Attempting to save the situation, a.n.u.se asked if the courts accepted handwriting a.n.a.lysis to be as accurate as fingerprints.

Her answer dripped confidence. "Yes."

Janet sensed that the women on the panel were not about to let this polite exchange continue. The very forces at work over the eons that compelled women to defer to men, rewarded them for fearlessly attacking other women. The confident, a.s.sertive demeanor manifested by the a.n.a.lyst would not have been questioned coming from a man, but they would not let a woman get away with it.

She knew from countless demonstrations she had witnessed that women may band together at times with the force of a mob to attack another woman. This behavior was and is still produced by the same motivation. Men in power foster it and reward it.

Esther began the attack. "There are many letters on the display you have shown that are very different from the standards.

The T's look very different."

"What T?"

"Those." Pointing, "those T's have a straight. . ."

"Certainly some letters will be different, but with my training, I am able to see similarities you are missing," Alice Stebbins replied, confident of her own superiority. "If there is a large sample of writing you may be able to see differences in each letter. The samples given me were so small that this was not the case, however, I did have enough material to compare with the unique handwriting characteristics shown in Dr. Trenchant's standards to make a positive identification."

"How consistently do other doc.u.ment examiners agree with you or agree with one another?" This from Annette.

"I don't know."

"Do handwriting examiners oppose each other in court?"

"I don't know that. I suppose you could find anyone to do anything.

a.s.suming that there are two doc.u.ment examiners, it would depend upon which one makes the most persuasive argument."

"I see," Jane's smile was victorious. "It's not a question of being correct in your a.n.a.lysis as much as your ability to make a jury think so."

Henry hurriedly asked loudly, "I understand you are court qualified.

What do you mean by that?"

"Every time I have gone into court, my qualifications have been accepted by the court. I have never been denied. That is what is meant."

The chair indicated to Trenchant that she might ask questions of the doc.u.ment examiner.

First, Trenchant confirmed all of the doc.u.ments given the examiner and again made the point that many of these had not been given her before the hearing as had been sworn to by Lyle and also written in a letter to her by the chair.

She next established that all of the exemplars that the a.n.a.lyst worked from were copies. Continuing her questioning of the witness, she asked, "You must be aware that people in your profession pretty much insist on seeing original standards?"

Alice dodged adroitly. "I saw the originals of the questioned doc.u.ments."

Trenchant pursued. "But only copies of the standards."

Alice allowed, "correct," to escape between clenched teeth.

"You have been testifying throughout saying that I wrote the standards you used. I put it to you. Is this something you were told, or do you know of your own knowledge that I wrote those standards you used to compare with 'suspect' SmurFFs?"

"What was that?" a.n.u.se interrupted.

"I'll ask the question again. Please let the witness answer.

Specifically, did I write those standards in front of you so you know positively that they were written by me."

"No. I a.s.sumed that the exemplars that I was given were authentic exemplars or standards of your own writing."

"Just as you a.s.sumed that I wrote the questioned doc.u.ments?"

Diana paused just long enough for that to sink in, then asked, "It has been pointed out that some of us see many dissimilarities in the exhibit you have shown us. Don't these carry any weight?"

"If, in my opinion, the similarities outweigh the dissimilarities, or vice-versa, that would be the basis for my opinion," Alice answered, then forcefully added, "my opinion is based on training, not a.s.sumptions."

"Thank you very much, Ms Stebbins. I'm glad that we clarified that the standards were a.s.sumptions."

a.n.u.se promptly went into a damage control frenzy trying to destroy the point made that the exemplars were not authenticated.

He would probably have succeeded had not the examiner been so haughty, so confident. At least three of the panel were not convinced by her testimony.

Janet chuckled to herself. She didn't particularly like the fact that many women never figured out their intolerance of their own s.e.x, but she was delighted to see anything working in Diana's favor.

Evidence was evidence and courts made it clear that you couldn't manufacture it. Evidence had to be proven authentic. She knew that a judge would throw this case against Diana right out on the testimony of this doc.u.ment examiner.

There was a delay while Alice Stebbins was escorted out.

During this time, Janet rested her fingers and recanted her previous thought. Actually, she amended, it would never have gotten this far. It would have stopped back when it became obvious that there was no chain of custody established for the seven 'suspect' SmurFFs.

Chapter 12

Henry called the dean of the medical school, Sam Broadhurst, MD, and asked him to identify himself and his position at Belmont for the record, as the witness before him had done.

The dean was a swarthy complected, strongly built individual.

At 52, his reputation as a ruthless administrator was well known.

Just as well known was his reputation for fairness. Where he was faulted was the way he backed up, no matter what, the medical school chairmen (there were no women) who along with him were called 'The Boy's Club'

by the rest of the medical school faculty.

The Boy's Club often went on retreat. At these meetings, held in luxurious surroundings, policies and plans were decided and everyone fell into line, or else. There were those among the faculty that believed that Sam Broadhurst demanded from the chairs, and took himself, an oath in blood. This was because they invariably backed each other up publicly even though privately, they didn't.

Henry knew that the dean was not happy with the way the Trenchant situation had been handled. The dean was royally p.i.s.sed that Lyle had gone over his head to Mark and himself instead of keeping the matter in the medical school and dealing with it there. He was further incensed that they had decided to charge Diana and terminate her before he was even apprised that the situation existed. By the time he was brought into the process, it was to late for him to do anything but go along with it.

So Henry wasn't surprised when the dean made it quite clear that he was not consulted until the central administration had already decided to terminate Diana. This was so obvious that everyone in the room realized that he was just doing his job within the system but that didn't mean that he liked it.

Having thus vented his spleen about the way the affair had been handled, Dean Broadhurst clearly and forcibly added his opinion to that of Lyle's in almost a carbon copy of Lyle's relevant testimony. Clearly and succinctly without the wandering, self serving side trips taken by Lyle, the dean cast the party line with all the skill of the accomplished angler he was.

All right. Well done, thought Henry, with transparent relief.

At least things were going all right thus far with this witness.

Esther took over the questioning and asked, "Would five or six SmurFF critiques out of around 200 have enough weight to influence your process of evaluating faculty performance in a course?"

The dean sidestepped, "The ones in question were pretty d.a.m.ning comments."