The Westing Game

stuck-up-know-it-all-marshmallow-face-doctor-denton . . . ?”
“That’s enough of your smart mouth!” Mrs. Wexler leaped up, hand ready to strike; instead she straightened a framed flower print, patted her fashionable honey-blonde hairdo, and sat down again. She had never hit Turtle, but one of these days—besides, a stranger was present. “Doctor Deere is a brilliant young man,” she explained for Flora Baumbach’s ears. The dressmaker smiled politely. “Angela will soon be Angela Deere; isn’t that a precious name?” The dressmaker nodded. “And then we’ll have two doctors in the family. Now where do you think you’re going?”
Turtle was at the front door. “Downstairs to tell daddy about the smoke coming from the Westing house.”
“Come back this instant. You know your father operates in the afternoon; why don’t you go to your room and work on stock market reports or whatever you do in there.”
“Some room, it’s even too small for a closet.”
“I’ll hem your witch’s costume, Turtle,” Angela offered.
Mrs. Wexler beamed on her perfect child draped in white. “What an angel.”
CROW’S CLOTHES WERE black; her skin, dead white. She looked severe. Rigid, in fact. Rigid and righteously severe. No one could have guessed that under that stern facade her stomach was doing flip-flops as Doctor Wexler cut out a corn.
Staring down at the fine lines of pink scalp that showed through the podiatrist’s thinning light brown hair did nothing to ease her queasiness; so, softly humming a hymn, she settled her gaze on the north window. “Smoke!”
“Watch it!” Jake Wexler almost cut off her little toe along with the corn.
Unaware of the near amputation, the cleaning woman stared at the Westing house.
“If you will just sit back,” Jake began, but his patient did not hear him. She must have been a handsome woman at one time, but life had used her harshly. Her faded hair, knotted in a tight bun on the nape of her gaunt neck, glinted gold-red in the light. Her profile was fine, marred only by the jut of her clenched jaw. Well, let’s get on with it, Friday was his busy day, he had phone calls to make. “Please sit back, Mrs. Crow. I’m almost finished.”
“What?”
Jake gently replaced her foot on the chair’s pedestal. “I see you’ve hurt your shin.”
“What?” For an instant their eyes met; then she looked away. A shy creature (or a guilty one), Crow averted her face when she spoke. “Your daughter Turtle kicked me,” she muttered, staring once again at the Westing house. “That’s what happens when there is no religion in the home. Sandy says Westing’s corpse is up there, rotting away on an Oriental rug, but I don’t believe it. If he’s truly dead, then he’s roasting in hell. We are sinners, all.”
“WHAT DO YOU mean his corpse is rotting on an Oriental rug, some kind of Persian rug, maybe a Chinese rug.” Mr. Hoo joined his son at the glass sidewall of the fifth-floor restaurant. “And why were you wasting precious time listening to an overaged delivery boy with an overactive imagination when you should have been studying.” It was not a question; Doug’s father never asked questions. “Don’t shrug at me, go study.”
“Sure, Dad.” Doug jogged off through the kitchen; it was no use arguing that there was no school tomorrow, just track practice. He jogged down the back stairs; no matter what excuse he gave, “Go study,” his father would say, “go study.” He jogged into the Hoos’ rear apartment, stretched out on the bare floor and repeated “Go study” to twenty sit-ups.
Only two customers were expected for the dinner hour (Shin Hoo’s Restaurant could seat one hundred). Mr. Hoo slammed the reservations book shut, pressed a hand against the pain in his ample stomach, unwrapped a chocolate bar, and devoured it quickly before acid etched another ulcer. Back home again, is he. Well, Westing won’t get off so easy this time, not on his life.
A small, delicate woman in a long white apron stood in silence before the restaurant’s east window. She stared longingly into the boundless gray distance as if far, far on the other side of Lake Michigan lay China.
SANDY MCSOUTHERS SALUTED as the maroon Mercedes swung around the curved driveway and came to a stop at the entrance. He opened the car door with a ceremony reserved only for Judge J. J. Ford. “Look up there, Judge. There’s smoke coming from the Westing house.”
A tall black woman in a tailored suit, her short-clipped hair touched with gray, slipped out from behind the wheel, handed the car keys to the doorman, and cast a disinterested glance at the house on the hill.
“They say nobody’s up there, just the corpse of old man Westing rotting away on an Oriental rug,” Sandy reported as he hoisted a full briefcase from the trunk of the car. “Do you believe in ghosts, Judge?”
“There is certain to be a more rational explanation.”
“You’re right, of course, Judge.” Sandy opened the heavy glass door and followed on the judge’s heels through the lobby. “I was just repeating what Otis Amber said.”
“Otis Amber is a stupid man, if not downright mad.” J. J. Ford hurried into the elevator. She should not have said that, not her, not the first black, the first woman, to have been elected to a judgeship in the state. She was tired after a trying day, that was it. Or was it? So Sam Westing has come home at last. Well, she could sell the car, take out a bank loan, pay him back—in cash. But would he take it? “Please don’t repeat what I said about Otis Amber, Mr. McSouthers.”
“Don’t worry, Judge.” The doorman escorted her to the door of apartment 4D. “What you tell me is strictly confidential.” And it was. J. J. Ford was the biggest tipper in Sunset Towers.
“I SAW SOMEB-B-B . . .” Chris Theodorakis was too excited to stutter out the news to his brother. One arm shot out and twisted up over his head. Dumb arm.
Theo squatted next to the wheelchair.