Chapter 6: Rug Ruse

Fox's information is not all news to me. I had inklings of some of it, but I see now that the connections are even more black and white than I suspected. I also knew the scene of the crime was a factory, but I did not it was a condemned one. That raises even more questions as I hail a cab and tell the driver to head to 105th.

Perhaps visiting the scene of the crime conjures images of dusting for fingerprint, scanning for biological material, or taking blood samples to run DNA database queries. If only things were still so simple.

There was once any number of means to scientifically divine the identity of a suspect. When the Coalition's systemwide citizen database contained the full DNA profile of every human being born in a hospital for the past 300 years, solving a crime was as easy as finding a hair or a flake of skin.

If human DNA wasn't present in a homicide investigation, there were other options. You could scan for cross-transfers of bacteria and match the bacteria's DNA instead. Or match a strand of virus found on the victim with antibodies to that virus present in the perp's bloodstream. I've read cases of murders that occurred in closed rooms, where chemical compounds secreted from the killer's sweat glands hung in the air long enough to be collected, and the amino acids in the proteins were reverse-translated into DNA.

If you had dandruff and B.O., a life of crime was an ill-advised career choice.

It all sounds very exciting, which is why the myths of super-science crime fighting are still perpetuated in popular culture. Police in the movies are always in lab coats, working over fancy equipment late into the night, trying to discern a bit of DNA or mRNA or a grab-bag of other acronyms. In reality, white-gloved investigating is a thing of the past.

You could write a book about the downfall of science in criminal investigations. Someone probably has. I haven't read it, but I have a feeling it would start something like this. Once upon a time, criminal investigation was like math; you swept the scene for biological evidence, narrowed it down according to the timeframe when the crime was committed, plugged the results into a database, one and one is two, there's your man.

But at some point (about thirty or forty years ago), a trend emerged in medical research-a transition from mechanical and cybernetic prosthetics for amputees, to lab-grown, fully grafted biological replacements. The method was already well established in the growth of internal organs, but using the same techniques to grow flawless new skin, muscle, limbs, digits, and eyes was revolutionary. But every output needs an input, and the process often involved borrowing organic matter from one or several donors.

Over time, crime scenes started to become a bit more complicated. It wasn't uncommon to find the DNA of five or six people at a crime scene, all present within the time frame of a murder. Cops thought they were dealing with multiple perpetrators and were led around in circles, tracking down-and occasionally roughing up-false leads who would turn out to be donors of the genetic material used for some scumbag's lab-grown teeth or something.

The first major outcry came from a news story that broke about an ongoing police manhunt. The suspect had been at large for over six months. His DNA and fingerprints had been found in the middle of a nasty murder scene. Something like 2 million credits of taxpayer money had been spent on the investigation before a simple public records search revealed that the suspect thought to be "at large" had been dead for ten years. Turned out, he had donated his body to public health, and his biological material had hung in deep freeze in a genetics lab for a decade after he died. Said material was subsequently used to grow a new hand for a guy who's lost his in a work-related accident-and then used his shiny new hand to kill a neighbor who'd been sleeping with his wife.

Later, it was determined that the real killer's work-related "accident" had been a calculated act. This guy had altered his insurance plan to specify biological limb replacements only-in the event that such a procedure should ever become necessary-even though it would cost him a bundle extra. Then, a month later, he fed his own hand to an industrial metalworking planer. All this to plant false evidence at the scene of a premeditated murder. It was innovative, you got to give him that.

This man had a clear motive, opportunity, and no alibi. Yet he managed to get away with murder, overlooked by investigators who were too busy feeding data into computers to use their heads. The guy was gone and totally off the grid by the time the police realized their mistake. He was never caught.

A prime example from that era is the "Rug Ruse," when an elderly man with no past arrests, no history of violence, a back problem, and a heart condition, was convicted and sentenced to death for the brutal slaying of four teenagers during an apparent drug deal gone wrong. The evidence against the old man was a DNA match to a handful of hair found in one of the dead boys' hands, clearly torn from the killer's head. But the whole thing was turned upside down when an investigative journalist, of all people, uncovered the truth.

The story goes that the barber of the convicted old man also happened to offer genetic hair "restoration" as one of the more upscale services in his shop. His business partner, his son, was a researcher in medical genetics at the University of Blacksparrow Technical Institute. Their hair restoration therapy made them a little money on the side, and there was nothing technically illegal about what they were doing. For years, their source material came from one cheap, seemingly harmless, and basically endless supply. Each time the barber finished a cut, he simply cleaned out his comb over a basket in the corner. At the end of the week, the basket would be full of hair-not cut hair, but hair he had combed from the heads of his clientele. Hairs shed during combing commonly had the roots still attached, and hair follicles are a rich source of biological material... including DNA.

Unfortunately, the poor old man who got the book thrown at him for quadruple homicide never knew any of this. His name wasn't cleared until it was too late. He died on death row while awaiting his fate, ruined and disgraced, never knowing that his hair was growing in the scalp of a killer-and a rather vain killer, at that. The historic, interplanetary headlines read: SCIENCE OVER LOGIC! COURT POSTHUMOUSLY OVERTURNS DECISION AGAINST INNOCENT MAN DEAD AND DEFAMED BY ‘RUG RUSE.' It wasn't the first false conviction to be overturned under such circumstances, but it was the first time the issue was brought into the spotlight, igniting public ire and inciting a general loss of confidence in investigative police work.

Soon, organized crime dipped their ladles into the stew. Syndicates like the Blue Wreath started constructing false evidence for similar frame-ups, and suddenly all manner of suspicious crimes were being committed, peppered with biological evidence from suspects with no motive, sometimes not even opportunity. All this might lead one to believe that new laws and standards of practice would be mandated for the growth of biological material. But the limitless wealth of the medical and consumer genetics industry, plus increasing distrust and disdain for law enforcement, led the tide to turn the opposite direction. Against the police. The wrongful conviction scandals spearheaded rounds of harsh legislation against the use of DNA and other biological evidence in court cases, which became increasingly strict over the years. Nearly every form of biological material is no longer admissible in court. Even if it was, it would only make things more complicated; it's easier to fake DNA than to fake a cold.

While there is no legislation barring the use of DNA in police investigations, it is very illegal to bring a case against anyone based solely on genetic/biological material, to say nothing of simply being misguided. Old-school cops-specialists clinging to tradition-still use biological material to find leads, but these days, mild variants of genetic alteration and implantation are used in everything from beauty products to dental hygiene to fitness and body decoration-even pet care. Finding reliable biological evidence involves sifting through so much junk material that it's really more trouble than it's worth.

The result of all this was a great backward leap in the field of police investigation. A new breed of detective-really an old breed reborn-rose to the occasion. The modern investigator uses logic, deduction, and hard-nosed fieldwork to track down his man.

Reason. Motive. Hard physical evidence. Anything less is nothing. My grandfather worked in white gloves. But my father was part of that transitional generation. He relearned the old ways. Worked in street clothes. Wore down the soles of his shoes tracking leads. Bloodied his knuckles on anything that got in his way.

As for me, as my taxi hovers down to street level and I step out onto 105th, East Amber, I'm not wearing any white gloves. And I'm sure as hell not here to dust for fingerprints.