49. Deb’s Secret

Kathy was astonished. Hadn’t Deb despised and resented Shaye? Isn’t that why they were investigating her? Brampton was still treating her as a suspect, so there must be something else going on, some other motive to kill. She turned to him, but he gestured for her to keep quiet.

“Tell me about your real relationship with Shaye,” he said.

“It started when she was at the ad agency doing copywriting,” Deborah began. “She’d only been there a couple of weeks when we had a summer picnic party. She looked lost, sitting on her own, so I went over to chat. We talked about writing and our ambitions, and then we talked about our apartments and it turned out we are both really into decorating.” Kathy noticed the slip back into the present tense.

“Shaye had written stuff for a home decor blog, and I was a huge fan of those things, so we got carried away with the idea of pitching a column, writing it together under a pseudonym. That way if it bombed it wouldn’t hurt our careers, and we could be a bit daring with it. We just wanted to have fun.”

“It seems to have worked out,” said Brampton dryly. “It went into syndication, didn’t it?”

Deborah couldn’t hide her pride. “Yes, it did. We have 23 syndicated columns in newspapers, magazines and blogs which bring in good money. When we started, it was just for fun.” She flung her head back and said to the ceiling, “But it just kept getting bigger.”

“You were both making a tidy sum from this, correct?”

“Much more than we ever expected. We split it 50-50, and we each donate 10% of our share to charity, I give mine to the Children’s Hospital in Toronto and Shaye gives,” she smacked her own cheek lightly, “I mean she gave hers to St. Jude’s Hospital for Children in Los Angeles. I think she went there one time when she was on holiday with her family.”

Brampton said nothing and Deb sat quiet looking stunned. Eventually he spoke. “So now you get 100% of the money?”

She looked confused, then angry. “No! We made an agreement that if either of us wanted to stop writing the column the other one would carry on and donate a bigger share of the money to charity. Now it’s just me I’ll send 25% of the syndication money to her hospital and 25% to mine, and keep the other 50%. You can’t blame me for keeping a little more, and Shaye is fine with it,” she met Kathy’s eyes and didn’t correct herself this time. “We always knew one of us would stop before the other, but we never imagined in a million years it would be because one of us,” she choked over the last word, “died.”

Kathy listened carefully. It was plausible but wildly different to the story she’d been told of the relationship between the two women. She couldn’t get her head around it. What about the violent physical encounter at the company party? Everybody had seen that.

“Deb, what about that fight at the company party? Your colleagues say you lashed out at her?”

“Hah! I heard that story, too,” Deb spat out. “It’s not what happened. Shaye knows tai chi, I’m into martial arts and knife fighting, she does a little karate. We used to spar a bit before we started writing to get the creative juices flowing. We’re pretty evenly matched.”

Kathy stole a glance at Brampton who was watching Deborah with no expression. She looked back at Deborah and saw a tear roll down her cheek, the first sign of sadness she’d seen from her. It didn’t last long. Deb brushed it away roughly and continued.

“What actually happened at the company party was I started to say something about the column. We were having a disagreement about the one we were writing and I wouldn’t let it go. We’d vowed not mention it in public, when others were around. So, Shaye went to slap me on the back of the head to shut me up, I moved and got it in the face. I’d just come from training and I guess the adrenaline was flowing. I reared back to give her a kick and pulled it at the last second, but I got her shoulder and she went down. It was a stupid move. So stupid,” she laughed unexpectedly, “but it sure took everybody’s minds off anything they have overheard!” She was grinning broadly now.

“I think I need a coffee,” Kathy said weakly. “Can we take a break? Deb, do you want water or coffee?”

“Water, please,” said Deborah and leaned back with her hands behind her head. “Can I get some chips or something, too?”