Part 15 (1/2)

Honestly, Randy, he's been driving me crazy. Talks a blue streak all the time. Ask him the date and he'll discourse for hours on end before he gets to the point. Holding any kind of a conversation with him is as impossible as stopping a hurricane by shouting at it.

”I kept trying to get away. Once, I said I had to take a p.i.s.s and the son of a b.i.t.c.h came along with me, whizzing away in the next urinal, without missing a word. I tell you, the man should be muzzled.”

”Well, it looks as if he isn't going to follow you into the hearing room, Ian. Calm down. They're waiting for you in there.”

”Yeah, in a minute. Tell me first, Randy, how was it?

Anything I should watch out for?”

”Nada.” Randy had regained his usual swagger. ”Not a thing, old bean.

Between us, we'll give the b.i.t.c.h the old one two. . .”

”We're waiting for you, Ian.” Henry said from the doorway of the hearing room.

”Oh, right. I'm coming right along. Just had to get things straight about who takes the review session today since I could be tied up here, ” blubbered Ian, apologetically. As he reached the door, he turned and looked back up the stairs apprehensively.

Seeing no one, he breathed a sigh of relief and entered the hearing room.

Ian Heathson was of average height. His most striking features were his mop of blond hair and pale blue eyes which flitted about, examining the room, looking everywhere except at Diana.

When asked to substantiate the testimony of Lyle that he and Randy had found 'suspicious' SmurFFs, Ian told a slightly different story.

He hadn't found any himself. Randy had found them. ”He showed them to me and I was flabbergasted. I had no reason to suspect that something like that would happen.”

Having said that, he reversed course and said, ”I always thought there was some kind of manipulative action going on with the students, because we used to get critiques that were totally inconsistent with what we were doing in the course. So we always felt there was something going on.”

When Henry asked what he did next, he stated that Randy had brought the 'suspect' SmurFFs to Lyle and, ”indicated our concern.”

Given the packet of SmurFFs that had been sent to the doc.u.ment examiners and asked to identify them as the ones found, he said, ”I can't remember, I didn't memorize them.”

When asked how he got along with Diana, he admitted that, ”they got along fine until the year Randy. . .” Stopping abruptly. . . ”Well, I noticed problems all along.”

Esther, who had apparently read the complete set of student evaluations for the years in question, entered as evidence by Diana, suggested that his evaluations had become more positive each year before Randy came into the course.

He professed to not knowing for sure, but thought, ”The first year I taught was not good, the second year, considerably better and the third, a hair better, not much.

”The fourth year, well. . .”

Easy now, Ian, thought Henry, that was the year that Randy started teaching.

As if he had heard Henry's silent coaching, Ian testified as if his life depended upon it--his professional life did.

He told a long heart-wrenching tale of the terrible student evaluations he received in the radiology course. He had very nearly not been reappointed a couple of times but Lyle had fought for him.

Over and over again, at every opportunity, he came back to the years of deleterious critiques pa.s.sed in by the students.

Obviously, this had to be because Trenchant manipulated the students.

”Some of the things commonly written on the critiques were, 'Why isn't she lecturing?' 'Course is totally disorganized'

and this is wrong because I am not a disorganized individual; the course is very well organized.”

”Did you ever have her lecture to see what the students'

reaction would be?” asked Jane.