N H(IS) FOR NO THEE (TO) = NH4NO3
But four clue letters were left out: isto, osit, itso, otis. OTIS! He had it: a formula for an explosive, and the name of the murderer! He had to tell Doug.
“Where g-g-gogin?”
“Shhh!” Theo smoothed the blanket over his sleepy brother in the next bed, struggled into his bathrobe, and stumbled over the wheelchair as he tiptoed out of the room.
The elevator made too much noise, use the stairs. The cement was cold, he had forgotten his slippers. Two unmarked doors, which one? Tap, tap. Tap. A grunting voice, dragging footsteps. Please, let it be Doug, not Mr. Hoo or Judge Ford.
It was Crow. Clutching a robe about her gaunt frame, her unknotted hair hanging long and limp, she tried to focus her dulled eyes on the shocked face of her visitor. “Theo! Theo! The wind, I heard the wind. I knew you would come.”
“Me?”
Grasping his hand, she pulled him into the maid’s apartment between 4C and 4D and shut the door. “We are sinners, yet shall we be saved. Let us pray for deliverance, then you must go to your angel, take her away.”
Theo found himself kneeling on the bare floor next to the praying Crow. He must be dreaming.
“Amen.”
18 The Trackers
IT WAS Flora Baumbach who braided Turtle’s hair now, sometimes in three strands, sometimes four, sometimes twined with ribbons, while Turtle read The Wall Street Journal.
“Listen to this: ‘The newly elected chairman of the board of Westing Paper Products Corporation, Julian R. Eastman, announced from London where he is conferring with European management that earnings from all divisions are expected to double in the next quarter.’”
“That’s nice,” Flora Baumbach said, not understanding a word of it.
Turtle gave the order for the day. “Listen carefully. As soon as you get to the broker’s office I want you to sell AMO, sell SEA, sell MT, and put all the money into WPP. Okay?”
Oh my! That meant selling every stock mentioned in their clues and buying more shares of Westing Paper Products—at a loss of some thousands of dollars. “Whatever you say, Alice, you’re the smart one.”
Flora Baumbach’s hands were gentle, they never hurried or pulled a stray hair. Flora Baumbach loved her, she could tell. “I like when you call me Alice,” Turtle said, “but I better not call you Mrs. Baumbach anymore, because of the bomb scare, you know.” Calling her Flora would spoil everything. “Maybe I could call you Mrs. Baba?”
“Why not just Baba?”
That’s exactly what Turtle (Alice) wanted to hear. “Was your daughter, Rosalie, very smart, Baba?”
“My, no. You’re the smartest child I ever met, a real businesswoman.”
Turtle glowed behind The Wall Street Journal. “I bet Rosalie baked bread and patched quilts and dumb stuff like that.”
The dressmaker’s sure fingers fumbled over the red ribbons she was weaving into a four-strand braid. “Rosalie was an exceptional child. The friendliest, lovingest . . .”
Turtle crumpled the newspaper. “Let’s go. I’m late for school and you’ve got that big trade to make.”
“But I haven’t finished tying the ribbons.”
“Never mind, I like them hanging.” Turtle felt like kicking somebody, anybody, good and hard.
SANDY WAS NOT at the door when they left. He was in apartment 4D neatly writing in his patriotic notebook information gathered on the next heir.
• BAUMBACH
FLORA BAUMBACH. Maiden name: Flora Miller. Age: 60. Dressmaker. Husband left her years ago, sends no money. She had a retarded daughter, Rosalie, a Mongoloid child. Sold bridal shop last year after Rosalie died of pneumonia, age 19. Spends most of her time at the stockbrokers.
Westing connection: Made wedding gown for Violet Westing, which she never got to wear.
Sandy turned to a fresh page, propped his feet on the judge’s desk, and began to read the data supplied by the private investigator on Otis Amber. He laughed so hard he nearly fell off the tilting chair.
HAUNTED BY LAST night’s dream, Theo jogged behind his partner halfway to the high school before he uttered a breathless “Stop!”
Doug Hoo stopped.
“Who lives in the apartment next to yours?”
“Crow. Why?”
“Nothing.” How come he didn’t know that? Because no one ever wonders where a cleaning woman lives, that’s why. But he wasn’t like that, was he? Still, it must have been a dream. In the dream, the nightmare, Crow had given him a letter, but the only thing he found in his bathrobe pocket this morning was a Westing Paper Hankie. “Hey, wait!” Doug had started off again. “I figured out our clues. Ammonium nitrate. It’s used in fertilizers, explosives, and rocket propellants.”
“I knew those clues were a pile of fertilizer,” Doug replied, jogging easily. Only one thing mattered: Saturday’s big track meet. If he won or came in a fast second he’d have his pick of athletic scholarships. He didn’t need the inheritance.
“Stand still and listen.” Theo grabbed Doug by the shoulders and held him flat-footed to the ground. “Like it or not we’re partners, and you’ve got to do your share.”
“Sure,” Doug replied. His father was angry, his partner was angry, and a bomber was blowing up Sunset Towers floor by floor. Some game! “What do you want me to do?”
“Follow Otis Amber.”
HEAD TILTED BACK, Flora Baumbach squirted drops in her eyes, blinked, and stared again at the moving tape.
HR 1000$42½ WPP 5000$39¼ BRY 27 TA 5$17¼ Z 5000$27¼ WPP 5000$39½
“Oh my!” Westing Paper Products had jumped four and a quarter, no, four and a half points. Her eyes must be blurry from the medicine. The dressmaker sat on the edge of her chair, biting her fingernails, waiting for WPP to cross the board again. There: WPP $40. Oh my, oh my! This morning she had paid thirty-five dollars a share. There it goes again: WPP $40G. Oh my, oh my, oh my!
AFTER CLASSES, INSTEAD of running around the indoor track, Doug Hoo jogged out of the
