Looking Glass

by Andrew Mayne

  My first order of business was to remove the contents of the buckets inside the tent I’d created over the desk and place each distinct item into a double-lined plastic bag, cataloging it.

  In the event that I found more bones than the femur that had caught my eye, I wanted to be able to enable the medical examiner to have a clear idea of what came from where when I presented them with the materials—anonymously, of course.

  As I pulled each item from the bucket, I gave it a bath in a washbasin using purified water and then sifted through the grime, looking for fingernails and tiny little ossicles from inside the ear.

  William went home when he realized that this was going to be a very long and tedious process. Although he feigned interest as I explained how you could extrapolate sewer placements from a soil map, I lost him when I started in about locating old streams and lake beds, even in radically changed topography.

  It was past three when I had identified all the distinct bones from the storm drain. There were eleven of them. Almost all fingers.

  It appeared the mother raccoon had managed to steal away with a child’s hand or two, or possibly a number of different fingers.

  There was also the femur and several fragments that appeared to be from a tibia and an ulna, although I couldn’t be entirely positive.

  After taking photographs of everything using a digital camera that in theory wouldn’t be traceable to me, I began the extraction phase.

  Using a small jeweler’s drill and a special polymer seal to avoid contamination with oxygen, I removed three samples from each fragment, leaving plenty of area for the medical examiner to get their own material from an uncontaminated section of each bone.

  Part of me wanted to play a prank on Sanjay by fixing DNA samples from a Neanderthal sequence inside a gelatin and using it to replace the bone marrow of one sample.

  Another part of me realized this is absolutely the worst idea of all ideas and decided I needed to call it a night.

  I placed my control samples in a cooler with ice and packed the rest into a thermal bag and then dialed the number of a courier service used primarily for shuttling around bearer bonds, forensic information used by intelligence agencies, and memory drives full of information deemed too sensitive to send over the Internet or with a common carrier like FedEx or UPS.

  A middle-aged man dressed in a suit and carrying a leather shoulder bag met me in the lobby and we did the handoff.

  In seven hours, the sample would be in a lab in Virginia, and I would have results by the end of the day. Thankfully, I’ve done some favors for the lab owner and won’t actually have to pay for it. I could probably clone a dinosaur for what that kind of lab work would cost. If the LAPD decides to prosecute me, I’ll ask for an invoice and wave that in front of the judge.

  While there’s not much these DNA results can tell me that the LAPD won’t uncover from their own, we do have some special tests that can see if certain genes are active and detect methylation and few other ways DNA is expressed—all in an effort to give us much more accurate data about what the victims looked like: this was one of the most critical reasons for the lab even existing.

  While regular old DNA strands can put you in the ballpark for appearance, there are a half dozen other factors that determine how those genes are expressed. Put simply, most of the code is in the AGTC-style instructions, but some also clings to the surface.

  I allow myself to get some sleep before my fatigued brain thinks up more hilarity that would send me to federal prison and get me forbidden from ever setting foot any place that has a microscope.

  I’m so tired I don’t even notice the smell of death as I drift off.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  WAKE-UP CALL

  Before the discovery of DNA—the molecule that serves as the primary carrier for genetic information, along with the origins of life itself—heritability was the biggest mystery in biology. From Darwin’s finches to Mendel’s peas, we could tell there was some unseen force controlling what was passed down from parents to children. And the closer we looked, rather than finding out the rules were governed by some mystical arbitrary force, the more we found that inheritance was mathematical and often very predictable.

  When Watson and Crick were able to get enough usable information from X-ray crystallography to image the structure of DNA itself, we finally had the missing piece. But that puzzle piece was a mystery of its own. We expected to find simple bits of code that determined how smart or how tall you would be; instead we found genes that sometimes related to those factors and sometimes, infuriatingly, did not.

  DNA wasn’t a simple recipe book that could be readily understood. Great swaths of it were more akin to highly compressed instructions or spaghetti computer code thrown together in an ad hoc manner as evolution deemed necessary.

  In our search for an explanation of life that didn’t require a hands-on architect, we succeeded, but we also found out that when you take away the giver of order, you also lose the order.

  Scanning through the bar graphs and readouts of the first DNA sequence e-mailed to me from the lab, I can see the messy, haphazard collection of instructions that make up a human life. While some would argue that the fact that this almost random pattern is proof of a miracle, I’d point out that by that logic, every living thing that manages to be born is a miracle—and if we’re all miracles, then nobody is, because the word has lost its meaning. Life works or it doesn’t.

  This life met an untimely end, not through some fault of his own DNA—and I know that he was a male—but because there was some fault in either someone else’s DNA or the environment from which he came.

  Victim A was between seven and twelve years old, according to the length of the telomeres attached to the DNA strands. Assuming proper prenatal nutrition—which is not a given, considering the backgrounds of the children the Toy Man selected—he would have been about average height. He has the gene most commonly associated with longevity and male-pattern baldness. I have that gene, too. My hairline hasn’t moved, and it remains to be seen whether my life meets an early end or not.

  Ethnically, he has the mutations for various groups. While he’s predominately African, he also has genes from the Middle East, Ireland, and central Italy. His skin would have been light compared to his ancestors who were pure African. He has the blue version of the HERC2 gene and the green version of the gey gene, giving him green eyes.

  This is an unusual trait from someone from African ancestry, but given his Northern European roots, not that rare … Something is calling out for attention in the back of my mind.

  I pull up the profile of Victim B and scan through his DNA. Very similar ethnic background to A, but he has Lebanese and Scandinavian genes. Most interesting: he also has blue HERC2 and green gey.

  These two victims are not closely related, according to their genetics. The odds of shared eye-color genes are …

  I pull up Christopher Bostrom’s photo on my computer. Green eyes! What about Artice? His were gray, almost silver. That’s an exceptionally rare gene—actually a gene combination involving OCA2, which we still haven’t fully grasped, one more of those maddening details about genetics. Some eye-color genes play by strict rules; others are controlled by other factors we don’t yet comprehend.

  At least three of the Toy Man’s victims had green or silver eyes. What about Victim C?

  He doesn’t have the genes for green eyes, but he does have an odd version of OCA2. Maybe he had some discoloration of his eyes, too?

  It’s too much of a coincidence to ignore. I call Sanjay at the LAPD lab.

  “Sanjay,” he replies.

  “It’s Theo. Quick question: Did you get your DNA sequences back?”

  “I thought we had this conversation,” he replies.

  “I’m not asking you for them. I want you to check something. Or rather tell you to look for something …”

  “All right. But this has to be one-way? Okay?” There’s a pause as he clicks on his ke
yboard. “What am I looking for? I have the first file open.”

  “Check for HERC2 and green gey. You know where they’re located?”

  “I can find them. Okay … green eyes? Didn’t Christopher Bostrom have green eyes?”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Huh. So does the first one I looked at. What are the odds?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out. Pull up another sequence.”

  “Okay. Huh … HERC2 and green gey. That’s weird …”

  I feel the adrenaline rushing. Either he pulled up the same first two samples I did, or up to four of the victims had green eyes.

  “All right. Now pull up another.”

  “Just a second. I only have eight right now. Okay, here we go. Um, nope. Brown HERC2.”

  “Okay. Maybe it’s not a hard-and-fast rule with him, but try the others.”

  “All right, looking at a fourth. No green eyes here. Checking five and six.” A minute later. “Negative. It’s still an interesting cluster. Two green-eyed kids.”

  “And Artice. He has silver eyes.”

  “Our man has a type. That’s for sure. The problem for him is there are only so many of them to go around.”

  Something about what Sanjay said has me racing through my head. “Hold on a second.” I type into my computer and research something, making sure I have the sequence right. “Do the others have less common variations on OCA2?”

  “Let me look … just a minute. Huh … they do. That’s really … really weird. The other six samples all have similar mutations.”

  “That’s because green eyes aren’t his number one preference,” I reply as this puzzle piece comes into focus.

  “Wait, OCA2 … that controls what?”

  “Lots of things. But the mutated version you’re looking at is found in one very distinct trait, probably the most standout visible mutation someone can have: albinism.”

  I hear an intake of breath on the other end of the line. “This is big,” says Sanjay. “I have to call Chen. How did you come by this insight?”

  “Sorry, can’t tell you.”

  I hang up so he can tell his superiors that there may be a big break in the case and a way to identify which missing-children cases might be related to the Toy Man.

  If our killer’s been operating elsewhere, this could help pin it down.

  Already Predox has indicated that there’s probably a predator in Houston, Atlanta, Denver, and Chicago. I tell it to do a keyword search for albinism and a few other disorders that could cause a distinct appearance, like red hair on an African American.

  An hour later, I’m scanning through the results when there’s a loud knock at my door.

  “Do not disturb, please,” I shout over my shoulder. I still haven’t boxed up the samples I collected. I need to get those anonymously to the LAPD forensics lab as soon as possible.

  The knock is louder the second time.

  “Hold on.” I get up, barefoot and wearing just my jeans and T-shirt, and head to the door.

  When I open it, Detective Chen is standing there with two uniformed LAPD officers, and none of them looks very happy.

  She shoves a sheet of paper in my face. “I have a search warrant for these premises and a warrant to put you under arrest if I find proof of evidence tampering.”

  I glance backward at my mini lab and the specimens of dead children still inside their plastic bags, all lined up in nice little rows.

  Fuck.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  INQUISITION

  I’m sitting at a table in an interrogation room. It’s not a conference room, because the table is too small and the ring bolted into the side closest to me is clearly meant for handcuffs to go through.

  Thankfully I’m not currently in a pair. Although, since the last time I found myself restrained I ended up in a vehicle that got knocked off the road by a man who wanted to kill me, I’ve spent a few hours learning the finer arts of handcuff escape from a guy in Austin who makes YouTube videos on the topic. I’ve also been taking after-hours self-defense lessons from a former MMA champion turned med student—in return, I’m helping him pass his boards—which I hope will remain theoretical knowledge only.

  Chen and the detective next to her, Raul Avila, are, by my surroundings, making very clear their intentions—well, at least how seriously they want me to take them—but I’m still not clear on their actual motivations.

  What I do know is that their ability to get a search warrant so quickly means that they have a prosecutor and a friendly judge available on call.

  I also know the last time I found myself in a similar situation I couldn’t keep my mouth shut and came precariously close to getting charged with homicide.

  While the forces of light and goodness are on my side, Chen doesn’t see it that way right now. She wants to know how I got my own DNA samples.

  Even though I took them from a public street and have a ready explanation, I know to keep my mouth shut. Since the moment she shoved that search warrant in front of me, I haven’t said a thing except, “Phone call.”

  “Dr. Cray, when did you collect those samples? Before you called 911 or after?”

  “Phone call.”

  “You may not need a phone call if you can clear this up. Just answer that question.”

  “Phone call,” I repeat, this time into the glass eye of the camera mounted at the other end of the room watching me.

  “You’ve been very cooperative before; unfortunately, you were given strict instructions that you ignored.”

  I simply stare into the space between the detectives.

  “You talk to him,” she says to Avila.

  “Dr. Cray, it’s critical that we establish a clear chain of evidence. This kind of tampering can ruin our entire case,” says Avila.

  “Phone call.” I want to tell them that my samples are outside their chain of evidence and were never even declared as such, but doing that would start me down a perilous path.

  Chen is getting frustrated. “We can let you walk out that door in an hour. Or we can formally press charges and by the time a lawyer is able to get you an arraignment tomorrow—if then—your name is going to be in the papers with the words evidence tampering.”

  I say nothing, but this makes me smirk involuntarily. We both know that’s the last headline she wants with this case. That would only help a defense attorney trying to throw out all the forensic evidence.

  I think she catches my reason for my reaction and changes her pitch. “We can charge you with a number of things. Theft of body tissue. Health violations. Trespassing. There are several felonies. We’re talking real time. Not fines.” She turns to Avila. “Right?”

  “Easily. But we can also help you out if you give us some explanations. What do you say?”

  “Phone call.”

  Chen goes red. “You know, the more time we spend in here, the less time we’re out there tracking this suspect down.”

  I break and mutter, “No shit.”

  Avila gives me an exasperated look. “Fuck this guy.”

  “Fine, Dr. Cray, have it your way. We’re going to have you booked. You’ll get to spend the night in jail with some real nice pieces of work. And tomorrow, maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll get an arraignment, and if you can find an attorney you trust more than our public defender, you might be out in a day or so. Meanwhile, we’ll let the press make up whatever story they want about what we found in your hotel room that caused all this.”

  “Can we use a broad term on the booking, like possession of contraband?” Avila asks Chen, trying to intimidate me.

  I sit there as stoically as possible. What they don’t understand is that the only reputation I ever cared about died a while back.

  Chen knocks on the door, and a deputy comes in and places me in handcuffs.

  As I’m being walked toward the processing area, Chen calls out to me, “Don’t even bother trying to reach me. I’m done with you.”

  I spend the ne
xt hour going through the humiliating procedures of being processed. Most of it involves sitting in plastic chairs next to a rogues’ gallery of misfits, waiting for my name to be called and to be walked through various rooms, and getting fingerprinted, photographed, and subjected to a very thorough but not quite medical search for contraband.

  Finally I’m led into a small cubicle with a telephone and allowed to make my phone call.

  While I have an attorney in Montana who has helped me navigate some of the lingering aftermath of Joe Vik, he wouldn’t be much help in Los Angeles.

  So instead of calling a lawyer, I do one better: I call my friend Julian Stein. Julian is a venture capitalist, an ardent supporter of the sciences, and an iconoclast not afraid of holding unpopular opinions.

  “Hey, Theo! What’s up? Did that lab work help you out?”

  “You could say that …”

  “Uh-oh. What happened? Is this one after you, too?”

  “No. Worse. The cops. Have a good lawyer?”

  “Are you in jail now?”

  “Yep. Just got booked.”

  He switches me onto speakerphone, and I can hear the sound of him tapping on the phone. “Los Angeles Police Department?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “What is it? Almost nine o’clock?”

  “If I could have someone tomorrow for the arraignment, that would be great.”

  “Fuck that. You’re going to sleep in your own bed tonight.”

  “That’s in Austin …”

  “Well, I could send a jet.”

  “I just need a lawyer.”

  “One second.” More tapping. “She’s on her way.”

  “Already?”

  “Yes, sir. Mary Karlin. Heard of her?”

  “Yeah. She’s the trial lawyer you see on CNN and FOX. Kind of an attentionmonger?”

  “Yep. That’s why you want her. It’s not for what she can do in the courtroom—it’s more for what they’ll do when they see her coming.”