t, he went in search of her. The kitchen
first, he decided. I'll grab something out of the refrigerator to eat
and.... what's this note on the table? Henry started to read it and
then sat down heavily in a nearby chair to finish reading. "Be
damned," he breathed. "She's left me."

THE HEARING - DAY 3

Chapter 23

The next morning, the panel members looked relaxed and confident.
Henry hoped there would be now more gaffes, especially since The Pope
had gotten after them. He congratulated himself for thinking to ask.
He knew from experience that The Pope could be very persuasive.

The first witness called by the panel was the university attorney, Mark
Rogers. He entered the room, spoke to everyone there, addressing them
by name, and took the seat indicated just across from Diana.

Mark would never be called handsome. He carried a bit too much weight
in his face for that. He was, however, garrulous. This part of his
character endeared him to the administration that he served so well,
since his long winded approach to any problem brought to him, bored
most people to death before they got any answer.

This saved the administrators the problem of dealing with most
complaints brought by faculty and staff. If the administrators wanted
some legal answers, they contacted a real lawyer, usually Simon
Murrain, from a high priced law firm in town.

Mark had never had any success as an attorney in the real world, but
here in the cloistered world of academia, he flourished. In the
rapidly changing meaning of words, Mark knew which side of the butter
the bread was on. He could lie or tell the truth with the same
absolute conviction.

And now he was giving an ample demonstration of this to the panel. He
knew that he had been called in because Henry was terrified that the
document examiner's evidence had been overturned by the defense
testimony. He also knew that the three women on the panel were not
disposed favorably to the analyst who had come to testify. Well, by
golly, he thought, old Mark will put out the fire.

In answer to a simple question, Mark replied by starting from when he
graduated from law school and tracing his entire career. Along the
way, he revealed, he had discovered these particular document examiners.

For all his verbosity, he was convincing. Henry was pleased. After
all, he was an attorney. Who would know better how courts and evidence
worked than an attorney? Then too,