Organized Grime

by Christy Barritt

  In my haste to evacuate, I didn’t even notice the looming figure stepping into my apartment building until I collided with him. The telltale papers in my arms scattered everywhere.

  “Whoa, where’s the fire?”

  I looked up and relief momentarily softened my uptight muscles as Riley came into view. He wore jeans, a sky blue sweater and a sporty black leather coat that accentuated his broad shoulders. His brown hair looked tousled, like the wind had whipped through it on his walk from the car. His blue eyes looked as piercing, yet soft as ever. At his feet sat a small black suitcase.

  I was so glad to see him that I threw my arms around him. “Riley. You’re not supposed to be here.”

  He wrapped his arms around me a moment before pulling back. His gaze searched mine a moment before he took a step back. “I heard we might be getting some snow so I decided to come home early. What’s going on?”

  “Going on? What makes you think something is going on?”

  He shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. The suspicious look in your eyes as you snuck from Sierra’s apartment maybe?”

  I decided to go with the truth. You knew the situation was serious when I abandoned my snarkiness in favor of acting mature instead. “I think Sierra’s in trouble. Big trouble. Trouble that I’m not sure I can help her out of.”

  An amused sparkle lit his gaze. “Let me guess. But you’re going to try by stealing evidence?”

  How’d he know? “Something like that.”

  His eyes widened and he grasped the sides of my arms until I locked gazes with him. “I was kidding, Gabby. But I have the feeling you’re not. What’s going on?”

  I nodded toward the floor. “Help me pick up these papers before the feds get back and then I’ll explain.”

  He blanched. “The feds?”

  “Long story.” I let out the breath I held, wondering if perhaps this was just an awful dream. I knew it wasn’t.

  I couldn’t ignore the tinge of electricity that zapped me as our hands collided on the floor in my mad rush to pick up the papers I’d dropped. Riley had always had that effect on me, like it or not. I equate Riley to chocolate—a habit I try to break myself of, but my willpower is never quite strong enough. Nothing seemed to deter my heart from beating double-time whenever I saw him.

  Riley paused and narrowed his eyes at a piece of paper in his hands. “Building Bombs and How to Use Them? What is this?”

  If only I knew… “I don’t know but it doesn’t look good.”

  “I’d say.” He sounded awfully lawyer-ish.

  I paused—froze, really, as my conscience finally caught up with my impulsiveness. “I have to call the FBI.” My heart felt heavy as the words scattered from my mouth. I couldn’t betray my friend. There had to be another way…

  “Why do you need to call the FBI?”

  My gaze skittered up to his. “They think Sierra is responsible for the explosion downtown, as well as the fire at a housing development in Chesapeake.”

  “What?” Surprise showed across Riley’s face, from his wide eyes to his gaping mouth.

  I nodded. “It’s true. I can’t take these things and pretend they don’t exist. But I know Sierra didn’t do this, Riley. I know it.” I lowered my head. “I don’t know what to do.”

  He took my hands, which were now trembling, causing the papers to clap together. “Let’s go talk first. I need to know what’s going on. All of it.”

  We trudged upstairs to my apartment, and I spilled everything to Riley. He was just that kind of guy. The kind that I could easily share my entire heart with, if there was ever the proper invitation. But Riley was out of my league. I knew that. We were on different levels however you looked at it. Every day, I tried to kill that nagging bit of hope that remained in me concerning a relationship with him. Why was it that the things that were unobtainable were always the things people wanted the most?

  Riley soaked in everything I told him, his gaze turning more serious by the moment. “You’re right. You do need to give this to the FBI. You don’t want to find yourself in trouble for taking potential evidence. But I’m with you about Sierra. She wouldn’t do this.”

  “Then where is she? What if that Henry guy pulled her into the middle of something?”

  “She’s smart, Gabby. This is all going to be okay. But if you get yourself implicated in any way, you won’t be of any help to her.”

  Riley knew me all too well. Probably all of those times I’d almost gotten him killed along with me had made him a quick study.

  The important thing at the moment was that he agreed with me. Sierra couldn’t be responsible for any of this. My racing heart slowed for a moment. It was going to be okay. Everything would be okay.

  My phone jangled. I snatched it from the end table beside me and shoved it to my ear. “Hello?”

  A crackle greeted me. Bad connection. “Hello?” I repeated.

  “Gabby, it’s me.”

  I sat up straight. I’d hardly recognized the quick, whispered voice. “Sierra?”

  Riley leaned toward me, straining his ear toward the phone.

  “Listen, I –” Static broke through. “…name’s Lydia.”

  “Lydia? What about Lydia? Lydia who?”

  Syllables of words broke through, but nothing I could make out.

  “Sierra, I can’t understand you. What’s going on? Where are you?”

  “I…Gabby—sorry.”

  “Sorry? Sorry about what—?”

  Sierra didn’t answer. The phone line went dead.

  I looked at Riley and bit back a frown. The bad feeling in my gut turned into an all-out disaster. What had Sierra gotten herself into?

  Chapter Five

  I ran my hand over my face, flabbergasted, exhausted and curious, all in one huge gust of emotions. “Lydia. That’s the only word I could make out. How am I supposed to find some random woman named Lydia?”

  Riley leaned toward me, the picture of calm, cool and collected—as always. “Maybe she was talking about Lydia Harrison, the wife of James Harrison.”

  I perked, even more enamored with the man in front of me. “You’re brilliant. Now, how am I going to track down Lydia Harrison?”

  “You’ve tracked down people who were far harder to find, Gabby. I’m sure you’ll locate Lydia.”

  I cast a quick glance at Riley, unsure if I’d heard him correctly. “I can’t believe you’re not discouraging me from this.”

  He shrugged. “I know you well enough to know that discouraging you will do no good.”

  I threw my head back into the couch, disbelief settling over me. Riley held out his arm. “Come here.”

  I gladly fell into his arms. Images of our rocky relationship played in my mind. Just as we’d been on the brink of a relationship—or so I’d thought—his fiancée had shown up. Okay, she was an ex-fiancée who hadn’t gotten the message yet. Good old Riley had to give their relationship another shot, though. That’s when I started dating Parker. But then Parker fell for his new partner. Then I met Chad, who’s now my business partner. Our relationship is comfortable and flirty, but deep down I know that Chad isn’t Riley. Sounds like a confusing mess, huh?

  And I know I need therapy. Lots of therapy. Maybe some electric shock. Water boarding?

  Of course, my relationship problems were the least of my concerns at the moment. Nice distraction, though, Riley. For just a moment, I’d forgotten the problems at hand as I relished Riley’s strength.

  “I’m sure Lydia’s address is unlisted. Her husband’s office has now been demolished by a bomb, so I can’t snoop there. And the feds are swarming anything vaguely connected with the company. They’ll never let me get close.”

  Riley said nothing. Which made me pull my head back and look him in the eye. “You know something?”

  He hesitated. “She’s on the board for the nonprofit Arms of Love. I’m sure you can get in contact with her through that.”

  I sat up straight. “You know her?”

 
Riley shook his head. “No, but I’ve seen her at different events around town.”

  I leaned toward him, curious now. “What do you know about her?”

  “She’s one of those mover and shaker types. There’s something about her that I’ve never quite trusted, though, Gabby. I can’t put my finger on it. On the surface, she seems like the perfect citizen. But there’s something in her gaze that makes me cautious.”

  “Your gut feeling is rarely wrong.”

  He twisted his lips like he needed to say something but his mouth wasn’t cooperating. “There’s something else, Gabby.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Arms of Love has a fundraiser tomorrow evening that I’m going to be participating in.”

  Delight sizzled up my spine. “A fundraiser? What is it? A concert? Dinner?”

  He licked his lips, suddenly looking ill-at-ease. “It’s a bachelor auction.”

  I pulled back in surprise. “A bachelor auction? You’re being auctioned off?”

  He ran a hand through his hair and left half of it standing on end. “I didn’t want to do it, but Lydia convinced me that I should. It’s for a good cause.”

  “Lydia convinced you? It sounds like you do know her.” Tamp down the jealousy, Gabby. Tamp, tamp, tamp.

  He shook his head. “No, not really. Like I said, we’ve rubbed elbows at a few of the same events. That’s it.”

  I leaned back into the couch, a little too hard. “Well, I’ll be. I would have never guessed in a million years that you’d participate in a bachelor auction.” I hoped he caught the glimmer in my eyes when I tilted my head toward him. “Is it too late for me to get a ticket?”

  ***

  How did one find ecoterrorist groups? I couldn’t simply look them up in the phonebook and give them a call. Nor did people generally hang signs on their doors or put titles on their nametags proclaiming that they were environmental freaks. However, wouldn’t someone who was crazy about keeping the earth clean possibly belong to what looked like a peaceful, save-the-planet group?

  An Internet search last night had led me to one such group, and it just so happened that they were doing a presentation at a local library today on “Ways to Live Greener.” Of course, I’d decided that I needed to attend that meeting, scope out the people who attended and maybe befriend the instructor afterward. I needed to find out if Sierra was associated with the group and, if so, if anyone knew where she was right now. It was the only place I could think of to start my investigation. I narrowed my options down to the facts that I either needed to find Sierra or find who’d bombed Harrison Developers.

  As I drove to the meeting, I reflected on the first time I ever met Sierra.

  I’d just moved into the apartment building. My mother had passed away two months earlier from cancer. My crime scene cleaning business was just taking off, and Sierra’d just been hired by a local nonprofit—Paws and Fur Balls. I walked down the stairs of the apartment building wearing a new leather jacket and eating a hamburger. She’d just come from picketing a local restaurant and wore a chicken costume. We’d stared each other down for several moments. Finally, I’d said, “What’s up with the chicken costume?” just as she’d said, “Why are you dressed in a cow?”

  “I’m not dressed like a cow.”

  “I didn’t say like a cow. I said in a cow.”

  I looked at my jacket. “Really? In a cow?”

  “There are kinder ways of doing things.”

  “And there are more dignified ways of doing things.” I pointed to her costume.

  She looked down at her outfit and finally started laughing. “You’re right. I do look ridiculous. It’s always the newbies in the company who are stuck looking like chickens.”

  “Remind me not to ever work for your company.”

  She extended her hand. “I’m Sierra, an animal rights activist. And I’ll remind you not to work for my company if you remind me not to work for yours.”

  “You don’t even know what I do.”

  She waved a hand in front of her face. “No, but whatever it is its left you smelling terrible.”

  I’d just come from a particularly gruesome scene—a knife fight between two men in a kitchen. One of them had died, and tile floor didn’t exactly absorb anything leftover from the battle, so I’d had puddles of—never mind, actually. It’s pretty gross. Needless to say, the smell there had seeped into my hair and skin. Even after scrubbing myself clean and protecting my clothes with a hazmat suit, the smell remained. Some scenes were just like that.

  “That’s rude.”

  “Tell that to the cow you’re wearing.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh. And laugh. I don’t know what it was about the situation that struck me as so funny, but it tickled my funny bone. Sierra’s tough façade cracked also and she began laughing with me.

  Finally, I returned the gesture and reached for her outstretched hand. “I’m Gabby, your new neighbor.”

  “It’s about time we got someone normal living in this building.”

  Normal? She thought of me as normal? I pointed to myself in shock.

  “Living next door, I’ve got the self-absorbed radio talk show host who thinks he can get any woman he wants when he really can’t. A crazy woman who writes mysteries and likes to act out her murder scenes lives upstairs. The man who used to live in your apartment claimed to be a comedian, only he wasn’t funny—unless there’s something hilarious about chicken nuggets that I’m totally missing. And the empty apartment across the hall from you? A mime.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Even without make-up on, he used to only communicate using his body language. Finally one day I communicated with him using my body language and plucked him on the forehead.”

  “You plucked a mime?”

  “I figured it was the only way I’d ever get him to talk. Besides, he’d just flushed a goldfish down the toilet—only the fish was still alive. How can someone live with themselves after doing that?”

  “Did it work? Did he talk afterward?”

  “No, he just acted like he was crying.”

  And that was it. After that day we were best friends. I knew if I found someone who thought I was normal that I needed to hold tight to them. Sierra and I didn’t always see eye to eye, but we’d been there for each other in tough times—through breakups with no-good boyfriends, low crime rates (also known as high unemployment in my circles) and the death of a pig at the local zoo.

  Back in the present, I walked into the library and surveyed the merry group of contentious people there. Eight people had gathered, sipping on coffee in Styrofoam cups as they waited. Styrofoam? Really? Earth-conscious people sipping on drinks from a product that clogged up the landfills should have been my first sign that something was off.

  Just as I walked in, the instructor stood and walked to the podium. She was a heavyset woman in her thirties probably. Her clothes appeared to be made of henna and her hair was held back with an off-white scarf that made it appear more like she had a head wound. No make up, hippie-style sandals on her feet, and she drank out of a sensible, re-usable coffee mug.

  Would Henry be here? He was one of those people passionate about the environment. But he was smart enough not to show his face here when the authorities most likely would look for him in connection with what had happened yesterday. Sure, he seemed like a freak on the outside, but I knew the guy had once worked in construction until the economy went south. Apparently now he took odd jobs to pay his bills. And he began going overboard with the dumpster diving, Freegan mentality.

  Don’t get me wrong here. I’m all for being responsible when it comes to taking care of the earth. I just think some people can go overboard with it. For instance, I really had no desire to set my thermostat to 78 degrees in the summer, or to boycott drinking straws because they weren’t biodegradable or to even start using public transportation to ease up on carbon emissions. And that’s that.

  The instructor—I think her name
was Fiona?—began her lecture. I grabbed the water bottle from my purse and took a sip. I stared at the bottle for a moment, feeling guilty for a fraction of a second that I hadn’t brought a reusable one. Next time, I assured myself. Next time.

  Instead of listening, I watched the crowd. A few people nodded enthusiastically as Fiona preached about Mother Earth. A couple looked bored. Two people took notes.

  The thing about passionate people was that, even though they had their ideals that they stuck with most of time, everyone messed up sometimes. Environmentalists used Styrofoam cups. Animal rights activists ate something made with an egg. Christians told a lie. Politicians kept a promise. It was human nature, I’d learned. Not that I excused the hypocrisy. I simply had to acknowledge that it exists everywhere, no matter how good the intentions or the person.

  A man sitting at the back of the crowd caught my eye. He was what I referred to as a “mouth breather.” Instead of breathing through his nose—like most people—he sucked in air and expelled through his mouth, giving him a slightly dazed appearance with his mouth constantly agape. Why did he look out of place? What about him caught my eye?

  Perhaps it was his leather shoes. The disposable water bottle at the base of his chair. The sweat across his forehead. The way his foot tap-tap-tapped the floor.

  “And you in the back? What do you plan on doing for Mother Earth this week?”

  I snapped my head toward the voice and saw Fiona staring at me. Great. This is where it would have come in handy to pay attention. I cleared my throat and brushed a crumb from my “It’s Not Rocket Surgery” T-shirt.

  “Well…” Well, what? I tried to think fast. “This week I will,” I looked at the bottle in my hands, “throw all of my water bottles away?”

  At least three people in the room gasped, and I realized what I’d said.

  “I mean, I won’t throw them away. First I’ll drink them. Then I’ll throw them away. I mean, recycle them. Then I’ll only use reusable bottles for the rest of my life. Unless I’m on a road trip and forget one, and then I’ll be forced to buy one at the gas station. But you get the point.”