Avery nodded and located his copy among the papers before him on the table.
"Now, you report that you cannot be sure of the authorship of this note which has quite a few words but you can be sure of the authorship of this evaluation form which has only two words."
Avery found the other document referred to and looked at them and then at his notes. "Yes," he agreed. "I could not be sure of the note because it contains block printing."
"So do these other SmurFFs that you say you have identified. There is some block printing on the note that we are talking about, but most of it is small case printing."
"Well, there were not enough individualistic examples in the note to be sure."
Henry wished that they had never let that note be sent to the document examiners. It had been nothing but trouble and was not related to the SmurFF forgery that Diana was charged with. That damn note which had come out of nowhere—reportedly given Lyle by his good friend but never verified, was not identified as being written by Diana by either of the two document examiner firms. The two examiners also differed on the identification of one of the 'suspect' medical school SmurFFs. One was sure of Exhibit 2 but not of 3. The other was sure of 3 but not of 2. Henry recalled that now both document examiner witnesses agreed that the handwriting did change over the years. Jesus, if this woman keeps it up, she'll destroy all our evidence. Quickly, Henry stepped in and Amos Avery, the second document examiner that the Belmont administration had hired, was excused.
Chapter 33
After Avery left the hearing room, Diana put the expert document examiner's affidavit, that she had read from, into evidence. The expert had sworn in this affidavit that all of the student evaluations for the medical school courses for those years should be analyzed. It was possible that another person or persons had handwriting or printing that was similar to Diana's. She read this portion to the committee and added that she hoped they would read the complete affidavit which contained several pages of the document examiner's credentials.
All along, the women kept their eyes either on these papers or on the witness. They steadfastly refused to look at Diana or at the chair. They asked few questions of the witness, tonelessly, and did not ask any follow up or clarifying questions.