Chapter 9: The Pharmacist's Daughter Finds Her Mother's Case

The filtration vent was in the lower left corner of the observatory's east wall, behind a panel the manufacturer had secured with four recessed screws and the assumption that no one would care.

Solano cared. She had unscrewed it at 4:52 a.m., before Blackwell returned from wherever he went when she stopped requiring his commentary, and she had swabbed the interior of the duct with a series of collection heads spaced at four-centimeter intervals, the way her methods professor at Seville had taught her and the way she had since improved upon. Twelve swabs for a duct of this length. She had labeled them in ascending order, sealed each in its individual case, and set them in the portable analyzer's intake tray with the careful arrangement of someone who had learned, years ago, that carelessness in small things was a kindness to people who should not be treated kindly.

The analyzer ran while she worked on the clothing.