Poison Flowers

by Nat Burns

  Marya gave her a tentative smile, touched by her caring. “Sure. Thanks, Karen.”

  ***

  As soon as Karen strode away, a new sound emerged from the forested area behind Marya, an urgent whispering that drew her inexorably toward it, her curiosity the powerful cogs on a slowly moving gear.

  Tossing lunch residue in a nearby waste bin, she gathered up her notebook and moved into the dense thicket of trees. Careful not to disturb the environment, even by snapping a twig, she was gratified when the whispers continued. As she drew nearer, she began to be able to make out certain words—“danger,” whichpricked her ears and pulled her ever closer, and “love,” another word that ensnared her. She could make out little else, however. Beginning to have qualms about eavesdropping on a private conversation, she turned to go. She was just starting to pull away when she heard a robust “Oh no!” uttered in Dorry’s distinctive voice. Dorry was talking to someone under cover of the wooded copse? Did it have something to do with Denton’s murder?

  Marya held her position, ears straining in the effort to pick up more of the faint voices. She peered through scrub pine branches, poison ivy looping about her bare legs. Then she saw them, identifying Dorry as she was attired in her formal white master’s uniform. The woman pleading with her was unfamiliar to Marya but perfectly coiffed and dressed despite the fact that it was a hot day. Her suit was Chanel, her satiny blond hair was twisted into a sleek chignon, and her pumps were spotless, high-quality leather.

  Marya could not make out what she was requesting, but Dorry was reacting with her typical impatience, loosening the woman’s hands from her forearm and shaking her head vehemently in the negative. Finally the woman walked off, be-ringed fingers swabbing at her tear-stained face.

  Dorry turned her back to the area where the woman had stood; her hands were shaking. The encounter must have been a powerful one. Marya pondered the nature of their relationship. They knew each other well; she could feel the intimacy, argument or no argument. Could they be lovers? The thought gave her a pang.

  She moved right as Dorry moved left, emerging onto the edge of The Commons, a wide area reserved for impromptu ball games or community events. Today, groups of karate students were displaying the finer movements of their art for the passing crowd. Always happy to watch martial art in action and needing to be distracted from her disturbing thoughts, she moved to the demonstration area.

  Students, few of them familiar to Marya, fought the stylized routines taught in their classes. She was perturbed by the violence she saw manifested by some of the older students. Faces flushed with true anger, they moved to and fro against their opponent as if against a true enemy. She recognized two of them as the boys who had accosted her on the beach her first night in Marstown. One of them, sans his silver ear-to-nose chain, saw her and nodded in a quick, furtive manner. The other youth, the dominant one from the group, did not see her; he was watching his master, Fred Barnes, with intensity. Marya realized why when, at Barnes’ subtle signal, he moved in and began a new set of stances. He was a good, forceful leader, quick and focused, though there was a brief flicker of recognition when his eyes scanned on the watching crowd and he spotted her among them.

  Barnes, now relieved of his leadership duties, stood by Thomas for a few minutes, then slipped off to one side. Wondering what he was up to, she followed. He seemed to be a good, if competitive, teacher. It puzzled her he could feel and allow so much negativity toward women. She watched as he purchased a bottle of water from one of the many booths peppering the field and took a seat where he could enjoy a slanted view of his students’ performances.

  Marya approached cautiously, not sure what she wanted to say. Deciding to use work as a handy excuse, she caught his attention.

  “Hello, Master Barnes. Your students are doing well today.”

  He watched her with equanimity. “Hello, Miss. Yes, very well. They’ve made great strides this year.”

  “You must be very proud of them.”

  He eyed her with a tsk tsk expression, and she was happy to see that he realized, as did she, that pride had no real place in the art.

  “Such as it is,” he replied.

  She paused a long beat, confused. How could he be one of the true seekers of the art, yet allow such violence among his students? “May I get some information from you?”

  He agreed and she began her standard who, what, where, when, why and how spiel, all the while studying this quiet man. He seemed to be so in control of himself, yet she had seen him react emotionally to her mention of Dorry. Was there history between them? And what about the woman Dorry had been talking to? How did she figure into the picture?

  Barnes broke off in midsentence, his gaze fixed on the exhibition. The crowd had thinned considerably, not surprising as the day had moved into late afternoon and suppertime, making it easier to see the three young men who were sparring, two his students, the other one his first belt, Thomas. As she watched, Thomas used a cropped back fist blow to bloody one boy’s nose. Holding his face, the boy backed off, and Thomas went after the other youth.

  It took but a moment for her to realize that he was fighting Ricky, the boldest member of the group that had accosted her that first night in town. Ricky was bigger and tougher than the other student and the fight was more of a challenge. The two had flung off the pads used in the demonstration and the sound of flesh striking flesh penetrated to where she sat. She turned to Master Barnes, expecting outrage, but what she saw instead chilled her heart. An avid look of blood lust lit his gaze as he watched.

  A smothered cry sounded as Thomas’s shin swept into Ricky’s knee. Marya knew the boy would be limping for weeks. She also realized Barnes had no desire to stop the brutality, that he no doubt condoned these true strike altercations in his dojang. It dawned on her too, with a smooth epiphany, that Barnes could have killed Denton.

  The realization left her dumbfounded. Soon, though, her mind was busy trying to find ways to link the two together, creating scenarios. What connection did they share that could have resulted in Denton’s demise? As hard as she tried to move the puzzle pieces around in her mind, however, they would not come together.

  “Miss Brock, you will have to excuse me,” Barnes said close to her ear.

  Marya demurred with polite noises, grateful that he was going to put an end to the sparring at last. To her dismay, however, he just moseyed closer, hands clasped behind his back, and studied the entropic battle from a more intriguing vantage point. Feeling disgusted, she walked away.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Fear almost stopped her before she could knock on the door. Marya wasn’t sure why the blue of Dorry’s eyes daunted her so badly. She had dealt before with bold, strong people like her and had not been so clenched with fear when approaching them. Marya knew without doubt, however, that it would be far worse to continue to stay at home tortured by her imaginings and questions. It was time to get to the bottom of this issue, to learn why her freedom and perhaps even her life were being jeopardized.

  She scrubbed at eyes still bleary from the few hours’ sleep she’d managed after returning home from the fund-raising picnic. Questions roiling about inside her head had held sleep at bay for far too long and had greeted her upon rising what seemed like minutes later. Nothing had provided relief—soothing music, hot tea, a warm shower. She remained a kaleidoscope of half-formed assumptions, a turmoil of what-ifs. Then a long walk had brought her here. To Dorry’s front porch.

  Marya strode back and forth on the sea-dampened boards a few times, dreading what was sure to be another confrontation. Her power of choice was whisked away when Dorry opened the door.

  They looked at one another a long minute, then Dorry spoke, her voice soft. “You were pretty quiet out here. Not like those ruffians who come by all the time. You have a gentler step.”

  Marya didn’t know what to say, odd for a reporter who knows everyone’s business or the right questions to ask to unearth that business. It wasn’t oft
en that she was struck dumb. The one person who did it regularly was Dorry. It was a binding under pressure, the result not of having too little to say, but too much. Marya couldn’t decide what needed to come first.

  “So, out with it,” Dorry sighed. “What brings you over here?”

  “May I come in?” Marya asked gently. “I want to understand a few things and I believe you are the one who can help me.”

  Marya was intrigued when Dorry became visibly nervous, hands fidgeting at the bottom of her T-shirt. She reminded Marya of a frightened schoolgirl. What was she hiding?

  “I don’t claim to understand anything, Marya. Maybe your answers lie elsewhere.” Dorry’s calm voice belied her nervous gestures.

  “Please. I promise I won’t stay long.”

  Dorry moved aside in silence, and Marya stepped into her home. The first sight of the interior overwhelmed her. Candlelight. It was everywhere.

  Solar disks filled the floor of the living area. Each contained a rotund center candle with slightly smaller candles that radiated from it in a flickering sunray spiral, but each design was different. Some were Southwestern, others Oriental, some even futuristic. No electric lights were on in the room, but she could see a steady glow in the back part of the house.

  Dorry quickly shut the door behind her to stifle the swift ocean wind that threatened the display. She stood with her back pressed against it, studying Marya and her reaction to this unusual offering.

  “This is beautiful,” Marya breathed. “I burn candles all the time but never thought of doing this.”

  “Mmm, just a mindfulness exercise,” Dorry muttered as she crossed the room to stand at a shimmering wooden bar. She poured golden liquid fire into a glass tumbler and pointed to it to ask if Marya wanted one. Marya nodded and she poured a second.

  Marya looked around the room. The house was indeed old but had been painstakingly refurbished, its aged wooden walls and floors stripped and polished to a high gloss. They mirrored the candlelight to such an extent that Marya imagined she was floating in a huge goldfish bowl set atop Dorry’s sparkling bar. The illusion was dizzying, yet exhilarating, and she experienced a deep affinity with the forced change of atmosphere.

  Marya understood what Dorry meant by mindfulness and why she had taken the time and energy to create the candle patterns. Those who are Zen and study the martial art understand that all life is illusory and that what one makes of life often becomes that life.

  Wandering, feeling Dorry’s eyes heavy upon her, she walked the circumference of the room, passing in front of the lighted hallway and then back into the ever-moving dimness. She wondered what the real goal was, if there was a goal, for creating this environment. Was it healing, energizing or simply for comfort? She knew that knowing this would give her great insight into Dorry as a person. She couldn’t bring herself to ask, even though she craved the intimacy that would allow it. Being this close to Dorry made her breathless, left her thoughts fuzzy and fragmented. She struggled for composure.

  “I saw you today…at the fund-raiser. I saw you arguing with a woman. A beautiful woman. Tell me who she is.”

  Marya turned her request into a gentle demand, raising her chin higher as she looked at Dorry.

  “You saw us? Damn you, girl, you’re everywhere. Are there no secrets from your prying eyes?” Her steady gaze was filled with admiration as she handed her the tumbler and seated herself on the low sofa.

  “I see what I’m meant to see. This charge you and I could face is no joke. I need to know if this woman has anything to do with Denton’s murder.”

  Her eye caught a large wooden frame at that moment. Inside it sat the same woman from the picnic. She was posed and smiling invitingly for the camera—or for Dorry. “Her,” she said, pointing. “Who is she?”

  Dorry took a sip from her tumbler, as if fortifying herself for what was to come. “I should have known you’d be the one, when I saw you on the beach, your fiery hair a beacon in the house lights. That’s what drew me, you know—your hair. I saw it when I stepped onto the porch. There you were sitting there by Isabel’s flag just as pretty as you please. I wanted to run you off at first, almost did, but you seemed so sad sitting there and I remembered how I’d sat in that very same spot so many times, by myself, feeling sad and lonely. As if the whole world had just packed up and moved away.”

  “You feel that way sometimes?” Marya asked quietly.

  “Sure.” Dorry tilted her head to look at Marya. “And that’s the way you looked that night. What were you thinking about?”

  “Old loves.” Marya dropped her eyes.

  “Old loves,” Dorry repeated hollowly. “I can tell you about old loves. The woman you saw me with? One of my old loves. Isabel.”

  The way she said the name made Marya’s heart ache viscerally. She glanced at the portrait, still so prominent, and knew the extent of Dorry’s love. One had to wonder…did she still feel the same way about her or was there room in her life for someone new?

  “I thought…” Marya paused, unsure how to proceed. She moved across the room and sat at the opposite end of the sofa. “Why isn’t she here with you?”

  Dorry jerked herself to a standing position and walked back to the bar before turning and facing Marya. “Complications. She’s married.”

  “To a man?” Marya stood as well and moved two steps toward her. She paused when she realized she was approaching Dorry and stopped to finger a silver snuff box atop the sideboard.

  “Yes. A man who hates me.” Her tone was neutral, no emotion evident in it at all.

  Suddenly it dawned upon Marya—her second true epiphany of the day. She knew exactly what had happened during that horrible time ten years ago. She lifted her eyes and saw Dorry watching her, the rim of her glass hiding a small, self-deprecating smirk as she took another sip of whiskey.

  “You weren’t in love with Francie, were you? It was Isabel, her mother, you were involved with.”

  Dorry’s eyes grew sad. “You’re wrong. I loved Francie dearly—but as a daughter. A daughter, not a lover.”

  Indignation grew in Marya. “Then how could you allow her name to be sullied by that accusation?”

  Dorry took a deep swallow of whiskey this time and turned away. “I know,” she whispered. “I know.”

  Sympathy replaced Marya’s indignation. She could not look at Dorry. Unsettled, she fetched her own drink from the coffee table, forced her eyes to roam the room.

  “Tell me,” she said, eyes still avoiding her. “What brought all this about? Won’t you tell me the whole story? Please?”

  Silence fell. High tide brushed insistently against the house’s foundation. It was as if Dorry and she were on a ship together adrift in a sea no one knew existed—a ship of intimate sharing, of the passing of secrets, shameful or otherwise, on which she could tell Dorry everything and Dorry would tell her whatever she asked of her. This realization proved both alarming and somehow gratifying. She, who had always held a part of herself back, protecting some self-perceived sanctum of mystery, stood defenseless before this woman.

  Why her? As was her wont, Marya analyzed the revelation.

  Was it her seniority—the fact Dorry was a full two decades older than Marya? Or was it the cloak of defensiveness that Dorry also had wrapped about herself? The vulnerability within the steel of her defenses matched Marya’s; they were two of a kind. This gave her an odd feeling of security, a type of freedom. That, or…she had fallen in love with Dorry.

  She returned her drink to the table and quickly reclaimed a seat on the sofa. She wasn’t sure her shaky knees could handle this latest wave of epiphany.

  “It was all so tacky,” Dorry began, her gaze taking in the wide expanse of sea outside the glass doors. “Nicky and I had been friends forever. He met Isabel while working there just outside Paris and they had Francie almost immediately. We kept in touch with letters and he kept inviting me to come over. Then about ten years ago, I was in a place where I could plan a short trip to Europ
e and arranged to meet them.”

  “Where?”

  “In Germany. They were on the Rhine in a little village called Lebenstraum. Isabel’s parents had a ramshackle estate there. Of course, Nicky insisted I stay with them. It was all fine at first in the hubbub of arrival.”

  She paused to drink. “But within a week Isabel and I knew we were in trouble.”

  “How do you mean?”

  Dorry looked at her pointedly. “Chemistry.”

  “Ah.” Marya relaxed back into the cushions. Chemistry. “So what did you do?”

  “What’s the old saying? Beat feet? I backpedaled as much as possible. We kept very busy, sightseeing and going here, there and yonder. It was fun, but I was like a lovesick puppy, making a fool of myself every minute.”

  She laughed and shook her head at the memory.

  Marya couldn’t imagine Dorry making a fool of herself, but then she was beginning to realize she had no clue about the real Dorry. Ice clinking in her glass was the only sound for a long minute.

  “Then one night when Nicholas and Little Bit had gone to one of her endless ballet classes, Isabel and I found ourselves in the house alone. We made light of it at first, but the chemistry grew and then she was in my arms and…” The memory seemed to stab into Dorry. Marya watched her face change into angles of grief, then resume its normal placid facade.

  “We soared after that. Life was good even though we were sneaking around behind her family’s back. We were in love and that was that.”

  “Didn’t you need to come home?” Marya was rocking to and fro at the waist, the recounting of those passionate feelings hurting her. She did love Dorry. She knew it then.

  “Sure, and that was when it became insane. I couldn’t bring myself to leave her. Then Nicky mused that he wished Little Bit, who was fifteen at that time, could have had an American education and together we all hit upon the idea she was to come back with me and spend a few years here. I agreed because of the maternal way I felt toward Francie and because I knew it would keep Isabel in my life.”