Mercy (A Neon Lawyer Novel Book 2) Page 2

  The courtroom was packed, and people were even standing in the back. Brigham crossed the courtroom and headed straight for the prosecution table. Nathaniel sat with his back straight, making notes in his files, waiting for the judge.

  “Hey,” Brigham said.

  “Brigham, what’s up, man?”

  “Nothing much,” Brigham said, taking a seat next to him. “How’s life as a bureaucrat?”

  “I wish I was a bureaucrat. I’m just a cog in a big, giant wheel, man.”

  “Well, you’re one of the better cogs if that helps.”

  “Not really, but thanks. Who you here on?”

  “Jessica Padilla.”

  Nathaniel was quiet a moment. “Sorry, man. No offers on that one.”

  “Just like that? Have you looked at the stop?”

  “I have. But this comes from on high.”

  “On high as in…?”

  “The highest of highs.”

  “Ah. Any particular reason?”

  Nathaniel shrugged, scanning the table before pulling out a yellow file. He opened it and showed Brigham the notes on the inside flap. “See for yourself.”

  Scrawled across the notes section was a single sentence: NO DEALS ON THIS CASE. Underneath the sentence were the initials GH—Gwen Henries, the chief prosecutor.

  “She usually do that?” Brigham asked.

  “Not really. Your girl must’ve really done something to tick her off.”

  Brigham nodded. “Gwen over there right now?”

  “Yup. Have fun.”

  “Thanks.” Brigham rose and faced the audience. “Jessica Padilla?” he bellowed.

  An attractive young woman in a top that exposed her shoulders stood up. He hurried down the aisle and led her outside the courtroom so they could speak.

  “Hey, I’m Brigham. I work with Scotty.”

  “Oh, okay,” she said. “Nice to meet you.”

  “You, too. So I had a quick question: do you know Gwen Henries?”

  She thought a moment. “No, I don’t think so.”

  “She’s kinda short, blond hair, went to law school at UCLA.”

  “Doesn’t sound familiar, no.”

  “Hm. Okay, well, have a seat in the courtroom. I’ll be right back.”

  The Salt Lake City Prosecutor’s Office was one building away from the justice court. The city had seventeen prosecutors with double that in staff, and it was widely recognized that they were a recruiting ground for the district attorney’s office. Most people at the DA’s office began their careers in the city and cut their teeth on misdemeanors. People didn’t notice screw ups on misdemeanors.

  Brigham hurried up the sidewalk and into the building. It had no security guard, probably because of budget cuts, and he rode the elevator to the fifth floor. Stepping out, he saw the prosecutor’s offices took up the entire floor. A young girl sat behind protective glass at the entrance.

  “Hi, I’m an attorney, Brigham Theodore. I was wondering if I could talk to Gwen for just a second?”

  “Hang on, I’ll see if she’s in.”

  The receptionist said something into her phone that Brigham couldn’t hear and then turned to him and said, “Come on in.”

  A locked door clicked open, and he stepped through some metal detectors inside. No bailiff was there to wand him, and the receptionist didn’t say anything, so he wandered around the offices looking for Gwen Henries.

  The offices were small and so close together that he was certain each prosecutor could hear exactly what the ones next door were doing. Down the hall he saw Gwen’s name on the door of the corner office. He knocked and stuck his head around the corner. She saw him but didn’t smile.

  “Mr. Theodore, what can I do for you?”

  Brigham sat down without being asked, and she looked annoyed by it. He cleared his throat. “You made a note not to give any offers to a client of mine, and I was hoping I could talk you out of that.”

  “What client is that?”

  “Jessica Padilla.”

  “Oh, her,” she said, leaning back in the chair. “Yes, I did make that note.”

  “Can I ask why?”

  “Sure you can.”

  Brigham grinned though he felt annoyed. “May I ask why?”

  “You may.”

  “Why did you make that note, Gwen?”

  “Because your client is an alcoholic and needs severe punishment. A slap on the wrist won’t do it. So you can plead or go to trial.”

  “Her BAC wasn’t that high. She was barely over the legal limit. And it might be a bad stop. Why the tough stance?”

  “I told you,” she said, turning back to her computer. “She’s dangerous.”

  Brigham got the impression that the conversation was over. No biggie. He’d be glad to take it to trial. He stood and said, “Thanks for your time.”

  “No problem,” she said without looking up.

  When he got back to court, the judge had already taken the bench. He waited his turn. When he got up to the lectern, he said, “Your Honor, may we call the matter of Jessica Padilla, please?”

  “Certainly. Ms. Padilla, please come forward… okay, Counsel, what are we doing on this?”

  “We’d like to set this for a motion to suppress based on a lack of reasonable suspicion for the stop.”

  “You got it. Thirty days enough? Two weeks to get the motion in and two weeks for the response if there is any?”

  “That’s fine, thank you. If I may be excused, Your Honor.”

  Brigham calendared the new date with the judge’s clerk and left the building. Once they were outside, he turned to Jessica and said, “You sure you don’t know Gwen?”

  She shook her head. “I’m not sure. But I really don’t think so.”

  He nodded. “Well, just be here next time and we’ll see if we can get this taken care of.”

  As he headed to his bike—he hadn’t bought a car yet—he wondered why Gwen had been so weird about the whole thing. He’d met her several times before and had been up against her for a few trials. She’d never taken a stance she couldn’t explain well.

  Brigham thought about heading home but remembered he had a consult coming in at seven. He turned his bike around and headed back to the office.

  4

  Molly Becker sat at her desk and drafted a motion in limine, a document asking the judge to order certain evidence to be kept out of trial, in preparation for her trial next week. Court was a comfortable place for her. She’d begun her career in a big firm doing divorces and corporate law, which required a solid amount of court time. And not just court time but time dealing with intense and emotional disagreements. Neither side was ever happy in a divorce, and both clients always blamed their attorneys. She remembered one case vividly in which she had completely lost the hearing, but the opposing side yelled at his attorney after court because he thought he had lost. Divorces were a lose-lose situation. Criminal law was much more fun.

  The intercom on her phone buzzed. “Yeah?”

  “Lee Olsen here for his appointment,” the receptionist said.

  “Send him back, please.”

  She finished her sentence and then leaned back in her chair, waiting for Olsen. When he walked in, he smiled widely. He looked like someone who coached tennis lessons, not someone who was on trial for child rape.

  As they shook hands, a twinge of revulsion went through her, but she pushed it out of her mind and took her seat. “How are you, Lee?”

  “I’ve been better. Whadya need to see me for?”

  “I wanted to talk to you in person. This is going to be the last chance you have to take a plea deal. When we show up for trial on Wednesday, that’s it. We have to go through with it at that point.”

  “So, run through the deal again?”

  “You’ll be pleading to one count of sexual abuse of a child and doing one to fifteen in prison. It also comes with a lifetime sex-offender registration. But if we go to trial and lose, you’re looking at twenty-five to
life.”

  He smirked. “Up to fifteen years in prison and life as a sex offender? No thanks. I’ll take my chances.”

  “You sure? Because after today—”

  “I’m sure.”

  She nodded. “Okay, well, make sure you wear a suit on Wednesday and be there at eight a.m. sharp.”

  He nodded and left without another word. Most clients wanted to chitchat, but he was all business, which Molly actually preferred. She sighed and turned to her computer, staring at the words of the motion. They were just words, dead letters on a page. The case itself involved a real person—a young boy who had gone through hell. His fate, and Lee’s, were now just words on a page.

  She leaned her head back, allowing her sore neck to rest for a second, and then began writing again.

  5

  The offices were nearly empty by the time Brigham returned. He walked back to his office and worked on his inbox for a while before he heard the door to their suite open. The cleaning staff usually didn’t come in until eight, so he went to the door.

  A middle-aged man stood there, wearing a maroon sweater though it was probably seventy degrees out. He had his hands in his pockets and a melancholy expression that seemed to preclude him looking up.

  Brigham went over to him and asked, “Ted Montgomery?”

  “Yes.”

  “Brigham Theodore. Nice to meet you. Come on back to my office.”

  Brigham sat down at his desk, and Ted sat across from him, looking uncomfortable, fidgeting, and not meeting Brigham’s eyes. Something about him seemed familiar.

  “Have we met before?” Brigham said.

  “No.”

  Brigham pulled out a legal pad and a pen. He wrote “Ted Montgomery” across the top. “So what can I do for you?”

  “I was referred to you by a colleague. He said you defended his daughter on a drug charge and were amazing. I’m facing a charge right now myself.”

  “What is the charge?”

  “Murder.”

  Brigham started to write the charge down, then stopped. He hadn’t had a murder case since his first a year ago. His eyes darted up to Ted’s. The man had soft eyes, something like a deer—no malice or conniving in them. “That’s where I’ve seen you, isn’t it? A photo on a news website.”

  He nodded. “My story got some press, yes.”

  “I just glanced at the headline. What’re you accused of doing?”

  He glanced down again, his fingers interlaced on his lap. “It was my wife.” He swallowed. “Ruby Montgomery. She had pancreatic cancer. She didn’t have much longer left, and it’s nearly one hundred percent fatal. She asked that… I just didn’t want her to suffer anymore.”

  Brigham leaned forward, his elbows on the desk. “What did you do?”

  “It’s called managed death. I read about it online. The doctors are not allowed to take her life, but they can turn up her pain medication to doses that would be considered… risky. We were there, her family, and we turned the morphine as high as I thought necessary. She passed shortly after, quietly, surrounded by her family. I was brought in for questioning a couple of hours later, but I snuck away before they could arrest me. I think I have a warrant out now.”

  A memory flashed in Brigham’s mind. The pain of it shot through him, and he swallowed it down, pushing it as far away from his conscious thoughts as he could. “How much is the bail on the warrant for?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Brigham turned to his computer. He opened the database for statewide warrants and ran Ted’s name through. He was charged in Salt Lake County District Court with first-degree homicide. The bail on the warrant out for his arrest was half a million dollars.

  “You would need fifty thousand to bail out right now, plus some collateral. I might be able to get that lowered. We need to go to court and start the process. You’ll have to turn yourself in.”

  He nodded. “I figured. I just wanted to talk to you first.”

  “Ted, did you discuss everything with the doctors first?”

  “Until I was blue in the face. They said there was nothing they could do. She was going to die, it was just a matter of time. But they couldn’t make her comfortable. The pain was just too much. They wouldn’t do anything, so I did. I got the morphine and I put it into her drip. It was very quiet, her passing.”

  Tears came to his eyes, and a twinge of pain must’ve gone through him because he grimaced.

  Brigham didn’t say anything for a while. He just let Ted gather himself before asking, “How old was she?”

  “Thirty-nine. Just a kid. Ten years younger than me. We have three kids. They were there with her when…”

  Brigham nodded. Under the ethical rules of any Bar in the country, a criminal lawyer was not allowed to advise a client to run, but he couldn’t keep it inside him. As carefully as he could, he said, “If convicted, you could be facing life in prison. Are you sure you want to do this?”

  He nodded. “My kids are here, and my career. I’m too old to start over in Croatia or Mexico. I can’t leave my kids here on their own. My youngest is only five.”

  “Then we need to have you booked. I’ll go down to the jail with you.”

  He nodded. “You can name your fee. My father is paying for everything. I’ll give you his number.”

  Brigham rose then remembered he didn’t have a car. “Meet me down there in an hour,” he said.

  The Salt Lake County Metro Jail was a gray and beige cube with no obvious entrances or exits. The only entrance was up a ramp and around a corner, hidden from view as if they were discouraging people from finding it.

  Brigham locked his bike up in front of the entrance, and through two sets of glass doors, he saw Ted Montgomery. He was sitting in the waiting room in front of a row of deputies and clerks who controlled who entered the jail and when. He was staring absently at the linoleum. Next to him were three children: two teenagers and a young boy who was holding Ted’s hand. Brigham entered and sat next to them.

  “Your kids?” Brigham asked.

  “Yes. This is Monica, Devan, and David.”

  Brigham smiled at them, unsure what to say. Monica was the oldest, probably sixteen or seventeen, and had makeup running down her face. Her eyes were rimmed red. Devan was staring at the floor, and the youngest, David, was kicking his legs, his feet unable to reach the ground from the chair.

  “You ready?” Brigham said.

  Ted nodded. He turned to Monica and wrapped his arms around her. Without a sound, her body convulsed, and tears rolled down Ted’s cheeks as he whispered, “I’ll be okay.”

  Devan wouldn’t look up. His eyes were glued to the floor until his father put his hand underneath his chin and raised the older boy’s eyes to his. “You’re the man of the house while I’m gone. You take good care of these two. Okay?”

  He nodded but didn’t say anything.

  Ted kissed his forehead then put his arms around his youngest son, David. The boy wrapped his arms around his father, and they held each other for a moment—long enough that Monica hugged her father again.

  Brigham had to look away. He gave them as long as they needed, until Ted said, “Okay.”

  Brigham walked to the first clerk. “Brigham Theodore. I’m here with my client, Ted Montgomery. He’d like to surrender.”

  As Ted was cuffed and taken to the back for processing, Brigham watched his children. They held onto each other tightly, all three crying now. Monica hugged the other two and said, “Daddy will be home soon.”

  Brigham watched as Ted kept his eyes on his children until the deputy dragged him around a corner, and he was gone.

  6

  Friday mornings at the Salt Lake County DA’s office were reserved for team meetings. Debra Flynn had been there for six years and, if there were anything she could change about her job, it would be the meetings.

  The meetings took place in a massive conference room with the team leader at the front and all the frontline prosecutors around him. Bagels
and coffee were served, and that day, she got a bagel, bit into it, and set it on a napkin before pushing it away from her. The bagel was stale and hard, probably left over from another meeting.

  While there were multiple teams, covering everything from juvenile crime to murder and high-profile cases, she was already in the high-profile section despite being one of the younger attorneys in the office at thirty-two. “High profile” meant cases that had attracted media attention, and the DA, Vince Dale, wanted any case that received media attention to get the proper treatment—specifically, the result had to make him look good.

  Debra had won several felony trials and then a capital murder before Vince recruited her for that section. During the meeting, he had said, “I want extensions of myself in the HP section.” She hadn’t understood what that meant and still didn’t. She did her job the best she could and let everything else take care of itself.

  Her team leader was Johnny Presto. When she’d first met him, she’d thought that was his nickname, but it was his real name. Johnny flipped through a few things on his iPad and said, “Okay, we got three cases to split this morning. Tammy, you’re up—you got a rape of a legislator’s wife at a frat party. What the hell she was doing at a frat party I don’t know, but the legislator has been meeting with Vince three or four times a month and is becoming a pain in his ass. Make it go away and keep the legislator as happy as possible. Colby, we got Farmington’s mayor’s son busted on a DUI. Vince wants to make sure we treat everybody equally and doesn’t want any special considerations for the son. Treat him like every other DUI.”

  Debra grinned to herself as she looked out the windows. Equality didn’t exist for Vince Dale. The mayor of Farmington had thrown his support behind Vince’s opponent in this year’s election. If he hadn’t, she was certain Johnny would be giving some different instructions.