Chapter 21

Professor Diana Trenchant was sitting at her desk preparing for the evening laboratory. Roz had just left with Jennifer to talk to as many students as they could find. It had been Jennifer's idea and she had brought Roz along to help talk Diana into it. Ever since Jennifer had asked her what was wrong and Diana had explained and shown her the copies of the SmurFF's she had been accused of writing, Jennifer had been pondering what to do.

She was older than most of the students and had seen enough of life to know that one had to fight or be trampled. She didn't want to see a good teacher trampled.

"You mean they have accused you of writing these and demand that you resign?" She was dumbfounded. After she had looked at them more carefully, she asked, "Is this all of them? Five medical radiology and two nursing nutrition?"

"That's it."

"This sucks! And this paper is the graphologist report?" Jennifer used the scientific designation, graphologist, rather than the term document examiner. "Look here, these are what they call standards, did you write these?"

"I could have, I suppose, but the dates on them are so long ago that I just don't remember for sure."

"Well, two of these evaluations are printed. There is no printing among the standards. Look, I know a little about graphology and I know that they can't compare printing to writing standards. This looks like a setup. We need to put a crimp in Lyle Stone's tail. It's unconscionable that he would send student evaluations to a graphologist."

Later, when Roz had come in, she had asked Diana if they could tell the other students in the class about the two nursing nutrition SmurFFs. "We'll ask them to come up and see if they can identify if they wrote these. Then we'll check with the med students and have them do the same. Somebody must have written these and we need to find out who."

Diana agreed but only if no pressure was put on anyone. "This must be absolutely voluntary. I will copy some completed forms from last year's class and put them with these two to be identified. No one will know which two are critical."

Later in the day, several groups of students had wandered in to look at the pile of evaluations, shake their heads and wander out again.

That is until Jenny Smythe bubbled her way in. Jenny was from England. Her husband was a doctor associated with the medical school and she was continuing her education while he was posted here. She pounced delightedly on one of the forms, "This looks just like Sarah's writing. Sarah and I sit together at all the lectures and I've seen her handwriting so many times. I'll go get her!" And Jenny was off with that efficient British walking gait that one associates with woolen socks and moors.

The next day, Sarah appeared at Diana's door, tentative and a bit apprehensive. Sarah was a shy young woman barely out of high school. Raised on a farm, she had not yet assumed the mask that so many of her more sophisticated classmates wore.

"Jenny said I should look at some evaluations because you have some trouble because of them."

"Yes, thanks for coming by. They are on the bench there." Diana pointed.

Sarah put down her books and started to look through the SmurFFs. "Jenny's right. This one is mine." Sarah said, mournfully. "I was so hoping it wouldn't be."

She handed Diana one of the forms. It was one of the two that had been sent for analysis. With this proof that the graphologists had erred, Diana's hopes were raised and then quickly lowered when Sarah declared that she was afraid to testify at the hearing which was to be held soon. She was apologetic about it. Her folks had told her not to get involved; that it might mean trouble for her if she admitted to what she had written.

Roz and Jennifer, by this time, were well into their campaign protesting the sending off-campus of the student confidential evaluations. They were unhappy that Sarah wouldn't testify, but they respected her feelings.

Later on in the week, Sarah appeared at Diana's office door again. "You know," she said softly, "I think my parents are wrong on this. I wrote something that got you into trouble and I should stand up and admit it. Only, I'm so scared. But I know I have to do it.

"I'll go to the hearing but that's all I'm going to do. I don't want to get mixed up any further in this and I don't want anything at all to do with those. . .those. . .graph whatever people. You know, whoever it was that said this was your writing is nuts. . .I wrote this."

Sarah shuffled carefully into the hearing room, shaking with an advanced case of stage fright that threatened to upset her very balance.

As she had told Sarah she would, Diana got up from her chair, walked around the table and stood beside her after she had been identified and sworn. "Did you take the Nursing Nutrition course last school year, Sarah?"

"Yes."

"And did you make out a course evaluation for Dr. Jamison Jones?"

"Yes."

"Is this that evaluation?"

"Yes."

Diana turned to the panel. "This witness has just identified this evaluation from your evidence packet C, exhibit four."

Before Diana could continue, the panel erupted in a veritable frenzy of questions, all talking at once.

"What is that number?"

"What was she handed?"

"What is written on it?"

When there was a pause in the clamor, Sarah, holding exhibit four said again quietly, "Yes, this is mine."

"This is not one that went to the document examiners, right?" Henry was frantic.

"The witness has just identified document number two of exhibit four," repeated Diana.

As the panel again started to question Sarah, Henry struggled for control. Face blanched, hands compressed into fists so tightly that the nails bit into his palms, he listened powerlessly as Esther got the first question out. "Sarah, how can you be sure that this is yours?"

"Because I recognize the handwriting; I know what I wrote, that is why."

"I'd like to conduct the examination of my own witness, if I may," snapped Diana as the panel broke out in a flurry of questions after Esther's initial one. This angry outburst shocked the panel into silence, temporarily.

In a more relaxed voice, Diana nodded toward them and said, "Thank you. Now, Sarah, have you been pressured in any way to make this identification or have you been promised anything for doing it--by me or any other person? Remember, you are under oath to tell the complete truth."

"No."

"Thank you. I have finished the direct examination of this witness."

"May I see packet C to make sure I understand," said a very flustered Henry Tarbuck.

Esther started in on Sarah. Even though Sarah had given her class and student status at the beginning of her testimony, Esther asked for it all again. Perhaps she thought Diana was ringing in an impostor. Others on the panel took over as Esther paused for breath.

Sarah carefully answered each question, becoming confused only when two or three questions were thrown at her at the same time. She established who she was and how she had found out about the "whole business."

"Tell me again when you took the course?"

"Is there a date on the form?"

Raising his voice in the way that men will in the presence of women as an effective way of silencing them and holding the floor by intimidation, Anuse drawled conversationally, "What you claim is interesting. This document was identified by the document examiner as being written by Dr. Trenchant." He fixed Sarah with a patronizing grimace. His attitude plainly said I don't believe you, little girl.

Sarah replied, "I know that."

"Well, we should see a sample of your handwriting."

"You have a sample. It is right there on that paper I identified."

"No, absolutely not. It cannot be. You have made a mistake. That SmurFF has been identified by experts as being in Diana's handwriting."

"We'll take some of your writing to the document examiner. That will settle it." Esther beamed at having such a great idea.

"No. You already have a sample of my writing. I won't have anything more to do with those people. Look how they made this mistake. I don't like how those people are." Sarah did not have much faith in document examiners--she of all people had reason not to.

"Well, we can do nothing here with this. It is just hearsay or. . ." Frank's voice trailed off as he looked to Henry for a ruling.

Frank Anuse is trying to sweep the evidence under the rug, thought Jane. He came into this hearing with his mind made up. Any attempt Henry and Anuse have made toward impartiality is a sham.

Diana addressed the panel, speaking forcefully. "Sarah has identified the evaluation under oath. You have that document as a sample of her handwriting. I think that is sufficient and you are upsetting her with your badgering."

"Well, the analysts are convinced that you wrote it." Anuse had turned ugly again.

"Handwriting evidence is not always conclusive," retorted Diana.

Anuse turned his hostility toward Sarah. "How do you recognize that as yours?" Ignoring the fact that this had been asked and answered.

Patiently, Sarah said, "Because it is. It looks like mine and that is what I wrote."

Henry made a monumental blunder and didn't realize it until it was too late. After consistently arguing that the university would never send student handwriting off campus to a document examiner, he proposed just that! "We have samples of your handwriting in the university files that we can send to have checked," he threatened.

"No. You cannot do that with student files. You have no right to send my records away like that. You already have sent my SmurFF and you have that as a sample of my writing if you need it."

"Are you afraid?" Henry tried for intimidation to cover his faux pas. "Of what?"

"Yes, I'm afraid. I'm afraid of who's on the other side of this. I'm afraid of who is lying about Dr. Trenchant and what could happen to me for coming here to testify."

Once again, Anuse led her through questions, to explain how she had seen the copy of this evaluation. Finally he said, "and what did you think when you saw it?"

Her answer, delivered in a soft but firmly decisive tone, landed like a bombshell in the midst of the panel. They sat in stunned silence for a beat and then the chair abruptly dismissed her.

"I was shocked," Sarah said, earnestly. Tears, long held back now slowly slid down her face, marking the planes and valleys with ripples that winked on and off reflecting the room lights "And I didn't want to even say it was mine. But I did, because it was."

Diana left the hearing room shortly after Sarah to ask Helen, her last witness, to come in. The whole group was in the hallway gathered around Sarah as she came out of the hearing room door.

"What did they do to her in there," demanded Roz, angrily.

"They were pretty nasty. They fired questions at her so fast that she didn't understand what they were asking half the time. They all but called her a liar, poor kid," answered Diana.

Helen came over. "You tell them I'll be in just as soon as Sarah is calmed down. Sadistic bastards!"