Whodunnit?

Chapter 18

And that's where our story ends, readers!  But I know what you're still thinking- whodunnit?  Well, i'll tell you who, keep reading.

I've gathered all of my best hints, subtle and obvious.  And I have also made this beautful flow chart thingy for you to all read, so you can effectively read the hints.

here are bars above each hint summary, along with a short subtitle that can also be used for even easier identification.  The more bars, the harder you had to work/think/remember to understand the hint. The easy hints are at the bottom, hard ones at the top.

------------------------------------------

These hints are suspicious- you probably raised an eyebrow at first then forgot about them.

In the beginning of the story, in the middle of the scene in the very first crime, Maxine and Angelina come out of the building when the fire alarm sounds.  Then the first thing Maxine does is not ask if her friend os ok, or ask what happened, she immeadiatly scopes out Angelina and grabs her by the pajamas.  And if you remember what happened in the first crime, the killer used liquid benzene.  Liquid.  A little weird that the first thing she does is wipe onto her pajamas?  

Alright, let's say you didn't catch that one, that one was pretty hidden. What about when..

she left Angelina in the falling cage.  SUSPICIOUS MUCH????  Lucklily, the bell rung right after that happened, so Angelina could escape from the cage.  But what kind of logical person would leave their friend in a cage, conveniently activated by a touch sensor.  And if Maxine is always right behind her, how come she knew not to step on it?

----------------------------

This hints are more elimination hints.  If it's not this, it's that.

If you could guess it, Maxine had a pretty strong motive.  The particular relationships are pretty complicated, but I purposely dedicated an entire scene to Alice's and Maxines's feud.  Maxine pushes Alice in the pool, and along with Alice, her friends get mad at her.  When Angelina searches for clues with Tana, she expresses her dislike for Maxine.  In addition, Nina stops hanging out with Angelina and Maxine.  And of course, after the cage scene, Angelina and Maxine go on the silent treatment.  If you took a second to zoom out while reading, you'd have a lot of people pointing the finger at Maxine.

-----------------

These probably caught your attention and you may or may not have used them to draw conclusuions.

When Angelina asks for the time in the finale, Maxine says "Three seventy four."  Not only is 3:74 not a real time, it's also the temperature the oven was set to, which was the room they visited.  If you reread Shot p.1 for a minute to see what I'm talking about, what I'm saying right will make a lot more sense.

---------

I have no doubt you recognized these hints, whether you used them correctly is a different story.

Also in the finale chapter, Angelina notes that Maxine smells, "sweet, like an elegant perfume." This was a subtle yet important hint.  Remember what liquid benzene smells like?

Sweet.  Sweet, like an elegant perfume.

---

You had to see this hints, I couldn't make them more obvious!

Also, here is one of my most obvious hints: Maxine stuffs a pair of wooly socks into her pockets in the finale chapter.  And of course, Dante wore a pair of wooly socks while escaping the building, which I believe I noted multiple times prior.