Poison Flowers (18 page)

“So, are we ready?” she asked, checking both changing room doors to make sure they were secure. She switched off the first rank of
dojang
lights, then the second as the two of them progressed toward the foyer area just inside the side entrance.

“You didn’t go into the front lobby, did you?” she asked as she paused by the door. She glanced toward the sets of wide doors that led to the front.

Rob shook his head as he inserted one earbud. “Nope, I was with you almost the whole time.”

Marya nodded and ushered him out and pulled the door tight. She realized that her car was the only one in the deserted lot. “Hey, where’s your car?”

“In the shop again,” he said with a heavy sigh. “Bum transmission. It’s always going out on me.”

“I had one like that once,” Marya said as she slid into the driver’s seat. “Hop in. I’ll give you a ride home.”

“Better not. My mama’s coming to get me. She’s just down the street at her bridge club. I told her it would be about two hours so she should be here in a few minutes. Her old biddy card friends get tired out after more than a couple hours anyway.” He grinned at her, coaxing a return smile from Marya. “Thank you for the offer, though.”

“Well, okay. If you’re sure,” Marya said slowly. She hesitated. “Are you sure?”

He laughed. “I’m a big boy. You don’t have to worry about me.”

Marya laughed at herself. “I know…I’m an old softie. You tell anyone I went all maternal and I’ll be the one beating up on your ass.” She pulled the door closed.

She backed out and he waved once before sliding down to sit against the wall on the sidewalk that surrounded the building. He was fiddling with his music player. Several outside lights had sputtered into life in the dusk and they made a halo surrounding him as he sat there.

“Let it go, Marya,” she told herself as she pulled onto the two-lane road that ran in front of the business. She couldn’t shake a dire feeling and hoped he’d be safe there all alone. Her thoughts flew then to the lover who waited for her. Suddenly she was eager to get home. Rob was right. He was a big boy.

About a quarter of a mile down the road, Marya was forced to stand on her brake as an oncoming vehicle inexplicably veered over into her lane. There was a moment of worry that the car wouldn’t right itself, but it did and as it passed, Marya peered at the driver’s window. She reared back and suffered a moment of shock. She knew that face, that hair.

Turning into the parking lot of the Tecumseh Baptist Church, Marya executed a U-turn and rolled the car along until she reached the parking lot of The Way of Hand and Foot. She passed by slowly, watching as Rob climbed into the passenger side of the car that had passed her. A car that she now recognized as belonging to Emily Davies, the business manager of the
Schuyler Times
. Emily was Rob Tyler’s mother? She never would have guessed.

Work the next morning passed by in a blur. Marya went through the motions, acting and reacting almost mechanically, all her thoughts fixed on Dorry and the passionate night they had spent together.

Before they parted that morning, they made plans for a late dinner together at her house after their work days were over. Marya was glad they were going to be together again soon. There was an emptiness, almost an ache, where their bodies had pressed against one another.

“You know, they never did get along.” Dallas’s voice sounded next to her ear.

“Who’s that?” Marya asked, swiveling around in her chair so she could see the social columnist.

“Him and Dorry,” she replied, pointing to the computer screen. Marya had opened the Barnes Taekwondo page on her computer to get the phone number.

“Fred Barnes?”

“Yep, he always had this sort of superior attitude that really got him in a lot of trouble. Of course, Dorry thinks she’s something special too, due to her family being so old and established here in Schuyler Point and all. They mixed like oil and water.”

“I knew there had to be water under that bridge,” she replied, trying not to let Dallas’s attitude about Dorry get to her. “He acted very strange when I mentioned Dorry’s name to him.”

“I reckon,” Dallas said with a smirk. “She mopped up the floor with him at a national competition once. He hasn’t been the same since.”

They both turned as one when Dallas’s phone let out a staccato peal.

“I guess that’s me,” she said, hurrying off.

Marya turned back to her computer and called the number for the Barnes
dojang
. Though she heard it ring numerous times, no one answered and she was shunted over to voice mail. She left a message, asking Barnes to call her as soon as possible. She had realized after coming in that morning and beginning work on the fund-raising piece that she was missing several pieces of crucial information, such as the names of the participants in the taekwondo exercises. Writing around the information she was lacking for the moment, she worked on the article for the next half hour. Then she called the Barnes
dojang
again. Getting voice mail once more, she left another message, this time stressing the urgency of her situation. Forty minutes later there was still no response, and the fund-raising piece was finished except for the names she was missing.

She rose and strode into Emily’s office.

“Hey, Emily, were you at the fund-raiser Saturday?”

Emily looked at her with wide, stunned eyes. “No, no, why would I go there?”

Marya almost said something about Rob and Emily watching him and his class display their skills but something, some hunch, stayed her voice. “Just needed some names for a story I’m working on,” she said instead.

Emily leaned forward across her desk, suddenly all smiles and helpfulness, as her plump, ringed hands caressed a pencil. “Oh, get Dallas to help you with that. I think she was there and she knows just about everybody in these parts. I’m sure she’ll be glad to help you out.”

Marya smiled and turned to go. “Good idea,” she said, her mind whirling with possibilities. Was Emily hiding Rob? There were no photos of him in the office, and in all the time Marya had been with the
Schuyler Times
, no one had ever mentioned her having a son.

Outside Emily’s office Marya stared at a mostly empty office. Dallas had disappeared. Ed and Marvin, she remembered, were at a PTO meeting at the elementary school. She heard music from the back but knew the pasteup guys would be of little help.

She sat at her desk and made sure the article she’d been slaving on all morning was saved to a thumb drive. She stuck the drive in her bag, grabbed up the bag from the desk, and headed to the front desk.

“Going out to the Barnes
dojang
,” she told Carol. Pausing abruptly, she turned back and studied the receptionist. “Are you
ever
going to have that baby?” she asked.

Carol took a deep breath and studied Marya with equanimity. “Nope. I don’t think so. I think she’s in there for good. Buddy says we should start charging her rent because she’s been making me eat so much.”

Marya laughed as she left the building, letting the door slide closed behind her.

***

Marya easily found her way back to Barnes Taekwondo. She was pleased to see the business was open; she had been afraid it was closed for some reason, but there were a number of cars in the small parking area in front. She parked near the main door and, snatching up her notebook, went inside.

The front lobby was deserted. She waited a few minutes, striding over to the wall of trophies on the north wall. She was dismayed to find them dusty and neglected.

“Such a shame,” she muttered. If they were going to use trophies to define their sport, the least they could do is to take care of them.

After another five minutes of waiting, Marya opened the door to the
dojang
and peeked inside. A belt she didn’t recognize was leading a small class. Barnes was in the back, watching instead of teaching. He was reclining in a folding chair, one hand to his chin, watching the class as they went through their
poomses
.

Marya removed her shoes, then slipped inside and stepped over to Barnes. She tapped his shoulder and he looked up at her as if awakening from a deep sleep.

“Hey, Mr. Barnes. Remember me? Marya Brock from the
Times
?”

She waited until he nodded his head before continuing in a low whisper. “I’m working on the fund-raising story and I never got the names from you—the names of the students who were sharing the art that day.”

Barnes rattled off three names, and Marya scribbled them into her notebook. He watched her and silence grew between them.

“You’re that dyke’s student, aren’t you?” he asked suddenly.

Marya recoiled. “I beg your pardon?”

“Dorcas. The town lesbian.” His voice became a high contralto as he mentioned the name of her business in a mocking tone. “The Way of Hand and Foot.”

Marya’s mouth fell open.

“I could think of some other names for it. Because of what she does. You know, in the bedroom.” He said this in a low, suggestive voice.

Marya was overcome with such fury that she wasn’t sure she could speak. Strange angry gurgles issued from her mouth.

“I bet you’re one too. You kinda look like one, but you carry that mild-mannered reporter air so no one can really tell.” He sat back in his chair and eyed her speculatively.

Marya had been angry many times in her life but never infuriated to the point of being unable to speak, much less respond to his rude, offensive ramblings.

He continued in a thoughtful mien. “I wonder what she’s been teaching you over at that joke of a school.”

He rose and moved toward Marya, who still stood, stunned into inaction. Without warning, he slapped her cheek lightly but with enough force to hurt. “What will you do about that, huh? You got any moves?”

Marya’s eyes filled with tears from the stinging pain. She was aware that the students had stopped working out and were watching the bizarre scene playing out between the two of them. She spoke then, putting aside the fury seething inside her. “
Master
Barnes, I think this has gone far enough.”

She stressed his title, reminding him of the standards by which he should be living.

He grinned wolfishly. “What? You got nothing? Come on, baby dyke, show me what you got.”

He spun and shot out one leg toward Marya’s side but she quickly, automatically, blocked it, her body crouching low, arms outstretched in protective stance.

Barnes danced like a boxer, legs spread and fists raised at chest level. Marya watched him cautiously, her fury shoved aside by the cool head she needed to fight an opponent. They circled one another and then Barnes lifted his left leg in a side kick to her abdomen. She blocked it effectively, but he spun like a top and rammed the heel of the other leg into her side. Pain exploded through her body and stars danced in front of her eyes. All breath was expelled from her body, and she realized that she could not inhale and draw new air into her lungs. She stumbled backward and bent forward, her eyes never leaving Barnes. After what seemed like hours but indeed was only seconds, she was able to inhale and the grayness in her vision cleared. And he was coming for her again, that carnivorous grin splitting his unshaven face.

“I don’t think so,” she gasped out and, ignoring the pain blazing through her like an electric current, she relaxed every muscle in her body and swept Barnes away from her as he charged. She panted, one hand seeking to comfort her side as he rose from the floor. His belt, a young man less than twenty years old, moved to help him up and dissuade him from further attack. Barnes shoved him so hard he went sprawling across the bare floor.

Marya, though she appeared unaffected and relaxed, was ready for him should he renew his advance. Her mind went through the best takedown from her
hapkido
training.
Take out a man’s knees and he cannot fight
kept rolling through her brain. A part of her didn’t want to harm the master but obviously he had become a mad dog. He needed to be put down in some way and quickly.

Her mind was made up in a fraction of a second. As Barnes charged again, she grasped his neck, right over the carotid artery, and used the weight of her body and a leg sweep to take him to the floor. She focused all her weight on her arms and hands and though his legs and hips thrashed below her, she kept a steady pressure on his carotid. Several minutes later, he was unconscious. Marya rolled off him, falling supine to the floor. Every expansion of her chest as she gasped for air felt like a knife stab to her ribs. One rib was likely fractured, possibly more.

The belt hovered over her, eyes searching her face. “Oh, ma’am, are you okay? I don’t know what that was about. I’ve…I’ve never seen him do anything like that before.”

Marya nodded to show she’d heard him, but she wasn’t up for speaking at that moment.

The young man helped her to her feet and retrieved her notebook and pen, pressing them into her hands. Marya glanced around once and saw the adolescent students huddled into protective groups, eyes wide as they watched her.

“Y’all all need to go home now,” she gasped. Her gaze flew to the belt. “Can you get them out of here? Get them home?” She wrapped one arm protectively around her abdomen.

“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.