went back to the hotel that night. I couldn’t sleep; I kept turning it over and over in my head, all the things he’d said to me about being old and pathetic and lonely. The idea popped into my head. It was like a lightbulb turning on; the simile couldn’t have been more perfect, this sudden, bright understanding. I knew that higher doses of Adderall could make people aggressive. In some people, it produces tremor. I’d read all about it before I decided to start using it to help me focus. I wanted people to see the angry Scotty—not the cool, amused, sniping anger he was always performing, but out of control. The mean, petty, tantrum-throwing Scotty behind the scenes, who terrorized Yasmin and anyone else who came within his private orbit.”
“And then?” North said.
“And then I fell asleep, and the next day, it was like a hallucination. I couldn’t believe I’d been considering it. We finished the convention. I went home. I kept writing. I didn’t have anything to do with Scotty. Then, a few months ago, one of his posts showed up in my feed. He’d gotten the job at Bolingbroke, the same job I’d applied for. I lost my mind. It was like that night in the hotel again: part of my brain turned on, and all I could do was think about how I could humiliate Scotty.”
“What about the death threats?” North asked. “The ones Yasmin was telling everyone about?”
“I didn’t have anything to do with those. What you said earlier, about Yasmin creating them herself, seems likely. When I heard about them, though, it was like a sign. I realized I could do this. I could make Scotty look like a fool, make him look like a shaky old man who’d lost his mind, and I could walk away, and nobody would ever look at me. A high enough dose, and he’d make a total fool of himself. It was petty, I know that. But Scotty was petty. He brought out pettiness in everyone around him.”
“But you didn’t just poison Scotty.”
“I told you: I was out of my mind. There was this thing in me, this animal, and all I could think about was every slight, every jab, the ways all of them had mocked me and insulted me and trashed my work. You’ve met them; you know how vicious they all are. Besides, it was the only way to keep from drawing attention to myself.”
The hum of the PC’s fan was the only answer. Then North said, “I call bullshit. You knew exactly what you were doing, and you knew exactly what it would do to Scotty.”
Clarence shook his head. “I’d read about serotonin syndrome, of course. That was another thing that I’d learned in my research before I started using the medicine myself. But I’d completely forgotten about it.”
“Selective memory,” North said. “Convenient.”
“Even if I’d remembered, why would I have suspected that Scotty was using a prescription antidepressant? Why would I have had any reason to believe he was unhappy? His performance for the whole world was that he was the perfect gay: young, attractive, athletic, an artistic genius, sexually voracious but in a healthy monogamous relationship. I didn’t think Scotty was depressed; if anything, my motivation came from believing exactly the opposite, that he was happy and successful in spite of how poorly he treated everyone around him.”
North made a noise in his throat that was the nonverbal equivalent of calling bullshit again.
“What did you do?” Shaw asked. “Here, I mean. At the convention.”
“You got most of it correct. I was with Yasmin when she bought Scotty’s preferred brand of water Wednesday night; she complained about it, and I can’t say I blame her, so I knew who the water was for. I could have figured it out anyway, though—I had volunteered to help her with everything, and I knew Scotty would make excessive demands for star treatment.”
“Did you know he was blackmailing Yasmin for free publicity?” North asked.
“No. Although I did wonder why he had purchased so much of our advertising space—that isn’t usually Scotty’s style.”
“And after you learned that the water was for Scotty?” Shaw said.
“As your friend said, I went and bought more of it that night. It’s not really that difficult to remove the caps with the seal intact. I added a double dose to each bottle, and then I replaced the caps. I stored the bottles in my swag bag. The next morning, I tried the service