Dear Outsider,
This investigation is now officially closed.
However, please feel free to continue submitting your theories here. We will still be posting up theories on this page as they come in.
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Love,
sub:shaman
Broker did it…but he was under hypnotic suggestion from the Hypnotist. Here’s how it all went down.
Broker is one of her Paramours. But she was planning to runaway with Victim.
The night of the incident, she and Victim were spending their last evening together before leaving town.
Desperate and distressed Broker comes over. He recognizes the wallet, as he suspected, his IOU is inside. With half the IOU pulled out, the wallet is snatched away from Broker by its owner the Victim. Ripped half of the IOU falls to the ground. Victim is Broker’s brother. An argument ensues. Broker snaps and stabs Victim. Harlot runs or her life, leaving everything behind.
Stunned Broker pours himself a drink and contemplates ending his life with the two pills found on the table. He can’t go through with it and ends up finishing the sweetwater.
Back Story:
Hypnotist has been treating Broker, Victim and Harlot. He has a crush on Harlot, but she’s not interested. Through his sessions with them he finds out about their relationships with each other and Harlot’s plan to runaway. Jealous, he hatches a plan to get back at them. Through hypnotic suggestion he incited Broker to kill Harlot and Victim, then take his own life after.
As an alibi, Hypnotist puts up signs to make it look like he’s out of town. The next morning, while eating his banana breakfast, Hypnotist goes to the apartment to check that the deed is done. Instead of 3 bodies he finds a drunk Broker with dead Victim but no Harlot. With his pocket watch, he tries to hypnotize Broker into telling him what happened to Harlot. They are interrupted by Sleuth snooping around. In his haste, to leave undetected, Hypnotist drops his pocket watch and Ane Choi receipt from the day before.
Broker manages to stagger away as well before Sleuth arrives.
Sleuth was hired by the powers that be at Club Lithe to keep an eye on Harlot. Harlot develops a friendship with her shadow Sleuth. He discovers the body before the police, puts 2 and 2 together, then takes off in search of the runaway Harlot.
CONTEXT: Broker and Harlot are married. Harlot is unhappy in her marriage as she knows about his affairs, and after he goes broke, decides to leave him for Chicago with the Hypnotist, whom she has been seeing for sleep deprivation therapy and who has convinced her she needs to leave in order to have a better future. Broker suspects Harlot is having an affair, so he hires Sleuth to follow her. Sleuth then becomes a regular client at the Lithe Lounge, where Harlot works, and becomes obsessed with her. Harlot develops feelings for Sleuth and also has an affair with him.
DAY OF THE MURDER: Hypnotist goes to see Harlot for dinner, sex and a glass of wine. Sleuth decides to pay Harlot a visit after realizing she was not at the club that night. Hypnotist and Harlot are having sex, and upon sensing Sleuth's arrival at Harlot's house and thinking it was Broker, Hypnotist hurries off (probably through a window back to his place, which is just next door) and leaves his shoes behind. Harlot pretends to be reading a magazine, hoping that Broker/Sleuth will not sense what had just happened.
Harlot is surprised to see Sleuth, but does not see the need to get dressed for him. Harlot then offers him a glass of wine and they have a smoke together. Sleuth then decides to drink his Sweetwater and Harlot offers him the glass she had set aside with her pills, to be taken at midnight. Sleuth, as a private investigator, wears gloves, and does not leave any fingerprints on his bottle.
While having a drink, Sleuth then reveals that he was hired by her husband to follow her and that Broker owes him a lot of money for his services, but that he was ready to forget his debt for her. He then proceeds to tear up the I.O.U note from Broker, trashing half and keeping half as proof that he has nullified the debt. Harlot is taken aback and blurts out that she has plans to leave for Chicago with Hypnotist. Sleuth is heartbroken and in a fit of anger, attacks her. Harlot puts up a fight, but Sleuth pulls out his knife and stabs her.
Shortly after, Broker comes home and Sleuth, in a hurry, steps on the blood while making his escape (the size 13 footprint belongs to him). Broker sees what has happened and proceeds to call the police, but becomes a suspect because of his debt, philandering ways and rocky relationship with his wife.
Harlot has been visited repeatedly by Hypnotist, who brings out of her consciousness, a restlessness and a wish to go away. Hypnotist has convinced Harlot that she is in love with him.
Harlot tries to break off the affair she is having with Broker, while she cowardly chooses to leave Sleuth with no answers. The day she disappears with only the clothes on her back, she is in an adjoining room when Sleuth returns and happens upon Broker in her room. A struggle ensues and Sleuth gets cracked on the head by the ashtray in the room by Broker. Sleuth struggles and picks up the letter opener and stabs Broker.
Harlot who sees this all happen in horror and silence, slips out after Sleuth leaves to wash the blood off his hands. Sleuth arrives on the scene to the murder he himself committed with no one the wiser, while the Hypnotist next door mourns the loss of his best work.
Harlot was attacked by a disheveled and drunk Broker, who had just visited the Hypnotist.
Unlocking latent memories and seeing what the Harlot was actually doing to him, the Broker went mad and in his drunken state burst into the apartment, seeing that the Harlot was packing and seeing the two tickets, was convinced she had tricked him all this time, leaving him a bankrupt.
However as he was about to attack her, the Sleuth, who was investigating, and falling in love with the Harlot, came out of the shadows and stopped the Broker, killing him with a knife to the ribs, puncturing lungs and causing severe internal injuries.
He ran, and so did the Harlot. Never to be seen again.
Sleuth, Harlot's husband, attacked Broker with the framed picture and killed Harlot with the knife when he caught them in the midst of their tryst/romp/rendezvous at their shared home. I'm guessing a whole lot of sex was involved. Debt-ridden Broker is married to someone else but keeps Harlot as his mistress because she's an addictive form of v e r y g o o d (sexual) distraction. In the beginning Harlot yields because her marriage to Sleuth is going nowhere either until she changes her mind and goes for Hypnotist instead. The pair planned a holiday together to Chicago (to meet Adel or what!) and were planning to leave the night after Harlot was killed.