Mercy (A Neon Lawyer Novel Book 2) Read online

  “No, I don’t believe so.”

  “No. She went to her husband, didn’t she?”

  “Supposedly.”

  “And the husband came to you?”

  “Yes, he approached me, but I turned him down.”

  “And that’s the real issue, isn’t it? Doctors can kill and let people die and it’s just fine, but if family members do it, they’re arrested for murder.”

  “Objection, Your Honor. I don’t see the point of any of this.”

  Brigham turned to her, his face flushed hot with anger. “Of course you don’t because you weren’t next to her bed listening to her scream.”

  “Mr. Theodore,” the judge said sternly, “that is enough.”

  Brigham held his tongue in check. He turned away from the judge and closed his eyes for a moment. He looked at Rebecca, who motioned for him to come over. He bent over the defense table and read what she had written on a notepad. He smiled and turned back to the doctor.

  “Ruby Montgomery had a do-not-resuscitate order, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, she did.”

  “And Ted and she decided this together.”

  “Yes.”

  “With you?”

  “Yes, I discussed it with them.”

  “And what did you recommend when you discussed whether to revive Mrs. Montgomery?”

  The doctor hesitated. “I told them that there was little likelihood of recovery, and that she shouldn’t resuscitate.”

  “Why?”

  He hesitated again. “Because the pain is unbearable.”

  Brigham grinned and sat back down, glancing once at Debra. “No further questions.”

  Debra rose and said, “Doctor, this DNR, do you have it?”

  “No, we just discussed it. Mr. Montgomery took her life before we could make it official, so to speak.”

  “So there was no official DNR. Would you have killed Ruby Montgomery if she had asked you to?”

  “No, never. Not in a million years.”

  “And without a DNR you would’ve revived her were she to go into cardiac arrest, correct?”

  “Without an official DNR, yes. I would’ve been obligated to revive her.”

  “Thank you. Nothing further.”

  The judge looked between the attorneys. “I think this is a good time for a break. Be back here in fifteen minutes, please.”

  The bailiff shouted, “All rise.”

  As the judge followed the jury out, Ted stepped out of the courtroom with his family. Brigham turned to Rebecca and said, “Thanks for that. It completely slipped my mind.”

  “No problem. You were getting so worked up, I’m not surprised you forgot something.”

  “I don’t like how everybody’s judging him without being in his place.”

  She glanced at the prosecution table and then to Molly, who was leaving the courtroom. “What now?”

  “The nurse and then the medical examiner. That’ll take the rest of the day and probably tomorrow. The State will probably rest after that and we’ll put Ted up after.”

  “He’s nice. I hope we win.”

  It was said so innocently, so naively, that Brigham couldn’t help but grin. “So do I.”

  36

  After the break, which Brigham used to run to the bathroom and then stare out the windows at the sunlight in the lobby for a while, he returned to find Ted in his place, speaking quietly to Rebecca. As Brigham took his place, he had to rise again as the judge walked in. She took a moment on her computer and then said, “Okay, next witness.”

  Debra rose from her table and said, “We call Dr. Scott Jacobs to the stand.”

  Scott Jacobs was an assistant medical examiner for Salt Lake County, a pathologist with twenty years’ experience and known for being thorough to the point of tedium. Debra was probably saving the emotional impact of the nurse who found Ruby Montgomery dead for last.

  The ME was sworn in and began by describing the chemical composition of morphine, how close it was to heroin, and its effects on the body. He then moved through a history of morphine use in euthanasia and why it was the preferred drug. This took nearly two hours, and he had barely addressed the case at hand.

  The next two hours were about the actual autopsy and then the toxicology report. Four and a half hours passed, and Brigham knew Judge Lawrence would continue the testimony into tomorrow. He hoped the ME would wrap it up soon.

  After five hours and two bathroom breaks, he looked down at the notes he had. The only issue was the time of death, which Dr. Jacobs determined was between noon and one o’clock. Brigham wanted to make sure he had him down on the actual time to show that Timothy could’ve injected the morphine and then fled.

  Finally, after having established that Ruby Montgomery was actually dead from a morphine overdose administered on November second, Debra stopped asking him questions. Brigham rose, and the judge said, “Mr. Theodore, I’m inclined to stop for the day as it’s nearing six o’clock.”

  “Just a couple questions, Your Honor.”

  “Okay. If it goes any longer we’ll have to start with it tomorrow.”

  “Understood.” He took to the lectern. “You said time of death was between noon and one o’clock?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “But you can’t say for certain when within that hour the injection occurred?”

  “To a medical certainty? No, I can’t. An hour’s about as good as it can get.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Jacobs. Nothing further.”

  The judge adjourned court for the day. The jury was not going to be sequestered and would be allowed to go home. But the judge asked them not to speak about the case to anyone, even their spouses, something Brigham knew was impossible.

  “All rise for the jury,” the bailiff called.

  Brigham rose, as did everyone else, as they were escorted out. Debra packed up her things and left without saying anything. Brigham turned to Ted and said, “I’ll see you in the morning.” He looked to Timothy, who nodded to him and he nodded back.

  Molly hadn’t returned after the break, but Brigham still searched the courtroom for her.

  “You wanna grab something to eat?” Rebecca asked.

  He looked at her, held her gaze a moment, and looked away. Watching Ted put his arms around his children and walk out of the courtroom, Brigham said, “I could actually use a drink.”

  The bar was far enough from downtown that they wouldn’t see anyone they knew. Brigham walked in first and held the door open for Rebecca. She came in, crossed the space like she owned it, and sat down in a booth. He followed.

  The waitress came over and brought menus. Brigham asked for a beer and Rebecca a cosmopolitan.

  “You didn’t play the video,” she said when the waitress had left.

  “Too risky. I didn’t want to jeopardize Timothy’s testimony.”

  “Might be ineffective assistance not to present that video to the jury.”

  He shrugged. “It’s okay. We’re not gonna win because the detective did coke. We’re gonna win if the jury believes Tim.”

  “You think there’s a chance they won’t believe him?”

  “Yeah. A younger brother defending his role model? I could see it.”

  “Wow. Even with someone else taking responsibility, there’s a chance our guy could go to prison. Seems like the whole system is stacked against us.”

  “It is. And we have fewer rights over the decades rather than more. In thirty years, I think the criminal justice system will be unrecognizable. There are people in Congress and the judiciary that think individuals shouldn’t have any rights when it comes to public safety.”

  “But you don’t believe that.”

  He shook his head as the waitress set his beer down. “No. I’m scared of an unethical government, not an unethical person. There’s little damage one unethical person can do compared to what a government can do when it no longer has morality as a hindrance.”

  They chatted over their meal. The conv
ersation was pleasant enough if a little stilted. Brigham couldn’t think about anything but the trial, and she kept talking about places she’d been to on vacation and things she’d like to do. He nodded and asked questions where appropriate, but ultimately he could think of nothing but Ted Montgomery behind bars.

  When they were finished, Brigham told her he would see her tomorrow. She looked as though she wanted to ask him something, but he didn’t give her the chance. He got onto his bike, which he insisted on riding rather than letting her drive him, and rode back into Salt Lake City as darkness fell.

  Back in town, he got the text message from Jen he’d been waiting for since after the trial let out and he’d contacted her. He replied “thank you” and rode up to Rose Park to the address she’d given.

  The home was dilapidated. It had been painted white once, but now the paint was chipping so profusely that he could hardly tell. The screen door creaked as he opened it and knocked.

  Detective Henry Sean answered in shorts with a beer in his hand. The two men glared at each other but said nothing until Sean said, “You may as well come in, I guess.”

  Brigham followed him inside. The home wasn’t necessarily dirty but was so cluttered that it appeared so. On the coffee table were three empty beer bottles. Brigham took a seat on the couch as Sean sat in the recliner. He’d been watching a basketball game and turned it down with the remote.

  “How’d you find out?” Sean asked.

  “Someone recorded it.”

  “What’s on it?”

  “You snorting coke and accepting a bag from some guy who looks like he just got out of prison. There was some talk of getting hookers later, too.”

  He nodded and took a sip of his beer. “How much do you want?”

  “How much what?”

  He looked at him. “Money, Counselor. How much do you want?”

  “I don’t want money.”

  “Well, you want something, otherwise you would’ve turned it over to Internal Affairs or used it in court.”

  “I thought about it.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “Because you let the kids go home.”

  Sean finished his beer and set the bottle down on the coffee table. “If you don’t want money, what do you want?”

  “You can’t be a cop anymore.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m not going to turn this in. But you’re going to quit the force. Tomorrow. I don’t care what reason you give them. But you can’t be a cop anymore.”

  He shook his head. “I make fifty-two thousand a year. Biting away at that is two alimony payments, two child support payments, and a mortgage. By the end of the month, I got exactly $168 left for clothes, food, gas, and dates. I was just sick of eating Top Ramen every night.”

  “How’d it start?”

  “Little things here and there. Few hundred bucks if I didn’t execute a warrant on someone, things like that.”

  “How’d it go to bags of cash?”

  He swallowed. “You just get used to the money, you know? And then the thought of going back and having nothing is just unbearable, and you’ll do anything not to go back to that.”

  Brigham leaned forward. “I feel for you, but you can’t be a cop anymore.”

  “You little shit. What the hell do you—”

  “I’ve starved, too. I didn’t take a dime from anyone to help me, much less money from thugs. You swore to protect these people, and you’re their worst enemy now.”

  Sean looked away, to the television. He was quiet for a second before saying, “Give me a year to find another job.”

  “No, you’ll quit tomorrow. Or this disc goes straight to IAD.” Brigham rose. “I’m sorry, but that’s the most courtesy I can show you.”

  Brigham left the house, hoping he wasn’t about to catch a bullet in the back. As he shut the door, he caught a glimpse of Sean staring blankly at the television, his head hung low, his arm reaching for another beer.

  37

  The next morning, Sean wasn’t at court. Debra looked around several times, and Brigham knew she was looking for him. Finally, after delaying as long as she could, when everyone was settled back in court, Debra stood and said, “We’d like to call Gabriella Mecham to the stand.”

  Brigham watched as a woman in scrubs marched to the witness stand as if she were carrying out a general’s orders in the military. She was sworn in and took her seat. After the preliminary questions, she recounted how she had walked into the room when Ruby Montgomery had flatlined.

  “I didn’t think anything of it, at first. Patients pull off their monitors all the time, or they slip off… I just thought that’s what happened. But when I came in, I saw Ted Montgomery standing over the bed staring down at his wife with their three kids surrounding him. The kids were crying. It was when I saw Ruby that I knew. She was still. Just completely still. Like a statue. And I knew she was gone and that he had killed her.”

  “What did he say to you?” Debra asked.

  “He told me he just wanted her to have peace. But ain’t no one gonna find peace bein’ murdered by her husband.”

  “Objection,” Brigham said.

  “Sustained.”

  Debra said, “Nurse Mecham, what happened next?”

  “He just kept sayin’ ‘she looked so peaceful.’ I checked her and there was no pulse. I hit the emergency button and set off the alarm. Everybody ran in. We gave her shots of adrenaline and everything, but nothin’ worked. She’d been dead too long. There was no official DNR in place, so we tried to revive her the best we could. Maybe twenty minutes. She was already brain dead, though, by the time we got there.”

  “So what did you do after trying to revive her?”

  “I called the police. I don’t tolerate murderers in my hospital.”

  “Objection,” Brigham said, standing this time.

  “Sustained.”

  Debra read something on her tablet. “What happened after the police were called?”

  “They interviewed him and he confessed to doing it. But it was the children I felt bad for, that they had this murdering son of a bitch as a father.”

  “Your Honor!” Brigham shouted, getting to his feet.

  “Nurse Mecham,” the judge said, “please keep your opinions to yourself and tell us what happened.”

  Debra chimed in, “Did he seem remorseful to you?”

  “No, not one bit. It was like he was out for a walk in the park. Like he didn’t care at all. And I had never heard her once say she wanted to die. She wanted to fight. She was a fighter. She just didn’t know she was married to a murderer.”

  “Your Honor, this is ridiculous.”

  “Keep your pants on, Mr. Theodore.” She turned to Debra. “Ms. Flynn, does the witness have anything other than insults to add?”

  “I think I can be done now, Your Honor.”

  “Okay, your witness, Mr. Theodore.”

  Brigham rose and approached her. He stood three feet away, close enough that he could smell her perfume. “You said Ruby Montgomery never asked to die, is that right?”

  “That’s right. Never heard it once.”

  “How many patients do you have in your section of the hospital on a typical night?”

  “I don’t know, it varies.”

  “Guess.”

  “Maybe twenty. Twenty-five.”

  “Twenty-five patients. So how many hours a day do you get to spend with each of these twenty-five patients on an eight-hour shift?”

  “It’s not the time—”

  “How many?” Brigham said sternly, stepping a foot closer to her.

  “Maybe fifteen minutes each. Maybe more.”

  “Fifteen minutes? You saw Ruby Montgomery for fifteen minutes every night and you have the audacity to say she never said she wanted to end her life?”

  “I ain’t never heard it once from her.”

  “How many patients have died under your care?”

  “Wh
at? What does that have to do with anything?”

  “How many patients have died while you were their nurse, Ms. Mecham?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Take another guess.”

  She looked to the prosecutor but received no help. “I don’t know. Maybe a hundred or so over the years. Working in oncology is like that.”

  “And of those hundred, did you try and resuscitate each one?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Of course not. Because they had DNR orders. Orders not to save them.”

  “I don’t understand your point. It’s two different things.”

  “They wanted to die and you let them die. You stood by when you could’ve saved them, and you let them die. This man,” he said, pointing to Ted, “doesn’t want his wife screaming every second she’s awake, so he lets her die peacefully with her family instead of withering away to nothing, and you’re telling me it’s not the same thing?”

  “He murdered her,” she said loudly. “He ripped her away from this life like some executioner. She could’ve had a lot more time. She could’ve survived.”

  He came over and placed his hands on the witness box, staring the nurse in the eyes. “She had a DNR, even if it wasn’t official and wasn’t notarized and signed. If she had it signed, and slipped into a coma, you would’ve stood by and watched her die, wouldn’t you? Just like you watched a hundred other people die. Who’s the executioner?”

  “Objection!”

  “Sustained. Counselor—”

  “I know, Judge. Withdrawn.”

  Brigham sat down. Nurse Mecham was fidgeting on the stand, her cheeks the color of a red crayon. Debra stood up and asked, “Was there a possibility, in your experience, that Ruby Montgomery could’ve survived if Ted Montgomery hadn’t killed her?”

  “Yes, without a doubt in my mind.”

  “Thank you. Nothing further, Your Honor.”

  “Mr. Theodore?”

  “Nothing, Your Honor.”

  “Nurse Mecham, you are excused with our thanks.” Judge Lawrence turned to Debra. “Next witness.”

  “The State rests, Your Honor.”

  “Okay, Mr. Theodore, at this point I’ll turn the time over to you.”