What is the character of Crow in The Westing Game?

Crow is the maid in Sunset Towers.  She turns out to be Sam Westing’s ex-wife.   Her real name is Berthe Erica Crow.

Crow lives in a tiny apartment.  She is constantly talking about religion and sinners, but she is really devastated by her daughter Violet’s death right before her wedding.

Crow’s clothes were black; her skin dead white. She looked severe.  Rigid in fact.  Rigid and righteously severe. (ch 3, p. 11)

Crow is not a very social person.  She tends to bumble around, and does not communicate with anyone but Otis Amber.  Most of the inhabitants of Sunset Towers ignore her because she is a batty old woman and the maid.

Crow is paired with Otis Amber, the ancient delivery boy.  At one point, Crow is suspected and even arrested.  She says she is the solution to the Westing murder, which makes the others assume that she murdered Sam Westing.  She did not.  No one murdered him, because he is still alive and in hiding.

Who is Crow in The Westing Game and what is her character like?

Crow's full name is Berthe Erica Crow, and her job is to make sure everything is neat and clean at the Sunset Towers. Berthe Crow is a bit of a mystery throughout to readers and characters for a great deal of the story, and that is odd because it's not like she hides herself, per se. Her background is more of a hiding-in-plain-sight kind of mystery. People are not even sure where she lives, and there is some fear of her from multiple characters in the book.

Her mystery is deepened when the clues of Westing's game spell out her full name. It turns out to be an intentional misdirection, but as readers continue through the book we eventually figure out that Crow does indeed have a special connection to Sam Westing. Berthe Erica Crow is Sam Westing's former wife. The death of her daughter was a burden she simply couldn't withstand, and her turn to alcohol further destroyed her relationship with Sam.

Crow's partner in the game is Otis Amber, and the partnership becomes more than their being simple teammates. However, the partnership does go through a few bumps in the road. One such bump occurs when Otis believes that Crow lost their clues to the Westing game, but it turns out that Crow gave them away instead.