Ok so that is a great point and one I had not thought about. While I do not personally think that Bill was set up, mainly because it makes my theory of Burt being the rat a lot less clean, it still does fit for what I think. What it means for my theory however is that there was more than one rat. This could only work in two ways though.

The first is that Burt was working directly with the rat. He could have been the "brains" or the other rat could have been blackmailing him to make him work with the Mallers. If Burt was in fact the "brains" then that would make him a lot more evil than I thought. He would have to be a very good schemer and a very good liar.

The other way that two rats would have worked is if they were given instruction independently of each other. A kind of Right hand not knowing what the left was doing scenario. I like this more because it still means that Burt could have been doing these things reluctantly and not purposefully.

Another thing to keep in mind is that if Burt was evil and DID set up Bill somehow then Bill's death would have been the perfect cover for Burt. Bill would have taken the blame and the sympathy that Burt showed would have made him seem like the least likely suspect and since everyone thought that Bill was the rat and he was dead.

Those two only work if Bill did not steal the food and ammo and was framed.There would still be many questions, how did someone else get the keys? Why would they help the Mallers? And we may never know those, that is if Burt is the rat.

One last thing is that the "chummyness" between Bill and Burt at the party would have made sense if they were working together in some fashion. I would love to hear what anyone thinks about this, yay or nay.

-Snickelsox