“Windkloppel!” The judge’s outburst was so unexpected, Sandy had a hard time keeping down the last swig.
“Grace Wexler’s maiden name is not Windsor, it’s Windkloppel,” the judge exclaimed, riffling through the pages of Sandy’s notebook. “Here it is: ‘Berthe Erica Crow. Ex-husband’s name: Windy Windkloppel.’”
Sandy stopped coughing, started laughing. “Grace Windsor Wexler is related to somebody all right; she’s related to the cleaning woman. Think she knows, Judge?”
“I doubt it. Besides, we cannot be certain of the relationship. I’d like to see the documents in Crow’s folder again.”
“I’m sure it’s Windkloppel, Judge, I checked all my spellings three times over.”
Judge Ford reread the private investigator’s reports. “Mr. McSouthers, it is Windkloppel, but look carefully at the name of the woman in this interview.”
Berthe Erica Crow? Sure I knew her. She and her pa lived in the upstairs flat. We were best friends, almost like sisters, but she was the pretty one with her beautiful complexion and long gold-red hair. She left school to marry a guy named Windkloppel. Haven’t seen or heard from her since. She’s not in any trouble, is she?
Transcript of a taped interview with Sybil Pulaski, November 12.
“Pulaski!” the doorman said.
“Not just Pulaski,” the judge pointed out. “Sybil Pulaski. Sam Westing wanted Crow’s childhood friend, Sybil Pulaski, to be one of his heirs. He got Sydelle Pulaski instead.”
“Gee, Judge, I never noticed that; boy, am I dumb. But what does it mean?”
“What it means, Mr. McSouthers, is that Sam Westing made his first mistake.”
20 Confessions
FRIDAY CAME QUICKLY to the Westing heirs. Too quickly. Time was running out.
Turtle skipped school. She was in trouble enough, but she could build her own school and hire her own kind of teachers once she became a millionaire.
In spite of having Turtle at her side, Flora Baumbach still stared at the ever-changing, endless tape from the edge of the chair, chewed what remained of her fingernails, and uttered an “Oh my!” each time WPP went by. At two o’clock Westing Paper Products sold at fifty-two dollars a share, its highest price in fifteen years.
“Now, Baba. SELL!”
DOUG HOO HAD a legitimate excuse from classes: tomorrow was the big track meet. He jogged, he sprinted, he ran at full speed—not on the track, but on the trail of Otis Amber. Back and forth from the shopping center to Sunset Towers, again and again and again and . . . hey, this is a new direction.
Otis Amber parked his delivery bike in front of a rooming house and went inside. Doug waited, hidden in a doorway across the street. And waited. People came and went, but no Otis Amber. Doug jogged up and down the block for two hours. Still no sign of Otis Amber.
Doug was cold and hungry, but at least his feet didn’t hurt anymore. Last night when he asked Doc Wexler about the blisters, the podiatrist told him to see his father—his father, of all people. But those paper innersoles really worked.
At five o’clock Otis Amber skipped out of the rooming house, hopped on his bicycle, and returned to Sunset Towers empty-handed. Doug’s assignment was over, well, almost over. Where was Theo?
THEO WAS BEING patched up in the hospital emergency room after a slight miscalculation in his “solution” experiment. Fortunately, no one else was around when the lab blew up.
“You like playing with explosives, kid?” the bomb squad detective asked. Accidents in high-school chemistry were not unusual, but this student lived in Sunset Towers.
“I was experimenting on chemical fertilizers,” Theo replied, wincing as the doctor probed his shoulder for a glass shard.
“The first bomb went off in your folks’ coffee shop, right? Your mother and father work you pretty hard, don’t they?”
“They work harder than I do. Why all the questions? Your captain said the Sunset Towers explosions were just fireworks.”
“Sure they were, but bombers have a funny habit of going in for bigger and bigger bangs. Until they get caught.”
Theo had an alibi. He was nowhere near the Wexler apartment the day the third bomb went off. The detective grunted a warning about careless chemistry, but Theo had already learned his lesson. “Ouch!”
AT LAST THE coffee shop owner himself delivered the up order. The judge came right to the point. “Mr. Theodorakis, tell me about your relationship with Violet Westing. I have reason to believe a life is in danger or I would not ask.”
It was a question he had expected. “I grew up in Westingtown where my father was a factory foreman. Violet Westing and I were, what you’d call, childhood sweethearts. We planned to get married someday, when I could afford it, but her mother broke us up. She wanted Violet to marry somebody important.”
The judge had to interrupt. “Her mother? Are you saying it was Mrs. Westing who arranged the marriage, not Sam Westing?”
George Theodorakis nodded. “That’s right. Sam Westing tried to involve Violet in his business. I guess he hoped she’d take over the paper company one day; but she had her heart set on being a teacher. Besides, Violet didn’t have much of a business sense. After that her father never paid her much attention.”
“Go on.” The judge held the witness in her stare.
The subject was becoming painful, and Mr. Theodorakis faltered several times in the telling. “Mrs. Westing handpicked that politician—probably figured the guy would end up in the White House and her daughter would be First Lady. But Violet thought he was nothing but a cheap political hack, a cheap crook. Violet was a gentle person, an only child. She couldn’t turn against her mother, she couldn’t face marrying that guy. . . . I guess she couldn’t find any way out, except . . . Mrs. Westing sort of went off her rocker after Violet’s death, and I . . . well, it was a long time ago.”
“Thank you, Mr. Theodorakis,” the judge said, ending the interrogation. The man had a different life now, different loves, different problems. “Thank you, you have been a big help.”
Sandy was now able to complete the entry:
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