Robin Cook - Acceptable Risk

Kim looked back at the letters. She noticed the evidence was described as “Elizabeth’s handiwork.” Perhaps Elizabeth had made a book with an elaborately tooled leather cover? Kim laughed at herself. She knew she was taxing her imagination, but nothing else came to mind.

In Increase Mather’s letter, Kim noted that the evidence had elicited “impassioned and enlightening” debate among the students. She thought that description not only gave weight to the idea of the evidence being a book, but tended to suggest it was the contents that were important, not its appearance.

But then Kim thought again about the evidence being some kind of doll. Just that week she’d read that a doll with pins in it had been used in the trial of Bridget Bishop, the first person to be executed in the Salem ordeal.

Kim sighed. She knew that her wild speculations as to the nature of the evidence was not accomplishing anything. After all, the evidence could have been anything to do with the occult. Instead of wild speculation she had to stick to the facts that she had, and the three letters she’d just found gave her a very significant fact, namely that the evidence, whatever it was, had been given to Harvard University in 1692. Kim wondered what the chances were that she could find reference to it at the institution today, and if she were to try, whether they would laugh at her.

“Ah, there you are,” Edward called down from the top of the wine cellar stair. “Having any luck?”

“Strangely enough I have,” Kim yelled back. “Come down and take a look at these.”

Edward climbed down the stairs and took the letters. “My goodness,” he exclaimed when he saw the signatures. “These are three of the most famous Puritans. What a find!”

“Read them,” Kim said. “They’re interesting but frustrating for my purposes.”

Edward leaned against a bureau to take advantage of the light from one of the wall sconces. He read the letters in the same order that Kim had.

“They’re marvelous,” he said when he was finished. “I love the wording and the grammar. It lets you know that rhetoric was a major course of study in those days. Some of it’s above my head: I don’t even know what the word ‘sedulous’ means.”

“I think it means diligent,” Kim said. “I didn’t have any difficulty with definitions. What gave me trouble was how the sentences ran on and on.”

“You’re lucky these letters weren’t written in Latin,” Edward said. “Back in those days you had to read and write Latin fluently to get into Harvard. And speaking of Harvard, I’d bet Harvard would be interested in these, especially the one from Increase Mather.”

“That’s a good point,” Kim said. “I was thinking about going to Harvard and asking about Elizabeth’s evidence. I was afraid they might laugh at me. Maybe I could make a trade.”

“They wouldn’t laugh at you,” Edward said. “I’m sure someone in the Widener Library would find the story intriguing. Of course they wouldn’t turn down a gift of the letter. They might even offer to buy it.”

“Does reading these letters give you any better idea what the evidence could have been?” Kim asked.

“Not really,” Edward said. “But I can understand what you mean by their being frustrating. It’s almost funny how many times they mention the evidence without describing it.”

“I thought Increase Mather’s letter gave more weight to the idea it was some kind of book,” Kim said. “Especially the part where he mentioned it stimulated debate among the students.”

“Perhaps,” Edward said.

“Wait a second,” Kim said suddenly. “I just had another idea. Something I hadn’t thought about. Why was Ronald so keen to get it back? Doesn’t that tell us something?”

Edward shrugged. “I think he was interested in sparing his family further humiliation,” he said. “Often entire families suffered when one member was convicted of witchcraft.”

“What about the possibility it could have been self-implicating?” Kim said. “What if Ronald had something to do with Elizabeth’s being accused and convicted of witchcraft? If he did, then maybe he wanted to get the evidence back so he could destroy it.”

“Whooo, hold on!” Edward said. He backed away a step as if Kim were a threat. “You’re too conspiratorially inclined; your imagination is working overtime.”

“Ronald married Elizabeth’s sister ten weeks after Elizabeth’s death,” Kim said heatedly.

“I think you are forgetting something,” Edward said. “The test I ran on Elizabeth’s remains suggests that she’d been chronically poisoned by the new fungus. She’d probably been having psychedelic trips on a regular basis, which had nothing to do with Ronald. In fact he might have been having his own if he were ingesting the same grain. I still think the evidence had to do with something Elizabeth made while under the hallucinogenic effect of the mold. Like we said, it could have been a book, or a picture, or a doll, or anything they thought related to the occult.”

“You have a point,” Kim conceded. She took the letters from Edward and put them in the Bible box. She glanced down the wine cellar’s long hall with its complement of furniture filled with paperwork. “Well, back to the drawing board. I’ll just have to keep looking in hopes of finding the evidence described.”

“I finished my meetings,” Edward said. “Everything is going smoothly regarding the new lab. I have to compliment you on your contractor. He’s going to start today by digging the utility trench. He said his only concern was finding more graves! I think finding Elizabeth’s spooked him. What a character.”

“Do you want to go back to Boston?” Kim asked.

“I do,” Edward admitted. “There are a lot of people I want to talk to now that Omni is soon to be a reality. But I don’t mind taking the train like I did the last time. If you want to stay working here on your project, I think you should.”

“Well, if you wouldn’t mind,” Kim said. Finding the letters had at least encouraged her.

Friday, August 12, 1994

August had began hot, hazy, and humid. There had been little rain all through July, and the drought continued into the following month without remittance until the grass on the Boston Common in front of Kim’s apartment changed from green to brown.

At work, August brought some relief for Kim. Kinnard had started his two-month rotation at Salem Hospital, so she didn’t have the anxiety of facing him daily in the SICU. Kim had also concluded negotiations with the department of nursing to give her the entire month of September free. It was put together with a combination of accumulated vacation time plus personal time off without pay. The nursing office hadn’t been happy with the request, but they had compromised in order not to lose Kim altogether.

The beginning of the month also provided Kim with some time on her hands because Edward was away constantly. He was busy flying around the country on secret recruitment missions for Omni Pharmaceuticals. But he did not forget her. Despite his pressing schedule, he phoned every night around ten, just before Kim went to sleep. He also kept up the daily flowers although on a more modest scale. Now the deliveries were a single rose a day, which Kim felt was much more appropriate.

Kim had no trouble filling her time. In the evenings she continued her background reading on the Salem witch trials and Puritan culture. She also made it a point to visit the compound every day. Construction was proceeding at an extremely rapid rate. The crew at the lab was more numerous than the one working on the cottage. Nonetheless, progress at the cottage did not slow, and finish painting was begun even before all the cabinetwork had been completed.