Virtually Harmless

by P. D. Workman

  “You got it?” she asked Chastity, her heart thumping in excitement. She didn’t see anything else in the room, totally focused on the other woman in her blue lab clothes, gloves already removed and tossed in the garbage as she examined a report on the screen of the nearest computer. “You got the maternal DNA?”

  “I had my reservations about whether we would be able to get anything, but there it is,” Chastity said. Her cheeks were pink with excitement. Her doubts didn’t stop her from being pleased with the results.

  “Full sequence?” Micah asked, moving in closer for a look at the screen. “No missing information?”

  “It’s all here.” Chastity pointed to the two sides of the split-screen. “Here is Sweetie’s raw genome data, and here is Mama’s.”

  Micah skimmed it with interest. The shared sequences were highlighted, showing DNA that had been inherited from her mother. Roughly half of the letters on the screen as Chastity scrolled through it.

  “Some nice long shared SNP’s,” she observed. She would download everything into the company’s proprietary software and it would start spitting out observable characteristics and predicting the most likely facial structure for the composite pictures. Micah would be able to see how many of the traits were shared between the baby and her mother. She considered that for a moment, the letters blurring in front of her eyes. She wondered how long maternal DNA remained in the child’s blood. Were her own mother’s DNA sequences still swimming around in her blood, an artifact to be examined like the traces of a civilization long extinct dug up by an archaeologist? She had never been able to look at Marianna and see features that they shared. But maybe, there in her blood…

  “Micah?” Chastity poked her arm. “Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, fine. Just thinking. I can’t wait to start running this through the imager.” She looked at the clock on the wall. “Can we start it going now so that I’ll have results in the morning and can start working on some sketches?”

  Chastity nodded. “I’ve already started it loading.” She stared at the screen. “What do you think we’re going to find?”

  Micah shrugged. She’d seen pictures of the baby, so she imagined they would find that the mother was white with brown hair and brown eyes. She could be wrong, but that was her expectation. The baby didn’t look biracial, but not all biracial children did, especially as babies. It was hard to tell what the planes of the face would be like when she got older, puffed out as they were with baby fat. There was no one around to say ‘she has Uncle Ray’s nose’ or ‘Mama’s ears.’

  “I don’t know yet what she’s going to look like,” Micah offered. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  “Yours is probably better than mine,” Chastity confessed, looking at the letters. “But visualization is your job.”

  “How about epigenetic data?” Micah asked, changing the subject. “Can we still get methylation from the maternal DNA?”

  “Yes. I’ll run it, see what we can get out of it… but you know that’s still experimental.”

  “It’s new,” Micah corrected. “That means that people don’t trust it yet, but that doesn’t make it any less correct than the DNA sequence.”

  “We know less about how it works and what the different methylation switches mean.”

  “Yes,” Micah admitted, “but we know what we know. Epigenetic switches that point to age, adult height, dietary habits, trauma. There’s a host of other switches that we haven’t gathered enough information on yet. But what we know, we know.”

  Chastity nodded. “We’ll see what it spits out.”

  Micah turned to survey the rest of the room. She had blocked everything and everyone else out in her excitement to see the results with her own eyes. Veronica and Mr. Hawkins were watching with interest. Kwong was right beside her, and Micah hadn’t even registered his presence.

  “What else do we have? Do we have any evidence from the crime scene? Any trace? Other details?”

  Kwong knew that she would study all of the other details from the scene in trying to construct an accurate composite. The tiniest things could give her clues as to what the mother might look like.

  “There’s not much,” he said. “We have the baby’s clothing to check for any skin cells, fibers, or other trace. The blanket she was swaddled in. The police department picked up any litter close to the scene in case the unsub happened to drop something, but on a quick visual, nothing was fresh, it had all been sitting there for some time.”

  “Send me pictures of the clothes and blanket. Manufacturer labels too. They might give me some clues as to where the mom shopped and what style of clothes she wore herself. Pictures of the scene?”

  “Didn’t get any. You think they might have missed something?” Kwong asked skeptically.

  “No. Just… her choice of location might tell us something. I know it was the Sweetgrass Hills and ‘under a bush,’ but I’d like to see the surroundings and positioning… I won’t know what it will tell me until I see it.”

  Kwong nodded. “I’ll ask the PD to send us what they have.”

  ❋

  Surprisingly, Micah slept soundly that night. If she’d had to predict, she would have expected to lie awake half the night, tossing and turning and thinking about the work she would be doing the next day. The process of studying the computer composites and identifiable characteristics index, developing ideas of how the mother might have done her hair and makeup, clothing and accessories, experimenting with different ages and weights. She was eager to get started the next morning.

  But it was the first night’s sound sleep since she had first heard about the discovery of Baby Sweetgrass Doe. Maybe it was knowing that she could finally do something to contribute to the investigation. Maybe the kitten slept better and didn’t wake her up wanting to play or cuddle. Whatever it was, she slept through the night and woke up feeling refreshed and ready to tackle her project.

  She normally went to bed and woke up at the same time every day. Even though she had an alarm set in case of oversleeping, she was usually awake a minute or two before it sounded, immediately swinging her feet over the side of the bed and rising with no thought of snoozing the alarm or lingering in bed just a little longer. This time, she was up an hour before her usual rising time, and by the time her reminder alarm rang, she was showered and dressed, had eaten her breakfast and fed and played with the kitten, and was nearly ready to step out the door.

  The kitten followed her around, probably confused about the deviation from her usual schedule, but she was used to Micah’s routine and jumped up onto the windowsill as she put her shoes on so that she could watch Micah leave.

  “I’ll see you after work,” Micah told her. “Might be late today, but I’ll be home.” The cat had enough crunchy kibble that she wouldn’t suffer if Micah were away for longer than usual. She might be restless not having someone to play with in all that time, but Micah had accumulated enough cat toys for her to find things to entertain herself if she were bored.

  The kitten meowed silently. Micah gave her ears a scratch and petted her for a couple of minutes, listening to the cat’s tiny rumbly purr.

  “Okay. Sorry for the long day,” she apologized in advance and headed out the door.

  Chapter Ten

  Micah stared at the computer screen. Sweetie’s mother was, as Micah had expected, white with brown hair and hazel to brown eyes. Her heritage was mostly European, with a bit of Nordic and Native American. All pretty common for Montana. Those were the basics. The composite program gave a predicted facial structure: Oval, Nordic cheekbones, prominent chin.

  She skimmed through some of the suggested hairstyles and makeup, picking out a few that seemed likely and sending them to the printer, but she needed more data to make the face lifelike. What kind of life had the woman led? How old was she? How much fat did she have on her face? What was her predicted height?

  Some of that information would be in the epigenetic analysis, so Micah minimized the composite
program and opened the epigenetic data for Mama Doe. As Chastity had said, this analysis was not yet widely accepted, but they had run thousands of samples against known subjects to analyze what different epigenetic switches indicated. Science was still discussing the reliability of epigenetic data; EvPro was establishing and refining their database of traits.

  Micah was distracted by her inbox notifications and reluctantly clicked on the icon before reviewing Mama Doe’s epigenetic traits. A couple of emails from the Toole County Sheriff’s Department asking about her progress. One from Kwong with links to the crime scene photos she had requested. Even one from Wes Watley. Everyone was waiting for her composites. But she couldn’t let them hurry her. She needed to be thorough in her analysis before releasing any information.

  Hoping that personal contact would be a more efficient way to reassure the Sheriff’s Department that she would be getting them the information they had paid for as soon as possible, she dialed the number at the bottom of the most recent email.

  “Sheriff’s,” was the curt answer.

  “Deputy Bellows, this is Micah Miller.”

  “Ah, Miss Miller. Thank you for calling me back.”

  “I wanted to let you know that I am working on Mama Doe’s profile right now. I have preliminary phenotyping now, but I have other data to run through and a portfolio of pictures to sketch for you. It is going to take some time.”

  “Can you send me what you have now? Then we can get a head start on this…”

  Micah rolled her eyes. They were already behind where they should be, the case going cold. Waiting for her to give them a good set of composites was worth the wait.

  “As much as I would like to hurry the process, that won’t be helpful to your case. I can tell you that the mother was white, brown hair, brown eyes. I’m working on filling in some additional details and then I’ll get going on some sketches. Is there any other evidence that you are aware of that we have not been provided? Even if it doesn’t seem like something we could use for the composite sketch, sometimes the most obscure details can inform the sketches.”

  “Yes, of course, we gave your company everything we have.”

  “How about vehicles? Do you have any pictures or videos of the cars parked in the nearest parking lot during the twenty-four hours before Sweetie was found?”

  “Well, yes,” he admitted. “But I don’t see what good those will be to you. We don’t have any pictures of the unsub, don’t know which car might have been the one transporting the baby.”

  “But you must be able to narrow it down to a handful that were there during the time she was abandoned. And license plates…”

  “They are not going to help you.”

  “They might. The registered owners of the vehicles must have driver’s licenses, and if one of them matches the phenotype…”

  “We have approached the owners of those vehicles already, nothing suspicious.”

  “Are there other license holders at the same address as the registered owner?”

  “We have done the footwork, Miss Miller. We haven’t just been sitting around here.”

  “I’d like pictures of the cars that were in the parking lot around the time that she was abandoned. They might inspire something.”

  She could practically hear him rolling his eyes. “Fine. I’ll get you pictures of the cars.”

  It was odd that following up on the cars in the parking lot hadn’t led to anything. How far would someone walk or hike in to abandon a baby? If it had been the mother, she was probably weak and tired. If it were a kidnapper, he wouldn’t want to be seen carrying the baby around; he’d want to have it in his possession for as little time as possible.

  “Is there anything else I should know about?” Micah asked. “Any physical evidence? Anything suggested by the surroundings? By the time of day or any other circumstances?”

  “We believe she was abandoned the evening before she was found. She was probably there all night. I don’t know what that tells you.”

  Probably that she was not supposed to survive. In the evening, and no car nearby, that probably meant that whoever had left her there had thought it out ahead of time and didn’t want to be caught.

  “Anything else?”

  “No, can’t think of anything, ma’am. So when do you think you’re going to have those pictures?”

  “I’ll have something to you tonight or early tomorrow.”

  “Well, I guess that will have to do. I was hoping it would be earlier than that, since the computer work is all done. I thought that was most of the work.”

  “The picture that the computer produces and the observable characteristics list is just the beginning. I need to play with the data, make some changes to the hair, jewelry, clothing, makeup, age, weight, and anything else that might help you to identify her more easily. There are a lot of variables to be considered. Even after I give you the first set of pictures, I may develop more farther down the line as I think about her circumstances and what her DNA and epigenetic information tells me.”

  “Alright, then,” the deputy sounded slightly mollified. “You get it to me when you can. We need to make some progress on this case, and the mother’s picture would be a big step.”

  “What we’ve done so far is groundbreaking, Deputy Bellows. It’s like landing on the moon. Brand new unexplored territory. Who knows what kind of doors this could open in the future.”

  He didn’t seem to know what to say to that. Not that Micah could blame him. It was almost inconceivable that they’d been able to do what they had done.

  “I’ll be in touch,” she promised, and hung up.

  Chapter Eleven

  Micah took a look at the pictures in her inbox of Sweetie’s clothing, frowning and zooming in on the cloth and the labels. She rubbed her eyes, too dry from staring at the screen. Her energy was dipping and she needed to recaffeinate. Walking through the lab to the kitchenette, she stopped by Hawkins’s workstation.

  “Mr. Hawkins, I have a little research project for you.”

  “Sure!” Mr. Hawkins beamed and turned toward her, arching his back and rubbing the lumbar region. He needed a better chair. Or better posture.

  “The clothing that Sweetie was wearing. Do you have access to the clothes? Or even just the pictures?”

  “The pictures are in the workspace. Do I need physical access?”

  “Maybe not.” Micah leaned on the corner of his desk. “I was just looking at the pictures, and… the clothes don’t look new. They look outdated, and it looks like there is wear in the fabric. Some rubbing and pilling.”

  “Okay, sure.”

  “Baby clothes don’t wear out very fast. With newborns, they get worn a handful of times, and as long as they are kept clean, they are still good enough to pass on to someone else.”

  He nodded his agreement. Micah glanced at Mr. Hawkins’s desk for any pictures. Did he have children? Grandchildren?

  “I’d like you to take a look at the brands and styles. See if you can tell when they were manufactured or if anyone is still selling them. I think they’re either hand-me-downs or purchased at a thrift store.”

  “Sure. I’ll take a look. And if they’re second-hand, does that tell you anything?”

  “It tells me that Mama is probably wearing second-hand clothes too. Something that might be slightly out of style. Nothing fancy, just very basic. The baby’s clothes weren’t frilly or dressy. And Mama probably doesn’t have much by way of jewelry. If she has glasses, they’ll be an older style frame.”

  Hawkins was nodding along rapidly, understanding where she was going with her analysis. The shape of a person’s glasses or collars could make a big difference to the look of her face and how people perceived her. To whether they even saw her. “I’ll get on it ASAP,” he promised.

  Micah continued on her way to get a refill on her coffee, and returned to her desk. She closed her door. No distractions. She wasn’t going to look at any more emails or answer any phone calls. If peo
ple wanted her to get the pictures done, they needed to give her the time and space to do it.

  She opened the file detailing the epigenetic features they had been able to catalog and started to work her way down the list, referring back to the observable features that the computer had worked out, and even back to individual genes with EvPro’s proprietary genome browser for the finest details.

  She fed information back into the composite generator, adjusting age, freckles, earlobes, and the lines and expression on Mama Doe’s face.

  She was deep into the files when a knock at the door pulled her out of her groove. Micah slapped her hand down on her desk, frustrated.

  “Who is it?”

  Kwong opened the door and walked in. He looked at the pictures scattered over Micah’s desktop and turned them around to look at them, studying the girl’s face. Micah intentionally didn’t have a guest chair in her office, so he sat on the edge of her desk.

  “This is her?” he asked unnecessarily, picking a couple up.

  “So far. Still making adjustments.”

  “You’ve age-adjusted her to be younger than the default profile.”

  “Mothers who abandon their newborns are typically quite young, often teenagers who didn’t want anyone to know that they were pregnant and weren’t prepared to be parents. And her epigenetic data suggests that she was under twenty.”

  “Telomeres?” Kwong inquired.

  Micah shook her head in irritation. As the head of the team, Kwong really should have a better handle on the science behind what they did.

  “Telomeres have been used to identify how much someone has aged, but they are not a reliable indicator of someone’s actual biological age.” Micah squared a few of the pictures on the desk. “Not everyone starts with the same length of telomeres, and you need to know how long they were to start with and how rapidly they are shortening to calculate someone’s age. But we can use other methylation data that is far more accurate, making it so that we are able to predict biological age within three years.”