Hydrate, Gyrate

INTERROGATION TRANSCRIPTION, SUSPECT 034, SESSION 3

DETECTIVE: Alright, Cassie. You’ve been lying to me, and I know it, sending me every which way but the right way. So you’re going to have to start telling me what I want to know now. No more of these games, got it?

SUSPECT: Okay, fine. I’ll tell you everything. It wasn’t like everyone thinks. That I’m some sort of psycho, okay? It’s just, when my boyfriend and I broke up, I needed a roommate or else I wouldn’t be able to pay rent. So I put up an ad on Craigslist, and I found her. She seemed so normal when we met. But then, after she moved in, she started humming. But not low and steady. No, there was something gravelly and off-putting about it. Like, when you heard it, you couldn’t think. I tried just turning up the volume on my water bottle, but there was no way of drowning it out. And I was already in such a state with how things ended with Todd, that I decided I was going to–

DETECTIVE: Sorry, can we back up a little bit? Did you say ‘turn up the volume’ on your water bottle?

SUSPECT: Yeah. It has a Bluetooth speaker in it. Anyway, I knew which mug she always drank her tea out of in the morning. So I decided that was how. I would–

DETECTIVE: But why?

SUSPECT: Well, like I said, things ended so badly with my relationship, the longest I’d ever been in. I thought we were going to get married! Seriously! And so anyway, I guess I maybe did lose my grip a little bit. I guess I might be–

DETECTIVE: No, why a water bottle with a Bluetooth speaker? When you’re drinking something, okay, maybe it makes sense, but then what if you’re not drinking anything? You want to listen to music so you pull out an empty water bottle?

SUSPECT: The Bluetooth speaker is removable. And it’s a good bottle, too. Keeps stuff really cold for a whole day. Can also keep hot beverages hot for eight hours. And it has flashing lights for hydration reminders. Oh, and the company makes a tumbler too.

DETECTIVE: Huh. Strange. But go on, go on.

SUSPECT: Right, so, I took her mug, and I dusted unto the bottom a small residue of–

DETECTIVE: Where’d you get it?

SUSPECT: I looked up how to make it on the internet. It’s actually really easy. You just combine–

DETECTIVE: No, the water bottle with the speaker. Where’d you get that?

SUSPECT: Oh, on Meh. In a 2-pack. Anyway, I just waited for her to take a sip. And as soon as she did, I knew I’d done something terrible. And that it was too late to stop what was about to happen. So I just watched as she–

DETECTIVE: Wait, hold on.

SUSPECT: I know, I know. I said I wasn’t some sort of psycho, but as I hear myself telling all of this–as I relive it, watching it all play out in the theater of my mind–I see that I’m wrong. I’m a monster! I’m a–

DETECTIVE: No, not that part. They really call their store ‘Meh’? I gotta see this. Hold on. My phone’s out at my desk. I’ll be right back.