to a faraway island. He was a sick man who returned home to see his friends and relatives before he died. And he did die, but not when we thought he did. Sam Westing was still alive when the will was read.”

The judge rapped for order.

Turtle continued. “The obituary, probably phoned in to the newspaper by Westing himself, mentioned two interesting facts. One: Sam Westing was never seen after his car crashed. Two: Sam Westing acted in Fourth of July pageants, fooling everybody with his clever disguises. Therefore I submit that Sam Westing was not only alive, Sam Westing was disguised as one of his own heirs.

“No one would recognize him. With that face bashed in from the car crash, his disguise could be simple: a baggy uniform, a chipped front tooth, broken eyeglasses.”

Sandy?

Does she mean Sandy?

The judge had to pound her gavel several times.

“Yes, ladies and gentlemen,” Turtle went on, “Sam Westing was none other than our dear friend Sandy, the doorman. But Sam Westing did not drink, you say. Neither did Sandy. I used his flask on Halloween and there was a funny aftertaste in my pop, but not of whiskey; I know how whiskey tastes, because I use it for toothaches. It was medicine. Sandy was a sick man, and the flask was part of his disguise, but it also contained the medicine that kept him alive.”

Turtle surveyed her stupefied audience. Good, they bought her little fib. “As I said earlier, I saw Crow fill the flask with lemon juice in the kitchen, but I saw something even more interesting on my way back to the game room: I saw Sandy coming out of the library. Sam Westing, as Sandy, wrote the last part of the will
after
the answers were given, then locked it in the library desk with a duplicate key.

“But what about the murder, you ask,” Turtle said, even though no one had asked. “There was no murder. The word murder was first mentioned by Sandy, to put us off the track.
I did not die of natural causes,
the will says.
My life was taken from me—by one of you!
Sam Westing’s life was taken from him when he became Sandy McSouthers. And Sandy died when his medicine ran out.” Turtle paused in a pretense of letting the heirs mull over her last words, trying to figure out what to do next.

Why did Turtle leave out Barney Northrup, the judge wondered. She knows Northrup and McSouthers were the same man because of the bruised shin. Either she doesn’t want to confound the jury, or she has no more idea than I have why Sam Westing had to play two roles.

Why did Sam Westing have to play
two
roles, Turtle wondered. He had a big enough part as the doorman without playing the real-estate man as well. Why
two
roles? No, not two, three. Windy Windkloppel took three names; one: Samuel W. Westing; two: Barney Northrup; three: Sandy McSouthers.

The judge had a question. “Surely Mr. McSouthers could have had his prescription refilled, or are you implying he committed suicide?”

“Pardon me?” Turtle was searching the will.

That’s it, that has to be it:
The heir who wins the windfall will be the one who finds the fourth!
Windy Windkloppel took four names, and she knew who the fourth one was! Keep calm, Turtle Alice Tabitha-Ruth Wexler. Slowly, very slowly, turn toward the judge, act dumb, and ask her to repeat the question. “I’m sorry, Your Honor, would you repeat the question?”

Turtle knows something. The judge had seen that expression before. Sam Westing used to look like that just before he won a game. “I asked if you consider Sandy’s death a suicide.”

“No, ma’am,” Turtle said sadly. Very sadly. “Sandy McSouthers-Sam Westing suffered terribly from a fatal disease. He was a dying man who chose his time to die. Let me read from the will:

“Ladies and gentlemen, heirs (for we all inherited something), let us bow our heads in silent prayer for our benefactor Sam Westing, alias Sandy the doorman.”

“Crow!” Otis Amber leaped to his feet as Ed Plum led the cleaning woman through the door.

HIS AVIATOR’S HELMET again flapping over his ears, Otis Amber danced up to his soup-kitchen companion, flung his arms around the taut body, and squeezed her tightly. “Hey Crow old pal, old pal, old pal.”

“They said I was innocent, Otis. They said I was innocent,” she replied vaguely.

Angela, too, wanted to hug her in welcome, but closeness was not possible for either of them. Instead, Angela offered a crooked smile. Crow nodded and lowered her eyes, only to raise them to Madame Hoo, clutching a Mickey Mouse clock. “Things very good,” Madame Hoo said, extending her free hand and shaking Crow’s hand up and down.

“It was all a regrettable mistake,” Ed Plum explained to the judge. “Can you imagine, that sheriff wanted to arrest me, not Crow—me, Edgar Jennings Plum—he wanted to arrest the attorney! Fortunately, the coroner determined that Mr. McSouthers died of a heart attack, as did Samuel W. Westing.”

“Then Turtle’s right,” Theo said. “There was no murder. The coroner was part of the plot.”

Ed Plum had no idea what Theo was talking about. Masking his ignorance with arrogance, he continued. “I had my suspicions about this entire affair from the start. I came here for one reason only: to announce my resignation from all matters regarding the Westing estate, with sincere apologies to all concerned.”

“Wasn’t there a last document?” Judge Ford asked, knowing that Sam Westing had to make his last move.

“Yes, but as I no longer take a legal interest . . .”

“Please turn it over to the court.”

Baffled by the word “court,” the lawyer set the envelope on the desk and found his way out of Sunset Towers.

Without once clearing her throat, Judge Ford proceeded to read the final page of the will of Samuel W. Westing.

Judge Ford set the document down. “That’s it.”

That’s it? What about the two hundred million dollars, the heirs wanted to know.

“We lost the game,” the judge explained, staring at Turtle, her face a mask of sad, childlike innocence as she nestled once again in Flora Baumbach’s arms. “I think.”

Turtle rose and walked to the side window, seeking the Westing house, which stood invisible in the moon-clouded night. (Hurry up, Uncle Sam, I can’t keep up this act much longer. The candle must have burned through the last stripe by now.)

Behind her the discontented heirs grumbled: He made fools of us all. He played us like puppets. He was a g-good m-man. He was a vengeful man, a hateful man. Windkloppel? He tricked us, the cheat. A madman, stark raving mad.

“Oh my, oh my, just listen to you,” Flora Baumbach said. “You each have ten thousand dollars more than you started with and an apartment building to boot. The man is dead, so why not think the best?”

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

“Happy Fourth of July,” Turtle shouted as the first rockets lit up the Westing house, lit up the sky.

BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM.

BOOM!!!

The heirs gathered around Turtle at the window.

BOOM! Stars of all colors bursting into the night, silver pin-wheels spinning, golden lances up-up-BOOM! crimson flashes flashing blasting, scarlet showers BOOM! emerald rain BOOM! BOOM! orange flames, red flames leaping from the windows, sparking the turrets, firing the trees. . . .

“BOOM!” cried Madame Hoo, clapping her hands with delight.

The great winter fireworks extravaganza, as it came to be called, lasted only fifteen minutes. Twenty minutes later the Westing house had burned to the ground.

“Happy birthday, Crow,” Otis Amber said, reaching for her hand.

 

 

The orange glow of the morning sun had just begun its climb up the glass front of Sunset Towers when Turtle set out to collect the prize. She pedaled north past the cliff, still smoldering with the charred remains of the Westing house. Reaching the crossroads, she turned into the narrow lane whose twisting curves mimicked the shoreline.

The heir who wins the windfall will be the one who finds the fourth.
It was so simple once you knew what you were looking for. Sam
West
ing, Barney
North
rup, Sandy Mc
South
ers (west, north, south). Now she was on her way to meet the fourth identity of Windy Windkloppel. She could probably have figured out the address, too, instead of looking it up in the Westingtown phone book—there it was, number four Sunrise Lane.

A long driveway, its privacy guarded by tall spruce, led to the modern mansion of the newly elected chairman of the board of Westing Paper Products Corporation. Turtle climbed the stairs, rang the bell, and waited. The door opened.

Turtle felt her first grip of panic as she confronted the crippled doctor. Could she have been wrong? “I’d like to see Mr. Eastman, please,” she said nervously. “Tell him Turtle Wexler is here.”