Mercy (A Neon Lawyer Novel Book 2)

by Victor Methos

  The judge thought a moment. She shook her head. “I don’t know. It seems like you’re stretching, Ms. Flynn. But I’m happy to do an in-camera review.”

  The judge rose, and the bailiff came out and led Devan from the audience back behind the judge’s bench where Debra, Brigham, and Rebecca followed. A door led to a hallway and several of the judges’ offices. Judge Lawrence’s was second on the right. The office was decorated with sports memorabilia from the U.S. women’s soccer team.

  The attorneys sat in the back of the room while Devan sat in a chair before the judge’s massive desk. The judge removed her robe, revealing a blue suit underneath, and sat down. She smiled widely at Devan and said, “Devan, how are you?”

  “I’m okay,” he said quietly.

  “I’ve brought you back here because Ms. Flynn seems to think you may have some information that would be helpful for us to decide what happened to your mother. Is it all right if I ask you a few questions?”

  He glanced around and then his eyes drifted down again, and he nodded.

  “Okay. You were with your mother when she passed, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did your father drive you there?”

  He nodded.

  “Did you see your uncle there?”

  “No. I mean, yes. I don’t know.”

  She nodded. “I bet this is really painful for you, isn’t it?”

  He nodded. “I don’t want to talk up there.”

  “You don’t want to testify?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it would hurt my dad.”

  The judge hesitated and glanced at the lawyers. “How would it hurt your dad?”

  His shoulders slumped, and Brigham heard him sob. “Because I miss my mom. She didn’t have to die. That doctor said she could have lived.” He wiped tears away on the back of his arm. “But I didn’t see my dad do anything.”

  The judge’s face softened. “I understand.” She looked up at the attorneys. “Let’s go.”

  Once back in the courtroom, the judge took the bench and said into the microphone, clearly for the record in case there was an appeal, “I am denying the State’s motion to have Devan Montgomery testify as an impeachment witness. I do not believe he has any testimony of impeachment value, and that testifying would be more harmful to him than it would be probative to the case at hand. The defendant stated on the stand he injected the victim with morphine, and Devan would only be testifying to an act which he did not witness.” She looked at the bailiff. “Please bring the jury back.”

  The jury was brought out, and Nurse Mecham took the stand again.

  38

  Gabriella Mecham was in scrubs again. She took the stand and played with her wedding ring as Debra reviewed something on her tablet.

  “Nurse Mecham, you were the primary care nurse for Ruby Montgomery, is that correct?”

  “For my shift, yes. We had other nurses on other shifts.”

  “Did you see her on the date of her death?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “What was her hair like?”

  “Her hair?”

  “Yes, her hair.”

  Mecham looked at the judge and then back to Debra. “Well, um, she’d lost a lot of it through radiation. So she liked to wear a bandana that covered her head.”

  “All of it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What color hospital gown was she wearing on the date of her death?”

  “Pink.”

  Debra stepped around the lectern, so close to the jury that she placed one hand on the jury box. “This is very important that you answer this correctly, Nurse Mecham: What arm was her IV hooked into?”

  “Her right.”

  “You’re positive?”

  “Yes. We couldn’t get a vein in her left. I was the one who did it.”

  “Thank you, nothing further.”

  Brigham stood up. “If someone had just killed his sister-in-law, you would expect them to be shaken up and not remember everything exactly, wouldn’t you?”

  “Objection!”

  “Withdrawn. Nothing further.”

  “Okay, Nurse Mecham, you may step down.” The judge looked at Brigham. “Any other witnesses, Mr. Theodore?”

  “Defense calls Monica Montgomery.” He looked back at Monica. She had the saddest look in her eyes that he’d ever seen, somewhere between being completely lost and being completely terrified. He didn’t want to put her through this, but he had to let the jury see what Ted was losing if convicted.

  After being sworn in, she took her seat. She kept her eyes low, unable to look at anyone. Brigham waited a few moments, hoping she’d get more comfortable. Then he smiled at her and said, “You’re Ted and Ruby’s oldest daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you actually see your father administer the morphine to your mother?”

  “No.”

  “Did anyone see it?”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  Brigham went to the laptop and turned on the video of Ruby screaming to Ted. He paused it and said, “Do you recognize this video?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a video I took of my mom at the hospital. My mom and dad.”

  Brigham played the video. Ruby’s screams filled the courtroom. The jury’s eyes were glued to the screen, but Debra looked passive. The video ended and Brigham wanted to play it again, but felt he’d gotten the impact he wanted.

  Brigham thought for a moment. He had hit the main point he wanted to hit, so there was no reason to put her through more of the same. “I’m sorry,” was all he said before sitting down.

  Debra stood up. She would have to be careful. The jury must’ve instantly sympathized with Monica, a girl who had lost one parent and might lose another. If Debra came at her too hard or too long, she would alienate the jury.

  “Did your father tell you he was the one who hooked up the morphine bag to your mother’s IV?”

  She hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Did you see your uncle that day at all?”

  “No.”

  “He wasn’t in the room, or out in the hall?”

  “No.”

  “Did your father ever tell you your uncle was the one responsible for this?”

  “No.”

  Debra nodded to the judge and sat back down.

  The judge turned to the jury. When the attorneys had rested, it was time for her to go through the jury instructions. There were fifty-eight of them. The judge read each one out loud into the record. The attorneys had agreed on them days ago, and nothing in them was a surprise. Brigham kept his eyes low, his hands folded on the table. He couldn’t look at Ted or anyone else.

  An hour and a half passed as the judge instructed the jury on deliberations, what was and was not permissible, and how to ask for breaks or ask questions of the Court or attorneys. When she was done, she said, “I was planning on taking a break, but I think I’d like to just go into closing statements and send the jury back after a bathroom break. What do you think, Counselors?”

  “That’s fine, Your Honor,” Debra said.

  Brigham just nodded.

  “Okay, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, we will now hear closing arguments in this matter. The State will go first, followed by the defense. The State does have the opportunity for rebuttal but may waive that if they so wish. As I instructed you before, closing arguments are viewpoints of the attorneys and are not evidence. We’ll begin with Ms. Flynn whenever she’s ready.”

  Debra rose. She stood in front of the jury, her hands behind her back, confident and stern, a predator about to spring.

  “This is a case about a man killing his wife to make it easy. Not to make it easy for her, but to make it easy for him. He was the one sick of dealing with her. He was the one who didn’t want to give her a chance to live. He was the one who killed her.

  “I know you may be thinking about the brother tes
tifying. Don’t buy it. It is a ploy by a man who set this entire thing up to lead to that moment. Ted Montgomery is an engineer—a robotics engineer who deals with complex systems. He’s used to thinking several steps ahead, to anticipating moves and things going wrong and countering them. He is a chess player, and he has played a fantastic game today. He almost had me fooled. But the brother, or whoever he is, wasn’t as prepared as he was. He didn’t remember the color of Ruby Montgomery’s gown, that she didn’t have any hair, what arm the IV was in. Don’t you think you’d remember those things if you just killed someone for the first time? Wouldn’t those things always be with you?

  “This is a game for Ted Montgomery. Another complex system for him to manipulate. He killed his wife because she was a burden. Don’t you think if she wanted to die, she would’ve tried to protect her husband? Maybe left a will or some sort of document stating that’s what she wanted? She didn’t, because she didn’t want it. Ted took her life into his own hands and ended it. And this game is the result.”

  She leaned in close to the jurors, looking them all in the eyes.

  “Don’t be fooled by this master chess player. See through it. He killed Ruby Montgomery, because Ruby’s life was inconvenient for him. And the worst part is that he dragged his children into it, so it all seemed more authentic. His children will never recover from watching their mother die. Never. He destroyed his entire family because it was the convenient thing to do. Do not let him get away with that. Please. Convict him as the murderer that he is.”

  Debra sat back down. Her jaw muscles flexed and then relaxed before she turned to Brigham. They held each other’s gaze until he stood up and crossed the well. He stood in front of the jury with his hands down by his sides. For a long while, he didn’t say anything. The silence in the courtroom seemed to echo in his ears, judging him. Calling him a blind fool. Mocking him.

  “When I was a kid,” he said, “my grandfather on my father’s side was a convicted felon who wanted nothing to do with me. But my grandfather on my mother’s side was my life. He took me fishing, he taught me about girls, how to drive. He gave me my first drink of beer while we watched a football game. My dad ran off, and he’s all I had.” Brigham smiled and looked away to the witness stand. “But he smoked. A lot. Sometimes as much as four packs a day. He said it was a gift from World War II. There’d been times in the Pacific jungles where he couldn’t do anything but smoke.

  “When I turned twelve, two days after my birthday, he told me and my mom about the cancer. Lung cancer. For about three months, it didn’t change anything. He would just cough more than usual. At the three-month mark, he began coughing up blood. At nine months, he had to be hospitalized.” Brigham looked at the jury and, as much as he fought them, felt the tears running down his cheeks. “I remember coming to his hospital bed.” Brigham stared off into the distance, almost seeing the bed. “I would come to his hospital bed, and he’d cry from the pain. They didn’t have medications like they do now. They gave him what they could, but it barely touched it. And my grandfather, the toughest man I ever knew, would cry to me that he wished someone would end his pain.”

  Brigham took a few steps back and leaned against the witness box. “I wished I had the strength to do it, to end his suffering. But I never did. I had to watch him fight for months, in an agony I couldn’t even imagine.” He swallowed. “And then one day, we got a call from the hospice that he wasn’t doing well. We needed to come see him because he was asking for us. We went down there. He’d been a huge guy, six-two and over two hundred pounds. But when I saw him last, he looked like a skeleton. A breeze could knock him out of bed. He was delirious with pain and meds and wasn’t making sense, didn’t understand that we were there to say goodbye. My mother and I waited around in his room for a long time. But my grandfather started screaming. They sedated him, or tried to, but he wouldn’t stop, and they asked us to wait in the lobby. Within two hours, my grandfather was dead.

  “There was nothing peaceful about my grandfather’s death. It was filled with nothing but pain and terror. And I wish, every day I wish, that I had had the strength to save him all those months of pain. To give him a proper goodbye and a little bit of peace before he left this earth. But I was too weak. I couldn’t do it.” Brigham looked at Tim and pointed to him. “I wish I’d had a brother like Tim who could’ve done what I couldn’t do. The right thing.”

  He paused a long time and then walked back in front of the jury. “There’s no game here. No chess player. Just a man who had a terrible choice to make, and his brother, believing it to be the right thing, did it for him. Tim told you he will probably be charged with the death of Ruby Montgomery by taking the stand, but he did it anyway.” Brigham looked each juror in the eyes. “You swore an oath that you would uphold the law. Well, the law says you can only convict my client if there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt, the highest standard of proof in the law. You have to be almost certain, almost certain, that my client committed this crime to convict him. How can we be certain when another man, at the risk of being put on trial himself, is saying he committed the crime?

  “My client isn’t a mastermind. My client is a grieving husband who doesn’t know how he’s going to raise three kids on his own. Timothy Montgomery ended Ruby’s suffering. But Ted’s is just beginning. Please don’t add to it.”

  Brigham stood silent a moment, and then sat down. Debra gave a quick rebuttal, outlining all the inconsistencies in Tim’s testimony, and then sat back down.

  The judge said, “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you will now retire to the jury room for deliberation. If any of you need to use the restrooms beforehand, my bailiff will escort you.”

  Everyone rose as the jury filed out. Everyone except Brigham, who was still staring off at nothing, unable to move.

  39

  When the judge asked if there was anything else while the jury deliberated, Debra said no, but Brigham didn’t. He just rose and shook his head. He felt as though he were moving through a swamp with ankle weights. Every action, even every thought, felt as if it would crush him and take all of his energy.

  “Okay, folks,” Judge Lawrence said, “we’re in recess for deliberation.”

  Brigham didn’t wait for anyone to speak to him. He began hurrying out of the courtroom and noticed Molly in the back of the audience, behind some reporters. She smiled at him, but he just looked down and charged out the double doors and into the hall. Behind him, he heard Ted say something, but he didn’t respond. He felt hot, and it was difficult to breathe.

  Brigham got outside. The sky was overcast with gray clouds, but it wasn’t raining. Across the street was the City and County Building, and they had massive lawns with benches on every side. He crossed the street and sat down. Leaning his head back, he stared at the sky and hoped for rain, for some sensation on his skin, because right now he felt numb.

  “You didn’t wait for me,” Molly said, sitting next to him.

  “Sorry. I’m not feeling myself right now. It feels like everything is black.”

  She put her hand on his thigh. “Are you okay?”

  “No, I’m definitely not okay.”

  A long silence between them followed, and Molly kept her hand on him.

  “That stuff about your grandfather. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “I don’t like thinking about it.” He leaned forward. “You know, the worst part for me, more than seeing him in that type of pain, was that I didn’t get to say goodbye. How selfish is that? This man raised me as his son, and when he died screaming in pain, the only thing I can think of is that I didn’t get to say goodbye to him in that final moment and hold his hand.”

  “You’re human, Brigham. Just like everybody else. Tommy always used to say that they call your gut your second brain, but it should be your first. You don’t have to apologize for feeling the way you do. You were a kid who missed his grandpa.”

  He leaned on her shoulder. “I…”

  “What?”
/>   “There’s something horrible I know… and I can’t tell anyone.”

  “Then don’t. We’ll just sit here and hold each other.”

  They held each other that way for a long time. Brigham felt himself drifting. She felt so good, just her touch, her smell, and the way she held him. He wished he could be with her forever, to never let her go. Right now, Brigham wanted nothing to do with trials or courts, or clients. He wanted to be in her arms and nothing else.

  Brigham’s cell phone buzzed. It was the court.

  “This is Brigham,” he said.

  The court clerk said, “Counselor, we have a verdict.”

  “That fast?”

  “Yup. Eight minutes. New record for us on a homicide.”

  “I’ll be up.”

  He slipped the phone into his pocket and looked at Molly, her soft eyes, and the way they held him: no judgment, no vindictiveness.

  He looked away, out to the cars on the street, and said, “I love you.”

  She placed her hand in his. “I love you, too.”

  Brigham rose and marched back to the courthouse, never letting go of her hand.

  Ted was out in front of the courtroom with his children. He saw Brigham walking toward them and said, “Before we go in, can I talk to you?”

  Brigham opened the door to an Attorney/Client room and held it for Ted. He stepped inside, and Brigham shut the door and sat across from him at the circular table. Ted crossed his legs, interlacing his fingers on his knee. Brigham held his gaze.

  “I’m sorry about your grandfather.”

  Brigham was quiet a moment. “Yeah.”

  “Crazy what one cancer cell can lead to.”

  Brigham nodded, not moving his eyes from Ted’s and not responding. Ted grinned at him, and the two men were silent until Ted said, “You know, don’t you?”

  Brigham waited a beat before answering. “Yes.”

  “When did you figure it out?”

  “When Tim said the IV was in the left arm. It’s in the right arm on all the videos. On the left side of the bed were two side tables, with flowers on them from you and the kids. He couldn’t have been wrong about that… unless he never saw her in the hospital.”