The Real Garcia Chapter 05
Isabelle’s face froze for a second. Then she frowned, her eyes still red. “Ms. Smith, isn’t this going too far? Publicly slandering me?”
I looked at her calmly. “Ms. Harrington, everyone says you’re brilliant. So tell me. In those six papers of yours, which cases, which legal principles, which books did you cite?”
Her mouth opened. A flash of panic, quickly suppressed. “I won’t fall into your trap.
The comments cheered: Quick thinking!
I nodded and stepped closer. “Then let me tell you. Your freshman year, you bought a term paper from a poor student. Sophomore year, another. Junior and senior years, two each. All six papers were written by students I have been mentoring pro bono. You took them and put your name on them. They didn’t dare speak up because you are Daniel Harrington’s granddaughter.”
I pressed a remote control.
The large screen showed the original documents for all six papers. Complete revision histories, late night comments, line by line edits. The real authors’ names were clearly visible.
None of them was Isabelle Harrington.
“Ms. Harrington, the burden of proof lies with the accuser. Is this enough evidence?”
Isabelle’s lips trembled. She stepped back, her heel catching on a cable.
Professor Harrington’s brow furrowed.
The comments began to shift.
“Wait. She bought her papers? That’s her ‘first in class’?”
“This is getting interesting.”
“So Evelyn Smith rejected her because of this?”
Then came the voices of those who had been silenced.
“She stole my manuscript sophomore year. I reported it. The next day, my advisor told me not to disturb class harmony.”
“Those papers belonged to my roommate. Professor Harrington personally called to suppress it. My roommate nearly failed to graduate.”
“I’m another victim. Three months of work, gone. No recourse because the school was afraid of the Harringtons.”
Isabelle’s face had lost all color. Professor Harrington watched the comments, his jaw tight.
I smiled and pressed the remote again.
A video began to play.
In it, Mrs. Harrington sat in my office.
“My granddaughter wants to intern at your firm. Arrange it.”
A thick envelope slid across the desk.
Then, “I have seen plenty of young women like you. You slept your way up on your looks, didn’t you? The connections our family has built over decades, you won’t get those by sleeping with a few more men
The comments exploded.
“This is what a ‘renowned artist’ says?”
“She’s insane. ‘Excellent women just sleep their way up’? What kind of trash is that?”
“And her granddaughter just claimed to speak for all women. I’m going to throw up.”
The room had gone silent. No more shutter clicks.
The video froze on a close up of me pushing the envelope back across the desk.
“Isabelle,” I said, “you committed academic fraud. Your grandfather pressured students who complained. Your grandmother tried to bribe me. Where was your ‘educational fairness’ then?”
Isabelle swayed. She turned, red eyed, to look at Daniel Harrington.
“Turn it off!” He shot to his feet. “David! Turn that off! It’s fabricated. Slander. Evelyn Smith, as a lawyer, how dare you fabricate evidence!”
David Johnson scrambled to cut the stream. But nothing worked.
He could not turn it off.
They had fired me, but I still had system administrator rights. I had built this streaming system myself.
I turned to Daniel Harrington.
“Professor Harrington, you said you came from the rural West. You said you understood the struggle. Does that struggle include abandoning your pregnant wife to save your own skin?”
