ed
the way a medical student would.

"I also saw that the handwriting was different. Not the way students
write but like the handwriting of old people. So then I went back and
looked through other years for similar handwriting." He explained
that he, Randy, had found all three SmurFFs which he had brought to
Lyle and asked that they be sent to a document examiner because he
thought these were written by Trenchant.

Responding to a very leading question from Anuse, Randy agreed, "Yes,
these evaluations had been very harmful to me in that they tended to
undermine my confidence in my ability to teach radiology and could
affect my reappointment."

Esther broke in, "Five evaluations out of nearly 200?"

"Well most of the 200 were pretty bad." Suddenly realizing how this
sounded, he quickly amended, "You see, it was the kind of comments that
tipped me off that they were not real student feedbacks. They didn't
sound the same. She was making these kinds of comments to the
students--exerting influence on them to write the derogatory remarks.
That's what was undermining my confidence."

Anuse brought him sharply back out of harm's way by asking if there had
been trouble between him and Trenchant.

This opened a floodgate of accusation and crocodillian remorse. He had
no idea why she would be so resentful of him since he had gone out of
his way to be nice to her. "Once, I even complimented her on the cute
sweater she was wearing. Instead of acting normally, she complimented
me on my cute shirt. Go figure!"

Pressed to answer what he thought might be her reason to sabotage him
with fictitious student evaluations, he lost it. Although he had been
carefully coached by both the chairman of NERD and the university
attorney, all that training went out the window. The mask slipped and
his answer was pure, vitriolic, undiluted, vintage Randy.

Perhaps it was because he sensed a kindred spirit in Frank Anuse.
"Well," sneered Randy, "you know broads, they get crazier than ever at
that age and...."

Oh, God, thought Henry and nearly shouted, "It's getting late," over
the rest of what Randy was about to say. "This would be a good time to
adjourn for the day. All right?"

He glanced around quickly, stood up and was halfway to the door before
anyone could disagree. Damned idiot, he thought to himself. He'd see
to it that this boy got a talking to and had his priorities straight as
well as his head before he came ba