Alright! Here we go!
Write your proposed solutions in the comments below. Next Monday, correct solutions will be approved, and forever displayed in the order that they were submitted!
Also:
HINT#1 - The complete solution involves some mention of physics!
Posted Wednesday.
HINT#2 -Panel 6 is an important panel.
Posted Friday.
I’m guessing it was Melissa. She hired the gunman to shoot Eva and Willy Jr. With them gone, Brendon would have little reason to stay, and so go with her to Florida. She stood beside Eva to maintain an alibi. Unfortunately, due to the light refraction of the glass and water, the gunman missed Eva and hit her instead.
Another option is that Eva wasn’t a target – just Willy Jr. – and that Melissa getting hit was either an unfortunate accident or a deliberate ploy to appear innocent.
Am I allowed three guesses in one post? :)
The person who hired the killer was Melissa.
Motive
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Melissa had to move for a new job, but was mad in love with Brendon. Brendon, bound to the aquarium as co-owner, could not move to Florida with her do to his standings with the company.
Plan
====
Melissa hired the sniper to kill Willy Jr., the main attraction. With the shark gone the flow of visitors would drop tremendously and the aquarium would suffer for it. Also, the shark was insured for an unknown amount, though it is to be assumed this amount was considerable since Mr. Willy was the most important fish.
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The money received from the insurance claim could be used to fund the aquarium to a point where Brendon was no longer needed
OR
The aquarium would close and Brendon, being co-owner, would be given a share of the profits.
————–
Either way, Brendon would be free to go with Melissa to Florida without having to worry about deserting his sister.
—
Another reason it has to be Melissa is because all other characters mentioned have done something to rule them out of the equation…
Eva: No motive, gains nothing from anything, filed the initial report on the incident
Brendon: Brendon tackled the shooter. Either he really loves hugging snipers or he was trying to assist. Snipers are quite awesome, but the latter is more reasonable. Also, had he hired the shooter he would essentially be turning himself in.
Willy Sr.: Dead
Willy Jr.: Incapable of hiring a sniper to kill himself because he is a shark (This is under the assumption that Willy. Jr was not capable of telepathic communication)
In the end, Melissa had motive and a well laid plan, but didn’t count on the fact that she may have hired an imbecile and was shot on accident.
—-
Do I win?
Isn’t it obvious? It was the stuffed white shark hanging from the ceiling in panel 3. I mean, come on, who wants to see a bull shark called Willy Jr.? The real attraction in any aquarium must be a white shark…
Aight, Eva wrote the note that was supposed to be from Brendan to Melissa (she’s left handed, or “sinister handed”, Brendan used his right hand as he descended the staircase). Also, the shooter was aiming at Eva (not the shark, necessarily), but because of the way water bends light, he shot Melissa instead (he really should of thought about that before pulling the trigger). So here’s what I think happened: Brendan hired the guy, while his sister was trying to break him and Melissa up. If Brendan successfully took out Eva, he would be the one in charge of the aquarium and he would have to run it and could use that as an excuse to keep Melissa from leaving, or sell it and go with Melissa. He probably chased the guy out the door after realizing that his girlfriend got shot.
Either that, or he was hired by Big Aquarium to try to keep the small aquariums down and eliminate competition. It’s so clear if you see the signs, man!
Man, that low crime rate sounds TERRIBLE
Without any hints up – I’ll vote for the SHARK (WILLY JR) hiring the shooter.
Their dad was really a mad scientist, and the aquarium was just a front for his evil experiments. One of the experiments put a copy of his personality in the shark (Hence “pretty similar personalities”).
When the dad died, the shark felt himself “die” and went insane. Since sharks can’t commit suicide**, he had to hire a hit man. The hit man was locked in since sharks can’t open doors and so lied about the escape route.
Nice twist on the old “Insane-madman-in-a-sharks-body” tale!
** Presenting vague hunch as fact here
Or I’ll be boring and say MELISSA hired the shooter. She wanted to kill the bull shark which would force the aquarium to shut down, so Brendon could come with her. However the ricochet hit her so she was unable to unlock the door for the shooter.
Melissa hired him to kill Eva so Brendon would go to Florida. The shooter aimed through the tank, but the refraction caused it made it so he hit Melissa instead of Eva, the intended target.
Melissa hired the shooter to kill Eva so she could go to Florida with Brendon, but the refraction from the water in the tank caused him to hit Melissa herself.
Well, clearly the hitman hit Melissa accidentally due to light refraction through the tank, and it looks as though Eva was the primary target. Though the shark could have been the target, it seems like there are far easier ways to kill a shark in a tank than hiring a gunman. As to who would want to kill Eva? Her brother and Melissa are the only others in the story, and her brother doesn’t seem to know who the hitman is. That leaves Melissa as the primary suspect. “This was supposed to be unlocked” by the employee only door corroborates this; it must be an employee who hired him. Her motivation? To remove Brendon’s one reason to stay at the aquarium: Eva.
So the shooter was actually aiming for Eva, but the light was bent as it travelled through the water meaning he missed and hit Melissa instead. She had hired him to kill Eva so the business would shut down and her and Brendon could be together.
Probably has to do with refraction of water…
My guess is that Melissa hired a killer to kill off Eva.
So Brendon won’t have to museum to attend to…?
But due to the refraction of water, Melissa got shot accidentally?
The Bull Shark was actually Eva and Brendon’s father, transformed into a shark by a voodooloogician who beat him in a poker game. The original shark is seen hanging from the ceiling in the third panel. Brendon wanted to go with Melissa to Florida but couldn’t leave his father in the pool, because otherwise his father would get lonely (Brendon is the only one who knows the shark can speak and used to be a human).
He hired someone to kill the shark anonymously (why would you give an assassin your real name?) because sharks don’t get up to much and Melissa’s stories would sound better in Florida. The assassin did not know that Melissa’s survival was necessary, nor that she would walk into the path of the shark-eating bullet.
In summary, Brendon hired the guy to kill a shark so that he could leave to go to Florida with the accidental victim Melissa.
Melissa hired him to kill the shark so the business would fail and brendon could move with her to florida. But the refraction of the water in the tank threw off the shooters aim and she was shot accidently.
It was Melissa. She wanted the shark killed so the aquarium would go under and Brendon could come with her to Florida. Being inexperienced, she made some mistakes about the timing of the shooting and was in the path of the bullet as it exited the Willy Jr. The door should have been unlocked for the shooter, but Melissa couldn’t open it seeing as how she was bleeding from a bullet wound at the time. Detective Crimson said that the shooter would be disappointed because he (the shooter) accidentally shot the person (Melissa) who was going to pay him.
The smudged ink on both letters is a red herring. Eva and Brendon could both very well be left handed as it is a genetic trait. The different hand writing actually suggests that the letter from Brendon is legit.
I’m gonna guess Melissa. From the balcony a bullet wouldn’t be able to pass through two panes of glass, a shark, and still hit someone in the shoulder – she did that. At the same time the shooter hit Melissa in the shoulder to create the illusion. Not sure of the motivation but I can’t see how else it would happen. Also, she fell over from the force of shooting the gun.
Melissa hired the shooter. However, refraction through the shark tank caused his aim to be inaccurate; because of this, he accidentally shot Melissa.
Melissa hired the shooter: the intended victim was the sister, with the intention of freeing the brother from his obligations. The refraction of the water in the tank caused the shooter to miss his target and hit Melissa instead. Melissa was probably meant to open the door afterwards to allow the shooter to escape, but having been hit and rushed to hospital, she wasn’t able to do so.
Alright here we go. I propose that Melissa is the one that hired the shooter, in order to shoot Willy Jr. to ruin Brandon’s business so that it would close and so that Brandon could move with her to Florida. Melissa being shot was an accident because Willy Jr. was in the way of the shooter seeing Melissa.
Or the shooter was lying about being hired and he was jealous of Willy Jr. because he stole his date to his high school prom in ’86.
Anyways wrong or right, I love the comic. Keep it up!
Clearly it was Willy Jr. Sick of life as the only attraction in a mediocre aquarium he decided to end it.
However, being a considerate and compassionate shark he didn’t want to ruin the aquarium for the owners who had housed him throughout his twilight, concerned about the possibility that shark suicide might be excluded from the insurance policy he hired a hitman to take him out.
Unfortunately for Willy Jr. he lived in El Domingo, a town with a deficit of experienced criminals, hiring the best (term used loosely) he could find would prove to be the undoing of his attempt at life insurance fraud.
The shooting of Melissa was, regrettably, simply a case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
And so concludes a sad tale of aquatic depression and murder for hire.
Melissa wanted Eva to be shot so Brendon would go with her. Because the shooter was aiming through water, refraction adjusted his aim for him and he hit the wrong fish and person.
Wait, nevermind, I feel dumb. You’re just leaving all the comments in the moderation queue. That’s why there are no comments. Here’s my solution in a readable fashion [if all goes well, future readers may never see the encoded version]:
Eva was the target, not Melissa. A day after reading it, I read the first hint and realized that the light would have been refracted by the water/air/glass boundaries. The bullet wouldn’t. I’m confident that Melissa wasn’t under the crosshairs. That leaves Eva.
After thinking of a few different motives, I decided Brendon wasn’t behind it. He did catch the guy. But surely just leaving his sister in charge would have been easier. But Melissa has a motive. She wants the job and Brendon.
That was a pretty good puzzle, actually. I like the idea, and will be back on Monday for the next.
It was Melissa who hired the Hitman, but the intended target was not the shark but instead was Eva Brandon’s Sister, due the positioning of the Hitman and the reflection/ilussion of the water tank what appeared as a clean shot to the Hitman in reality was a way too off shot so that’s why it hit the Shark and Melissa.
I’ve got some clues pointing to Eva, but that seems a little too obvious..
1) Eva is shocked to find that the shooter is still on the premises. (She reacts too angrily for it to be shock)
2) In the final panel, she is seen biting her lip, suggesting that she is guilty.
On the other hand, it could have been Melissa, who was going to attempt to just kill the shark, thereby destroying the business of the aquarium, forcing Brendon to give up and leave. It is unfortunate that she was shot in the process.
[this explanations should be read in juttery sepia tone, as all the best expositions are]
Melissa was the intended victim. While the museum may indeed profit from insurance gained by the shark-killing (pistricide?), Melissa was directly in the line of the bullet and should have been the one to receive it. Brandon was “unreachable” by phone just after the shooting but then conveniently on hand to tackle the gunman… Mighty suspect, eh? Clearly he was on the premises when it all went down; surely he would have made himself known to console Eva or do some shark-CPR or something in the time it took Donnie to get across town. But no, he was hiding out ready to make himself look the hero. The hoodie sniper expected the door to be open cause Brandon had promised it would be. And the ink on the paper is smudgy cause… he was weeping over it guilt-ridden.
Incidentally, what’s the deal with the wonky tetrimino-shaped tank? Sort of like a swiveled Oklahoma. Would the shark even be able to turn around once he got to the end? It’s like the horizontal aquatic equivalent of the donkey in a minaret.
Ooh! New theory! The shark DID swim to the tiny rectangular end of the tank, got stuck and was dying from asphyxiation because sharks must swim to take new water into through their gills to be filtered. (right?) Ever since Willy Sr. died, Eva and Brandon have had no idea what they were doing. Neither have any ichthyological experience, much less any idea how to run an aquarium. In desperation, they hired on Melissa the “research assistant “ hoping she would know what in tarnation was going on. She proved to be useless, but was kept on because she had been engaging in a little “research” with Brandon on the side. When they opted to extend the main aquarium in a final desperate bid for publicity and attendance, they had no idea that its poor architecture would result in the slow painful death of their star attraction. So they conspired together to assassinate the shark and remove the evidence of their ineptitude and run away to Florida. Then Crimson was all “insurance” and Eva was all “shoot, should have thought of that.”
Also: is this literally the first post on the first page of a brand new webcomic? Do I win the internet? Do I win an ASP book? Ooh! Or my face on Godslug for a day!
I have a new solution! Eva was actually the target, but the light-refraction caused by the aquarium caused the bullet to hit Brendon, even though the assassin was aiming for Eva. The assassin was hired by Melissa, so that, with Eva out of the picture, Brendon would have no reason left no to come with Melissa.
Just complementing.
The shot got Melissa by accident. The gunman aimed for the shark and it seemed that he would only hit it, because of the refraction. But Melissa was actually behind the bullet trajectory. Poor Melissa, if only she had hired a gunman with better grades in secondary physics…
OMG OMG OMG I think I know!
He was hired by Melissa to kill Eva, so Brendon would leave the acuarium and go with her. But the sniper knew little about refraction and ended up shooting the wrong target.
OR:
He was hired by Melissa to kill Willy Jr., so Brendon would leave the acuarium and go with her. But the sniper knew little about refraction and ended up adding a collateral victim.
I’m going to guess that Melissa hired the shooter to take out Eva. The refraction light through the aquarium tank would have made it look to the shooter like he was aiming at Eva, when in fact Melissa was in the path of the bullet. Given that information, Melissa’s the only one with a real motive to kill Eva.
I suppose Melissa instructed the shooter to wait until Willy Jr. was in the way, for one (or both) of two reasons — to slow down the bullet so that Eva would just be injured, or to cause financial problems for the aquarium. However, there do seem to be holes in both of those theories. The water would slow down the bullet anyway, so that’s not really a good reason to kill the shark, especially since it would obscure the shooter’s vision. And the insurance would have prevented financial damage to the aquarium. But, maybe Melissa didn’t know about it! Or perhaps she did know, and hoped that with Eva dead, Brendon would have no reason to stick around and manage things, and would instead sell the aquarium and move with Melissa to Florida.
Why the shooter didn’t try to shoot Eva and then the shark, who knows? Maybe he charged a fixed fee per bullet.
In any case, Melissa is more than just “crazy” about Brendon. Many women would be angry at being rejected in such a way–but calling in a hit? Looks like their relationship has jumped the shark.
Great idea for a comic. This was tricky, and I wouldn’t have figured it out without the hints!
I believe Melissa hired the shooter to kill Eva so that her brother would not have reason to stay at the aquarium any more. The reason the bullet hit Melissa instead had to do with how light travels through water, making his aim off.
The shooter was hired by Melissa. What he sees through the tank would lead him to believe that he was aiming at Eva because of refraction. Melissa was supposed to let the killer out after he did the deed, but was unable to after she was shot in the shoulder.
Melissa wants Brendon to go with her to Florida, so she arranges to destroy both his familial connection to El Domingo and the aquarium so that he has nothing left.
New try: Melissa hired the killer to kill Willy. Without him the aquarium would have to close and Brendon would follow her to Florida.
The killer aimed for Willy, but because of the optical refraction of the water he thought Melissa was standing next to Willy and not behind him. So he killed her by accident.
Now that Melissa way dead she couldn’t unlock the door for the killer to escape. Thus he could be caught…finish ;)
Melissa hired the guy to shoot Eva, not the shark. However, due to the refraction of light due to the water in the tank, even though the shooter aimed at Eva, the bullet hit Melissa. The shark was an unfortunate victim. Also, since Melissa was ran to the hospital, she was not able to unlock the escape route for the shooter, thus he was still found at the scene of the crime.
Groovy mystery!
There’s one interesting thing about large tanks like that. The water pressure is all that holds the glass in place. If the tank drains through the bullet holes sufficiently, the tank will implode flooding the aquarium and possibly sending shards of very thick glass flying.
The actual physics dictate that the bullet wouldn’t have had enough energy to travel all the way through two panes of thick glass, a large shark and six to eight feet of water. The bullet would probably have lost almost all of its kinetic energy within the first two to three feet traveling through the water. Killing Willy Jr. and hitting Melissa in the shoulder probably required at least three bullets, but the witnesses claim only one was fired. My solution: Eva, Brendon, and Melissa were in it together to collect the insurance money.