Perri O'Shaughnessy - Unfit to Practice

“Now, in contrast, study the final letters on the words Ms. Reilly admits she has written. No tails. The letters finish and by golly they are finished. Abruptly. Look here. The final stroke on the small d comes down below the basic line. This is a primitive stroke and denotes that the writer is opinionated and perhaps unreasonable at times. Ms. Reilly is perhaps a stubborn personality who casts off unnecessary details. She is not gregarious. She is not extroverted.

“Third point of difference. The breaks between letters. Look at the word advised from the last sentence. Note the breaks after the letters a and d. Under the microscope-where is that slide-thank you-very faint connecting lines can be seen. The forger is again acting contrary to his or her real personality in placing breaks between the strokes. The forger wants to connect these letters to the rest of the word, because he or she is a logical person, wary of intuition.

“All forgers are devious by nature, able to subsume the real personality. This forger is able to duplicate Ms. Reilly’s handwriting in a workmanlike manner, with only small, crass hints of form that reveal a covert crudeness in the character. He or she has some limited talent as a craftsman, with these limitations exposed by the roughness of this effort. It is Ms. Reilly, with her tricky breaks between letters-look here, she is practically printing-who is the creative person, the artist. I must say I cannot understand what she is doing in the law.”

As this unfortunate sentence came out of the garrulous expert’s mouth, Nina tried to suppress a nervous giggle. She hoped the judge wouldn’t agree with Mrs. Gleb.

“Anything else?” Jack said quickly.

“Point four. The loops that extend downward from the y and the f. Look at the lower loops of the nineteen words in question. The forger extends the stroke downward and there is just the minutest angle as he swoops into a big loop like Ms. Reilly’s. He doesn’t really want to make that big loop, he just wants a long line down. He is faking it.” Nina stared at the letters. The lower loops looked enormous. The bottoms of some of the loops didn’t look smooth, as though someone had done just what Mrs. Gleb was saying. She pictured the forger in a workshop lit by candlelight, crafting away like Geppetto.

“This forger is a practical type, perhaps interested in money. A controlling personality. Not a natural looper. In contrast, Ms. Reilly makes almost exaggerated lower loops, expressing the earthy demands made upon her by her own nature. Her loops indicate that her nature is sensuous. Her instinctive physical drives are strong.”

Mrs. Gleb paused while Nina died of embarrassment. She hadn’t sat in on Jack’s previous discussions with Mrs. Gleb.

“Anything else you based your decision on?”

“A strong feeling, my own intuition based on many years of experience,” Mrs. Gleb said. “However, I would have disregarded that if I did not find the other external evidence I have discussed.”

“And your conclusion, once again, based on your years of training and experience?”

“The final nineteen words were not written by the same person who wrote the rest of the document.”

“Thank you very much. No further questions.”

Gayle Nolan got up, every line in her face arched and incredulous. “Mrs. Gleb, what are the names of the last two books you have published?”

“Let me see. I have published ten. The last book was titled Graphology in Everyday Life .”

“And the one before that?”

“The Psychology of the Hand.”

“That is also supposed to be a book about graphology?”

“Yes. Graphology is my current area of interest.”

“What exactly is graphology?”

“It is a type of psychology, a method of determining personality by examining handwriting.”

“And you used graphology in making these observations about the last sentences and the preceding sentences in Exhibit 18, didn’t you?”

“Over the years I have developed greater insight into traditional methods of examining questioned documents using the methods of graphologists, and I took advantage of my insight in this case, yes.”

“Now, you testified that you examined the ink on the two samples and found them to be identical, right?”

“Yes. From the same pen, the lab concluded.”

“And you assume that the forger used Ms. Reilly’s pen, which was found when the briefcase was stolen?”

“That’s what I understood.”

“But in fact you have no personal knowledge that the pen was in the briefcase, right?”

Mrs. Gleb, unflappable, said, “None of us was there at that time. However, I saw the contents of the briefcase as listed in the police report Ms. Reilly gave on the day after the theft, and she mentioned her Waterman pen.”

Nice comeback, Nina thought.

“Let’s assume that we don’t know what happened to the pen,” Nolan said. “And all you had to go on was that the ink was identical. What would be your conclusion then? Based on that one fact alone?”

Jack stood up and said, “I think we’re running into trouble with this hypothetical. I object, lack of foundation. It’s not a fair question, Judge. No handwriting examiner ever looked at just one thing.”

“I understand the point, Counsel,” Judge Brock told Nolan. “We’ll go on.”

“All right, Your Honor. Now, Mrs. Gleb, the paper didn’t help you either, did it, since the questionable sentences were written on the same paper?”

“That is true.”

“So you were quite handicapped in terms of doing any sort of chemical analysis?”

“Yes.”

“Did you look for fingerprints?”

“Yes. Allied Laboratories did that. They discovered many smudged fingerprints. Apparently the papers passed from hand to hand at the insurance company. None were identifiable.”

“So you had no hard evidence of any forgery, isn’t that right?”

“Objection,” Jack said. “What’s hard evidence?”

“Let’s rephrase,” Brock said.

“The point is, all you had was the handwriting itself, is that correct?” Nolan asked.

“It was quite sufficient.”

“Okay, you said that you examined the angle of the writing, the slant, the spacing. You couldn’t conclude anything from that, right?”

“Not from that.”

“Did you find any evidence of tracing?”

“I would say, no.”

“Differences in pen pressure?”

“Nothing obvious.”

“Wavering? Hesitation?”

“No. This was a confident person.”

“So you based your conclusion on four factors, you testified.”

“That, and my overall experience. Many, many years of experience.”

“Right. The first factor you mentioned was the dot above the i .”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Now, exactly how many i ’s were you able to observe in these disputed final phrases?”

“Six.”

“And in every case, was the dot directly above the short line of the letter?”

“As I testified, only two of the six i ’s had dots directly above the line. But these distinct variations from all the other i ’s in the document are quite dispositive in my opinion. These two dots were damning, as they show a deliberation and care that does not come from a person taking notes, but only from a person forging a document.”

“The two damning dots were above, rather than to the right, as in the other i ’s on the other pages?”

“Yes.”

“What was the difference?”

“I don’t know what you mean, the difference.”

“Between the dots? What you called the forged dots and the nonforged dots. How much out of alignment were the nonforged dots from their roots or slashes, whatever you call the rest of the i ?”