The Westing Game

It is September 1, and the tenants all move into Sunset Towers. The next night, the fancy restaurant on the top floor of the building—Shin Hoo’s Restaurant—and the coffee shop on the ground floor both open for business. Everything is calm and orderly.

Within two months, the residents and employees of the building have become acquainted with one another. The doorman, Sandy McSouthers, and delivery man, Otis Amber, stand outside with three of the kids and teens who live in the building: Theo Theodorakis, Doug Hoo, and Turtle Wexler.

Turtle notices smoke coming from the chimney of the Westing house. Otis and Sandy inform the kids of the folklore surrounding old man Westing. Some say he is dead, while others believe he lives on a private island. Rumors abound, implying that his corpse is “sprawled out on a fancy Oriental rug” (7), wasting away inside the house. According to lore, a couple of kids went into the house some time ago on a dare but came running out, screaming. One fell off a cliff, and the other could only repeat the phrase “purple waves” while blood dripped from his hands. Brave Turtle isn’t scared and immediately vows to go into the house for $2 a minute.

Theo’s brother, Chris Theodorakis, watches the group gossip from the window of the family’s apartment. He was birdwatching but is now waiting for Theo to come to the apartment so that he can tell him that he saw someone go into the Westing house that afternoon. Chris then has an eerie feeling that someone is watching him despite the knowledge that no one can see into the windows of Sunset Towers. He has a seizure or muscle spasm before relaxing and resuming his gazing over the lake.

The Wexler’s older daughter, Angela, is having her wedding dress hemmed by the dressmaker Flora Baumbach, who lives on the second floor. Angela’s mother watches and criticizes Flora, cooing at her oldest daughter. Turtle, the Wexlers’ younger daughter, runs into the apartment, sharing her news about the smoke in the Westing house.

Mrs. Wexler wants none of it and almost rises to strike Turtle when Turtle makes fun of the wedding dress and Angela’s fiancé. The younger daughter knows her mother doesn’t care if Turtle “got killed or ended up a raving lunatic” (10). She wants to go tell her father the news about the smoke as well, but he is downstairs performing an operation on Crow.

Crow, dressed in all black with a severe look on her face, is having a corn removed from her foot and notices the smoke during the procedure. Dr. Wexler notices an injury on Crow’s shin, which is the fault of his daughter Turtle. Turtle is in the habit of kicking people’s shins when they touch the braid in her hair, but Crow blames it on the lack of religion in the home. Crow doesn’t believe the rumors about old man Westing’s corpse; she thinks that if he is dead, he is in hell.

Meanwhile, Mr. Hoo and his son, Doug, are having a similar conversation. Mr. Hoo sees Doug’s conversation about the corpse as a waste of time and wonders why he isn’t studying. Doug follows his father’s orders and jogs off (he’s on the track team) to go dig into his books. Mr. Hoo eats a chocolate bar while he waits for his two dinner reservations to arrive. His wife also waits, looking out the window, staring past the lake toward faraway China.

Judge J. J. Ford steps out of her Mercedes and Sandy helps with her luggage. Ford believes there is a “more rational explanation” for the rumors about Westing and calls Otis “stupid” for spreading the rumors. She immediately regrets this, understanding it to be the result of a long day and the memory of the money she owes Westing.

The Theodorakis brothers are together in their apartment, as Theo has come up from the parking lot. He squats next to his brother’s wheelchair and tells him an embellished version of the Westing story, including gory details about the “putrid corpse” and “gloomy tomb of a room” (14).

Sydelle Pulaski is planning something big to make everyone pay attention to her. No one listens when she warns them about burglaries, and no one invites her over for “so much as a cup of tea” (15). She unpacks the shopping bag she’s brought into the apartment, filled with paints and brushes, and considers the four wooden crutches she also purchased.

On Halloween night, Turtle, dressed as a witch, prepares to enter the Westing house. Doug waits outside with the stopwatch because he is a fast runner and can sprint in the case of an emergency. Turtle tells herself she has nothing to be afraid of; even if she sees a ghost, she just needs to talk to it “friendly-like.” She counts to three and goes inside. A full 11 minutes pass before Doug hears a scream and Turtle comes racing out the front door with her witch’s cape in hand. She remains awake in bed all night until retrieving the morning paper. She reads the headline news: “SAM WESTING FOUND DEAD” (20).

The article reveals that Samuel W. Westing was a multimillionaire industrialist and the only child of immigrants. He founded the Westing Paper Products Corporation and the city of Westingtown, but his daughter passed away, and his wife deserted him soon after. He enjoyed throwing Fourth of July celebrations during which he’d dress up as famous characters and set off firework displays that were visible from miles around. After almost being killed in a car accident, he disappeared from society.

The article has no mention of who found the body, or of how it was located. Turtle thinks back to the previous evening. She wandered next to the bed to investigate a note—“If I am found dead in bed” (20)—before feeling a dead hand as she felt in the dark. The article mentions none of the personal belongings she left behind in her hurried flight out of the house. The most important thing to Turtle is retrieving her $24 from Doug, Theo, Otis, and Sandy.

Around noon, Otis delivers letters to everyone asking them to attend the reading of Westing’s will.

Grace Windsor Wexler walks into the Westing house with her two daughters, preferring to keep her furs on to show she is not “one of the poor relatives” (22). She ceremoniously pretends to wipe tears away from her eyes with a handkerchief.

Grace and her daughters sit at a long table where a lawyer shuffles through envelopes. Turtle notices Westing’s dead body in a casket in the room. Someone has changed his clothing into a complete Uncle Sam costume and—to Turtle’s chagrin—he is wearing her mother’s silver cross, which Turtle left behind during her jaunt into the Westing house.

Doctor Denton Deere, Angela’s fiancé, takes a seat at the table as well. The rest of the heirs file in: Mrs. Baumbach, Judge Ford, the Theodorakis brothers Theo and Chris, Mr. Hoo and his son, Crow, Otis Amber, and Sydelle Pulaski, who comes in last. Madame Hoo and Mr. Drexler do not attend. The atmosphere of the room is strained as each heir regards the others. Grace Wexler tries to understand each person’s relationship with Westing, assuming she is the most important as a direct relative (in fact, she does not know that she is related to Westing, but she assumes this must be the case due to stories about a “rich uncle”).