Part 8 (1/2)

Jane jerked upright in her chair and stared at Lyle aghast.

Was he really accusing Diana of that level of control over medical students? Preposterous--one woman, all by herself, had influenced hundreds of medical students over a period of years to do as she dictated. There's more to this than I've been told. . .

this isn't about forging seven SmurFFs. What on earth is going on here, she pondered. . .

Finally, Henry noticed Janet who had been trying to get his attention for some time. ”We'll take a ten minute recess and when we come back, Trenchant may cross examine Dr. Stone.

You may leave the room. I'll summon you when we are ready,”

he ordered, taking in Janet and Diana with the same disdainful glance.

The committee huddled and Lyle Stone joined them. So much for impartiality.

Janet and Diana left, both breathing an audible sigh of relief as the door shut behind them. Stopping at the soft drink dispenser, the court reporter glanced around carefully then said sotto voce, ”What a farce. Unbelievable.”

Chapter 9

The ten-minute break had stretched to twenty before Henry and the panel finished going over their notes to make sure they had brought out everything that Mark, the university attorney, had advised.

Diana and Janet were called back and Diana began the cross examination of her department chair, Lyle Stone.

She asked him first to confirm a sentence written in his memo to the dean and which he had testified to before the break.

”Yes,” Lyle answered, ”I did write in the memo to the dean and also testified that I gave you all of the doc.u.ments used in the handwriting a.n.a.lysis.”

Diana held up several sheets of paper from the evidence packet on the table. ”I have found doc.u.ments dated nearly twenty years ago in this material the committee has introduced as that sent to the doc.u.ment examiners. These were not in the material that you gave me.

So your a.s.sertion that I was given all of the doc.u.ments is incorrect.”

Henry searched quickly through his copy of the evidence that had been sent to the doc.u.ment examiners as standards.

Good G.o.d, he thought. What is this creature doing?

Come on Lyle, don't let her get the best of you.

Ah, much better, Henry observed happily to himself as Lyle started tap dancing around her question. Instead of yes or no, he would repeat at length some of his previous testimony with added embellishments and avoid answering.

By persistent questioning, Diana established that he had stapled her brief note to one of the 'suspect' SmurFFs before it was sent out for a.n.a.lysis. But it was like pulling teeth. He kept reiterating that it was stapled to a 'suspect' evaluation, so it would not get lost.

Patiently, she repeated her question, finally wearing him down.

”Were the doc.u.ment examiners given this evaluation with the note stapled on it as one of the 'fict.i.tious' critiques?”

”Yes, they identified that critique as having been written by you.”

”No distinction between the note and the critique was given them-- according to their report, is that correct?”

”I guess so, yes.”

Using a sketch of the NERD office, Trenchant ran Lyle back through his previous testimony of how the blank critiques, the SmurFFs, were given out, how they were collected and what happened to them afterwards.

From her intimate knowledge of the operation, she was able to reveal most of the lies he had told of this process when the committee was questioning him.