by Robin Cook
“You could be sisters,” Edward agreed. “It certainly is an attractive painting. Why the devil was it hidden away in the very back of the wine cellar? It’s far more pleasing than most of the paintings hanging in this house.”
“It’s weird,” Kim said. “My grandfather must have known about it, so it’s not as if it were an oversight. As eccentric as he was, it couldn’t have been that he was concerned with other people’s feelings, especially not my mother’s. He and my mother never got along.”
“The size looks pretty close to that shadow we noticed above the mantel in the old house,” Edward said. “Just for fun, why don’t we carry it down there and see.”
Edward lifted the painting, but before he could take a step, Kim reminded him about the containers they’d come to the castle to find. Edward thanked her and put the painting back down. Together they went into the kitchen. Kim found three plastic containers with lids in the butler’s pantry.
Retrieving the painting from the great room, they started for the old house. Kim insisted on carrying the art work. With its narrow black frame, it wasn’t heavy.
“I have a strange but good feeling about finding this painting,” Kim said as they walked. “It’s like finding a long-lost relative.”
“I have to admit it is quite a coincidence,” Edward said. “Especially since she’s the reason why we happen to be here.”
Suddenly Kim stopped. She was holding the painting in front of her, staring at Elizabeth’s face.
“What’s the matter?” Edward asked.
“While I’ve been thinking she and I look alike, I just remembered what supposedly happened to her,” Kim said. “Today it’s inconceivable to imagine someone being accused of witchcraft, tried, and then executed.”
In her mind’s eye Kim could see herself facing a noose hanging from a tree. She was about to die. She shuddered. Then she jumped when she felt the rope touch her.
“Are you all right?” Edward asked. He’d put his hand on her shoulder.
Kim shook her head and took a deep breath. “I just had an awful thought,” she admitted. “I just imagined what it would be like if I were sentenced to be hanged.”
“You carry the containers,” Edward said. “Let me carry the painting.”
They exchanged their loads and started walking again.
“It must be the heat,” Edward said to lighten the atmosphere. “Or maybe you’re getting hungry. Your imagination is working overtime.”
“Finding this painting has really affected me,” Kim admitted. “It’s as if Elizabeth were trying to speak to me over the centuries, perhaps to restore her reputation.”
Edward eyed Kim as they trudged through the tall grass. “Are you joking?” he asked.
“No,” Kim said. “You said it was quite a coincidence we found this painting. I think it was more than a coincidence. I mean, when you think about it, it is astonishing. It can’t be purely by chance. It has to mean something.”
“Is this a sudden rush of superstition or are you always like this?” Edward asked.
“I don’t know,” Kim said. “I’m just trying to understand.”
“Do you believe in ESP or channeling?” Edward asked.
“I’ve never thought much about it,” Kim admitted. “Do you?”
Edward laughed. “You sound like a psychiatrist, turning the question back to me. Well, I don’t believe in the supernatural. I’m a scientist. I believe in what can be rationally proved and reproduced experimentally. I’m not a religious person. Nor am I superstitious, and you’ll probably think I’m being cynical if I say the two are related.”
“I’m not terribly religious either,” Kim said. “But I do have some vague beliefs regarding supernatural forces.”
They reached the old house. Kim held the door open for Edward. He carried the painting into the parlor. When he held it up to the shadow over the mantel, it fit perfectly.
“At least we were right about where this painting used to hang,” Edward said. He left the painting on the mantel.
“And I’ll see to it that it hangs there again,” Kim said. “Elizabeth deserves to be returned to her house.”
“Does that mean you’ve decided to fix this place up?”
“Maybe so,” Kim said. “But first I’ll have to talk with my family, particularly my brother.”
“Personally, I think it’s a great idea,” Edward said. He took the plastic containers from Kim and told her he was going to the cellar to get some dirt samples. At the parlor door he stopped.
“If I find Claviceps purpurea down there,” he said with a wry smile, “I know one thing that information will do: it will rob a bit of the supernatural out of the story of the Salem witchcraft trials.”
Kim didn’t respond. She was mesmerized by Elizabeth’s portrait and lost in thought. Edward shrugged. Then he went into the kitchen and climbed down into the cool, damp darkness of the cellar.
3
* * *
Monday,
July 18, 1994
AS USUAL Edward Armstrong’s lab at the Harvard Medical Complex on Longfellow Avenue was the scene of frenzied activity. There was the appearance of bedlam with white-coated people scurrying every which way among a futuristic array of high-technology equipment. But the sense of disorder was only for the uninitiated. For the informed it was a known fact that high science was in continual progress.
Ultimately it all depended on Edward, although he was not the only scientist who was working in the string of rooms affectionately referred to as Armstrong’s Fiefdom. Because of his notoriety as a genius, his celebrity as a synthetic chemist, and his prominence as a neuroscientist, applications for staff, doctorate, and postdoctorate positions greatly outnumbered the positions that Edward had been able to carve out of his chronically limited space, budget, and schedule. Consequently, Edward got the best and the brightest staff and students.
Other professors called Edward a glutton for punishment. Not only did he have the largest cadre of graduate students: he insisted on teaching an undergraduate basic chemistry course, even during the summer. He was the only full professor who did so. As he explained it, he felt an obligation to stimulate the young minds of the day at the earliest time possible.
Striding back from having delivered one of his famous undergraduate lectures, Edward entered his domain through one of the lab’s side doors. Like an animal feeder at a zoo he was immediately mobbed by his graduate students. They were all working on separate aspects of Edward’s overall goal of elucidating the mechanisms of short- and long-term memory. Each had a problem or a question that Edward answered in staccato fashion, sending them back to their benches to continue their research efforts.
With the last question answered, Edward strode over to his desk. He didn’t have a private office, a concept he disdained as a frivolous waste of needed space. He was content with a corner containing a work surface, a few chairs, a computer terminal, and a file cabinet. He was accompanied by his closest assistant, Eleanor Youngman, a postdoc who’d been with him for four years.
“You have a visitor,” Eleanor said as they arrived at Edward’s desk. “He’s waiting at the departmental secretary’s desk.”
Edward dumped his class materials and exchanged his tweed jacket for a white lab coat. “I don’t have time for visitors,” he said.
“I’m afraid this one you have to see,” Eleanor said.
Edward glanced at his assistant. She was sporting one of those smiles that suggested she was about to burst out laughing. Eleanor was a spirited, bright blonde from Oxnard, California, who looked like she belonged with the surfing set. Instead she had earned her Ph.D. in biochemistry from Berkeley by the tender age of twenty-three. Edward found her invaluable, not only because of her intelligence, but also because of her commitment. She worshiped Edward, convinced he would make the next quantum leap in understanding neurotransmitters and their role in emotion and memory.
“Who in heaven’s name is it?” Edward asked.
“He’s not serious,” Edward said. “He’s flirting with you.”
Edward quickly glanced through his mail. There was nothing earth-shattering. “Any problems in the lab?” he asked Eleanor.
“I’m afraid so,” she said. “The new capillary electrophoresis system which we’ve been using for micellar electrokinetic capillary chromatography is being temperamental again. Should I call the rep from Bio-rad?”
“I’ll take a look at it,” he said. “Send Stanton over. I’ll take care of both problems at the same time.”
Edward attached his radiation dosimeter to the lapel of his coat and wound his way over to the chromatography unit. He began fiddling with the computer that ran the machine. Something definitely wasn’t right. The machine kept defaulting to its original setup menu.
Absorbed in what he was doing, Edward didn’t hear Stanton approach. He was unaware of his presence until Stanton slapped him on the back.
“Hey, sport!” Stanton said, “I’ve got a surprise for you that’s going to make your day.” He handed Edward a slick, plastic-covered brochure.
“What’s this?” Edward asked as he took the booklet.
“It’s what you’ve been waiting for: the Genetrix prospectus,” Stanton said.
Edward let out a chuckle and shook his head. “You’re too much,” he said. He put the prospectus aside and redirected his attention to the chromatography unit computer.
“How’d your date with nurse Kim go?” Stanton asked.
“I enjoyed meeting your cousin,” Edward said. “She’s a terrific woman.”
“Did you guys sleep together?” Stanton asked.
Edward spun around. “That’s hardly an appropriate question.”
“My goodness,” Stanton said with a big smile. “Rather touchy I’d say. Translated that means you guys hit it off, otherwise you wouldn’t be so sensitive.”
“I think you are jumping to conclusions,” Edward said with a stutter.
“Oh, come off it,” Stanton said. “I know you too well. It’s the same way you were in medical school. Anything to do with the lab or science, you’re like Napoleon. When it comes to women you’re like wet spaghetti. I don’t understand it. But anyway, come clean. You guys hit it off, didn’t you?”
“We enjoyed each other’s company,” Edward admitted. “In fact, we had dinner Friday night.”
“Perfect,” Stanton said. “As far as I’m concerned that’s as good as sleeping together.”
“Don’t be so crass.”
“Truly,” Stanton said cheerfully. “The idea was to get you beholden to me and now you are. The price, my dear friend, is that you have to read this prospectus.” Stanton lifted the brochure from where Edward had irreverently tossed it. He handed it back to Edward.
Edward groaned. He realized he’d given himself away. “All right,” he said. “I’ll read the blasted thing.”
“Good,” Stanton said. “You should know something about the company because I’m also in a position to offer you seventy-five thousand dollars a year plus stock options to be on the scientific advisory board.”
“I don’t have time to go to any damn meetings,” Edward said.
“Who’s asking you to come to any meetings,” Stanton said. “I just want your name on the IPO offering.”
“But why?” Edward asked. “Molecular biology and biotech are not my bailiwick.”
“Chrissake!” Stanton said. “How can you be so innocent? You’re a scientific celebrity. It doesn’t matter you know dit about molecular biology. It’s your name that counts.”
“I wouldn’t say I know dit about molecular biology,” Edward said irritably.
“Now don’t get touchy with me,” Stanton said. Then he pointed to the machine Edward was working on. “What the hell is that?”
“It’s a capillary electrophoresis unit,” Edward said.
“What the hell does it do?”
“It’s a relatively new separation technology,” Edward said. “It’s used to separate and identify compounds.”
Stanton fingered the molded plastic of the central unit. “What makes it new?”
“It’s not entirely new,” Edward said. “The principles are basically the same as conventional electrophoresis, but the narrow diameter of the capillaries precludes the necessity of an anticonvection agent because heat dissipation is so efficient.”
Stanton raised his hand in mock self-defense. “Enough,” he said. “I give up. You’ve overwhelmed me. Just tell me if it works.”
“It works great,” Edward said. He looked back at the machine. “At least it usually works great. At the moment something is wrong.”
“Is it plugged in?” Stanton asked.
Edward shot him an exasperated look.
“Just trying to be helpful,” Stanton joked.
Edward raised the top of the machine and peered in at the carousels. Immediately he saw that one of the capped sample vials was blocking the carousel’s movement. “Well, isn’t this pleasant,” he said. “The thrill of the positive diagnosis of a remedial problem.” He adjusted the vial. The carousel immediately advanced. Edward closed the lid.
“So I can count on you to read the prospectus,” Stanton said. “And think about the offer.”
“The idea of getting money for nothing bothers me,” Edward said.
“But why?” Stanton said. “If star athletes can sign on with sneaker companies, why can’t scientists do the equivalent?”
“I’ll think about it,” Edward said.
“That’s all I can ask,” Stanton said. “Give me a call after you read the prospectus. I’m telling you, I can make you some money.”
“Did you drive over here?” Edward asked.
“No, I walked from Concord,” Stanton said. “Of course I drove. What a feeble attempt at changing the subject.”
“How about giving me a lift over to the main Harvard campus,” Edward said.
Five minutes later Edward slid into the passenger seat of Stanton’s 500 SEL Mercedes. Stanton started the engine and made a quick U turn. He’d parked on Huntington Avenue near the Countway Medical Library. They traveled around the Fenway and then along Storrow Drive.
“Let me ask you something,” Edward said after a period of silence. “The other night at dinner you made reference to Kim’s ancestor, Elizabeth Stewart. Do you know for a fact that she’d been hanged as a witch, or is the story a family rumor that has been around so long that people have come to believe it?”
“I can’t swear to it,” Stanton said. “I’ve just accepted what I’d heard.”
“I can’t find her name in any of the standard treatises on the subject,” Edward said. “And there is no dearth of them.”
“I heard the story from my aunt,” Stanton said. “According to her the Stewarts have been keeping it a secret since time immemorial. So it’s not as if it’s something they’ve dreamed up to enhance their reputation.”
“All right, let’s assume it happened,” Edward said. “Why the devil would it matter now? It’s so long ago. I mean I could understand for a generation or so, but not three hundred years.”
Stanton shrugged. “Beats me,” he said. “But I probably shouldn’t have mentioned it. My aunt will have my head if she hears I’ve been bantering it about.”
“Even Kim was reluctant to talk about it at first,” Edward said.
“That’s probably because of her mother, my aunt,” Stanton said. “She’s always been a stickler for reputation and all that social garbage. She’s a very proper lady.”
“Kim took me out and showed me the family compound,” Edward said. “We even went inside the house where Elizabeth was supposed to have lived.”
Stanton glanced at Edward. He shook his head in admir
ation. “Wow!” he said. “You work fast, you tiger.”
“It was all very innocent,” Edward said. “Don’t let your gutter imagination carry you away. I found it fascinating, and it has awakened Kim’s interest in Elizabeth.”
“I’m not sure her mother is going to like that,” Stanton said.
“I might be able to help the family’s response to the affair,” Edward said. He opened a bag he had on his lap and lifted out one of the plastic containers he and Kim had brought back from Salem. He explained to Stanton what it contained.
“You must really be in love,” Stanton said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be taking all this time and trouble.”
“My idea is that if I can prove that ergotism was at the heart of the Salem witch craze,” Edward said, “it would remove any possible remaining stigma people felt who were associated with the ordeal, particularly the Stewarts.”
“I still contend you must be in love,” Stanton said. “That’s too theoretical a justification for all this effort. I can’t get you to do squat for me even with the promise of lucre.”
Edward sighed. “All right,” he said. “I suppose I have to admit that as a neuroscientist I’m intrigued by the possibility of a hallucinogen causing the Salem affair.”
“Now I can understand,” Stanton said. “The Salem witchcraft story has a universal appeal. You don’t have to be a neuroscientist.”
“The entrepreneur as a philosopher,” Edward remarked with a laugh. “Five minutes ago I would have considered that an oxymoron. Explain to me the universal appeal.”
“The affair is ghoulishly seductive,” Stanton said. “People like that sort of stuff. It’s like the pyramids of Egypt. There has to be more to them than mere piles of stone. They are a window on the supernatural.”
“I’m not sure I agree,” Edward said as he put away his dirt sample. “As a scientist I’m merely searching for a scientific explanation.”
“Oh, bull,” Stanton said.
Stanton dropped Edward off on Divinity Avenue in Cambridge. Just before Edward closed the door he reminded him once more about the Genetrix prospectus.