Why does Angela search under the hoods of the cars in chapter 14?

In chapter 14 of The Westing Game, Angela checks under the hood of the cars because she and Sydelle believe there may be more clues under one of them. In chapter 8, Angela and Sydelle receive the following clues: good, hood, from, spacious, grace. Sydelle reads these as one sentence: “Good gracious from hood space.” She says that as soon as the parking lot is cleared, they can search the hoods of the cars. She suggests that maybe they’ll find more clues or a map or the murder weapon. After Sydelle is injured in the restaurant bomb at the end of chapter 13, Angela takes it upon herself to search the parking lot. She disguises herself in her mother’s old beaver coat and hat and Turtle’s red boots and searches each car in the parking lot, but she doesn’t find anything.

In chapter 14 of The Westing Game, the teams are actively working on sets of clues in order to solve the mystery and win the game. Per Sydelle's instructions, Angela searches under the hood of each car in the parking lot of Sunset Towers, with the goal of either finding another clue or in some way getting closer to making sense of their clues. The words Sydelle and Angela have gathered so far are GOOD, HOOD, FROM, SPACIOUS, GRACE, KING, QUEEN, PURPLE, WAVES, ON(NO), GRAINS, and MT. In an attempt to make sense of the seemingly unrelated string of words, Sydelle repeatedly puzzles over and rearranges them, resulting in the phrase "good gracious from hood space," the answer to which she suspects may be found in the parking lot. Since Angela finds nothing of interest when searching the cars, we can conclude that this particular mission was unsuccessful.