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wife’s grandfather back when many of Seattle’s wealthiest families lived along the east side of Capitol hill. A vantage point from which they could look out across Lake Washington to the snow capped Cascade mountains beyond. In later years the area had fallen on hard times, and had been the scene of race riots back in the sixties, but those days were over. Now the area was fashionable again—as could be seen from the well kept houses which lined both sides of the street.
    Unlike the Sikh, this cab driver was content to pop the trunk from the inside, and let Devlin remove her luggage herself. Then, having received his fare, he left without so much as a goodbye.
    Devlin lugged both bags up to the imposing porch where she shrugged her way out of the day pack, and opened an outer pocket. There were at least fifteen keys of various vintages on the old fashioned ring that Leander had given her, and she tried six of them before finding one that fit. Devlin heard a click as the door swung open and hit a stop. Every house has its own peculiar odor and so did McCracken’s. Except that in place of stale pipe smoke, and the smell of Mexican food that Devlin remembered so vividly, the sharp odor of disinfectants lingered in the air. Two days had passed before someone from the university came looking for the professor and the corpse had begun to smell by then. So a team of professional cleaners had been brought in to deal with the situation.
    Devlin felt like an intruder as she hauled the bags inside, closed the door behind her, and turned the lights on. She was standing in a formal entry. McCracken’s study was off to the left, a large living room could be seen through the opening to the right, and a flight of stairs took up the space directly in front of her. To the left of the stairs a narrow hallway was visible. It led back to the kitchen. A room Devlin knew well, since that was where most of the action had been, back in the days when grad students flocked to Dr. Mac’s place for his famous Christmas parties, beer drenched
Cinco de Mayo
celebrations, and the mock funerals that were held when a particularly good grant expired.
    But while Devlin was familiar with the first floor, the rest of the house was a complete mystery, a fact that bothered Devlin more than she thought it would. Leander had clearly been surprised when his newest client chose to stay at what would eventually be her house, but was far too polite to say so, as he handed her the keys. The truth was that Devlin had nowhere else to go, other than one of Seattle’s hotels, and they were expensive. Now, still frozen in the middle of the foyer, Devlin wondered if she should have spent the money.
    But any thought of leaving disappeared when Devlin heard a plaintive
meow
, and turned to discover that the professor’s black and white cat had appeared, and was rubbing himself against the door frame on the living room side of the hall. Devlin dropped to one knee as the animal came over to nuzzle a leg. She tried to remember the cat’s name but couldn’t. “Are you hungry?” Devlin inquired sympathetically, scooping the animal up into her arms. “Let’s go find some food.”
    At that point it seemed natural to make her way down the hall, past the stairs that led down into the basement, and into the kitchen. It was a large space, plenty big enough for the fancy high-end look that was so popular, but little changed from the last time Devlin had been there. Mac had been determined to do the work himself, to “play with the tools” as he put it, except very little had been accomplished. Wooden lathes could be seen where several wheel barrow loads of water damaged plaster had been stripped off the walls, but that was the extent of Mac’s remodeling efforts. The old beat-up cabinets still hung on the studs, there were holes in the linoleum floor, and the avocado colored appliances were at least thirty years old. Tools, all layered with dust, were stacked in the