The hearing was on a Thursday.
I had known it was coming. Elaine Porter had called me the week before and told me the date. She told me that I would have to testify. She told me that Marlene would be there. She told me that Jeffrey Holt would be there, with his lawyers, and that they would try to make me look like a liar.
"Are you ready?" she asked.
I did not know if I was ready. I did not know if anyone was ever ready to sit in a room and be called a liar by a man in a nice suit. But I told her I would be there.
The hearing was in the same building downtown where I had met Elaine Porter the first time. It was a small room with a long table and a lot of chairs and a window that looked out over a parking lot. The ceiling was low. The air was stale. It smelled like paper and coffee and t
