CHAPTER 11

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.