Mercy (A Neon Lawyer Novel Book 2)

by Victor Methos

  “I know… but I’m not sure I believe that anymore. I helped him. And I know that another lawyer might’ve done the exact same thing and everything would’ve ended up the exact same way, but it wasn’t another lawyer. It was me. I got him off. And that kid preferred dying over living with the prospect of that monster walking around free.”

  “That’s what we do, Molly,” he said quietly. “You need both sides fighting hard, and somehow you get a close approximation of the truth sometimes. Sometimes monsters go free, and sometimes innocent people go to prison. That’s the system. But giving yourself over to someone like Vince Dale is not the answer.”

  She chuckled. “You make him sound like the devil.”

  “Do you have any proof he’s not?”

  “Brigham—”

  “I’m sure he’s fine to work for. A lot of my buddies at the DA’s office say he has their backs and gets them whatever resources they need. I’m talking about something deeper. His operational philosophy, I guess. His view of people. It’s not your view of people, and I’m scared of him infecting you with that nihilism.”

  She reached out and gently placed her hand over his. “I’ve known Vince almost a decade, and if anything, I influence him. Not the other way around.”

  He sighed. “I hope you’re right. But I’m not sure you are.”

  He took her hand in his. All the anger, the betrayal, and the pain faded with a simple touch. Some women had that power over men, or at least over him. When his mother would do something he didn’t like and he was in a rage as a teenager, she would simply put her arms around him and kiss his forehead and everything dark would flow out of him. Molly had that same effect.

  “I…” she said.

  “I know. Me, too.”

  19

  Brigham was at the Matheson Courthouse at eight in the morning. He paced around the lobby, looking up at the statue of a man holding a briefcase, the Matheson paterfamilias. He stared at the building’s decorated dome for a while then chatted with an attorney he’d met a few months back. Mostly, he worried that Ted wasn’t going to show up again today. The judge would issue an arrest warrant, and there was no way anyone would be able to get him out again until the case was over.

  Ted arrived at 8:27 a.m. and hurried over to Brigham. “Sorry.”

  “Let’s go,” Brigham said, rushing him to the metal detectors. Brigham had set the appointment yesterday, and the judge had no other cases this morning. If he wasn’t there when she took the bench, she might leave.

  He was pulled to the side and wanded, asked to take off his shoes, and wanded again. Ted was allowed right through.

  They walked in just as the judge was taking the bench. Brigham hurried to the lectern and didn’t say anything, hoping the judge wouldn’t either. She just smiled, a smile that told him he had cut it too close, and then said, “Let’s call the matter of Ted Montgomery. Mr. Montgomery is represented by Mr. Brigham Theodore and Ms. Debra Flynn is here for the State.”

  Ted stood next to Brigham as the judge flipped through her file. He whispered, “I want the quickest trial date possible.”

  “We have to have a preliminary hearing,” Brigham whispered back, moving the microphone away from them. “Then I’m going to file motions challenging a few things. After all that, we’ll have motions in limine and then set a jury trial.”

  He shook his head. “No, I want a trial. I don’t need all that stuff.”

  Brigham was silent a moment. “What’re you talking about, Ted? All that stuff is what the law is about. After five or six motions and rulings on the evidence, this case could look very different.”

  “I get that, but we’re not gonna win on that stuff, are we? You know it, and I know it. This is about the jury and their emotions. For that, we need a trial. And I don’t want to be in limbo the next two years. I want the first date the judge has.”

  “Your Honor,” Brigham said, “I’m sorry, could I just have a second with my client?”

  “Certainly.”

  Brigham took his arm and led him out past the double doors. “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’ve thought about this a lot. Since before I came to see you. I don’t want to play around. I don’t have the stomach for it.” He looked through the windows into the courtroom. “I’ve been through about as much pain as a husband can go through. I just don’t have it in me, Brigham. I want this decided one way or the other as quickly as possible. And if the cards go against me, I know my kids will have their auntie and uncle at least. Please, do this for me.”

  Brigham shook his head. “The soonest we could get in is two weeks from now.”

  “That’s what I want.”

  “Ted, it takes me longer than that to prepare for a DUI trial. There are months of investigation we need done and then months more of motions and hearings. We can’t rush this. It’ll get screwed up.”

  “I know the risks. And I know you’re good at your job, and you will do the best you can with what you have. But this is eating away at me, at all of us. I need it over with. Please.”

  Brigham looked at the judge, who appeared to be surfing the Internet. Debra was tapping her pen against a yellow legal pad and staring off into space. The sole bailiff in the room was playing on his phone, and the judge’s clerk was eating something out of a plastic bowl. It was so casual for them, just another day at the office. But he was the one who had Ted’s life in his hands. If he did this wrong, Ted would die in prison, and his kids would grow up without either parent. The four people in the courtroom didn’t have that pressure.

  “Okay,” he said softly. “I’ll do what you’re asking me. But it’s a mistake.”

  “Thank you.”

  They reentered the courtroom and this time walked calmly to the lectern. Brigham stood for a moment without speaking while Judge Lawrence finished what she was doing online and turned to him.

  “Your Honor, Mr. Montgomery was unaware of the serious nature of missing a court date yesterday. He is here now and ready to move forward. We would ask the Court not to take him into custody, simply to admonish him.”

  Debra rose to her feet. “Your Honor, this is a murder case. He’s clearly not taking this seriously. I would ask that he be taken into custody without bail until the resolution of this case.”

  “His wife of nineteen years begged for him to end her pain. Believe me, Your Honor, he takes it seriously.”

  The judge nodded and took a few breaths before speaking. “Mr. Montgomery, someone was generous enough to pay fifty thousand dollars to secure your release—money that could’ve been forfeited yesterday for nothing. Please show up to court on time when you’re scheduled. I don’t want to hold you in jail if I don’t have to, and I’m sure the family member who put that money up doesn’t want to have it mean nothing.”

  “Won’t happen again, Your Honor,” Ted said.

  “Okay, well, see that it doesn’t.” She turned to her computer. “And the next available date for preliminary hearing is—”

  “Your Honor,” Brigham interrupted, “we would actually ask that this… that this be set directly for jury trial.”

  The judge’s brow furrowed. “You want to go from initial appearance to jury trial?”

  “Yes. Mr. Montgomery will be waiving his preliminary hearing rights.”

  The judge looked to Ted. “Mr. Montgomery, is this what you want?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what has your counsel advised you about the decision?”

  “He told me not to do it.”

  The judge shook her head. “I would tend to agree with him. You need to give him time to do his job.”

  “My attorney is excellent, Your Honor. But this is my decision. I want to waive my preliminary hearing rights and just have a jury trial. Please.”

  The judge shrugged. “Ms. Flynn, when could you be ready?”

  “I need to subpoena my witnesses, so at least two weeks.”

  The judge looked at Brigham and, reluctantly, he nodded.
>
  “Two weeks it is, the twenty-first then. Eight sharp, Mr. Montgomery. Please fill out the waiver the bailiff has for you.”

  The form was brought over, and Ted filled it out and handed it back. The judge looked at both attorneys and said, “Anything else?”

  “No, Your Honor.”

  “Nothing Your Honor.”

  “Okay, court is adjourned.”

  As they walked out of the courtroom, Brigham turned to his client and said, “You sure about this?”

  “Yes. Thank you for respecting my wishes.”

  He nodded. “I just hope your wishes don’t land you in prison for the rest of your life.”

  20

  The first thing Brigham did when he got back was to go to Molly’s office. It was empty except for the desk, chair, and computer. She’d already left. He hadn’t expected it so fast. He’d spent the night with her last night, and they hadn’t talked about exactly when it would be happening. She had her clients, too, but the paralegals were notifying them that either Scotty or Rebecca was taking over for her.

  “Hey,” Rebecca said, walking by in the hall.

  “Hey.”

  “So that’s crazy, huh?”

  “It is.”

  Rebecca adjusted her glasses. “Not everyone can do everything. You have to go with what you like.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. You missed Ted’s hearing this morning.”

  “Oh, sorry. I inherited like thirty cases from Molly.”

  “I understand. But I need your help now. The trial’s in two weeks.”

  “That seems fast.”

  “It is fast, the fastest I’ve ever had to prepare for any trial. The first thing we need to do is get our investigator to dig up as much as she can about the witnesses and then interview them. I’ve interviewed a lot of them, but we need a third party to do it. When we have her reports, we can follow up with any questions we have for the witnesses. Then we have to prep Ted for his testimony. I also want his daughter to testify. We’ll have to touch base with her. But the biggest question right now is where he got the morphine to do it. He won’t tell me.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know. Sometimes clients are scared that their own lawyer can turn them or their accomplices in. Schedule a time for him to come in and prep with me, and I’ll explain attorney–client privilege more clearly. For now, call Jen, our investigator, and get her going on everything else. Tell her I really, really need to know how he got the morphine. Also make sure there wasn’t some large life insurance policy taken out before Ruby’s death or anything. That’s the last thing we need the prosecutor to put into the jurors’ minds.”

  “I’m on it,” she said, heading off.

  Brigham glanced into Molly’s office one more time before going to his own. He sat in his chair and opened his calendar. He had a couple of client meetings that day, one court appearance in a small court in a city named Bountiful, and then nothing the rest of the afternoon. He leaned his head back on the chair and decided he’d stare at the ceiling until his first client consult came in.

  Normally, when he had a few minutes, he would go to Molly’s office.

  He sighed and put his feet up on the desk.

  21

  The parking garage was half full as Molly parked. Her stomach was a bundle of nervous energy, and she hoped that would fade as the day wore on. She wasn’t used to being nervous.

  As she walked through the garage to get to the walkway that would take her into the main building, she noticed a red streak across one of the support pillars. It looked like spray paint or possibly house paint, and she wondered why no one had removed it.

  The walkway overlooked the busy street below, and she had to stop a moment and stare down at the morning crowds rushing into the office buildings. Granted, she had lived in San Francisco and Los Angeles, and by comparison, Salt Lake City was barely populated. But there were still enough people that, stepping back, the number of people crammed into a single city overwhelmed her.

  She entered the building and stopped. This was it, she thought. No going back now.

  Her office was past the metal detectors. She hadn’t been given an ID or badge yet and had to present her driver’s license to the receptionist who buzzed her in. A slim woman with too much makeup came over to her and removed her eyeglasses.

  “You’re Molly Becker?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Helen. I’ll be showing you around. Follow me.”

  Molly was taken on a tour of the DA’s offices, or at least her floor. They stopped at each office, and Helen introduced her. The person inside, usually sitting at a desk, would have to stop what they were doing and say hello. It felt awkward and forced, like having to introduce herself to the class on the first day of school. She wished she could just meet everyone, some of whom she already knew, on her own time.

  “This is your office,” Helen finally said after they’d done the rounds for twenty minutes. “Don’t know what Vince has for you, but we need these probable-cause statements written.”

  Sitting on the desk were stacks of files, each of them blue with a tag on the front that read: Homeless.

  “Are these all homeless people?” Molly asked.

  “Yup. They pee on the train or the bus, stuff like that. You gotta write a probable-cause statement to issue a warrant for ’em, ’cause they never come to court. Lemme know when you’re done with that, and then I’ll have some other things for you.”

  Molly sat down at her desk and stared quietly at the stack of files. With a sigh, she turned on the computer and opened the first file.

  Three hours ground away as slowly as she could’ve imagined. Each probable-cause statement was the same, and seemingly for the same crimes. The homeless would either be cited for sleeping in Pioneer Park or cited for riding Trax without a ticket. Occasionally there was a clearly mentally ill defendant who urinated on Trax or defecated in front of a fast-food restaurant, but for the most part, Molly got the sense that the police were trying to harass the homeless enough to get them to go elsewhere.

  She finished the statements but didn’t tell anyone. She wanted a moment to herself, mostly to contemplate whether she’d made the worst mistake of her life in coming here. It had been a gut reaction to something emotional. Had she really reasoned this out? Was she going to retire at the DA’s office? Writing PC statements to have schizophrenic homeless people arrested for riding on a public train without a ticket? She shuddered and wondered if Brigham would respect her less if she came back.

  Deciding she needed a break, she wandered out into the hall. Just to get familiar with the place, she re-walked the route Helen had taken her on and then rode the elevator to another floor. The DA’s office put different divisions on different floors, and she stepped off onto the floor for the civil division: the section that dealt with anything other than criminal matters.

  There weren’t as many attorneys in the civil division as in the criminal one, and as opposed to the criminal division, music was blaring in almost everyone’s office. She figured it was because Vince and the other chief prosecutors probably never came down to the civil division.

  Satisfied that there was less here than on her floor, Molly got back onto the elevator and went to a different floor. This one was more elegantly decorated, with lots of glass and nice paintings on the walls. She realized when she saw a receptionist that she wasn’t on a DA floor any longer but a law firm’s. She smiled at the secretary and was about to head back to the elevator when she heard a male voice say, “Molly?”

  She turned to see a man in a black suit with a pink tie. His hair was combed to the side, and a gold pin held his tie in place.

  “Jack?” she said, walking over to him.

  “Hey, how are you?” he said, placing an arm over her shoulders.

  She hugged him back. “Good. I haven’t seen you since the graduation party.”

  “I know. I mean, I see your Facebook posts and stuff, but we’ve never hung out. We def
initely have to.”

  “Well, I’m closer now, so anytime you want to.”

  “Where you at?”

  “The DA’s office.”

  “Really? Wow, that’s gotta be interesting. Those guys are always rushing everywhere.”

  “So far I’ve had about a hundred homeless people arrested. Not exactly glamorous. But look at you, at the big white-shoe law firm.”

  He grinned bashfully. “I’m one of the partners now. Well, we call them shareholders for liability reasons, but it’s the same thing.”

  “That’s great. Good for you.”

  “Yeah… hey, what’re you doing for lunch?”

  “Nothing.”

  “There’s this awesome Chinese place just down the street. You in?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t really have anything else going on. Why not?”

  22

  Brigham sat across from Rebecca at their conference room table, both of them poring over documents on Lexis, the legal research program. They were reading case law in Utah and the surrounding area for a case similar to Ted’s. Brigham needed to know what had been tried before and, particularly, what had worked and what hadn’t.

  As his old boss Tommy had told him, the jury may want to acquit, but if they didn’t get a reason, they wouldn’t do it. They had to have something they could tell their spouses when they got home, and not that they’d just let a potential murderer go free. The reason had to be enough to convince the spouse that their significant other had acted properly. And that’s all Brigham wanted: a decent reason to let Ted Montgomery go.

  He wasn’t that great at legal research. That and legal writing had bored him to tears and had been his worst subjects. He had always preferred arguing something in front of someone, whether that someone was a judge or a jury. He felt he was best when he was on his feet and caught off guard.

  He was glad Rebecca was there. She was, in many ways, his legal opposite. Not bad at speaking, but far superior to him at research and writing.