A happy end story:

Heidi Slyker, a Boston-area musician, said the disappearance had consequences beyond the mere loss of property.

When Heidi Bean got into the cab in Boston that fateful night in 2012, she had just finished an eight-hour gig rotating between piano, guitar, bass and drums at the music club Howl at the Moon. It was 3:30 in the morning and she was already thinking of the day ahead, when her musical skills would really be tested.

Ms. Bean would attend her first rehearsal with the New England Philharmonic, playing flute, the instrument she performed with since she was a young girl and had clung to through college and graduate school. But now, finally, years after auditioning for the orchestra, a flutist position had opened up — and Ms. Bean was ready.

At her feet inside the cab, in a hardshell case, was aBrannen Brothers Flutemakers silver Millennium, a$10,000 instrumentthat was modest by professional standards — similar instruments can cost more than $70,000. Ms. Bean had purchased the flute in high school, with her own money, which she earned working full-time for several years.