Poison Flowers

by Nat Burns

  “Yes, ma’am. Yes. What will you do?”

  Marya knew he was worried that she would press charges against his master. “I don’t know,” she whispered as she staggered toward the door. “I don’t know.”

  Pressing charges against Barnes might just exacerbate the situation she was currently in with the local police force. She didn’t need witnesses relating what Barnes had said to her before he attacked. Not to mention the grief it would bring to her parents if she—and her lifestyle—became the latest news of the week. Then again, maybe Barnes’s violent actions would lead police to investigate him for Denton’s murder. She paused, one hand on the closed door. No, she couldn’t chance it.

  Outside the day had turned muggy. Marya limped to her car and painfully lifted herself into the seat. She switched on the engine and turned the air-conditioning on full blast. Sweat evaporated from her forehead and cheeks as she levered the car into gear and headed to the hospital she’d seen out on Route 17. Her shocked mind could only gape at the idea that Fred Barnes had attacked her for no apparent reason.

  ***

  Leaving the hospital several hours later with her cracked ribs taped securely, Marya decided to head back to the office. She needed to finish the fund-raiser article so she would make deadline. She also wanted to learn more about the man who’d attacked her. Maybe the fight had been a good thing, just the impetus she needed to investigate further concerning who might have the best reason to kill Denton. Barnes had just proven that he was crazy enough to harm someone. Was he the one who murdered Denton? She touched her bandaged ribs as she pulled out on the highway. He was strong enough.

  No matter how hard she wracked her brain, unfortunately, Marya could come up with no good reason for anyone wanting Denton out of the way. The man was the most inoffensive person Marya had ever met. Could all this have come about because of the 1996 purse-snatching incident?

  She frowned at the highway. Not likely. It was just that there was nothing else to suggest that Denton’s actions, rash or otherwise, could have contributed in any way to his death. Following that logic, she had to assume his murder was a random criminal act. This assumption made everything a bit more difficult. Most murders were committed by someone the victim was close to, making it much easier to ferret out the perpetrator. A random murder, on the other hand, would be much more difficult to solve. The murderer could be anyone, even, as Ed surmised, someone long gone from Marstown.

  She knew from Dallas and Dorry that Fred Barnes had been part of their local group of friends. This made him a more desirable suspect in her eyes.

  Oddly enough, the Schuyler Times office was still almost deserted. She saw only Ed who waved at her from behind his computer.

  “The B-front will be shooting toward you in a minute or two,” she called to him as she carefully sat at her desk. The painkillers had kicked in, but any lateral movement hurt like hell. She fished out her notebook and thumb drive from her bag, popped the thumb drive into the computer, added the missing names, gave the article one more cursory glance, then sent it over to Ed. She inhaled a deep but careful sigh and typed Fred Barnes into the search engine. Opening his business website, she spent some time looking for craziness. Nothing. She was frustrated. She sighed and sat back in her squeaky office chair.

  It was all too easy to imagine Sheriff Gennis and his pet deputy Thomas driving up to the cottage with a warrant for her arrest. Or worse, one for Dorry’s arrest. If that happened, they would never be able to prove their innocence.

  Chewing a thumbnail, she let her fingers roam across the keyboard. After a moment of hesitation, afraid of what she might find, she opened a new database and typed in the name Frederick Barnes. She held her breath as she waited, one hand absently soothing her ribs.

  She was rewarded with a red star. Pay dirt. Intrigued, she leaned forward and moved the cursor to the details button. She clicked it and began avidly reviewing the facts it revealed.

  In 2004, a restraining order had been issued to keep Frederick Barnes away from none other than Dorcas Wood. Her mouth fell open. She had sensed there was some bad history there, but nothing quite like that.

  She read on, curiosity gnawing at her. The restraining order had been issued twice, she saw. It looked like old Barnes had been stalking Dorry. The original police report cited trespassing, harassing phone calls in the night, slander and even libel. Since the second order had been issued, he was now not allowed to come within one hundred feet of Dorry and could not enter the premises of her land or business without her express permission submitted and approved through law enforcement channels. Wow.

  Marya wondered why Barnes had been stalking Dorry. Love? Hatred? It could be either. Maybe because of the Francie publicity? Or was there something else?

  She sat back and remembered how Barnes had looked while attacking her. Should she go ahead and report the attack to the police? She’d been too shocked to decide before but he could be the one who killed Denton, and due to his past, he would be a person of interest to the Coburn County police.

  She sighed. Her head was fuzzy from the pain meds. She decided she would talk to Dorry that evening, and they would make their first decision as a couple.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  There was something wrong. Dorry knew it as soon as she stepped up to the back entrance after rounding the building. Something just didn’t feel right. The nape of her neck began to tingle and her heart began to thud.

  Then she saw it.

  Two years ago, a little girl named Polly Reynolds had taken classes under Dorry. She made it all the way to purple belt before her abusive, backward father had prevailed over her mother and pulled her out of the school. During her time there, Polly had drawn numerous pictures of Dorry and the other teachers and students. They were wonderful depictions of the dojang and staff, so Dorry had kept many of them tacked to the walls of her office. She had looked at them often while pondering what life might have been like for little Polly if she’d had different parents.

  Now, at her feet, lay a portion of one of those familiar drawings. It was a lower left corner of a drawing of the interior of the dojang.

  Slowly, disbelievingly, Dorry reached out and lifted the scrap of artwork. The torn edge was jagged and crumpled as if ripped with great force.

  A sudden sick feeling bloomed in her stomach. She pushed at the unlocked door, swinging it open. Still not completely comprehending what she was seeing, her mind shocked into numbness, Dorry stepped inside.

  “My God,” she whispered. “What has happened here?”

  The long hallway that led into the dojang was littered with shards of paper and crumpled file folders. Dorry stepped into the midst of them and peered inside her office. She gasped in despair. The room was a shambles. Mementos from her students and staff had been tossed about, some of them destroyed. Her file cabinets gaped open, their contents scattered about the room.

  Stepping further in, she saw that the drawers of her desk had been pried open. Office supplies were piled in haphazard fashion on the floor behind the desk. Even her office chair had been flipped over. It was now balanced precariously against the bookshelves on the back wall. She saw to her dismay that many of her books and their covers had been ripped apart as well as being thrown helter-skelter. And, most hurtful of all, precious framed photos had been shattered against the floor and desk.

  Terrified at what else she was going to find, Dorry left the office and strode down the littered hallway into the dojang. It too had been ransacked, pads and weights tossed carelessly hither and yon, many of the pads sliced with a knife. Even the cord holding up the heavy kick bag had been slashed. The huge black and silver bag lay on the dojang floor like a wounded soldier.

  Dorry wasn’t sure what to feel. Immense anger warred with intense pain. She stood helpless, grinding her palms together as her eyes tried to drink in all the damage that had been done to her livelihood and to her life. Her gaze fell on the banners filled with inspirational messages that she had read e
very day for the past decade. They too were torn; the word excellence hung to one side, moving listlessly in an errant breeze.

  She turned and walked slowly back to her office. Noticing her cashbox lying busted open and empty next to the printer stand and feeling the need to take some action, she righted the phone and called 911.

  “I need to report a…a…burglary,” she said in a shocky, incredulous whisper. She had to repeat it three times before the dispatcher could hear her properly. After hanging up, she started a search for her business checkbook. Unable to find it, she started mentally listing the steps she was going to need to take to protect herself and the business from identity theft. Then she remembered that the checkbook was still in her truck. She had taken it home for balancing the day before.

  “A lucky break, that,” she muttered to herself.

  She studied the damage again as she waited for the police to arrive and her gaze fell on the scheduling calendar she kept on the south wall next to the door. It hung crookedly now so she had to tilt her head to read the entry posted on the previous day. Her mouth fell into a grim line.

  ***

  The Schuyler Times office was a madhouse that afternoon. Carol’s water had broken while she was at her desk, and she had been rushed to the hospital in the first stages of labor. That had left Emily at the front desk trying to figure out how to direct and transfer the calls that were coming in while doing her own work. Adding to the hubbub were the frequent updates from Buddy as he kept Ed and the others posted on Carol’s progress.

  Marya was busy trying to make story determinations for the next week’s issue when her cell phone rang. She saw by the caller ID that it was Dorry and a warm cloud of remembered joy suffused her.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” she said as she answered. “You would not even believe how crazy it is here today. I have so much to tell you. Carol is having the baby…”

  There was silence on the line.

  “Dorry? Are you there?”

  “I should have known better than to trust you, to let you into my life,” Dorry said finally, her voice low and strangled back into her throat. “I told you to make sure the door was locked. I told you how important it was.”

  “Dorry? What has happened? What do you mean?”

  “I…I can’t do this right now.” The phone line went dead.

  Marya stood stunned for a moment, her mind and heart racing. Something had happened at the dojang.

  She grabbed up her bag and painfully hobbled to Ed’s office. “Ed, I gotta go. I’m sorry.”

  Ed looked at her with bloodshot, weary eyes. “You can’t leave now. Marvin is at a Supervisors’ meeting and there are not enough of us here as it is.”

  Marya just shook her head and biting her lip, stumbled from his office and out to her car.

  A trio of police cars and a rescue unit surrounded the dojang when Marya pulled up. Suddenly worried about Dorry’s well-being, she extricated herself from the car as fast as she could and limped inside through the gaping back door.

  The sight that met her gaze brought sudden tears to her eyes. The Way of Hand and Foot had been destroyed. Furniture was toppled, mirrors broken, papers and file folders scattered everywhere.

  She made her way down the long hall leading from the back door, her mind reeling from this beastly, willful destruction of property. The dojang was in similar disarray. Dorry was perched on the end of one cabinet, law officers and rescue personnel hovering around her. She looked awful, her face ashen and drawn.

  “Oh, Dorry, what happened?” Marya said as she approached.

  Deputy Thomas was there. He moved back from Dorry, but he and Sheriff Gennis watched closely as Marya took Dorry’s arm. “Are you okay?”

  Dorry jerked her arm from Marya, causing her to hiss in sudden pain. Seeing the men’s interest, Dorry grabbed Marya by the elbow and pulled her to one side, away from the others.

  “How could you do this to me?” she spat. “I trusted you, Marya!”

  “It was locked, Dorry, I swear it,” Marya whispered. “I swear it.”

  “Then how did this happen? The door wasn’t damaged. It had to be unlocked.” Dorry watched her face with hurt, angry eyes.

  “I…it had to be Rob,” Marya said finally. “He wasn’t with me the whole time. He must have gone into the front lobby and unlocked the door. The side door was locked. I’m sure of it.”

  “Oh, that’s easy,” Dorry said. “Pass the buck. You and only you were responsible for checking all the doors before you left.”

  “Dorry, I’m so sorry. I…I didn’t want to let you down…”

  Dorry glared at her. “Well, you did let me down and because I trusted you—which I know better, I know not to do that—but because I did…because I was weak, I’ve lost everything. Do you even understand what that means?”

  Marya bristled. “Of course! I’m not stupid. But Dorry, we can build it back up together.” She touched Dorry’s arm. “Together we can do anything.”

  Dorry’s eyes lifted and they were so cold they chilled Marya to the bone. “Together, ha! I knew better than to try and have a relationship. I never want to see you again, Marya Brock. Just stay out of my goddamned way from now on. Just leave me alone.”

  She strode away and Marya’s heart dropped from her body. The pain of Dorry’s rejection was one hundred times worse than that of her broken ribs. One hundred. She turned and hurried from the dojang, afraid she would start screaming out her anguish there in front of God and everyone. Ten minutes later she pulled off at a beach access beside Route 17. Sitting in her Trooper with the windows rolled up, she did scream. She screamed and cried until the pain in her ribs was almost as bad as the pain in her soul.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Struggling to come to terms with this latest bout of feeling alone and abandoned, Marya decided she needed a stiff drink. It was early in the day, but she didn’t much care. Hiccupping and swiping at her eyes, she drove toward Myrtle Beach. Dorry could not, would not have such power over her.

  The late afternoon was fine, the kind of day that was so fragrant and peaceful it made natives speak of soft, delicate baby hair. Marya rode along, window down, mind numb, staring dumbly at the sights. Shopkeepers still had heavily laden tables out on the sidewalks, bored employees lolling next to them counting the hours until closing. A lot of people were out and about. Pink, freshly bathed and nattily dressed tourists on their way to dinner. Waitresses scurrying along the sidewalks fiddling with their hair even as they donned their aprons and prepared to serve them.

  Traffic wasn’t as bad as she had expected, probably because the winter rush hadn’t yet started. She was able to drive mindlessly as she pondered her losses. Would Dorry relent? Reconsider? Knowing Dorry’s personality, Marya doubted it. She had seen the coldness in those eyes, the lack of forgiveness there, and remembered well Dorry’s aloofness when they’d first met.

  She wondered whether or not she even would have a place to sleep that night. Tears filled her eyes again, but she blinked them back. She would be damned if she’d wallow in self-pity.

  Forcing thoughts of Dorry from her mind, Marya began looking for and soon found King Street. There was a gay bar there that she’d seen listed in one of the local magazines and been planning to try it out at some point. Now was as good a time as any, she figured.

  The club, called Rainbow Spheres, was small and nondescript when she finally located it, but decked with hanging outside lights that no doubt made it more festive in the evening. No matter. The general tackiness of its daylight appearance better suited her current mood. She parked, gingerly climbed out of the Trooper and slowly made her way into the place.

  The long bar running the length of the back was inviting, but she didn’t think her sore ribs would allow her to mount a barstool with any comfort. She decided to claim a small table in a corner where she could drink and cry in dark solitude.

  The trio of patrons turned and examined her as she eased her way over to it and sat down, then ret
urned to their drinks and their conversations. Marya ignored them, staring instead at her hands, clasped tightly together on the worn wooden top of the table. She still wasn’t thinking, but the numbness was wearing off, replaced by a growing anger. Anger that Dorry would so quickly assume that she was to blame. Anger that she had made no effort to hear her out or look at the facts instead of her first, shocked perceptions.

  She was better off without Dorry in her life, Marya decided. Painful as this all was, it was better that it ended now. She had no tolerance for intolerance. She might be a reporter, might have to look for the right and wrong of things, the good and bad of things, but that didn’t mean she was ruled by absolutes. Sometimes things were gray. Not black and white, even though one might want them to be. But gray. Gray.

  “What’ll you have, hon?” A waitress had appeared next to Marya’s table. She was young, in her twenties, with long, dark hair drawn back in a haphazard ponytail. On her the hairstyle looked great. Her dark brown eyes looked as if they were perpetually amused, her mouth was wide and fun-loving. She regarded Marya, her head tilting to one side. “You look like something the cat dragged in. What happened to you?”

  Marya shook her head. “You wouldn’t believe the day I’ve had. I was beaten up…my ribs broken…by a crazy martial arts guy…Then my girlfriend’s—my ex-girlfriend’s—business was broken in to and destroyed and she broke up with me, blaming me for what happened.”

  “Dayum!” the waitress exclaimed. “Are you gonna be all right?”

  Marya nodded. “I think so, but three fingers of scotch on the rocks might help.”

  “I hear you,” she said. “Single malt coming up. I’m Cybil, by the way.”

  Marya extended her hand. “Marya Brock. Pleased to meet you, Cybil.”

  Cybil shook the proffered hand. “And me you, Marya. Be right back.”