"Court certification of a document examiner means that the court has accepted their training and experience. This is seldom checked and is fairly loosely defined by the profession itself. It does not indicate a perfect batting average for the examiner.
"Most analysts that I contacted said that if they were hired in this case, they would want to examine all of the critiques—not just the handful picked out by NERD. There is always the chance of there being another individual with similar handwriting in that many samples.
"They admitted there were people capable of forging the handwriting of another person. They directed me to check out the literature on the Hitler Diaries and the more recent White Salamander Papers. What these two cases had in common was that the best, most expert document examiners in the world were fooled. Because these were sensational cases, they were highly publicized. Most forgeries get little or no attention from the media but the fact remains that a good forger can fool highly qualified document examiners.
"Oh, yes. There is one more thing I want to question here since most of the documents you have listed as so-called standards are copies. These copies are mostly memos addressed to people in the department. If they are authentic, why aren't they originals? If I had written and sent those, it would have been the originals—if I'd made a copy it would have been kept for my files."
My God, Henry screamed to himself, why do I let her go on with this? Well, of course, it's because those women are listening and look interested so I don't dare cut her own testimony off too often. They were not happy with the way Frank was badgering her and I didn't want to alienate them any further. Aloud, he said, "Does the panel have any more questions?" Getting no response, the chair called a short recess.
When Diana entered the waiting room, her witnesses gathered around, full of support and questions. "All in all, it went pretty well," she told them. "The real victory was getting out of there without throttling Frank Anuse. He asks question after question always discounting your answer. He doesn't come right out and say you're lying but it is implied in his manner.
"The rest of the panel aren't bad. Esther gets a little mixed up in what she wants to say at times and is a bit hard to understand, but she appears to be trying to be fair. I think the other two women on the panel are more sympathetic toward me now.
"It isn't much fun, but you shouldn't be in there very long, so that's some compensation."
"They were at you for a long time," Sarah's voice quavered ever so slightly.
"Yes, but I'm their designated criminal. I really don't think they will treat you badly, but if they do, get up and walk out. I mean that, it goes for all of you," Trenchant said firmly.