Virtually Harmless

by P. D. Workman

  Micah alternately napped and worked on the report throughout the day. As evening drew near and she knew Amy would be looking for it in her inbox, Micah pulled up the previous year’s annual report, wanting to make sure she had not neglected any facets she should have covered and to eyeball how much space she had used the previous year. She didn’t have to do exactly the same thing every year, but she wanted to keep it consistent. Someone reading through several years’ annual reports should be able to follow their progress naturally and to see how their solve rate had grown with the advancing technology.

  The report did not have a clickable table of contents, so she scrolled through it a page at a time to find her report. It was near the front, which was good; that showed her team was valued, and what they were doing with Forensic DNA analysis was one of the draws for outside investors and clients.

  Micah clicked from the previous year’s annual report to her current draft several times, looking for the parallels and tweaking the layout so that they progressed the same way.

  A stray key press backed the report up a page, and Micah reached for the laptop’s touchpad to click it down again, but then stopped.

  There was a report from the president, a picture of him smiling reservedly at the camera beside his report. And at the bottom of the page were profile pictures of each member of the board, evenly spaced, with their names below.

  Micah had probably seen their faces a dozen times before, but she had never really paid any attention to them. They were not people she dealt with personally. No one who would ever come to the lab or her office for a conversation. She didn’t even know how many of them lived locally and how many were across the country or around the world.

  But this time, one of them seemed to jump right off the page at her.

  Brown hair and eyes. About fifty-five years old. Cleft chin. The other facial features in the phenotype she had just been working on.

  It was Mr. X.

  Chapter Forty

  Micah’s first reaction was to slam the laptop lid shut, as if he might jump right off the page into her bedroom. She sat there on her bed, heart racing.

  It was silly. While it was possible to establish a possible identification from a composite drawing, it was impossible to get a confirmed ID. That’s just what she kept telling Bellows and everyone else about Trisha. Even though she looked like Micah’s drawing, that didn’t mean that she was actually Sweetie Doe’s mother. Not until it was confirmed through direct DNA comparison or some other method. It didn’t work that way.

  She couldn’t be sure that the man in the picture was her Papa Doe or Mr. X. It could just be coincidental. It could be Micah seeing things. Part of her concussion. Or it could be PTSD. Micah’s mind could easily be playing tricks on her. She’d let herself get too tired and now she was going to see Mr. X everywhere.

  For a long time, she just sat there, with her eyes closed, thinking through these issues. Eventually, once she had herself mostly convinced that it was just her mind playing tricks, she opened her computer again, typed in the password, and looked at the thumbnail again. It was so small; it was impossible to tell if it really matched her Mr. X or not. She enlarged it on the screen and studied the face point by point. All of the right features were there. She had not been wrong about that. But that didn’t make him her attacker. There might be a hundred people with those same features. In Montana? Maybe they were related. He could be a brother or a cousin. The traits could be common in one particular community if it were very insular. There was no guarantee that the man was her Mr. X.

  Micah looked at the name beneath the picture. Kirk Haynes. It was a vaguely familiar name. She’d heard of most of the board members before. As well as being on the board of EvPro, a lot of them were active in the community, with charitable connections and a lot of aid given to social causes. EvPro was not a charity, but was connected with law enforcement and ensuring predators were put behind bars. There was a lot of crossover with the victim support groups.

  And if Kirk Haynes were involved with a young prostitute? Either as a john or as part of the organization trafficking her, what would that do to his reputation? He would no longer be trusted by those in the community. He would be kicked off any of those boards and foundations. EvPro’s business would take a big hit if it became known that they had a predator on the board.

  All of those requests to drop the Sweetie Doe case and just let the police handle it… They had come from up the corporate ladder. They weren’t concerned with Micah wasting resources on a losing proposition. Someone wanted to stop her from finding anything out. Did Kwong or Amy Bradshaw know that Haynes was involved? Or were they just passing along the pressure they were receiving from above? How deep did the corruption run?

  When she thought about Haynes possibly having access to proprietary EvPro data, Micah felt sick. Had he had his finger in other files? Had he previously derailed police investigations with false information? If he had other people acting for him in EvPro, he could have them change key details in a phenotype or in another type of evidence. He could have caused all kinds of damage.

  ❋

  Micah thought about who she could call, trying to gather her energy. She couldn’t call anyone at EvPro, having no idea how far the corruption had spread. She would end up being like one of those heroines on TV who called the killer when she thought she had solved the mystery. That was out.

  She knew that Bellows would not be able to take her word for it that Haynes was Mr. X—nor should he—but he had to know that Haynes was a viable suspect and they could investigate him, looking deeper into his background to see if there were anything suspicious on his record. They could follow him around and get a sample of his DNA from a cigarette or cup and test it against Micah’s attacker. They could prove he was the father of Sweetgrass Doe. They might not be able to get him for the murder of Trisha Madro, but it was a good start.

  Micah kept her computer open and dialed Bellows.

  ❋

  “Sheriff’s Department. How may I direct your call?”

  Micah’s heart sank. “I need Deputy Bellows, please.”

  “Deputy Bellows isn’t on duty at the moment. Can I take a message or help you with something?”

  “I really need to reach him. It’s…” Micah wanted desperately to say that it was an emergency, but was it? And if she said it was an emergency, the dispatcher was going to send police over to her house, and then she would have to explain the whole story again, and they would say that it was not an emergency and she was abusing the system. Why did things have to be so complicated?

  “The message will reach him when he gets back on duty.”

  “But… isn’t there any way to reach him at home or on his cell? He’s going to want to hear about this right away.”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am. No. We have policies. Callers are not given officers’ numbers or transferred to them when they are not on duty. I’m sure you can understand how important that is for them. They need to be able to do their jobs when they are on shift and spend time with their families or getting the rest they need when they are not. Making them respond to calls at all hours is not the way to maintain a healthy police force.”

  “But, don’t you think you could help me… you could pass a message on to him, and then he could decide whether it was important enough to call me back.”

  “No, I’m sorry. Do you have a message you would like me to pass on to him when he gets back on duty?”

  “When is he on again?”

  “I’m sorry, I can’t divulge officers’ duty schedules. It’s against our policies—”

  “Of course it is,” Micah muttered. What if Bellows was on vacation for a couple of weeks? If he was gone, she would have to talk to whoever was covering for him on the file. But if he was around, and would be back in a few hours, she would just wait.

  Either way, she wasn’t going to give the dispatcher all of the details over the phone. She would have to wait and talk to Bellows or his alterna
te in person. At least over the phone.

  “Is he in tomorrow?”

  “I can’t divulge that, ma’am,” the dispatcher said patiently.

  “I need to know when he is in again so I can reach him.”

  “If you leave a message, I will have him call you back when he’s on duty next.”

  Micah rolled her eyes and shook her head in exasperation. Obviously, the dispatcher could not see her. She would never have been so rude if the woman were in the room with her.

  “Fine. Will you please have him call Micah. It’s urgent. He has my number.”

  “I would be happy to pass that on, ma’am. M-I-C-A-H?”

  “Yes. Thanks.”

  “Will he know what it’s about?”

  “Yes. The Sweetgrass Hills abandonment file. He knows. That’s the only thing I’m working with him on.”

  “Thank you, ma’am. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

  “No.” Micah gave her grudging thanks and then hung up the call.

  She assessed her options.

  It wasn’t like Haynes was going to come after her during the night. He might have before, but that was before Micah had upgraded her security. She wouldn’t be going out or opening the door to anyone, and he wouldn’t be coming in. He couldn’t get past all of Cole’s new roadblocks. Micah didn’t even know what they all were. Cole had explained, but she had been too tired and could only remember the essentials. How to arm and disarm the system. The password to let the security company know that everything was okay if they got an alarm.

  So she might as well go to sleep. She couldn’t do anything else until the morning.

  Micah put her computer to the side and turned off the lamp, but sleep did not come easily. She kept looking at her phone, hoping that Bellows would call or text her. But there was no sign of a response from him.

  Eventually, she decided to get back up. It was too early to be going to sleep. She would just be restless until it was a decent bedtime hour—no point in getting all frustrated that she couldn’t get to sleep.

  Maybe she was overtired. She really wanted to go to sleep but, while her brain was exhausted, her body was telling her ‘no way.’ She turned on the lamp, took a couple of painkillers that Marianna had left, and turned her attention to her phone.

  Chapter Forty-One

  She saw that while she had been talking to the police dispatcher, Sara had called her. She hadn’t left a voicemail. Micah remembered how despondent she had been when she had called Micah the last time. How Gregory had hovered nearby, worried about her state of mind and what she might do, but trying to give Sara the space and time she needed.

  Micah tapped the number to return the call.

  It rang a few times before she heard Sara’s ‘hello?’

  “Sara, it’s Micah. How are you doing?”

  “I’m okay,” Sara lied. Her voice was faint, as if she were fading away into nothing. She needed Micah. Needed what only she could do.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you. I had… an accident. I’ve been recovering, and haven’t had much energy to do anything.”

  “Oh. I see.”

  “But I have worked on your picture, Sara. I didn’t forget about it.”

  “How is it coming along?”

  “I just need to put some final touches on it. When should I bring it by?”

  There was no answer. Micah waited. She pulled her phone away from her ear and looked at the screen. Nothing. It was back to her icons. The call had terminated. Micah tapped back on the recent numbers, but the list was empty.

  “What the…?”

  Micah frowned. She went to her contact list. It too was blank. How could her numbers have just disappeared? Her phone was malfunctioning, or maybe there was something wrong with the service she was on. Micah pressed the home button and looked at the screen. Most of her icons were gone; it was just the base icons for the operating system. She tapped on the app store and looked at it. Her email address was gone, the app indicating that she hadn’t entered her account information yet.

  Micah knew Sara’s number if she thought about it hard enough. She went to the phone keypad and tapped it in. Nothing happened. Micah watched the screen. The ‘connecting’ message disappeared, and instead, the status changed to ‘no service.’

  No service? Micah glanced at the top row of tiny icons. The one indicating provider signal was gone. How could she not have any service?

  Micah shook her head and pressed the power button, holding it in until the phone started it’s shut-down procedure, and eventually the screen went blank. Micah pressed it again, and in a few more seconds saw the device splash screen pop up, and then it ran through its usual start-up sequence. Micah often had to go get a coffee to wait after it rebooted from a software update. It was so slow.

  Micah put the phone down, rubbed her eyes, and let out a deep breath.

  She was getting closer. She would give Bellows the information about Kirk Haynes when he got back on duty. He would follow up and make an arrest in due time. She would be able to recover from her beating and go back to work, continuing as if nothing had happened. Except maybe she would make sure that her phone number and address were not publicly listed anywhere. And she would talk to EvPro about not putting her name on the website. And she would make an effort to spend more time with her parents, knowing how important it had been for her to have them close after she was hurt. They really would do anything for her.

  She opened her eyes and looked at the phone screen, hoping that after her brief meditation period, it would have finished booting up. But it was still showing no service bars.

  Micah searched her nightstand for paperclips but had to go down the hall to her office to find any, setting her computer on the desk to recharge at the same time. She popped out the SIM drawer and made sure the card was seated correctly. Then she closed it again.

  She stared at the phone, all back to its factory defaults, with no service. What the heck was going on?

  Then the lights went out.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Micah froze.

  She waited for a few seconds, expecting it to come right back on again. Power blinks were not unusual. Weather conditions, old lines, wind and snow—there was always some challenge to keeping the town’s power running consistently. Even a squirrel or a bird happening to arc a line.

  But it didn’t come back up again. Micah looked down at her phone, the screen glowing. She swiped it to enable the flashlight mode and shone it around the room, making sure everything was still where it was supposed to be and she didn’t get disoriented as to where she was in the room.

  It was probably not a good idea to leave the flashlight on for long; it would run down the battery, and if the power didn’t come up for a few hours, she would have no way to charge it.

  Although what good was it to her in factory-new mode with no service?

  She could play solitaire to keep herself busy for a while, that was about it.

  Micah tiptoed toward the door of her office. The kitten mewed from the other side of the house, disconcerted by the lights going off and the rest of the humming appliances in the house going quiet.

  “It’s okay, Meow. Just the power.”

  Not that the kitten could understand her. The words were more for Micah herself than for the kitten.

  She looked down the hallway toward the living room. Nothing was out of place. No intruders. Had she thought there would be intruders? The whole Sweetgrass Doe case had her on edge. But she had a good security system. She would be able to talk to Deputy Bellows about Kirk Haynes in the morning. The best thing for her to do while the power was off was simply to pile the blankets on and go to sleep. Everything would be back to normal again in the morning.

  Micah turned back to her bedroom. A sliver of light made its way past her blinds to the bed. Micah turned toward the window, wondering if it was a full moon. It was very bright. She slid a couple of fingers through the slats of the blinds to
peer out, first at the sky, which was overcast, with no sign of the moon and the stars, and then across the street, taking in the streetlights and the other houses across the street.

  The lights were all on.

  Only Micah’s house that was blacked out.

  Anxiety rising in her chest, Micah stepped back to the light switch and flicked it on and off a couple of times.

  Unsurprisingly, that did not solve the problem.

  “Must be a tripped breaker,” Micah said aloud.

  Whatever squirrel had caused the power to blink, it had also tripped one of the breakers, and that was why the lights were not coming back on again as they had for everyone else. All she needed to do was to go to the breaker box and make sure all of the switches were flipped.

  Still using her phone as a flashlight, Micah made her way through the kitchen to the basement, where the breaker box was hidden in a dark, spidery corner. She had always thought she would develop the basement sooner or later. It would give her a nice place to entertain a visitor with a movie or a game. Maybe a freezer, so she had more space to put up the summer produce she got at the farmer’s market when the prices were so good. But she had never gotten around to doing anything with the unfinished basement.

  She opened the door to the breaker box and ran her eyes down the row of switches. They were all facing the same direction. She ran her fingers down, searching for one that was not snugly in place. Maybe it had popped out, but hadn’t flipped all the way back to the off position. They all seemed to be perfectly aligned.

  Micah flipped them left and then right one at a time. The lights did not come back on. The house did not hum back into life.

  “What’s wrong?” she muttered to herself.

  It had to be something to do with the security system. The men who had installed it had crossed a wire somewhere and it had shorted out the whole electrical system. She should have vetted them instead of just allowing Cole to get whoever he felt like. He’s probably hired a couple of old buddies who didn’t know much more about electrical wiring than Micah did.