“N-n-n,” Turtle replied through sealed lips.
Angela came into the small room and tugged Turtle’s braid (only her sister could get away with that).
Beaming on her favorite, Grace took her hand, then gasped. “Angela, where’s your engagement ring?”
“I have a rash on my finger.”
Thump, thump. Sydelle Pulaski appeared in the doorway. “Hi, what’s everybody doing in the closet?”
“See, I told you this is a closet,” Turtle said.
Grace ignored the complaint. It did no good being nice to that ungrateful child, never satisfied, always whining about something or other. “Oh, hello, Miss Pulaski.”
“I’ve been feeling a bit weakly, thank you, but nothing can keep me from a party.” Sydelle’s crutch was painted in black and white squares to match her black and white checkered dress. Her large hoop earrings were also black and white: the white one dangled from her left ear, the black from her right.
“The party is such a lovely idea,” Grace said, warming up to the owner of the shorthand notes. “When I saw the invitation in the elevator I suggested to Mr. Hoo that he call the judge to see if she needed hors d’oeuvres; and sure enough, he got an order for six dozen.” She turned to Angela. “Hadn’t you better get dressed, dear? It’s getting late. It’s too bad Doctor D. can’t escort you to the party, but your father and I will take you.”
“Angela and I are going together; we’re partners, you know.” Sydelle had it all planned. They were to appear in identical costumes; tonight was the night they would discover if one of the heirs was a twin.
“I’m going to the party with Mrs. Baumbach,” Turtle remarked. “The sign said everyone’s invited.”
Again Grace ignored her. “By the way, Miss Pulaski, I do hope you’ve changed your mind about showing me your notes.”
It was the secretary’s turn to seal her lips. She wouldn’t put it past that uppity Grace Windsor Wexler to steal the notebook from an unfortunate cripple and then rub it in.
Grace tried again, her voice dripping with honey. “You know, of course, that if I do win the inheritance, everything I own goes to Angela.”
Turtle bounded up. “Let me out of here: a person can’t breathe in this closet.” She kicked the bed, kicked the chair, kicked the desk, and elbowed past the disapproving secretary.
“What in the world is wrong with that child?” her mother said.
JUDGE FORD WAS instructing Theo in the art of bartending when the telephone rang. The snowbound newspaperman had found several items in the files.
“First, the engagement announcement of Angela Wexler to D. Denton Deere. Next, several clippings on a lawsuit brought against Sam Westing by an inventor named . . .”
“Hold on, please.” Mr. Hoo waddled in with a large tray of appetizers. The judge pointed him to the serving buffet and apologized to her caller. “I’m sorry, would you repeat that name.”
“James Hoo. He claimed Westing stole his idea of the disposable paper diaper.”
“One minute, please.” The judge cupped her hand over the mouthpiece. “Please don’t leave, Mr. Hoo. I was hoping you’d stay for the party, as a guest, of course. Your wife and son, too.”
Hoo grunted. He hated parties. He had seen his fill of people eating and drinking and acting like clowns, jabbering like . . . so that’s it: jabbering, dropping clues. “I’ll be right back.”
The receiver hissed with an impatient sigh, then the researcher went on. “I’ve got a thick file of sports items on another Hoo, a Doug Hoo. Seems he runs a pretty fast mile for a high-school kid. That’s all I could find on the names you gave me, but I still have stacks of Westing clippings to go through.”
“Thank you so much.”
The doorbell rang.
The party was about to begin.
10 The Long Party
“I HOPE WE’RE not too early.” Grace Windsor Wexler always arrived at parties fashionably late, but not tonight. She didn’t want to miss a thing, or a clue, or wait around in her apartment with a murderer on the loose. “I don’t think you’ve met my husband, Doctor Wexler.”
“Call me Jake.”
“Hello, Jake,” Judge Ford said. A firm handshake, laugh lines around his eyes. He needed a sense of humor with that social-climbing wife.
“What a lovely living room, so practically furnished,” Grace commented. “Our apartments are identical in layout, but mine looks so different. You must come see what I’ve done with it. I’m a decorator, you know. Three bedrooms do seem rather spacious for a single woman.”
What does she mean, three bedrooms? This is a one-bedroom apartment. “Would you care for an appetizer, Mrs. Wexler? I’m curious to know exactly how you are related to the Westing family.”
The judge had hoped to take the “heiress” by surprise, but Grace gained time by coughing. “Goodness, that ginger is spicy—it’s the Szechuan cooking style, you know. How am I related? Let me see, Uncle Sam was my father’s oldest brother, or was he the youngest brother of my father’s father?”
“Excuse me, I have to greet my other guests.” The judge left the prattling pretender. Father’s brother or father’s father’s brother, if the relationship was on the paternal side her maiden name would be Westing.
The party went on and on. No one dared be first to leave. (Safety in numbers, especially with a judge there.) So the guests ate and drank and jabbered; and they watched the other guests eat and drink and jabber. No one laughed.
“I guess murder isn’t very funny,” Jake Wexler said.
“Neither is money,” Mr. Hoo replied glumly.
Deciding that his wife had found the perfect partner, the podiatrist moved on to the two women standing in silence at the front window. “Cheer up, Angie-pie, you’ll see your Denton soon enough.” His daughter twisted out of his embrace. “Are you all right, Angela?”
“I’m fine.” She was not fine. Why did they ask about Denton all the time, as though she was nobody without him? Oh, it wasn’t just that. It wasn’t even the humiliation of her mother chiding her about the “twin” costume (in front
