None of the documents he had sent to the analysts contained anything detrimental to Ian Heathson, as claimed in his memo to the dean. She re-read what he'd written in the memo, "These fictitious student critiques were very detrimental and personally injurious to two junior faculty members."
Under Trenchant's quietly relentless cross examination, Lyle became flustered. First he claimed that perhaps his language had not been perfect in that phrase but what he meant was that, "manipulation of critiques in general would be detrimental to any faculty member."
Trying to bring him to the point, Trenchant read from a signed, dated student critique that had not been deemed 'suspicious' by Lyle. It had been submitted during the same period as the 'questioned' critiques.
"Quote: 'I think Randy needs to be more than one page ahead of the class in understanding the material. How can you teach what you do not know? I was also offended by the so-called anthropological function' (he gave) 'of the female breasts. I am familiar with some of the literature which support the statement in the handouts,' (in a lecture, Randy had emphasized that the primary function of the female breast was to attract a mate) 'but was not aware that THE NAKED APE, PENTHOUSE MAGAZINE, PLAYBOY MAGAZINE and so forth were regarded as competent medical school publications. The underlying tragedy of this incident is that it demonstrates the ease with which non-scientific hypothesis are disseminated without any thought. This, I think, is a poor reflection on the department and the faculty.' Unquote."
Diana continued, "This is what I would call personally injurious but I do not see this student critique among the 'suspicious' ones—the ones sent out for analysis."
Henry started to sweat along with Lyle who was becoming increasingly uncomfortable, his tone hostile. He dodged and refused to answer directly a question asking if he always sent suspicious critiques for handwriting analysis, claiming that in this case, one of his junior faculty had asked him to.
Jane picked up on an item of special importance, and extremely relevant, underlining it several times on her note pad. Because of the negligent handling of the critique process, there was no authentic chain of custody maintained! In addition, neither the SmurFFs alluded to as 'suspicious' nor the so-called handwriting standards were ever authenticated.
According to the testimony she had just heard, each of the so-called 'suspicious' critiques had been discovered when the finder was alone. Furthermore, Lyle could give no proof that any of the 'suspicious' SmurFFs he claimed were found, had ever been placed in the return box provided for the students. In fact, except for the few critiques that were signed, there was no evidence that any of the nearly two hundred uncontested critiques relating to the radiology course were even submitted by the radiology students!
Jane was simply astounded. In all of Lyle's testimony, he had offered no witnesses or evidence that could confirm his testimony that students had been manipulated by the accused. Witchcraft was insinuated, but never proven.
Henry was rapidly becoming unglued. Noting Lyle's declining control and fearing an incipient outburst, Henry interrupted and declared that they would now take a lunch break. How could that idiot sit there and let himself give away that kind of detail on how SmurFFs were handled in his department? Henry knew that this was having a deleterious effect on the panel and he knew that he'd better set things straight while there was still a chance to cover up.