The murderous March Madness mystery continues

Murder board, murder board on the wall, who's the guiltiest of them all? Find out our picks for who is and isn't likely to be unveiled as Bill's attempted murderer, and will strangulation or a kiss awaken Bill this week on B&B?

B&B was cut short this week for March Madness, but the suspect list in the attempted murder of Dollar Bill keeps getting longer. Chief Baker and crew comprised a magic board list of their nominees for the steel cage award for giving Bill the golden bullet. There is no love lost between Bill and the world. Many people wanted to do it, but only one person did. It's time to get serious and put some X's and some O's over the names on the culprit list, this week on B&B.

Justin accused Wyatt, and Wyatt accused Justin. Ridge blamed it on Sheila, and Sheila blamed it right back on Ridge. Brooke was looking at Katie sideways, and Eric decided that Quinn just wasn't acting right ever since the night of the shooting. Justin pointed every finger he has at others, but Sanchez's finger might be pointed at Justin.

Sanchez also wants to know why Thomas is suddenly in town, and we scoopers want to know if the crazed Caroline showed up to finish what she started -- or what someone else started! Let's get two scoops deep into the alibis and make some headway into who really shot Bill Spencer!

In case you missed it

This week, Detective Sanchez had a lot of questions for Justin Barber, and Justin had a lot of "What-aboutisms" for Sanchez. Justin is supposed to be a man who keeps secrets, but to save his own butt, Justin put everybody out on Suspect Street, along with all their private business.

Justin told Sanchez about Wyatt fooling around with his ex-stepmom, about Bill fooling around with his daughter-in-law, about Bill almost blowing up Sally and Liam, and about Sally blowing a hole in "Sky." Justin insisted that Ridge, the father of Bill's daughter-in-law, was a man with a motive. Justin sent Sanchez after Ridge but was irritated when Sanchez showed up at Spencer the next day and revealed that Bill hadn't signed Justin's precious contract.

Loved ones gathered at the hospital in shifts, which is why Eric and Quinn seemed out of place. Neither of them cares if Bill breathes or not, and Quinn did not seem to be comforting Wyatt about his father pulling through. Quite the opposite. Wyatt witnessed her in Bill's room, staring at Bill's breathing machine as if she could shut it off through telekinesis.

Eric blabbed on Quinn to Wyatt about how she'd been behaving, and Wyatt accused Quinn of shooting Bill. Quinn couldn't believe he'd accuse her of trying to kill the father of her child. "I love you beyond words. Never doubt that," was all Quinn had to say before returning to Bill's room to work on her telekinesis.

Hope hung around Steffy and Liam in the waiting area, being about as inconspicuous as an orange sitting on top of a case of CNN apples. Steffy was acting like she didn't mind Hope hanging around, stirring her coffee and glaring at Steffy, who was using the shooting to get sympathy for herself. Steffy probably really is glad Hope is there because, as Steffy said, Hope is the buffer between the spouses that kept Liam from asking Steffy to leave.

Over at Sally's house, Sally got the surprise of her life when Thomas showed up on her doorstep to tell her that he'd been hoodwinked, tricked, and bamboozled! He finally figured out that he should have gone with Caroline to her doctor's appointments. That way, he would have known that they were really massage appointments, and Caroline really wasn't dying.

Thomas wanted Sally to pack up her life and go to New York with him, but there was no way she would leave Saul and Shirley. Thomas told Sally that they'd give the two jobs at their new fashion firm in New York. No word about Darlita or Coco, so...they're on their own, I guess. Are Sally and Shirley really going to up and move across the country without Coco again?

Sally agreed to it, but the pair's celebration was interrupted by Sanchez, who'd found Sally's prints on Bill's gun, thanks to Justin, the biggest snitch in town. Thomas insinuated himself so much in Sanchez's questioning of Sally that Sanchez decided to ask Thomas where he'd been the night of the shooting. Sanchez had to leave before he could get the answer, but once he got back to the station, he pinned Thomas' picture to the attempted murder suspect board.

Whatever feelings Sally had for Liam fell away with her bra as she and Thomas got it on in her living room on the sofa. Didn't Sally say she'd been wrong about Thomas, and Liam was really the man who genuinely cares for her? She'd better be glad she never said it in front of Justin, because Justin would have told Thomas when he told Thomas about the "Sky" shooting.

When Liam, Hope, and Steffy, who were facing Bill's hospital room, weren't looking, a gloved and trench-coat clad stranger slipped into Bill's room and closed the blinds. The orderly told the person that only family was allowed, and staring around with an expression like she was Norman Bates dressed as his twin sister, the woman turned and said that she was Bill's niece.

If you thought Pam looked rough the morning after Bill's shooting, it was nothing compared to how crazed Caroline looked. I'm starting to suspect that the real reason Pam ran out of her pills so fast was because Caroline stole a handful out of Pam's purse when Pam wasn't looking. After the orderly left the hospital room, Caroline accused Bill of ruining her life, and she wrapped her gloved hands around Bill's neck.

Case closed. Caroline is our shooter, right? Well, let's not be too hasty...Is it really possible that Caroline has been walking around in a daze like that for two days and just now decided to wander into Bill's hospital room to finish him off?

In all the crime shows and trials I've seen, the investigators profile the crime scene to come up with likely suspects. The scene of Bill's shooting could tell us something about the shooter. Some of the clues might be misleading, and some might lead directly to the culprit.

We know that Bill was found beside an unsigned contract. Is that the key to who harmed him or a coincidence? Bill was shot with his own gun. Does that mean it was a crime of opportunity or passion? It would seem that a murderer might bring his own weapon to the crime if it were premeditated -- unless the perpetrator already knew the gun would be there.

Maybe the criminal wanted to confront Bill at first but, upon seeing the gun, decided to let it do the talking. Or it could be that the criminal had brought a weapon but decided that using Bill's own gun was better. When Bill got home, the gun was already on the table by the door in its box. The shooter could have known that if he or she had been in Bill's house prior to Bill's arrival.

Before Bill was shot, the power in the house was flickering. The police say the security camera shut off, and the backup generator didn't kick in for some reason. Security systems can run on backup battery power for a few days if the main power shuts off -- unless someone manually turned off Bill's camera system. If the camera system had been tampered with, it could be a sign that it was a premeditated shooting.

Bill's shooting was cold and calculated. The person slipped in, picked up the gun, fired, and slipped back out without even bothering to check if the shot had been fatal. Who does that sound like to you?

It's an easy question, right? But we aren't getting a whole lot of easy answers out of the suspects. Somebody put a bullet in Bill's back, and the answer has to be right in front of us -- unless the writers pull a cheap trick like when Deacon tried to kill Quinn. Let's whip out the attempted murder board and review what we know so far, who can be taken off the police's suspect list, who needs to stay on, and who needs to be added.

Justin Barber and Jarrett Maxwell

Is Justin Bill's friend or Bill's would-be killer for power? We don't know where Justin was when Bill got shot, but we do know where the contract was after Bill got shot. The contract that would name Justin as the head of Bill's empire was beside Bill on the floor, unsigned. Had Justin shot Bill, the police never would have found that contract in the house. Justin would have taken it and forged Bill's signature on it, and as the police were taping off the crime scene, Justin would have been filing the contact at the courthouse.

Justin is cold enough and deliberate enough to pull off this crime. He would know how to turn off the security cameras. He knew that the gun was on the way to the house via courier. But, barring the idea that Justin didn't hire someone to commit the crime, Justin isn't the culprit.

Had Justin been the shooter, he would have taken the contract or at least made sure he watched Bill actually sign it on the security monitors before going to shoot Bill. In Bill's office, Justin sits behind Bill's desk, but behind Justin, Bill's photo is still on the cabinet, making it evident that Justin isn't looking to permanently replace Dollar Bill.

If Justin isn't the shooter, neither is Jarrett Maxwell. Justin has no reason to lie about Jarrett also being at Spencer the night of the shooting. Justin said that Emmy and Jarrett could corroborate Justin's alibi, so we can snatch Justin and Jarrett's photos right off the suspect board.

Wyatt Spencer and Katie Logan

Wyatt is on the suspect board due to Justin running his mouth about Wyatt's business. Though Katie isn't on the board, Justin did tell Sanchez that Bill was trying to take custody of Will, which would give her a motive. We do not know where Wyatt went the night of the shooting, but we do know Katie was there, on the scene, calling the ambulance. If she wanted Bill dead, she would have just poured herself a drink and watched him as he bled out on the floor, knowing that no one would come to his rescue.

Katie is no more a drinker than she is a killer, so we can safely cross her name off the list. Wyatt, on the other hand, really tied one on at the time of the shooting. He also has been acting very strangely ever since he woke up with that hangover.

Wyatt would know how to shut off Bill's security system, and Wyatt would have recognized the gun box on Bill's foyer table. Wyatt could have watched Ridge and Bill fight on the surveillance monitor before going in to kill Bill and then leaving to drink himself into a guilty stupor at Katie's.

I snatch Wyatt's picture off the suspect board for the same reason I did the other week. Common sense says that Wyatt wouldn't harm anyone. He'd just whine to his mother and wait for her to do the dirty work for him.

In fact, Wyatt did suspect Quinn of doing it after he saw her in his father's hospital room and overheard her bickering at the unconscious victim. At first, Wyatt listened in with nose-flaring agreement, but his expression soured when Quinn began saying Bill deserved the bullet.

Thomas Forrester and Sally Spectra

As I said before, Thomas wasn't even on Sanchez's board until he kept insinuating himself into Sally's informal police interview. Thomas wasn't there when Sally found herself in a burning building. Thomas wasn't there when Sally was pancaked under a slab of rubble, but now he wants to ride to her defense against an attempted murder charge. Could it be that Thomas is so adamant that Sally didn't do it because he did it himself?

Sally told Sanchez that she'd had dinner with her employees, Shirley and Saul, before driving herself to sit and stare at an empty lot on the night of the shooting. Sanchez had a hard time buying it, but Chief Baker said that if Sally had been mindful enough to wear gloves to shoot Bill, she would have been mindful enough to remove her previously left prints from the weapon.

Baker claimed to Sanchez that Bill's prints were on top of Sally's prints, and Bill and Sally's prints were both beneath the latent glove prints. In all the murder trials I've watched in my life, I've never heard of a forensics lab's ability to separate layered prints by person or of its ability to know in what order each set was left.

It's even more amazing that the gloved prints didn't smudge Bill and Sally's prints, or that neither set was smudged while Bill turned the gun handle in his hand as he polished the gun with his sleeve before he got shot.

Chief Baker's team must just be that good, especially to have Bill's prints on file when Bill has never been arrested. If police have glove prints, that means they have a fabric pattern. To solve it, they just have to collect gloves from the suspects. If the glove fabric pattern doesn't fit, they must acquit. Am I right?

In the meantime, I'm going to snatch Sally and Thomas' pictures off our suspect wall because, for one, I agree with Baker. If Sally was clever enough to go to Bill's house, shut off his power and security camera, and shoot him with his own gun, then she would have remembered to wipe her previous prints off the weapon.

For another thing, Sally might be smart enough to do all of the above, but Thomas, who couldn't even figure out that Caroline wasn't dying, is not smart enough to pull off this shooting. Thomas' whereabouts the night of the shooting are unknown, and it is suspicious that he tried to get an appointment to see Bill and then spent an entire evening somewhere in Los Angeles without contacting any of his family.

I don't think murder was a part of Thomas' plan when he returned to L.A. His plan was to confront Bill and then have a happily ever after with Sally. Thomas went to Spencer to confront Bill the morning after Bill refused to see him, and at that time, Thomas learned about Bill's shooting. If Thomas had intended to kill Bill, Thomas wouldn't have tried to get an appointment first. He would have just slipped into town, disposed of Bill, and slipped back out of town, unnoticed. After the body was found, Thomas could return to town for Sally.

And lastly, if either Sally or Thomas shot Bill, the last things they'd be thinking about after an interview with police are tearing each other's clothes off and having sex. Unless danger turns Sally or Thomas on, that is. One thing we can know for sure is that Liam and Caroline are the last people on Sally and Thomas' minds at the moment.

Sheila Carter, Quinn Forrester, and Pam Douglas

I've knocked six suspects off Baker's list, but some other names have to stay on it. Sheila, Pam, and Quinn aren't on the police's radar yet, but we scoopers know that where there's a psycho, there's a likely culprit. All three women fit the cold and deliberate profile of the shooter. Wyatt and Eric worry that Quinn could have done it, and Ridge outright accused Sheila of doing it. As for Pam, very little is known other than that she had a blackout the night of the shooting.

Quinn went out that night and never said where she'd gone. She was offended when Eric asked her if she'd done it. Quinn needs to cut her husband some slack. It wasn't too long ago that he walked in on her after she'd lobbed a tablet at Sheila's head. Quinn stays on the list because, unlike most of the others, she hasn't said no when she was directly asked the question twice.

Another person who wouldn't directly answer the question was Sheila. When Ridge confronted her about it, she told him that if she had done it, he had only himself to blame. Ridge pressed her, and she insisted that even though she wanted Eric more than anything, she wasn't violent anymore. Agitated, Sheila decided that Ridge was trying to shift the blame from himself to her. "We both know who shot him, don't we?" Sheila asked.

Do we?

All we know is Sheila called in to work and said she'd be late the night of the shooting. Her boss was angry when she finally arrived because her shift was almost over. And she arrived wearing gloves, so she needs to stop tripping with Ridge about his gloves. Sheila and Ridge might need to call a truce in case they need to be each other's Il Giardino alibis.

Pam could be the shooter. She has no idea where she was or what she was doing that night. In my other scoops suspect list, I floated the idea of Will being the shooter, but he wouldn't remember it, just as Rick never remembered shooting Grant. Instead of Will, maybe Pam could be the shooter with the memory lapse, and the Forrester family needs to protect her once they figure it out.

Caroline Spencer

Caroline showed up in Bill's hospital room, looking as if she'd been staying in a garbage truck for the last two days. Where has she been ever since she left Douglas with her mothers a couple days ago, and why has Thomas not called to check on her and Douglas before now?

Thomas apparently finally got around to calling and checking on Douglas, which is how we learned that it has been a couple of days since her mothers had heard from Caroline; however, if Thomas knew that Caroline had gone to a dark place after confessing, why did he leave his son alone with an unstable mother?

Caroline sneaked into Bill's room and closed the blinds. Highly upset, she seethed about losing Thomas and heaped blame for her family falling apart upon Bill. She was so incensed that she almost put her hands around his throat -- almost. Caroline stopped herself, but with a determined twitch of her face, she committed to pressing her gloved hands beneath Bill's chin.

Is Caroline going to choke sleeping beauty into an endless slumber, or will brief air deprivation be just what Bill needs to roar back to consciousness?

Caroline is a good suspect. She has motive, means, and opportunity. Like Deacon, she has been off-camera, so no current character has to go to prison for the crime. The only thing that holds me back from putting the O on Caroline's name on the list is that the crime doesn't fit her behavior.

It's been a couple of days since the shooting, but Caroline is still worked up. She's hair-trigger angry, and she wants Bill to know it. One would think that popping a cap in Bill's back could have taken the edge off of some of her rage. Instead, she was whisper-yelling that it was all his fault, and she impulsively went for his neck.

It seems to me that a person who already tried to kill Bill once would have thought a second attempt through a little more. Instead of telling Bill what he'd done to her, I would think Caroline would be informing him that she'd shot him and was there to finish him off. Trying to strangle him after introducing oneself to the orderly isn't the way to get away with the crime, either. I also think that, as much as Caroline loves her son, she wouldn't risk losing him to try to kill Bill again.

It's possible that, on Monday, Caroline can secretly confess to the shooting as she attempts to squeeze the last of Bill's life out of him. It's also possible that Caroline can snap out of her strangle fantasy and begin acting like a grieving niece. What do you think? Should Caroline's picture be pinned to the suspect board?

Liam Spencer and Ridge Forrester

We know all the reasons Ridge is on the suspect board. The only mystery is why the violence-fearing Brooke isn't running out on him for fear that he'll fight her or R.J. If Brooke didn't have Steffy as an alibi, I'd almost think Brooke slipped into the mansion to shoot Bill just to end the Bill/Ridge feud once and for all.

Ridge's motive to kill Bill has to be because Bill said he intended to marry Steffy. Steffy might be Liam's motive, too. Did anyone really think Liam would show up at Steffy's little dinner party? When he arrived, he sure was acting strange, wasn't he? And he hadn't planned on staying for the meal, so what was he doing there at that time a night, mere minutes before Katie called him about Bill's shooting?

Liam claims to be confused about his feelings for Bill. He hasn't forgiven Bill, but he doesn't want to be without his father -- the same man Liam said he wished he had stayed away from as his mother had wanted him to. Liam is a waffler; it's true, but is it Liam's guilty conscience making him so protective of Bill? Do we know if Liam ever fully recovered from his head traumas? Could we possibly learn that Liam was at Steffy's house earlier, saw Bill proposing to Steffy, blacked out, shot Bill, and returned to Steffy's without knowing what he'd done?

It's a stretch for Liam to have done it consciously or unconsciously, but Liam has been ten times as emotional about Bill's shooting as Wyatt is. Liam also hasn't even thought about suspects, except to say that they'd find out who did it and make the person pay. What will Liam think if the shooter is Caroline and he could have prevented it all if he'd told Thomas the truth?

What do you think? Are Ridge and Liam the least likely suspects on the board even though they have the strongest motives? What suspects are tacked to your suspect board?

Spoilers and rumors indicate that it's time again for another round of musical relationships. Hope keeps hovering in the background of Steam, and spoilers indicate that Hope will tell Liam about Bill proposing to Steffy. What makes Hope go this route after continually promising that she is on Steffy and the baby's side?

If asphyxiation doesn't awaken sleeping beauty, rumors say that a kiss might. Steffy stands vigil outside Bill's hospital room. No one questions whether it is for her own benefit or to support Liam -- unless you count Hope stirring up coffee steam signals as she stares at Steffy. Steffy swears that her feelings for Bill are squarely in the in-law zone, so what would possibly move her to kiss Bill in his recovering slumber? Who will be watching through the blinds, methodically stirring her coffee?

If it's true, Hope will most likely feel justified in telling Liam about the kiss and the marriage proposal. How will Liam feel to learn that his father proposed to his wife, and after days of unconsciousness, that father awakens because of his wife's presence and kiss? Liam just might want to get in line behind Ridge to shake the shooter's hand.

As for Steffy, if this rumor is true, I can't sympathize with her because she ought to know better than to put her mouth on Bill in public after the affair ripped her marriage apart. Speaking of ripping apart, Steffy will confront Brooke about running her mouth to Hope about the marriage proposal.

Spoilers indicate that Bill will be awake and blaming Ridge for the shooting. Here's to hoping Sanchez is experienced enough to ask Bill how he knows who shot him while he was in the dark with his back turned!

Thomas asked Sally to relocate to New York with him, and she readily agreed. I told you guys that her infatuations change with the wind. Could this be the outro for the entire Spectra crew, or will Thomas again renege on the proposal to create a fashion house with Sally? Spoilers state that Caroline traveled to L.A. to appeal to Thomas. What in the hell can she possibly say or do to make Thomas abandon Sally this time?

Until we scoop again, if Bill lives through Caroline's visit, he might want to consider donating some money to the hospital to install silent alarms that chime at the nurse's station every time someone opens a patient's door. We can bet one thing, when Bill is awake and talking again, the fallout from the shooting will be nothing but bold and beautiful, baby!

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