Virtually Harmless

by P. D. Workman

  Kwong just looked at her, one eyebrow raised. Micah said nothing, waiting for him to process what she had said. Kwong blinked and straightened up. He leaned toward her.

  “Baby Doe could have her mother’s full DNA profile in her blood?”

  Micah nodded. “Exactly.”

  “And with her full DNA profile, we could do a composite of the mother.”

  “Yes.”

  His eyes moved back and forth as he examined this hypothesis from different angles, identifying potential weak points.

  “How hard is it for us to separate the mother’s DNA from the child’s? Can it even be done? How much blood would we need? This is an infant we are talking about; we can’t request more than a couple of vials.”

  “We can do that. We are already set up to extract multiple DNA profiles from one blood sample much smaller than a vial. If there are multiple contributors, we can extract as many as ten unique profiles.”

  “But the baby’s and the mother’s would not be unique. The baby has half of her mother’s genetic material. Will the computer be able to differentiate them?”

  “I can talk to Michael Morse and get help tweaking the programming. He knows the system. Chastity can help with the deep knowledge.”

  “Has this been done before?”

  “Well… not that I’ve been able to identify. But from all of the journals that I’ve read, it is theoretically possible. We’re not sure that DNA is exchanged between the mother and fetus in every pregnancy. Most of the studies that have been done so far have focused on mothers of sons, because the Y chromosome is simple to flag, and those tests did not find a Y chromosome in the mother’s blood in every case. They haven’t had the ability like we do to break full profiles out of a single blood sample. That’s proprietary technology.”

  “So we could test Sweetgrass Doe and not find any of her mother’s DNA.”

  “It’s possible. But taking a little blood is not a risky procedure. If we don’t find what we’re looking for, no harm done. We’re no farther ahead, but we haven’t destroyed any evidence or harmed the donor.”

  “Just expended our time and resources.”

  “Right. I think it’s worth a shot. Think of how much it would advance this case.”

  “The PD isn’t going to want to pay for something with the risk of no results. In a case of homicide, they are more likely to risk it, but something like this, where it is just child abandonment? It’s an emotional topic, but it’s not worth pouring money into.”

  Micah rubbed her thumb along the arm of the chair, thinking about his arguments. “Can we offer it on contingency? We’ll run the blood sample. If there’s no maternal DNA, they don’t have to pay anything. If there is, they foot the bill.”

  Kwong scratched the back of his neck. “How likely are we to find maternal DNA?”

  “In the brain studies, sixty-three percent,” Micah told him reluctantly. “But that’s brains, not blood, and decades after the pregnancy. In this case, we’re talking about a DNA exchange that occurred within the past month. Even when you get a blood transfusion, the donor’s DNA profile can stay in your system for fourteen days or more. I would put the chances much higher than sixty-three percent, with the DNA exchange occurring so recently.”

  “Quantifiable?”

  Micah hesitated. “I’m not aware of any studies that could provide those statistics. There’s no precedent, but if we mathematically ‘split the difference’ between the decades-old maternal brains and the possibility that microchimerism occurring in one hundred percent of cases, then we would be left with somewhere around eighty percent.”

  Kwong considered that. He jotted some notes on the scratch pad in front of him. “Let’s just say greater than sixty-three percent,” he decided.

  Micah sighed in relief, glad not to be held to her speculation. “Will you approach them, then? Suggest that we give it a try?”

  “I’m going to talk it over with Amy Bradshaw first. I know it’s just one case, so our losses would not be great, and we are pioneering new ground here.”

  Amy Bradshaw was the Vice President over their team. With the looks of a porcelain doll in a pinstripe charcoal suit tailored to her figure, Amy was everything Micah didn’t want to be. The perfect makeup and feathery, shoulder-length hair that must take an hour to achieve with a blow-dryer, uncomfortable clothing patterned after a man’s, a corporate-level job that required her to supervise people and work long hours, to kowtow to the CEO, the board, and the clients. It all sounded like a nightmare to Micah. No amount of money could compensate for having to live that kind of life.

  “Do you think she’ll approve it?”

  Kwong tapped the end of his pen on his pad of paper, considering. “I’m not making any promises. But EvPro prides itself with being on the cutting edge of forensic technology. Being on the cutting edge necessitates risk-taking. If we can make use of this technology in a way that has never been done before, and the only thing we are risking is a few hours of your and Chastity’s time, it seems like a reasonable trade-off to me. But I’m not the one in a position to make that choice.”

  “And maybe some consultant fees from Michael to tweak the multiple profile algorithm,” Micah reminded him. “And computer processing time.”

  He nodded and added these items to his notes. He looked up at her. “I’ll let you know. It may take a little finessing.”

  “Don’t let it go for too long. We don’t know how long maternal DNA stays in the offspring’s blood, and we don’t want the case to get too cold while we’re waiting.”

  “We’re used to coming into cases late, after the police have exhausted all other avenues. The DNA isn’t going to change. But I understand your point about the unknown timeline on the maternal DNA. We don’t know if it stays for days or decades.”

  Micah nodded. “My guess would be that it stays, just like fetal DNA in the mother’s brain, but that’s only a guess. It could be gone in a few weeks, like a blood donor’s.”

  “I’ll do what I can to convey the urgency. The fact is, there’s lots of public attention on this case as well, which makes it attractive for PR reasons, even if the technology fails. At least people would hear our name and know that we tried.”

  Micah stood up, satisfied that he would do his best to get them the case. Whether Amy Bradshaw would approve approaching the PD to lobby for the file or whether the PD would give it to them were out of her control.

  “Thanks for following up on this, Micah,” Kwong said with a note of dismissal, and swiveled his chair back toward the computer.

  Chapter Eight

  After getting home, Micah scanned her newsfeed for any information on progress in the Sweetgrass Doe case, but there was nothing new. Even the filler articles with the speculations of the self-proclaimed experts were starting to fade out. Before long, everybody would forget all about the baby girl. The case would go cold.

  Sweetgrass Doe was probably already with a foster family. They wouldn’t have kept her in the hospital for more than a day or two unless there was something really wrong with her, and the news reports had indicated she was just hungry and cold.

  The kitten had been yowling and rubbing up against her, but Micah was focused on her tablet until the kitten grew impatient and tried to climb her leg.

  “Ouch!” Micah reached down and detached the kitten from her leg, snagging her slacks. Her leg stung. She was getting quite the collection of pinpricks and scratches on her legs. “No claws! I’m not going to forget to feed you.”

  The kitten snuggled in her arms, starting to purr. Micah laughed and shook her head, pressing her cheek against the kitten’s soft, fluffy fur. “You suck-up. Come on, let’s get you something to eat.”

  There was still dry kibble in the cat’s dish, but the second dish Micah used for the moist canned food was empty. She didn’t like to put too much food out and have it sitting at room temperature all day, getting dry and icky and multiplying bacteria. Micah got more canned food out of the fri
dge, the kitten yipping and yowling like she was starving to death. Of course, if she were that hungry, she would have eaten more of the dry kibble, so Micah wasn’t fooled, but she laughed at the cat’s histrionics.

  “Believe me; you could be a lot worse off, kitty.”

  ❋

  Micah was sitting at her desk working on a sketch when she got a text from Kwong.

  Meeting in the lab. We got the contract.

  He didn’t say which contract, but it had to be the Sweetgrass Doe file. Any other contract, and he would have had to specify which one he was talking about. ‘The contract’ could only have one meaning.

  She grabbed a scratch pad to make notes on and headed into the lab.

  The lab techs were talking quietly with each other, looking around, speculating on what was going on. Veronica raised her eyebrows at Micah, a query as to whether she knew what was going on. Micah nodded. She pulled a stool to where the others were sitting, but didn’t have time to explain anything to Veronica before Kwong entered.

  He didn’t sit, but stayed on his feet close to a whiteboard that had been wiped clean.

  “I’m sure everyone here is familiar with the Baby Sweetgrass Doe case that has been in the news.”

  The techs looked at each other and then back at Kwong.

  “I wasn’t aware that there was any trace evidence in that case,” Chastity commented. “Why haven’t they followed it up before now? Or is the city lab too backed up and they decided they need to get it processed before the case gets too cold?”

  Chastity was their DNA analysis expert, so her time and input would be required on the case. She had a few sharp edges, and Micah sometimes found herself at odds with the woman. Micah wasn’t sure whether there was some sort of rivalry between them, if maybe Chastity was threatened by Micah’s success as a Forensic DNA Phenotyping artist. Micah wasn’t sure, but didn’t spend any time worrying about it. If Chastity had any objections to being involved in the file, Kwong could handle her.

  Kwong nodded gravely at Chastity’s question. “It turns out that they have evidence that they didn’t realize they had,” he explained. He turned toward the whiteboard and outlined Micah’s suggestion that they could get the mother’s full DNA profile from the baby’s blood and develop a phenotype and composite from there.

  “This is untested technology,” Chastity pointed out. “No one has tried to do this before.”

  Kwong turned around, raising an eyebrow questioningly. Chastity looked confused at his reaction and turned toward the other lab techs for their support.

  “The concept is sound,” Mr. Hawkins said, warming to it. “The fact that no one has ever tried to apply it this way is beside the point. I can do some more research into the studies that have been done up until now, but we’re moving into uncharted territory, so I’m not sure how much help it will be to see what’s been done before.”

  “The best way to find out is by trying it,” Veronica said. “If we can’t get the maternal profile, then we can’t. No way to know without putting it to the test.”

  “If we can, it could break the case,” Micah pointed out. “It would be a great addition to your CV.”

  Looking somewhat disgruntled, Chastity turned back to face Kwong. “We might need to make some changes to the programming,” she warned. “We can pull separate profiles from the same blood sample, but the assumption is usually that they are unrelated. I’m not sure what the impact will be of such large SNP’s when trying to separate the profiles.”

  “I’ve already given Michael Morse a heads-up. He’ll be expecting your call. I brought him up to speed on the possible difficulties, and he figured he could handle it.”

  Chastity’s mouth was a thin, straight line. She didn’t voice any further objection, but Micah could tell she was thinking it through, looking for holes in the theory.

  “Blood samples will be coming over this afternoon. I want to make this a priority. Find out as quickly as we can whether we can isolate the maternal profile. We don’t want to look like we’re sitting on our hands. The police don’t know why this baby was abandoned and what happened to her parents, whether they are suspects or victims. They haven’t been able to move the case forward, and this could be the break they need.”

  Chastity nodded grudgingly. The others seemed more positive about it, but it was Chastity who would be working on the initial steps. If she wasn’t committed to giving it her best effort, she could derail the whole thing. Micah looked away. She didn’t want some resentment getting in the way of the file. She didn’t want it to be a competition between the two of them. Chastity knew enough about what Micah did to recognize her hand behind Kwong’s explanation.

  Kwong asked for any other comments or questions, cleared up the last few non-issues, and gave a firm nod. “Alright. Those of you who will be involved, please do the best you can to clear the decks of other work so that you can give this priority. We’ll leave this whiteboard up and you can make notes as you move forward and either have more progress or roadblocks.”

  ❋

  Micah knew that they wouldn’t have the fully-sequenced DNA that day, even if they did manage to immediately extract the mother’s profile, but she was still hyped up and anxious for the results. She paced her office, unable to work on anything else in her inbox.

  It had been a while since she had talked to Wes Watley, the investigator who had first called her about the case. She finally had something to tell him, even if she didn’t have anything concrete yet. But she would soon. Or might. Hopefully. She found his contact record on her phone and tapped it.

  “Wes Watley,” he answered briskly.

  “It’s Micah.”

  “Oh, Micah. How are you doing?”

  “Good. I thought I would let you know about the Sweetgrass Doe case.”

  “Sweetgrass…? Oh. The abandoned baby. Yes, how is that going? Do you have any news? It’s been pretty quiet.”

  “The police don’t seem to have made very much progress. But in a way, that’s good, because I’ve managed to get the file. And maybe…”

  “Maybe you can crack it?” he suggested. “You’ve done it before.”

  “Well, I’m hopeful.”

  “There was DNA evidence, then? They didn’t release that information to the public.”

  “That’s because they didn’t know they had it. And we still don’t know, actually, but maybe by tonight, we’ll at least have some indication. In a few days… maybe enough data for phenotyping.”

  “Explain,” Wes suggested succinctly.

  Micah smiled. As an ex-FBI SAC and Army CID investigator, Wes was not one to waste words. He was a very… efficient communicator. She appreciated the quality. She gave him an efficient summary of the possible existence of the mother’s DNA in the baby’s blood. There was silence on the line as Wes thought this through.

  “So you’re not talking about the half of the baby’s DNA that is inherited from the mother. You’re talking about her full DNA actually being in the baby’s blood, like a… like a bacteria or something. A foreign body.”

  “Yes, exactly. Up until now, we didn’t have the technology to detect the separate profile reliably. Researchers have been testing and speculating based just on flagging Y chromosomes in the maternal blood. And some companies will test the maternal blood for gender or for fetal defects like Down Syndrome instead of doing amniocentesis. But no one has been doing the reverse, pulling the maternal DNA from the baby’s blood. They haven’t had reason to. With a case like this, though, it could be the breakthrough. We could be able to identify the mother from the baby’s blood.”

  “Incredible. Well, if anyone can do it, it’s EvPro. And Micah Miller.”

  “I won’t be doing the actual separating and sequencing, though I’ll stand by with suggestions if they run into any problems. But once they have the mom’s DNA sequenced… it’s going to be a few days, and I don’t know how I’m going to sleep between now and then.”

  Wes chuckled. “You’
re like a kid on Christmas Eve, aren’t you? This is like your favorite crossword book or something.”

  “Better than Christmas! I never got anything I wanted for Christmas.”

  “No? You probably wanted something nerdy, eh?”

  Micah closed her eyes, remembering. “I wasn’t your typical kid. The things I wanted were out of my parents’ price range, and they could never understand why I would want them in the first place. It was like getting socks when you were expecting the latest video game.”

  “You wanted your own DNA sequencer when you were twelve?”

  “Something like that. Instead… I probably got a china doll or something similarly useless. Maybe something other girls my age would have loved, but that I didn’t have any use for.”

  “I know the feeling—I always wanted a detective kit instead of toy trucks. I think my parents really wondered about me.” Wes chuckled again. “Poor Micah. Well, now you’re a big girl, you can buy the DNA sequencer yourself.”

  “Yeah.” Opening her eyes, Micah paced across the room and back again. “Can you see what a great tool this will be? If this works… there’s no telling all of the applications there might be. It’s… a game-changer.”

  “It sounds like it. Well, thank you for the update. Let me know what you find, okay? As soon as you know anything.”

  “Sure,” Micah agreed. She would have to be careful about confidentiality. She wouldn’t be giving him any details about the identity of the mother, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t tell him how they were getting on. “I’ll keep in touch.”

  “Good luck. Blessings on your computers.”

  “Thanks, Wes.”

  Micah hung up, grinning to herself.

  Chapter Nine

  Micah looked at the phone when it buzzed. She wasn’t expecting it to be anything important. A green text slid onto the screen.

  We got it.

  She looked at the sender. Chastity’s number. Micah leaped out of her chair and was in the lab in an instant.