Robin Cook - Acceptable Risk

“I’m afraid not,” William said. “Sorry.”

Kim thanked the clerk and left the statehouse. She was mildly discouraged. With the ease she’d found the petition in Salem, she’d had high hopes of finding a follow-up ruling in Boston that would have revealed the nature of the evidence against Elizabeth.

“Why couldn’t Ronald Stewart have described that damn evidence?” Kim wondered as she stalked down Beacon Hill. But then the idea occurred to her that maybe it was significant that he didn’t. Maybe that was some sort of clue or message in and of itself.

Kim sighed. The more she thought about the mysterious evidence, the more curious she became. In fact at that moment she began to imagine it might be associated with the intuitive feeling she had that Elizabeth was trying to communicate with her.

Kim reached Cambridge Street and turned toward the Mass General garage. The other problem that her failure at the statehouse presented was that she was being thrown back to the impossibly large collection of papers in the castle, a daunting task at best. Yet it was apparent that if she were to learn anything more about Elizabeth, it would have to be there.

Climbing into her car, Kim headed north for Salem. But it was not an easy nor quick trip. The visit to the statehouse had put her in the height of rush-hour traffic.

As she sat in the bumper-to-bumper traffic on Storrow Drive, trying to get through Leverett Circle, she thought about the blond woman Kinnard was dating. She knew it shouldn’t bother her, but it did. Yet such thoughts made her especially glad that she’d invited Edward to share the cottage with her. Not only did she truly care for Edward. She liked the message that her living with Edward would send to both Kinnard and her father.

Then Kim remembered Elizabeth’s head in her trunk. The more she thought about Edward’s failure to come along to Salem that evening, the more surprised she was, especially since he’d promised to take responsibility for the head and was fully aware of her distaste for handling it. It was behavior at odds with his attentiveness and, along with everything else, it disturbed her.

“What is this?” Edward asked angrily. “Do I have to hold your hand continually?” He was talking to Jaya Dawar, a brilliant new doctoral student from Bangalore, India. Jaya had been at Harvard only since the first of July, and he was struggling to find an appropriate direction for his doctorate thesis.

“I thought you could recommend to me more reading material,” Jaya said.

“I can recommend an entire library,” Edward said. “It’s only a hundred yards away.” He pointed in the general direction of the Countway Medical Library. “There comes a time in everybody’s life when they have to cut the umbilical cord. Do a little work on your own!”

Jaya bowed his head and silently exited.

Edward redirected his attention to the tiny crystals he was growing.

“Maybe I should carry the burden with the new alkaloid,” Eleanor suggested hesitantly. “You can look over my shoulder and be the guiding light.”

“And miss all this fun?” Edward said. He was using a binocular microscope to observe crystals forming on the surface of a supersaturated solution in the well of a microscope slide.

“I’m just concerned about your normal responsibilities,” Eleanor said. “A lot of people around here depend on your supervision. I also heard the undergraduate summer students complained about your absence this morning.”

“Ralph knows his material,” Edward said. “His teaching will improve.”

“Ralph doesn’t like to teach,” Eleanor said.

“I appreciate what you are saying,” Edward said, “but I’m not going to let this opportunity slip away. We’ve got something here with this alkaloid. I can feel it in my bones. I mean, how often does a billion-dollar molecule fall into your lap?”

“We have no idea whether this compound is going to be worth anything,” Eleanor said. “At this point it is purely hypothetical.”

“The harder we work, the quicker we’ll know,” Edward said. “The students can do without my hand-holding for the time being. Who knows? Maybe it will do them some good.”

As Kim approached the compound her anxieties increased. She couldn’t forget that she had Elizabeth’s head in her trunk, and the longer she spent in direct proximity to it, the more she experienced a vague, uncomfortable foreboding about the course of recent events. Having stumbled onto Elizabeth’s grave so quickly in the renovation process made it seem as if the witchcraft frenzy of 1692 was casting an ominous shadow over the present.

Passing through the gate, which was ajar, Kim feared that the construction people were still there. As she emerged from the trees her suspicions were confirmed. There were two vehicles parked in front of the cottage. Kim was not happy. By that time she’d expected all of the workmen to have departed.

She parked next to the vehicles and slid out from behind the wheel. Almost simultaneously George Harris and Mark Stevens appeared at the front door. In contrast to her response, they were demonstrably pleased to see her.

“This is a pleasant surprise,” Mark said. “We were hoping to get you on the phone later, but your being here is far better. We have a lot of questions.”

For the next half hour Mark and George took Kim on a working tour of the renovation. The amazing progress that had been made improved her mood dramatically. To her delight Mark had brought granite samples to the site for the kitchen and the baths. With Kim’s interest in interior design and her sense of color, she had no trouble making decisions. Mark and George were impressed. Kim was even impressed with herself. She knew that the ability to make such decisions was a tribute to the progress she’d made over the years with her self-confidence. When she’d first gone to college, she’d not even been able to decide on the color of her bedspread.

When they had finished with the interior, they stepped outside and began a walk around the building. Viewing the structure from the exterior, Kim told them that she wanted the new windows in the lean-to to match the small, diamond-paned windows of the main part of the house.

“They’ll have to be custom,” George said. “They’ll be considerably more expensive.”

“I want them,” Kim said without hesitation.

She also told them she wanted the roof slate repaired, not replaced with a modern material, as the contractor had suggested. Mark agreed it would look far better. Kim even wanted the asphalt shingles removed from the shed and replaced with slate.

Rounding the building, they came to the utility trench. Kim glanced into its depths, where now ran a waste pipe, a water pipe, an electrical service, a phone line, and a TV cable. She was relieved to see the corner of the coffin still protruding from the wall.

“What about this ditch?” she asked.

“It’ll be filled tomorrow,” George said.

Kim felt an unwelcome chill descend her spine as she reluctantly imagined the terrible dilemma she would have faced had she not made the call to George that morning.

“Will all this be done by September first?” Kim asked, forcing her mind away from such disturbing thoughts.

Mark deferred to George.

“Barring any unforeseen problems we should be fine,” George said. “I’ll order the new casement windows tomorrow. If they’re not here in time we can always hang a temporary window.”

After the contractor and the architect had climbed into their respective vehicles and driven out of sight, Kim went back into the house to find a hammer. With it in hand, she opened the trunk of her car and lifted out the cardboard box.

As she followed the trench to where she could climb into it, Kim was quite astonished with her degree of nervousness. She felt like a thief in the night, and she kept stopping to listen for any approaching cars.