Fan Theory for Bella’s Short Story

The central question here is whodunit. Was it the son? The speaker? The woman? The evidence points towards the speaker.

First, the easy explanation. The son left. The woman was outside. By the process of elimination, the speaker is left.

Now the more thorough explanation. The key detail comes down to the cookies. The woman has a very detailed explanation of the day, but then there is a jump in time. The woman is alive and smoking and then (jump!) dead. The speaker seems smart enough to not conduct perjury, but omission of detail is completely different.

If you take a look at the cookies, she says that she delivers the cookies and seemingly regularly makes them. Cookies are highly flammable in some ways because of the flour and high potential of sugar. The woman is a smoker with a lighter. It would be very easy for the cookie for that to catch flame. Arguably, it could have also been accidental. The woman claims to not be a good cook. She could have messed up the cookies when the husband is gone and it catches flame.

The other thing to keep in mind is how much the speaker knows about the woman. The speaker knows the woman’s weekly schedule. Especially how the son only comes once a week. If the son has left, there will be no one to find her or check on her. She rarely leaves the house, so the speaker would have had to go into the house. The woman coming out offers a chance to do the deed. The speaker thinking about the woman laying there shows possible guilt.

Finally, the woman says that everyone in the neighborhood knows everything, but the woman tried to hide it. That seems to indicate that the woman was trying to hide something. Something that the speaker learned. That in turn created a motive for the speaker.

So she killed her.