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crowded corridors came as a real shock. It took the better part of half an hour for Sara Devlin to gather up her possessions and catch a cab. A shuttle would have been less expensive, but she was in no mood to be crammed into a van with six burly businessmen for the half hour trip into Seattle.
    It was raining, which made sense on a cold, gray November day, and the wipers made a persistent
squeaking
sound as they swept back and forth across the taxi’s windshield. The driver wore a burgundy colored turban, and judging from the snapshots fastened to the sun visor, was a dedicated family man. He glanced at Devlin in the rearview mirror as the taxi cleared the airport’s round-about and headed north towards the freeway. “Are you staying in a hotel?”
    It was a reasonable question given the fact that Devlin had given her destination as “…downtown Seattle.” Devlin shook her head and fumbled for the scrap of paper that had Marvin Leander’s address on it. “No. You can drop me at the 720 Olive building.”
    The driver nodded as he steered the Crown Vic down the on-ramp to the freeway below. The taxi merged onto I-5 northbound a few minutes later. And it wasn’t long before they passed Safeco Field, which never failed to remind Devlin of her father and the summer evening when they had gone there to boo the Yankees. It was the bottom of the 7 th , and the score had been tied, when Alex Rodriguez fouled one back into the stands where a much younger Sara Devlin had miraculously been able to catch it.
    Strangely, from the scientist’s perspective at least, her father was as proud of that accomplishment as the moment when she graduated from high school at the top of her class. But that had been back during the run up to college, before a drunk driver killed her mother, and before her father’s fatal heart attack sixteen months later.
    Maybe that explained her attachment to Professor Paul McCracken, and his attachment to her, since both had been orphaned in a way. She by her parents, and he by his beloved Mary, who’s death at thirty left the academic to live out the rest of his life as a bachelor. Until five days earlier that is, when, according to McCracken's attorney, the professor had draped sheets of clear plastic over his living room furniture, loaded one round into his old Colt .45 revolver, and put the weapon to his head.
    Because of Mary? No, Devlin found that hard to believe, since Mac had been able to live more than twenty-five years without her. So, why then? There was no way to know. The long distance call from Leander had certainly been a surprise, as was the news that McCracken had left his estate to her, and that she was to serve as executor. All of which forced Devlin to break off her research in Costa Rica and return home. Something she had originally intended to do six months earlier, but continued to put off, partly because of the on-again off-again romance with Mark Milano, and partly because there was so much work to do. By some estimates the central American jungles were home to
thousands
of parasites that had yet to be identified and cataloged. A task which, if completed, could deliver real benefits to medical science in the form of new drugs and therapies.
    The taxi slowed and came to a stop. The cabbie turned to look over his shoulder. He had quick brown eyes and a bushy black beard. “That will be $35.00 miss.”
    The twenties that Devlin had been given in San Jose were a bit greasy, but legal nevertheless, and the scientist said “No” to the cabbie's offer of change. Rather than the warm jungle rains that she had grown used to, the water that fell out of Seattle’s lead gray sky was cold, and impossible to ignore as Devlin opened the door and exited the car. Perhaps it was the five-dollar gratuity, or maybe the Sikh felt sorry for the bedraggled scientist, but whatever the reason the cabbie insisted on carrying Devlin’s luggage into the building’s lobby before wishing her a good day and