“Why didn’t you take the blonde from the ER?” Kim asked before she had a chance to think about what she was saying.
“I couldn’t,” Kinnard said. “She got homesick and went back to Columbus, Ohio. How are things going for you? It looks like your relationship with Dr. Armstrong is alive and well.”
“It’s had its ups and downs,” Kim said vaguely.
“How was your ancestor involved in the witchcraft episode?” Kinnard asked.
“She was accused as a witch,” Kim said. “And she was executed.”
“How come you never told me that before?” Kinnard said.
“I was involved in a cover-up,” Kim said with a laugh. “Seriously, I had been conditioned by my mother not to talk about it. But that’s changed. Now getting to the bottom of her case has become a mini-crusade with me.”
“Have you had any luck?” Kinnard said.
“Some,” Kim said. “But there is a lot of material here and it has been taking me longer than I’d anticipated.”
Kinnard put his hand on the handle of a file drawer and glanced at Kim. “May I?” he asked.
“Be my guest,” Kim said.
Like most of the drawers in the attic it was filled with an assortment of papers, envelopes, and notebooks. Kinnard rummaged through but didn’t find any stamps. Finally he picked up one of the envelopes and slipped out the letter. “No wonder there’s no stamps in here,” he said. “Stamps weren’t invented until the end of the nineteenth century. This letter is from 1698!”
Kim took the envelope. It was addressed to Ronald.
“You lucky son of a gun,” Kim said. “This is the kind of letter I’ve been breaking my back to find, and you just walk in here and pluck it out like there was nothing to it.”
“Glad to be of assistance,” Kinnard said. He handed the letter to Kim.
Kim read the letter aloud:
12th October 1698Cambridge
Dearest Father,
I am deeply grateful for the ten shillings as I have been in dire need during these troublesome days of acclimation to colledge life. Ever so humbly I should like to relate that I have had complete success in the endeavor about which we had much discours prior to my matriculation. After lengthy and arduous inquiry I located the evidence used against my Dearly Departed Mother in the chambers of one of our esteemed tutors who had taken a fancy to its gruesome nature. Its prominent display caused me some disquietude but Tuesday last during the afternoon bever when all were retired to the buttery I chanced a visit to the aforesaid chambers and changed the name as you instructed to the fictitious Rachel Bing-ham. To a like purpose I entered the same in the catalogue in the library of Harvard Hall. I hope Dear Father that now you find solace that the surname Stewart has been freed from its most grievous molestation. In consideration of my studies I can with some felicity relate that my recitations have been well received. My chamber-mates are hale and of a most agreeable nature. Apart from the fagging about which you aptly forewarned me, I am well and content and
I remain your loving Son,Jonathan.
“Damn it all,” Kim said when she’d finished the letter.
“What’s the matter?” Kinnard asked.
“It’s this evidence,” Kim said, pointing it out in the letter. “It refers to the evidence used to convict Elizabeth. In a document I found at the Essex County Courthouse it was described as conclusive evidence, meaning it incontrovertibly convicted her. I’ve found several other references to it but it is never described. Figuring out what it was has become the chief object of my crusade.”
“Do you have any idea what it could be?” Kinnard asked.
“I believe it has something to do with the occult,” Kim said. “Probably it was a book or a doll.”
“I’d say this letter favors its being a doll,” Kinnard said. “I don’t know what kind of book would have been considered ‘gruesome.’ The gothic novel wasn’t invented until the nineteenth century.”
“Maybe it was a book describing some witch’s potion that used body parts as ingredients,” Kim suggested.
“I hadn’t thought of that,” Kinnard said.