A Matter of Public Record Investigation

By Lillian Baker O'Malley

This new exciting series continues with the second R.O.P.E. Squad police novel. The Repeat Offenders Parole Enforcement division  is tracking an unknown suspect who was the accomplice of a fugitive parolee. They robbed a jewellery store and killed the owner.  A fugitive parolee commits murder and exposes a multitude of related crimes. The R.O.P.E. Squad becomes involved in the consequences that come from trying to solve a case that becomes more complicated as it evolves. Catching a killer is just the start of the complications that arise. The outcome depends on the question, do you own your own DNA?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lillian Baker O'Malley
• Release date: Sep 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393522768

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

Pain. He was always in pain anyway, but this was different. He wished that people were born with pain lightning bolts that come shooting out of their bodies so that people could see the amount of pain a person was in. What would happen if your lightning bolts got messed up and no one could see your pain anyway? No one could in real life. Like the doctors and people around you that say it is all in your head.

Pain should be visible to everyone. Including the guy standing over him, putting the boots to his side and ribs. On second thought, the guy attacking him was a psychopath and probably wouldn’t care and that’s why his attacker was laughing with each vicious kick.

Something felt like it snapped when a particularly vicious kick connected with his arm that he had put down to protect his ribcage. That was the spot that was already been injured a year ago by a bullet that he had ducked, and it had missed his head, but it had ricocheted and connected with the spot between his second and third rib on his right side after it bounced off his arm bone. The bullet hadn’t killed him then, but the guy kicking him just might accomplish what the bullet didn’t do.

He came up out of his pain long enough to aim a vicious kick to his attacker’s booted ankle and then to the vulnerable spot on his attacker’s inner calf, then his knee. He rained kicks on vulnerable parts, one which had the attacker bending over double and retching. His attacker backed off for just a few seconds, long enough for him to get uncoiled from his prone fetal position and vault his body into a crouching upright position. He barreled into his attacker and managed to subdue him long enough to collar his arms behind him and push his attacker’s face and body against a brick wall in the alley.

He got the plastic flexi cuffs into place after a brief struggle.

I’m Christopher Shadrack Kane of the R.O.P.E. squad. Michael Thorne, you’re under arrest for violating parole conditions, for first degree armed robbery and for the murder of Jeffrey Davis, owner of Orchid Lane Jewellers, and grand theft over $1,000.

He had almost finished reading his attacker his rights when the rest of his squad came running into the alley with guns drawn. They saw that the parolee was arrested and slowed their pace and milled around the parolee who was now halfway down the wall because his leg was collapsing under him, causing him to scrape his face down the wall as he leaned against it for support to stop himself from falling.

Gee whiz, Rack. You should have waited for us to help. I don’t know who looks worse, him or you. Joey Preston grinned and helped the prisoner steady himself enough to walk out to the squad’s patrol van.

His second in command on the scene, Joey Preston was not allowed to call him by that nickname, but Joey did and so did everyone else on the squad when someone found out what his middle name was. No one on the squad called him Christopher or Chris, it was always Rack. Not even Detective Rack. Detective Kane would have been nice. Anything but that nickname.

Shadrack Kane was his father’s name. His father was the first to be called Rack by the entertainment magazines and blogs. The big rock music superstar that he only saw on birthdays when he was a little kid. And never saw him again after his fifth birthday.  He tried to get the squad room to stop calling him by that name. It was useless to protest.

He hauled his tortured body into his own patrol car and headed out for coffee and donuts at the drive-thru for everyone who had been in on the surveillance and take down of their prisoner. He needed coffee the most of all of them. He had been on surveillance duty since just after dawn and ever since he had found the parolee, he could not leave until the rest of the squad surrounded the building as much as they could, and until they had captured the fugitive parolee.

Rack had missed lunch and the hundreds of cups of coffee that he usually downed during the day. He would drop off the coffee in the squad room and then head over to the hospital to see if he needed x-rays on his arm. He didn’t think it was broken, but he was too numb to be sure. Besides, he wanted to see if that pretty emergency room doctor he had seen on his last visit was working day shift today.  Her name was Dr. Ruby Nelson.  She was easy to talk to. Rack was shy when it came to dealing with women. His numb arm was a good excuse to be there. There was also the possibility that if he was made to wear a cast to protect his arm, he would need medical opinions that he was fit for at least desk duty. He didn’t like to go to see any doctor. Dr. Ruby was one of the exceptions. He hated going into hospitals. Most of all he hated being sick. He hated being put on leave. He hated inactivity. It jarred his soul.

During the long wait in the ER, Rack scanned the magazine ads to pass the time. There were ads for different medical devices that made him feel a lot of empathy for the people who were pictured using them. He winced when he saw the ad for the arm bandage that took the place of a plaster cast. He had worn one for three months and it was a pain in somewhere else, not his arm.

The one article and ad that he looked at for a longer time was for a D.N.A. sequencing test that could reveal not only the D.N.A. of the tested individual, but it could also supply links to an unknown suspect’s D.N.A. familial matches. A mother, father or close relative might have put their D.N.A. on a public website with no restrictions as to how it could be used.

A lot of people were interested in providing their D.N.A. profile results on public D.N.A. sites for people searching for genealogy links or the disclosure of hereditary gene markers that identified medical conditions such as heart disease, or mental illness like schizophrenia, or muscular diseases like Multiple Sclerosis or Parkinson’s, and any other genes that might impact the future health of a familial match.

Sometimes D.N.A. was the only evidence that was left at a crime scene. D.N.A. public databases were a new source of data for the police, proving that a person who left the D.N.A. sample was the person who committed the crime. The D.N.A. match was admissible in court.

Not all criminals posted their own D.N.A. profiles on the new D.N.A. public websites. But if their father or mother or their grandfather or grandmother or their sisters or brothers or any other relative posted on the site, a D.N.A. match could be made to identify the unknown suspect.

If a suspect’s relatives allowed his or her D.N.A. to be posted publicly on a public site with no restrictions on its use, and one of their sons or daughters or relatives committed a crime, D.N.A. could be used to identify their relative as a familial match and that gave the police the suspect’s name.

A warrant was not necessary to run the D.N.A. match for the suspect or his relatives or the company that hosted the public D.N.A. family tree site. Now a D.N.A. sample could also be used to make a composite photo that looked exactly like the person’s face. An accused person or suspect’s familial D.N.A. match to a family member could be used in court to identify an unknown suspect.

Police forces could hire a company that did the investigation in the part of the cases that required matching a crime scene D.N.A. sample. It was one way of identifying an unknown suspect through D.N.A. of a family tree. They did this by narrowing down the closest person to a match, especially a close D.N.A. match like a mother or father would have. It was a new technique that had stood the test of court trials and set a new precedent in the evidence that would be admissible in a court trial case.

Rack took out his phone and punched in the number of the lab that his precinct used. He knew a lab technician there. He used to date her sister, but there was a mismatch of likes and dislikes that caused the end of his relationship with her, but he was introduced to Lorie Ellis who was the younger sister and worked in the precinct lab. It was a casual relationship, not even a relationship, but someone you knew through someone else. When she answered her cell, she was brisk and businesslike. She was busy. Hello, Rack. I’m busy. Make it quick.

Bad choice of words and Rack felt hot all over in embarrassment. He hated asking for favors from anyone. I wanted to know if you could run a familial match on the unknown perp who was in on that jewellery heist at Orchid Lane Jewellers. A man named Jeffrey Davis was murdered. He owned the store. I just arrested one of the armed robbers. His name is Michael Thorne. He came into the store with another person just at closing time. They were the only people in the store and the owner was there by himself. The whole robbery and murder are on the video from the store surveillance cameras. Michael Thorne’s D.N.A. has been identified in previous cases, so his profile is on file in our past case files on him, but we don’t have the second armed robber’s D.N.A. in our system profile. Michael Thorne might not admit there was someone else with him or give us any clue to his identity. All we have is a tall skinny guy on video who was wearing a dark blue hooded sweater coat with big buttons and they were wearing raggedy jeans. The hood completely hid his face. We think he may also have had those big framed sunglasses on, that covered his face. He was also wearing those new sport shoes that everyone is wearing this week. We saw the logo on the side of his shoe facing the camera. If I send over the blood samples from him, could you run them for me? If his profile doesn’t match Michael Thorne’s as familial I would need you to broaden the search.  Can you use a public or private database like an ancestry site or from a private D.N.A. matching company?

Lorie replied, I can try. There is a Generations Plus website that people list free access to their D.N.A. files for people who are doing ancestry tree research or for medical research about a person’s unknown medical inherited genes.  They don’t put limits on accessing and using their D.N.A. profile results. Anyone in the public can use their profile for any reason. I could try them too.

Lorie continued to explain the difference between the access to private and public D.N.A. tests. At most of the private companies you would need a warrant and a reason for getting it after you prove that there is no other way to identify the unidentified suspect. It’s very much harder to get a warrant for the private D.N.A. companies to disclose their files. The private company owns your D.N.A. even if you pay them to run your D.N.A. profile. Most people don’t know that. Not many people read the terms and conditions. Even if you pay for the test, you agree that your D.N.A. sample that you submitted is owned by the company after they do the tests and get the results. It’s disclosed in their rules and regulations or terms and conditions to post on their site. They have the right to use your D.N.A. in any way they please and not tell you or compensate you for it. The warrant has to be for the company itself and for the whole spectrum of D.N.A. result matches to the one that you submit. A posting on a public D.N.A. genealogy site doesn’t require a warrant.

Lorie said. If you want me to do this right away, send me an urgent top priority request. That will cover me for boosting you to the top over my other urgent requests. Most labs are backlogged for more than a year on standard testing. Three years in some cases. Even priority cases take three to six months to a year for results. Some labs have three years of back requests for results on submitted samples.

Rack heard her tapping on some computer keys, then Lorie said, I’ll start with Generations Plus. People post their D.N.A. results on there for anyone to search without restrictions as to use. You won’t need a warrant to search their databases. If you find a match, the results are admissible in court. You don’t need anyone’s permission to use them. Is that okay with you? Lorie waited for him to reply.

Yes, that would be a very good choice if we can get a match there without having to obtain a warrant. Rack was pleased that Lorie was being thorough. That meant there would be a lot better chance of proving a court case. 

Lorie replied, good, then I’ll start at that company. Do you have any idea who the other person is? It would help if you had a clue and I wasn’t starting from scratch.  If you are right the results will be faster than trying to match a completely unknown subject.

Rack said, I had a feeling it might be Michael Thorne’s nephew. I remember the boy was involved in a smash and grab with Michael Thorne about ten years ago when he was fourteen, but he was a juvenile then, and those records are sealed. So, there is no available record of any D.N.A. sample for him on our records.  On the store video we saw the second person grab the jewellery in one of the cases and he cut his hand from either the glass jewellery case they smashed or one of the pins on one of the brooches he grabbed. They were working fast and stuffing the loot into laundry sacks. There was blood from him and Michael Thorne all over the store. They both got blood on Jeffery Davis, the murder victim. Both Michael and the unknown suspect dragged Jeffrey Davis out of the main store into a storage room at the back of the shop. They left the body in the storage room. They shut off the lights and locked the front door and left by the back door. Jeffrey Davis had expensive surveillance cameras mounted in two places in the store and above the back door that give a clear view of the back alley. He took extra precautions against burglary. It didn’t do him much good, but we caught one of his killers by seeing them commit the murder and the robbery on those cameras. Now we need to identify the other suspect. There was blood on some of the jewellery they dropped. We could see them getting into a car that was parked at the end of the alley. There was a third person there as a driver. He was too far away to make out his features on the surveillance camera video. We have the licence plate number and it is Michael Thorne’s car.

The hospital intercom buzzed, and they called, Christopher Kane, Christopher Kane, report to triage in Emergency. Rack tried to muffle the announcement, but Lorie heard and said, Are you in the emergency room again? What have you done now? Are you hurt?

I was kicked in the ribs and my arm and legs and several other places before I could subdue the suspect and cuff him. He was hiding behind a dumpster in an alley and he attacked me by surprise. I’m just here to get some cuts cleaned and some x-rays.

A likely story. I’ll bet you were in one of your usual brawls. You’ll never change. Lorie clicked the phone off abruptly.

Rack clicked his phone off and headed back to triage and his x-rays. He hoped it wouldn’t take too long. The numbness was starting to wear off and the pain was flowing into his body in stronger waves.

CHAPTER TWO

He entered the triage room and was put into a smaller examining room and told to undress and put on the hospital gown that was laid out on the bed for him. He took off his pants and running shoes and socks, but his shirt was stuck to the bloody cuts on his arm and body. The blood had already started to dry. He didn’t want to try to pull the shirt off.

He had just taken his wallet out of his pants pocket and was trying to decide what to do with his gun and arm holster and his badge when the door opened, and the triage nurse came in with a clipboard. He grabbed a towel to cover himself. He got up on the stretcher bed and let the nurse cut away his favorite shirt from his body. It had stuck to the bloody places on his arm and body and now his arm went numb so she couldn’t lift the shirt off his body to see the damage. She grabbed the scissors and cut it away and pulled it gently off him. She wrote as she examined his injuries and entered the information on a chart. She shook her head when she saw the cuts and the new bruises forming, but her facial expression of repulsion changed to a mask of detached observation when she saw Rack looking at her in surprise.

I didn’t think it looked that bad. Does it? What’s your professional opinion? Rack was trying to see the spots that had been covered by his shirt.

Now, Mr. Kane, you know very well I cannot tell you that in my opinion, those are the worst cuts and scrapes and bruises that I have seen today. And that’s saying a lot. Now take off your towel and let me see the rest of the damage. Be quick. The doctor will be here soon.  I need to have you prepped so she can examine you and be out of here and on to the next patient. The nurse stood there and look at Rack sternly.

Rack sat up and peeled off his towel reluctantly with some very unattractive grunts and groans as the rough terry cloth peeled away from his thighs that had been booted so viciously. The nurse got him to lie back down on the stretcher bed. She put a clean sheet over him and adjusted a couple of pillows under his head and injured arm. She folded his jeans over the back of a chair in the corner of the room and went to put his gun and holster on the chair seat. She put his wallet and change and keys there too after they fell out of the pockets of his jeans. She checked the gun to make sure the safety was on and that the gun was in his reach. She reached under the sheet to take off his ankle holster and gun.

Rack sat up and said Please leave the ankle gun and holster. I’m not comfortable with them being off my ankle if I’m not at home. And please move my other gun and holster nearer to me and put it on this side table by the head of this bed. I never let them out of my sight. I’m licensed to carry. I’m a cop. My badge and I.D. are in the pocket of my jacket on that other chair. My name is Detective Christopher Kane if you want to phone the R.O.P.E. squad local office, you can verify that I am who I am and that I am licenced to carry and that my gun needs to stay with me at all times.

Your chart already lists you as a detective. I know you need your gun to be in your possession and in your sight at all times. I’ll put the gun in the holster here on the side table by the bed and cover it with one of these small towels. You can decide later what you want to do with them if you are admitted to the hospital after the doctor examines you. The nurse retrieved the gun and holster and his wallet and badge and put them on the side table and covered them with a white towel she got out of the shelf of a linen rack.

The door opened and the doctor entered. It was Dr. Ruby Nelson and she quickly threw back the sheet and called out the different injuries to the nurse. The nurse wrote the ones she hadn’t documented on his chart and the doctor arranged for x-rays. They were quick and efficient. Rack felt as if he was just an interesting specimen as they poked and prodded his body.

The doctor shone a light in his eyes and checked his heart and lungs. She looked into his mouth after ordering him to say aahh. She made a few additional injury additions to his chart. There is no concussion as far as I can see. I’ll see you back here after the x-ray department gets some good scans and then I will know more. It may be awhile, Detective Kane. Have you had anything to eat or drink since midnight last night?

Just a few cups of coffee with double cream and one sugar so far. The first two were at dawn around 5 a.m. and the last one was half an hour ago in the waiting room. Will I have to be admitted? I’ll have to let my boss know if I have to stay.

At this point, I don’t think you will have to be admitted, but I see by your chart that you had an injury to that arm before. It’s just a precaution. Sometimes a bone break isn’t obvious. We have to x-ray as a precaution. We will know in a few hours. You can’t have anything to eat or drink during that time in case we need to do surgery on your arm. Try to be patient Detective Kane. I know that you want to get out of here, but you have to be in good enough shape to leave safely. Just rest for awhile. I’ll get the security guard up here and he can accompany you and I will have him put your guns and holsters and your badge and clothes in a bag for you. The security guard can carry it.  She smiled at him and left quickly to get to her next patient. The triage nurse cleaned his cuts and scrapes and bandaged them.

Rack was almost asleep when they came to take him down to x-ray. He lay on a stretcher there in an empty hallway outside the x-ray lab with just the security guard for company. He lay for a long time under a wall vent that blew cold air on him. He was left