Words With Fiends by Ali Brandon

paramedics would be taking over.
    â€œOkay, you stay here. I’ll grab Roma and go let the emergency people in.” Darla scooped up the tiny greyhound, who obediently submitted to her grasp. By the time she reached the dojo’s front door again, the sirens’ pulsing cries were almost deafening.
    The next few moments were a blur of action. Not only had the ambulance service responded, but the police and fire department, as well. The studio entry was overwhelmed now with large uniformed men hauling all manner of rescue gear, a gurney clattering as they rushed behind Darla through the maze-like path to the training area. While the responders gathered around the collapsed man, a shaken Darla pulled Robert a safe distance back to give them room.
    The teen was manfully trying to hold it together, though Darla caught him rubbing his eyes with one sleeve. Roma whined, and Darla promptly handed the dog over to Robert.
    â€œHere,” she said softly, managing a tremulous smile as the little dog burrowed into Robert’s arms. “She needs her friend right now.”
    It seemed Robert needed the little dog even more, for he promptly settled cross-legged on the floor and buried his face in the velvet softness of her small body, his shoulders silently shaking.
    And then the chaos before them was punctuated by one word that sent a frisson of hope through Darla.
    â€œPulse!”
    On a quick count, several of the men lifted Tomlinson’s bulky frame onto the gurney. She glimpsed an oxygen bottle and an IV drip, and what she guessed was some sort of heart monitor all attached to, or piled atop, the motionless form. And then, radios squawking, the paramedics rushed the gurney back in the direction from which they’d come, followed more slowly by the firefighters. One of the police officers, a stocky young Asian with a large shaved head, remained behind with Robert and Darla in the training area.
    He pulled a business card from his shirt pocket and handed it to Darla.
    â€œI know this has been a shock to you, ma’am, but you guys have done a great job so far,” he said and then jerked a thumb in Robert’s direction. “You two related, or you just both happened to be here at the same time?”
    â€œRobert works for me. I own Pettistone’s Fine Books a few blocks from here. We take classes together, and we came in special for our belt test this morning.”
    The cop—Officer Tommy Wing, Darla saw from the name on his business card—nodded, jotting down a few words in the small notebook he’d pulled from his belt. “If you’re up for it, I need to ask you both a few questions. Let me get the victim’s name, first, and then yours, and then you can show me where you found the gentleman.”
    Darla spelled out the names for him, shakily recounted how they’d found Roma outside the dojo, and then how Robert had found Master Tomlinson slumped unconscious in the dressing room. “I-I thought it could have been a heart attack,” she told him, “but then I saw that—” She paused and pointed to the fallen hook. “And now I’m not so sure.”
    â€œThat black belt lying out there on the mat—was that the one you saw around his neck?” the officer wanted to know.
    Darla nodded, and he wandered back out of the dressing room again. He stopped to kneel beside the black length of heavy fabric which the paramedics had removed as they’d attempted their resuscitation. “You’re sure it belongs to him?”
    â€œI-I guess so. But the one he always wears is fancier—it has five red stripes and an embroidered red dragon. That one doesn’t.”
    The cop studied the rank belt for a moment and then unsnapped a pouch on his own belt, pulling out an evidence bag.
    â€œHe probably put the other belt away for safekeeping,” Wing guessed as he carefully slid the length of heavy black fabric into the evidence bag.