Something had to be done. The group gathered in the
conference room were all in agreement on that--but what?
The problem was two-fold: what to do about the possibility that
Trenchant would bring a plagiarism suit against the department,
and how to wipe out years of bad SmurFFs for Ian and Randy.
"You realize that we could just get rid of her by invoking
the clause in her contract that designates she's first in
the department fired if the department has financial problems?"
"That wouldn't help much, she could still sue for plagiarism.
If we fired her, even justifiably, the papers would play
the plagiarism stuff up."
"There is another way--by discrediting her first and making
the student evaluations invalid."
"How!"
"During my last trip to New York, I heard about some special
services that were available."
"Special services? You mean a hit man? That wouldn't help
the evaluations."
"No. Something else, entirely. Give me a few weeks and then
follow through with what you are presented with. It may be expensive,
though. Can I count on some help in that direction?"
"No problem. You come through on this and we'll give you
all the help you want."
The others present nodded in agreement and the meeting ended.
He could hear the phone ringing in Anderson's office. Ah,
there he was. "Andy, no names, please. I'm on the office phone.
You recognize my voice?
"Yeah, sure. How they hanging?"
"Remember our conversation where you told me about the special services guy?
"Yeah."
"Can you put me in touch with him?"
"Yeah."
"Thanks, later."
He got to the appointed restaurant early and asked for
the booth reserved for Smith as he had been instructed.
It was amazing how those New York City taxi drivers knew
a hole in the wall place like this.
Soon, he was joined by a well dressed, obviously well
educated man who ordered drinks for both of them.
"I understand that you have need of our services.
How may we be of help?"
"I need to have some papers forged. It has to be a foolproof
forgery that will not be exposed if the papers are examined
by a handwriting analyst."
"That will be expensive, but not impossible. We charge by
the number of words and the number of papers or documents
you need." The price of each was then given.
"Whew, that is steep."
"Yes it is. But you want foolproof. Ordinary forgers
are a dime a dozen, but we employ only the most expert.
These are people who are trained in document examination.
They know what a document examiner looks for and what tips
them off to call something a forgery. For example,
if a person is trying to disguise his or her handwriting,
they make it bigger, wider, smaller or larger.
"Our forgers, as trained document examiners, look for unique
or individualistic handwriting characteristics and make sure
these are included in their forgeries. They first find all the
characteristics, even the microscopic ones, of the individual's
handwriting just as a document examiner does. Then they utilize
this knowledge in making a foolproof forgery.
"All this takes time, of course."
"How do you recruit these people? I should think it would
be difficult since they work fairly exclusively for attorneys
or police, don't they?"
"Well, I certainly can't share our methods but I will remind
you that money talks. These people are paid very well for what
they do and they know they are protected. I hope you are not
so naive that you believe all lawyers and cops are honest!
"They are easy to recruit because they may have worked for years
for very little. That's why to get the best, you have to pay for it."
"OK, here's what I need. I was hoping to have a dozen or
so of the following messages copied onto these blue forms,
but I'm going to have to settle for these three short ones.
"I understand from the man that introduced us that this will
never be traced back to me?"
"Correct. I am only a broker. I do nothing criminal--you do
nothing criminal. The forger never sees either you or me.
Someone else takes the material to her or him. That's another
thing that makes our service so excellent. I will use a former
document examiner who is the same sex and about the same age
as the person you want blamed for these documents.
"Now, the first thing we need is as many examples of this
individual's handwriting and printing that you can get your hands on.
We want originals, not copies. However, be sure you make copies
since you will not get the originals back. They will be,
`consumed' perhaps is the best word for it, in the forgery process.
Most commercial document examiners will accept copies of
standards to work from and this is to our, and your, advantage.
You might get one sharp enough to be suspicious if given enough
original standards to compare with our forgeries."
The waiter never came back to bother them. They sat in the
secluded booth and planned out the three documents to be.
A few weeks later. . ."Mr. Smith? Yes, thank you for returning
my call so promptly. Yes, the merchandise was as you represented.
The professionals have authenticated it." He listened briefly,
then said, "We are going to need two more. I neglected dates
on the previous order and we have to show repetition of this practice.
"All right. I'll meet you there in one hour with the accessories
and balance of payment for the previous order."
After hanging up the phone, he opened his briefcase and extracted
a small packet of bright blue, Belmont Student Feedback Forms
and a sheet with the typewritten messages that had been created
to be forged onto them. He looked to see that the rest of the
contents were in place, then returned everything to the briefcase
and left the room carrying it.
The document examiner was seated, sworn and proceeded to give
her qualifications which were concerned with her training,
the number of years in the profession and clients.
Alice Stebbins was quite short. Her features gave her age
as around fifty and holding. She dressed severely, in browns
and blacks which made her look perky and birdlike. Peering at
the hearing panel over her half glasses enhanced the bird image,
but it was destroyed when she opened her mouth.
Her voice, far from a peep-peep one might expect, was deep
and strong. She had learned well that when one was giving
expert testimony, one presented a confident, assured bearing.
Further questions from the chair led her through the
evidence and she readily identified all but two of the
seven `suspicious' critiques as being written by Trenchant.
Her language was laced with the correctness of one accustomed
to giving court appearances. She prefaced much of her
testimony with the caveat, `in my opinion'. Her attitude
of selfassuredness belied this qualification.
"Also, in my opinion, those two most probably were written by her.
Certainty was not possible since they contained printing and I was
not given enough or recent enough exemplars of Dr. Trenchant's printing."
Using two large easels, she demonstrated various letters
and combination of letters photographed and enlarged from
the standards or exemplars and from the `suspect' documents.
This kind of testimony was familiar to Janet. She faithfully
recorded the words being spoken and knew that standards or
exemplars are writing and printing that are authenticated.
That is, that are definitely established to be written or
printed by the person in question. Customarily, they are
taken in the presence of the document examiner so the
examiner can swear to their authenticity.
Using these visual aids, the document examiner pointed out
the similarities existing in the way the letters were
formed--making her case that the documents in question,
the `suspect' SmurFFs, had indeed been written by Trenchant.
Clearly, her presentation was well done and the panel was
most engrossed and fascinated by the process she delineated.
The panel was eager to question her further. Like most professionals,
they were deeply interested in a discipline they knew very little about.
"Is handwriting analysis reliable?" Anuse knew what her answer would be
and wanted to pin this down first, but the question backfired on him.
"Yes," she answered confidently.
The panel hassled her for specifics. These were researchers
who were consistently challenged to prove or disprove their own
theories and then defend them. Statistics were their life.
"How have you measured your success rate, what percent of
the time have you been right?" They questioned.
"In other words, have the courts accepted my qualifications?"
"No, not qualifications--evaluations. How many times are
you right and how many times are you wrong?"
"It isn't looked at that way. The judge or jury
look at the whole case, not just your presentation."
"I understand that the courts allow your testimony.
I want to know the percentage of error in your analysis,"
asked Jane Astori, leaning forward.
"None."
"None? Has this ever been calculated?" demanded Esther Rondell.
"No. But there is research going on."
Jane and Esther looked at each other in blank astonishment
and then back at the document examiner, disdain and disbelief
fighting each other for expression on their faces.
Attempting to save the situation, Anuse asked if the courts
accepted handwriting analysis 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, assertive
demeanor manifested by the analyst 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 document 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.
Assuming that there are two document 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 analysis 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 document examiner.
First, Trenchant confirmed all of the documents 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 analyst
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 documents."
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?" Anuse 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 assumed that the exemplars that I was given were
authentic exemplars or standards of your own writing."
"Just as you assumed that I wrote the questioned documents?"
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 assumptions."
"Thank you very much, Ms Stebbins. I'm glad that we clarified
that the standards were assumptions."
Anuse 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 sex,
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 document 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.