Virtually Harmless

by P. D. Workman

  “I don’t have anything to do with the case,” Micah said. “I only know what I’ve seen in the news myself. No undisclosed details.”

  “The police have a lot more tools at their disposal now than they did thirty or forty years ago. Back then, we had the phone and shoe leather. Asking people questions. Asking if they know of anyone who had a baby but didn’t anymore. Even the baby’s race was only a guess. What you could see with your own eyes. Now, there are so many more inquiry channels—internet social media and bulletin boards and news stations. DNA analysis. Surveillance cameras everywhere, watching all the time. It’s getting harder and harder for criminals to go undetected.”

  Micah thought about surveillance cameras. Maybe that was why the baby had been abandoned in such a secluded area. Not so she wouldn’t be found until it was too late, but so there were no cameras to get Baby Doe’s mother—or kidnapper—on film.

  “It was such an isolated area,” she said. “No cameras out there.”

  “Are you sure of that? You know, there could be hikers or bikers with helmet-mounted cameras. Automatic wildlife cameras on game trails. And they would have had to park somewhere. You can’t just walk into the mountains carrying a baby. They have to have parked somewhere close, within a mile or two, and the parking lot could have surveillance.”

  “Yes, probably.” Micah forced a couple more bites of casserole down. “I wouldn’t know. It’s not my case.”

  ❋

  After supper, the conversation moved to happier topics, with Micah telling her parents about the stray kitten, showing a delighted Marianna pictures and video clips of the furry baby sleeping and playing.

  “Oh, she’s just darling! Why didn’t you tell me? I would have gone over to see her. I can’t believe that you finally got a cat. You were one of the few children who never asked for a pet of any kind.”

  “That’s not true,” Micah objected immediately. “I asked for a Venus flytrap.”

  “That’s a plant, not a pet.”

  “It moves, it eats, it grows.”

  “A plant can’t be a pet. A pet is an animal. Like a cat.”

  “Just higher up the food chain.”

  “You’ve always had such strange ideas.” Marianna shook her head, bemused. “You were always surprising me.”

  Micah supposed that not all six-year-old girls had an interest in law enforcement or science. She’d always been happier playing cops and robbers with the boys—she was always one of the cops—than she had been in playing whatever it was the girls played.

  And when she was older, she’d been fascinated with the dissection labs in Biology, feeling absolutely no need to pretend that it made her sick or faint. It was like the best field trip ever, that journey of discovery into what made creatures tick. Being able to see and touch and hold the life-giving organs in her hand, rather than just to look at them in a book. The various parts that were so neatly labeled in the textbook were not always so easily recognizable or perfectly-shaped in real life. Or rather, in death.

  “I’m sorry I was never one of those girly girls,” she told Marianna. “You probably would have liked it better if I was interested in clothes and boys and having a pet cat.”

  “No,” Marianna put her hand on Micah’s arm and spoke to her intensely. “No, I would not have preferred to have raised anyone else, or for you to have been any different than what you were. You’re unique and you’re special. You don’t have to be anyone else.”

  “I don’t imagine all of the parenting books were much help.”

  “Well, to be honest, you never needed that much parenting!” Marianna stared off into space. Cole was sitting in front of the TV, watching reruns of Hunter and McCall from an internet subscription package. “You were always very mature and always tried to do things the right way. I hardly ever had to tell you anything more than once. You wanted to know what the rules were and you wanted to follow them.”

  Micah wondered why she didn’t still feel the same way. As she got older, she found herself bristling at society’s expectations and the rules at work or in other places. When she was young, she had needed the guidelines. It had been a relief to know what was expected of her and to be given specific instructions as to what she should or shouldn’t do. But now that she was older, an independent adult living her own life, she had less and less patience for being told what to do. Instead, she wanted to do things her own way. Delayed adolescence? Midlife crisis? Early change of life?

  “So I was an easy child?”

  “Oh… I don’t know if I’d put it that way.” Her mother laughed. “Easy is not a word I would have picked to describe you. You didn’t need much parenting… but you had a mind of your own. And such a voracious learner. You were so full of questions about everything, never satisfied with the answers I gave you.”

  That did sound like Micah. Anything that tweaked her interest could lead to a full-blown research project and an avalanche of information to be absorbed.

  She loved it.

  She could never get enough answers.

  Chapter Six

  Micah was normally a good sleeper. She kept a strict bedtime and rising schedule and was usually asleep within minutes of her head hitting the pillow. But after getting back from her parents’ house, her brain was whirling with questions, concerns, and anxieties, and she couldn’t sweep them aside to go to sleep.

  Her mind kept going back to Baby Doe. That lonely little baby, being taken away from everything she knew and abandoned there, in the dark and cold. It was inhuman. Who would do something like that to a baby? Harm something so harmless? And if it was a kidnapper, then why hadn’t he just killed her? If he didn’t intend to return her to her family, why didn’t he smother her and bury her in a shallow grave somewhere in the mountains? Why leave her alive and chance someone finding her? Maybe he had been interrupted. Maybe that had been part of the plan, but he hadn’t been able to follow through.

  Or if it was Doe’s mother, her biological parent, then why hadn’t she abandoned the baby somewhere she would be sure to be found? A church or fire station or some other sanctuary. Like most other places in the USA, Montana had a safe haven law. A newborn could be handed over to any emergency services personnel with no recourse being taken against the parent. She wouldn’t have to give her name or any other identifying information if she didn’t want to. She could safely abandon the baby if she didn’t feel she could take care of her.

  Was the biological mother mentally ill, then? Maybe she didn’t know what she was doing or didn’t have the mental capacity to understand how to take care of an infant. Maybe she came from a culture where child abandonment, especially of a baby girl, was more acceptable. Maybe she had postpartum syndrome so severe that she couldn’t function, even to call in an anonymous tip to tell the police or first responders where to find the baby.

  Micah tossed and turned. Every time she moved around, the kitten started crying, snuggling against her and kneading Micah’s stomach or whatever body part was closest to her, clearly still missing her mommy cat. What had happened to the kitten’s mother? Had she been caught by a fox or coyote or another predator? Hit by a car? Taken in by some kind soul who had no way of knowing that she had a helpless kitten out there somewhere that still needed her?

  Micah made soothing sounds and stroked the kitten, trying to settle it back to sleep again. But then after another twenty minutes of trying to quiet her busy brain, she would have to move again, disturbing the kitten once more. She was going to be exhausted by the time morning rolled around. She would call in sick, but was staying up all night worrying about an abandoned baby and trying to soothe a motherless kitten a good excuse for skipping a day of work?

  ❋

  She didn’t skip work, but she wasn’t feeling like herself. She piddled around with a few composites, losing herself in the work, but all the time she was trying to envision the faces behind the DNA sequences, she was thinking of Baby Doe and how she had come to be abandoned in the Sweetgrass Hill
s that day. Was it a kidnapping? Abandonment? A ritual of some sort? Did the person who had left her there think there was something wrong with her? Did he or she want Baby Doe to die or to survive?

  Kwong knocked quietly on Micah’s door, trying to get her attention without startling her from her focused state. Micah finished a couple more lines, then sighed and put her pencil down. She saw it was Kwong and nodded.

  “What can I help you with?”

  “I just wanted to know how you were coming along with the Bertie Wilson case.”

  Micah turned around the composite she had been working on. Kwong studied the man’s face thoughtfully.

  “This really is amazing technology. And the life that you bring into a picture makes all the difference in the world. The difference between a flat computer graphic and something that you have worked up can mean the difference between solving a case and not solving it.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Micah acknowledged. Kwong was not one who was usually effusive in his praise, and she didn’t know whether to take his words as evidence that she really was doing something remarkable or whether he was buttering her up before asking for something.

  “Are you okay?” He studied her, frowning slightly.

  “Just tired. I haven’t been sleeping very well.” She decided that telling him that she was being kept awake by a stray kitten would not do her any good. “To be honest… I’ve been thinking a lot about the Baby Doe case. I know it isn’t one of ours, but I want to do something to help.”

  He pursed his lips. “I’ve been watching the case. So far, they haven’t indicated that they have anything for us. I don’t think there’s anything requiring your particular skills. Maybe they’ll have some trace that they need to be processed quickly, but that won’t be anything for you.”

  Micah could process trace. She had the training for it. But he was right, it wasn’t her area of expertise and she couldn’t contribute anything more to it than the others in the lab.

  “We need to identify her parents,” Micah said slowly.

  “Yes. Clearly. And the police are publishing her picture, asking for anyone who has knowledge of who she might be to come forward. Asking for the mother to come forward with the promise that she won’t be charged.” His mouth twisted. “They’re only concerned about her well-being.”

  Micah rolled her eyes. She suspected, as Kwong did, that the line was nonsense. They said they were concerned about the mother’s health and safety, but they wouldn’t hesitate to charge her with abandonment or neglect once she came forward.

  “The baby is a genetic amalgam of both of her parents. We can test her DNA to find out specific things about her heritage. Traits that she got from either parent.”

  “But most of those traits, you can’t sort between the mother DNA and the father’s. And even if you could, you are only going to get a half-set of DNA for each of them. That won’t give you enough for an accurate composite, even with your skills.”

  Micah thought about it, sitting back in her chair, tilting the seat back until it creaked in protest. Kwong grimaced at the sound.

  “Sorry. But what about trace on the baby or her clothing? Has it been properly processed? What about mother’s skin cells, hair, blood, tears? The Calgary police released a composite of the mother of an abandoned baby based on trace at the scene. Or if Baby Doe was kidnapped, what about the kidnapper’s DNA? I could do a composite on whoever has left trace evidence on her. And if one of them is the parent, then I can use that profile to sort the baby’s genetic traits and build a partial profile of the other parent.”

  “We haven’t been given the evidence to process, so I can’t tell you whether there are any biological samples on the clothing. If it wasn’t handled properly from the time she was found… there could be all kinds of contamination from the hikers who found her, the first responders, CFS, doctors and nurses at the hospital, her foster parents… There could be a dozen different donors.”

  Micah closed her eyes, focusing. “I’ll think about it. Do some research into whether there is any way for us to separate the mother’s DNA and the father’s…”

  “I think you’re reaching. We’d have mitochondrial DNA, but we both know that except in a few very specific circumstances, it is impossible to tell what DNA came from which parent. Especially in a baby girl. With a boy, at least we’d have a Y chromosome from the father.”

  Micah ground her teeth. “There are XY females. Has anyone tested the baby’s DNA to see?”

  Kwong rubbed his forehead between his eyebrows, which Micah recognized as a gesture of frustration, a warning that she was taxing his patience. “AIS is pretty rare. I don’t think we can expect a break like that.”

  Micah rolled her eyes. “No way to know if no one tests Baby Doe’s DNA.”

  “No,” Kwong agreed. “And we don’t even have a contract. I’ll reach out to the PD, but no guarantees. They aren’t going to throw money our way just because you’re feeling bad about the baby. There has to be a compelling case.”

  Chapter Seven

  It was a few days before Micah heard anything else from Kwong on the Baby Doe case. She had to focus her attention on the other routine cases coming through the office. Though, of course, none of them were routine to the victims or their families. Micah didn’t lose sight of the fact that each file represented a tragedy that someone had to deal with personally.

  While she was working on those other files, she continued to research the possibility that she could do something constructive on the Baby Doe case. She loaded scientific papers that might be helpful onto her phone and had a TTS app read them to her as she studied the computer predictions and composites, DNA and methylation results, and other clues provided by the scene or trace evidence collection, working on her own drawings and variations to develop a variety of lifelike composites for each file.

  She set up a newsfeed alert to notify her of any breaking stories on the Baby “Sweetgrass” Doe case, but each story was just a rehash of what the public already knew and appeals for anyone who had any tips or knowledge of Baby Doe’s identity or parentage to come forward. Forty-eight hours came and went without any news, seventy-two hours, and before long it was a week since the discovery of the infant and as far as Micah could tell, there was a complete lack of any evidence of the baby’s identity or an explanation as to why she had been left there.

  Micah walked through the lab, glancing around to take the temperature of the room. Veronica Clang, the blond, middle-aged lab tech and Mr. Hawkins, a senior who, despite his age, was very into computer technologies and had boundless energy for scientific research, both looked up from their work.

  “What’s up?” Veronica asked, leaning back in her chair and rolling stiff shoulders.

  “Wanted to talk to Aaron,” Micah said, nodding toward Kwong’s office. “How is he?”

  She found it difficult to read Kwong’s face and body language, but the lab assistants were close enough to his office to overhear any phone conversations, especially if Kwong raised his voice.

  Veronica shrugged. “Seems to be having a pretty good day. I haven’t noticed any issues.” She looked at Mr. Hawkins, who nodded his agreement.

  “All quiet on this front.”

  “Good.” Micah raised her brows. “Hopefully, that won’t change.”

  Veronica laughed. “Good luck.”

  Micah continued on her way to Kwong’s office and knocked on the open door. Kwong, facing away from the door looking at his computer, swiveled to greet her.

  “Ah, Micah. What can I do for you?”

  “I had some thoughts on the Baby Doe case. If you have a few minutes…?”

  He looked back at his computer, considering, then nodded toward the guest chair on Micah’s side of his desk. Micah entered the room and sat down. The chair was uncomfortable. Deliberately so, she assumed, to discourage people from landing there and overstaying their welcome. Kwong folded his hands on his desk.

  “How have you been doing?”
/>
  “Oh, I’m okay.”

  “You haven’t been worrying too much over this case, I hope.”

  “No.” Micah hesitated, considering how much to say about it. “It does bother me. I want to help out. But it hasn’t been affecting my performance.”

  “Right. Good. I think we’re all feeling a little bit helpless about it. Baby shows up, abandoned, and no one knows where she came from or what happened to her parents. Why was she left there? Who could just abandon an infant in a wilderness area like that?”

  “And was she supposed to be found dead or alive?” Micah contributed.

  Kwong nodded slowly, chewing on his lip. “So, I understand your desire to help. I’m just not sure we have anything to offer the police.”

  “I might,” Micah said cautiously.

  “What are you thinking?”

  “Do you know anything about microchimerism?”

  “Microchimerism. Not really. I’m aware of chimeras in general, of course—a person carrying multiple sets of DNA. Possibly due to a twin being absorbed in the womb or anomalies in fertilization or cell division. Or from organ or bone marrow donation.”

  Micah nodded. She was in her zone now, talking about science and her latest research.

  “Microchimerism is something they have just recently begun to research and test for. Researchers found that mothers who had borne sons had some Y-chromosome genetic material in their bodies. Especially in the brain. It would seem that some of the fetal genetic tissue crosses the placental barrier and enters the mother’s bloodstream.”

  “Okay. So if we found the mother, we could test to see if she had any of Baby Doe’s genetic material in her blood. But we could already do a maternity test to verify that she is the mother. I don’t see how that gets us any farther in this case.”

  “It turns out that the opposite is also true. Some of the mother’s DNA also crosses the placental barrier and is present in the child’s blood.”