Mercy (A Neon Lawyer Novel Book 2)

by Victor Methos

  “You’re Brigham?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think you’re the only person that’s made Vince wig out. He’s usually very calm. When he lost that murder trial against you last year, he came back to the office and started throwing things at people.”

  “That sounds about right.”

  She shrugged. “People love him or hate him, same as anyone else. I happen to like him. He’s direct. That’s hard to find. Most people will lie to you, even about stuff they don’t need to lie about. Vince never does that.”

  He nodded, glancing at a photo on her desk. It appeared to be her and someone who looked like Dick Cheney, but Brigham couldn’t tell.

  “So,” she said, “you’re here for Ted Montgomery. Let’s hear your sales pitch.”

  “No pitch. I just want to know what your thoughts are about it.”

  She shrugged. “My thoughts are that he killed his wife in front of his children.”

  “Those are the facts. But what are your thoughts about it?”

  She leaned forward. “I think I’d like to give him the death penalty, but our capital punishment team turned the case down. So I’ll have to settle for fifteen to life.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it.”

  “It doesn’t matter that she was in extreme pain and begged him every day to end her life?”

  She shook her head, a mocking grin on her face. “You’re not allowed to murder people because you think they ask for it. What if she would’ve changed her mind the next day?”

  Brigham hesitated. “I know where you’re coming from. I understand it. But those kids don’t have anyone else. They’ll be put in state custody without him.”

  “I think that’s for the best. What if he believes one of them is asking for it?”

  Brigham was about to say something rude but held his tongue. Instead he said, “So you have no offer?”

  “Three to life. I’ll lower it to attempted homicide as a legal fiction.”

  Brigham shook his head. She thought he was inexperienced enough not to know that wasn’t any kind of deal. “The parole board will keep him for twenty years. I’ve taken all five members of the board to lunch and gotten their views of different cases.”

  She smiled. “Then you’re one of the smart ones. But that’s my offer. And it expires at prelim.”

  Brigham nodded and rose. “I’ll take it to him. Nice meeting you.”

  “You as well.” As Brigham turned to leave, she said, “Hey, how’s that client of yours? Amanda something, the one that got away from Vince? He’s hoping she’ll screw up so he gets a second shot.”

  “She had a nervous breakdown and was institutionalized at UNI for a few weeks. The last time I visited her, she was doing better. She’s even got a job and is going to church again. Tell Vince he’s not going to get his second shot.”

  Brigham left. Despite his calm demeanor, anger bubbled in his gut. The arrogance was too much. Some of the DA’s people felt they were above everyone else, that somehow their actions were more pure than those of the people they prosecuted. Brigham felt anyone anywhere could be right where his client was.

  A phrase went through his mind: “There but for the grace of God go I.”

  He hadn’t understood it as a kid, but he understood it now.

  13

  The night fell over Salt Lake City quickly, revealing a full moon. Brigham was back in his office, staring at the moon through his windows, when Scotty shuffled in. The man sat across from him, twitched his eyelids a few times, and said, “What’s the matter?”

  He shook his head. “Some cases get to me. Some people get to me.”

  “Any people in particular?”

  “Do you remember that client we had, Melanie… what was her last name? Robbins or Robinson or something?”

  “Tall, blonde… Don’t remember her case, though.”

  “Heroin possession. She had a long history, so they wanted to lock her up. When she was ten years old, she’d run away from home because her stepfather was raping her. She turned to prostitution to survive until her twenties, when she cleaned up her act. She’d had a relapse and got busted with the heroin. The prosecutor, this joker who went to Harvard, told me that if she didn’t want to go to jail, she shouldn’t break the law. Like it was that easy. And I just thought, let’s see you go through what she went through and see how you turn out. That asshole was just clueless, but the state gave him the power to judge people worthy and unworthy of mercy.”

  Scotty looked down at his shoes. “That’s how it’s always been. And be grateful. Some countries just have people stamping files ‘guilty’ and ‘not guilty.’ No jury or judge to look it over, no one to hear the evidence. We’re lucky with what we have. With human nature.”

  “Human nature?”

  “Most people don’t think. They just act. I think it’ll lead to our destruction as a species.” He loosened his tie. “My first wife used to tell me that. Or maybe I would tell her? I can’t remember. We were both drunk through the marriage.”

  “I don’t buy that prediction. People are good, Scotty. Or at least they want to be. I think they just don’t know how.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe.” He rose and headed for the door. “Not from what I’ve seen, though.”

  Brigham called it a night somewhere around nine p.m. after going through the discovery in Ted’s case again. The State, from what he could tell, was going to call at least three witnesses: the detective who got the confession, the treating oncologist who denied Ted’s request to terminate Ruby’s life, and the nurse who was taking care of Ruby during the day. No one else was terribly relevant, though the State would probably call the medical examiner to discuss cause of death. In cases like this, the defense sometimes simply agreed on the cause of death, and they skipped the ME. Brigham decided to do that. No one had any doubt how Ruby died, and calling the ME to the stand to discuss morphine overdoses and show autopsy photos wouldn’t win any points with the jury.

  Besides, the ME alone would take an entire day of testimony, and juries got impatient and wanted to hurry things along and get out of there. Research showed that with each additional day a trial lasted, jurors spent two hours less per day paying attention. After two days, their attention spans covered the first four hours of court and dwindled exponentially from there. He guessed this would be a three- or four-day trial. That meant the jurors, by day three, would be able to pay attention to only two hours of testimony in an entire day.

  Brigham got on his bike and rode casually on the sidewalk, not rushing anywhere. The Trax train had bike racks, and he stopped and got on the train heading south, away from his apartment. He sat near the window and stared out over the city. The image of his grandfather kept coming back to him, and he pushed it out of his mind.

  It had started to storm, and the rain spattered against the windows of Trax. Since Katrina, storms gave him an uneasy feeling. Something like sensing danger when walking down the street when no danger was really there.

  When Hurricane Katrina had torn apart New Orleans, it’d felt like the end of the world. Brigham had lived twenty miles outside of town and was spared most of nature’s brutality, but when things had settled, he went back and saw the utter destruction nature could cause, as if it decided to show humanity that they weren’t the top dogs on the planet. That was a lesson that was hard to forget.

  The train looped around and headed back downtown. The moon shone brightly through thin clouds as if swimming in a blue-black soup. Brigham watched it through the window as people entered and exited the train. When he was back downtown, he retrieved his bike, got off, and headed to Molly’s through the rain.

  Molly lived in an upscale condo complex in the city. She’d bought it when she was making the most money in her life, as a drone associate at a large firm. She’d left when she realized she was miserable and didn’t want to be one of the partners who were drunk every day after work and sobered up on their way to work the next mornin
g.

  The security guard buzzed Brigham in but made him leave his bike in the lobby. He went to her floor and knocked on the door. She answered wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, a glass of wine in her hand. He stepped inside without a word and kissed her on the cheek.

  Brigham crossed the living room and collapsed on the couch, catching a glimpse of the moon again through her living room windows. He leaned back and didn’t speak as Molly sat next to him and set her wine on the coffee table. She began massaging his left elbow. He’d fractured it once on a motorcycle, riding at over a hundred miles an hour on a dare. It ached at random times, and Molly knew when it was because she said his face would bunch up like a bulldog’s.

  “Have I told you congrats on your win?” Brigham asked.

  “No.”

  He looked at her and she wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Why do I get the impression you’re not super proud?”

  She reached for her wine with one hand, her other still rubbing his elbow. “I think he intimidated the victim. Do I have a duty to report something like that?”

  “You can’t if it’s just a suspicion. You need evidence, and even then you’re going against the interests of your client. You could be disbarred. We’re mercenaries who don’t betray their employers. Scotty says we’re samurai with shitty masters.”

  She chuckled. “He does have a way with words.”

  He looked up into her eyes. “You can’t control what they do. You can only advise them, fight for them, and the rest is out of your hands. They’re adults.”

  She shook her head. “That poor kid. As if he hadn’t been through enough. And his father is even worse—he told me he thought it should be handled within the family, and the government has no reason to get involved. Their idea of punishment was not letting the uncle near their kids anymore. But even that will probably fade over time.”

  “The world’s a mess. It’s always going to be a mess. Just try to straighten out your little corner of it.”

  “What, are you reading a book of quotes or something?”

  “I may have watched a Buddha documentary on PBS recently.”

  She ran her fingers over his forehead, grinning. “I love the way your eyes reflect the moonlight. They change color. I know it’s just an illusion, but I like that idea, that we change based on how the universe perceives us.” She exhaled loudly and looked out the windows. “I think I’d like to take tomorrow off and go somewhere. Down to Moab and go hiking or something.”

  “I have four appearances in the morning. But I can take off after.”

  “It’s a date then.”

  “Yup.”

  She leaned down and softly pressed her lips to his.

  14

  In the morning, Brigham woke and kissed Molly before leaving. The hot morning sun warmed him on the bike ride back to his apartment and dried out the city from the previous night’s rain. He showered, changed into a suit, thought about how his accountant had told him none of his suits fit properly, and then left.

  All of his hearings were in the South Salt Lake Justice Court, all DUIs. That seemed to be one of two offenses not bound by any socioeconomic status: both rich and poor got DUIs and sex offenses in equal numbers.

  The prosecutor was a young woman with red hair who wore her skirt just a little too high. She was flirtatious with the male defense attorneys and standoffish with the female ones. Brigham waited for his turn to speak to her, staring at the odd blue carpet of the courtroom. The place looked like a large office that had been hastily converted to a court.

  “Hey, Janine,” Brigham said.

  “Brigham, how are ya?”

  “Not bad,” he said, sitting down next to her at the prosecution table. “How’s Mark?”

  “He might be transferring jobs soon.”

  “The wedding’s next year, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but we might rush that. All our family is here and he might be transferring to Montana. We’d have to come back for the wedding.”

  “Well, don’t forget my invite.”

  “I won’t.” She flipped through her stack of files and pulled out a pack of four held together by a rubber band. “Impaired driving on all four?”

  “We did have an issue on that one,” he said, pointing to one of the files. “The officer on that didn’t have his certification on the Intox. Not a huge deal, but I think it warrants a reckless driving.”

  “Just ’cause his certs were expired?”

  “He’s a specialist in DUI arrests, and he let his DUI certifications expire. I’m sure there’s more there if I dig. But the reckless makes us go away.”

  She grunted playfully. “Fine. But don’t tell anyone else I gave you that.”

  “I won’t.”

  The four cases were pleaded out. Forms were filled out, and each client was assigned alcohol classes and fines. The fines were, of course, what the courts cared most about. Fines were on the high side in that court, but it was nearly impossible to get the judge to impose jail time on this offense, so it was a good trade-off.

  Brigham was out of the courtroom by ten. The sun was still bright in the sky, and the clouds that had hung over the city for the past few days were gone. Brigham rode back to work to check in. Molly was in her office, staring off into space, a pen lightly touching her lips.

  “Lost in thought?” he said.

  “Hm? No, I’m fine. You ready to leave?”

  “Yeah, just wanted to close out a couple of things for tomorrow. We’ll be back Monday, though, right?”

  “If we have to be,” she said with a sigh.

  “We’ll play it by ear.”

  Her phone rang, and she looked at it, a little puzzled.

  “Who is it?” Brigham asked.

  “Vince Dale.” She answered. “Vince… yeah… yeah, but… now? Right now? Okay, as a favor to you. Bye.”

  “What’s up?”

  “He says he needs to show me something.”

  “Show you what?”

  “He said I need to see it rather than hear it. He’s coming by to pick me up.”

  Brigham thought for a moment. “I should go with you.”

  “I’m fine, Brigham.”

  “I don’t trust him.”

  “I’ve known the guy ten years. He’s not that bad. Most people just misunderstand him.”

  Brigham leaned against her doorframe. “There’s nothing to misunderstand. He craves power. That’s what this is all about for him. It has nothing to do with serving the public. It’s just power.”

  “Maybe. But maybe, growing up in an abusive, poor home where you have no power will do that to you.”

  “I don’t buy his whole pulling-himself-up-by-the-bootstraps thing.”

  She rose and stretched her arms. “I’ll be back in half an hour. Unless we decide to make out for a while.”

  “Not funny.”

  She tapped his chest on the way out. He turned and walked to his office, crumpling into his chair before opening a file on his desk about a pot charge. He put his feet up and began reading.

  Molly waited outside in the sunshine. Sometimes she felt like a cave dweller. Once, she’d added up all the hours she spent indoors on a single day: twenty-three. Twenty-three out of twenty-four hours were spent indoors, and the only hour she was outside was walking to and from places. She pictured her ancestors foraging for food on the Serengeti, easily getting ten or more hours of sunshine a day, and wondered if all the problems of the world were caused by people just not getting outside enough.

  Vince rolled to a stop in front of her in his black BMW. She climbed into the passenger seat, and he grinned as he pulled away.

  “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve had in here. Maybe I should drive us around a little and make everyone else jealous.”

  “Maybe you’d like me to file a lawsuit against the county. I’m sure they’d appreciate a million-dollar harassment suit in your first year as DA.”

  He smiled. “It’d be worth it.”

  “So, wh
at do you need to show me?”

  “It’s up here.”

  They drove up State Street and turned right into a neighborhood of run-down buildings and neglected streets and sidewalks. Billboards advertised products or services she’d never heard of, like Mexican sodas and all-Vietnamese accounting firms.

  They stopped in front of a modest home with a chain-link fence around it. Two police cruisers were parked in front, as well as an ambulance and a fire truck.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  “This,” he said, glaring at the house, “is the home of Erik Olsen. Lee Olsen’s brother, and the father of Michael Olsen.”

  The paramedics were standing on the sidewalk talking to each other when a black van pulled up from the medical examiner’s office.

  “What happened?” she asked, her heart beating faster. There were two things that might’ve happened, but as Vince had brought her all the way down here, she knew which one it was.

  “Michael Olsen, only ten years old, shot himself with his father’s gun. His mother found him. He went to the garage and did it there. No note. I don’t think he realized that you’re supposed to leave a note when you kill yourself.”

  Molly’s stomach churned, and the bile rising in her chest and throat felt as though it might spew out despite her control. “Why did you bring me here?” she asked quietly.

  “Because I wanted you to see the full repercussions of your work. Sometimes prosecutors and defense attorneys are detached from all the consequences.”

  “You want to shame me. Well, you can’t. We’re not the Soviet Union.”

  “Oh, give me some credit. I wouldn’t want to live in a society that doesn’t have defense attorneys. I’m just saying that some people are cut out for prosecution, and some people are cut out for defense. You’re not a defense attorney. You never have been.”

  One of the paramedics spoke with the medical examiner’s people, and they all went inside. Michael’s mother was weeping on the front porch, a police officer sitting next to her speaking quietly. She looked away. She didn’t want to see a gurney with a small body on it being taken out of the house.