Mercy (A Neon Lawyer Novel Book 2) Read online

  Holding the bat up, he tiptoed over to the door and peeked inside. Bent over a large box was a man in jeans and a flannel shirt. Brigham, his heart pounding so loudly it seemed to drown out any other sound, slowly pushed the door open wider and tightened his grip on the bat.

  “Who are you?”

  The man jumped as if he’d been shocked with a cattle prod. The papers in his hands went flying around the room, a look of utter terror on his face.

  “Who are you?” Brigham shouted.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “What are you doing in Ted’s house?”

  “I’m his brother. Who the hell are you?”

  Brigham, now that he heard it, could see it. The man was pudgier with less hair, but he could see it. “You’re his brother?”

  “Yeah, Timothy. I’m down here from Portland, man.”

  “I’m his lawyer, Brigham.”

  The fear in the man’s eyes seemed to fade. “Do all lawyers carry bats into people’s houses?”

  “I came to check on his kids. I thought someone had broken in.”

  “No, man. I got the kids. They’re with my wife at a restaurant.”

  Brigham lowered the bat. “Sorry,” he said. He leaned the bat against the wall. “What’re you doing here?”

  “We came to watch the kids. Ted called and said he needed us to come down for a few weeks until his trial.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  “Yeah, he’s with the kids.”

  “I need you to take me to him.”

  17

  Most of the day was spent on paperwork. Every time a defense attorney filed a motion, Debra had the option of responding or not. The Utah Rules of Criminal Procedure allowed her to skip responding to a motion until after the hearing if she wanted. Most prosecutors saved themselves the trouble and didn’t respond right away. Prosecutors won about 95 percent of all motions filed anyway.

  But Debra couldn’t do that. A motion to her was a challenge: an attorney had said her case was flawed. She felt it was almost a personal attack. Every motion filed on any of her cases was responded to. And unlike the prosecutors in her division, she didn’t have some law student intern write her motion responses. She wrote every single one and argued them herself when they had the hearing.

  The motion she had just finished was simple but effective. The defense attorney had challenged probable cause to arrest, stating that the real reason the defendant was arrested was because he was Mexican, and the officer assumed he was illegal. Once he was under arrest, Immigration and Customs Enforcement could put a hold on him, meaning he would not get out of jail no matter what. Once the criminal case was completed, with an ICE hold, deportation proceedings were begun.

  It was a double strike: the defendants would serve out a jail or prison term, be released, and then be taken into ICE custody while they went through deportation proceedings. Some prosecutors didn’t like the fact that resources were spent on them serving out jail and prison time if they were going to be deported anyway, but she didn’t see it that way. They had committed two crimes and deserved two different punishments as far as she was concerned.

  She had finished the last of her paperwork, signing probable cause statements in order to get warrants on people who hadn’t come to court, when Vince Dale marched into her office. He didn’t just walk, he seemed to stomp anywhere he went, as though he had orders from someone and had to carry them out as efficiently as possible.

  “Heard Mr. Montgomery didn’t show for his prelim,” he said, placing his hands on the back of a chair and leaning forward.

  “Nope. Brigham genuinely didn’t know where he was, either.”

  “It’s a winning situation for us. If he doesn’t come back, we basically got a victory without having to put any more resources into it. If he does come back, we can use the fact that he has consciousness of guilt.” He grinned. “I wish everybody ran.”

  “I was looking forward to the trial, honestly.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. I wanted to watch him while the jury came back with a guilty verdict. See his face.”

  Vince chuckled. “Wow. Maybe you need to be the one in the boss’s chair.”

  “No, I’m no politician. I just wanna do my job and go home.”

  He straightened. “Speaking of which, go home. You spend too much time here.”

  “Don’t have to ask me twice.”

  She logged off her computer and rose. She retrieved her purse and left her office. A few people were randomly milling around, probably trying to show Vince they were the type of attorneys who could stay late. She said goodbye to a couple of them and left the office.

  The parking garage was behind the building, and she headed to her car, a black Subaru. As she started the car, talk radio blared through the speakers, and she turned it down before pulling out. As she made her way out of the garage, she saw a red streak on one of the pillars. The streak had been there on her first day, and she remembered thinking to herself that the Salt Lake County DA’s office, the most powerful prosecution entity in the state, with the exception of the Attorney General’s Office, should at least take enough pride in their parking garage to have it cleaned.

  She didn’t feel that way anymore. Resources were limited, and budgets seemed to shrink every year rather than expand. Vince was a master at allocating money where it was really needed. Within his first three months in office, he had cut the water coolers, switched everything possible to paperless, switched all the staff to part-time to avoid benefits, and stopped buying snacks for the office. He saved the office nearly $360,000 a year. He used that money to hire two additional prosecutors, and the rest went to resources like in-house investigators and victim advocates.

  Cuts continued, and more prosecutors, investigators, and victim advocates were added until all the prosecutors felt they could actually focus on their cases rather than grind away and just try to ease the crushing caseloads. Debra’s own caseload had gone from four hundred cases a year to one hundred. She found the deals she was offering to defense attorneys weren’t as good because she had no incentive to get rid of cases. She could actually work them as they needed to be worked. And for that reason, she could forgive Vince Dale almost anything else he did. In the end, he cared most about protecting the public.

  She took I-15 and got off on 3300 South. The Salt Lake Metro Jail was just up the street, and she parked in the visitor lot. She flashed her district attorney’s badge to the clerk.

  “Hey, hon,” the older woman behind the counter said.

  “Everything copasetic, Jaime?”

  “Good as can be. He’s having dinner right now, but I’ll pull him out for you.”

  “It’s past seven. Why’s he having dinner now?”

  “He was put in ad-seg for a few hours. He got into a fight with another inmate. Over some shaving cream or something like that.”

  She nodded. “All right, well, I’ll talk to him about it.”

  The doors buzzed, and the heavy metal gate opened. She stepped through and turned right, toward D block. The floors were bare gray cement. Sometimes they hung art from the inmates on the walls, but there was none now. A maintenance crew was working on the track lighting. It seemed out of place to see other people here, talking and laughing as though it were just a normal job at some company.

  D block opened, and she stood in the center of a room with six steel doors spread out in front of her. She went to the first door and waited until she heard the click then opened it and stepped inside.

  Metal benches sat in front of glass partitions, and she sat down and waited. Most guests weren’t allowed phones, wallets, or even coats back here, but she was here so often that they let her slide. It didn’t hurt that she worked for the DA’s office. She took out her phone and tried to check her email, but there was no reception. Sometimes the signal could get through, and sometimes it couldn’t.

  A metal door slid open on the other side of the partition, and a guard brought
in an older man in an orange jumpsuit. He sat across from her as the guard stepped out and leaned against the railing, looking down on the cells.

  “Hey, Pop,” she said.

  “How are you, darlin’?”

  “Not bad. I put more money on your account.”

  “I know, I saw that. Thanks.” He looked down. “Must be so proud of your old man, locked up again.”

  She shrugged. “Honestly, I never really expected you to get out. You were in and out so much, I thought you’d live here one day.”

  “Well I’m out in sixty-one days. Just need to figure out where I’m gonna stay.”

  “You can’t stay with me, I’m sorry.”

  “No, I wasn’t implying that—”

  “Yes you were.”

  An image flashed in Debra’s mind like a light flicking on and off, but she took in the entire scene: her mother lying on a bedroom floor with a broken nose. She would tell friends and neighbors it happened when she fell somewhere, or that she’d had some surgery. Anything but the truth.

  “Well,” he said, “maybe I was, a little.”

  “I’ll give you some money to get a motel until you get on your feet. So what’s this I hear about you getting into a fight and administrative segregation?”

  “It was nothin’. Me and my cellie got into it a little bit. Barely raised our voices.”

  “Over shaving cream?”

  He chuckled. “Ain’t nothin’ what it seems in here. No, it weren’t over shaving cream. That scuffle was a long time comin’.”

  She nodded. “Do you need anything?”

  “No, you’ve done enough for me.” He paused. “I’m sorry your old man’s a fuck-up, darlin’. You deserve better.”

  She exhaled loudly. “Family’s family. And you’re the only family I got left.”

  He gave a weak smile and looked away. His eyes glistened as tears began to come and he fought them back.

  “I just wanted to check in with you before heading home.”

  “Do you have to leave now?”

  She rose. “Yes. See ya, Pop.”

  “Take care of yourself, darlin’.”

  She turned and walked out of the jail without looking back. The sound of the metal doors closing behind her echoed through the halls.

  18

  The family restaurant served Mexican food and had a waterfall and cliff divers up on a ledge. They dove into the pool while New Age music played.

  Timothy led Brigham around the tables and up the stairs to the second floor. Around the corner, at a large circular table, were Ted Montgomery, his three children, and a woman Brigham didn’t recognize—Timothy’s wife.

  “Brigham,” Ted said, his face lighting up. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Can we talk in private?”

  “Sure,” he said, wiping his lips with a linen napkin. He rose and followed Brigham away from the table to a stone ledge overlooking the pool the divers were splashing into.

  “You missed court, Ted.”

  “I know,” he said somberly. “But I had to do a few things.”

  “It would’ve taken two hours. You couldn’t do them after?”

  “These were time-sensitive things. Meetings that I had to attend.”

  “You can’t miss court. I got the judge to hold off on issuing a warrant for twenty-four hours. We’ve got to appear tomorrow morning and explain to her why you weren’t there.”

  “I know, I put you in an awkward spot. I’m sorry about that. But I’m guessing you’ve never been facing life in prison. There are things you’ve got to do to make sure your kids are taken care of.”

  “If you want to take care of them, show up to court.”

  He nodded. “I will. I’m sorry.” Ted looked back at his kids. “Wanna join us?”

  Brigham was starving at this point, but didn’t think it appropriate to eat with clients. “No, I better go.”

  “Nonsense, there’s plenty. Come eat.”

  The food did smell good, and the tight feeling of hunger in his belly made Brigham sit down at the table. He was introduced to Timothy’s wife and sat between Ted and Devan.

  They were discussing a family they knew back in Oregon. Monica, for the first time since Brigham had met her, was smiling and laughing. The five-year-old, David, seemed to be having a good time as well. Only Devan was staring down at the table with an expressionless face.

  “You like the divers?” Brigham said.

  He shook his head.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Ted had dished out an enchilada and taco and passed it to Brigham, who had to restrain himself to keep from wolfing it down in a few bites. “I always liked running, but not swimming,” Brigham said. “I don’t think I like being wet.”

  Devan glanced at him. “I like swimming,” he said softly, as if he were revealing too much about himself.

  “Yeah? Where do you like to go swimming?”

  He folded his arms and kept his eyes on the table. “A pool by our house… my mom used to take me there.”

  Brigham couldn’t speak, and suddenly his appetite wasn’t so ravenous. He stared at Devan a few moments, and then put down his fork. Pain sucked at his chest, and he decided he needed to be alone.

  “Thanks for the food, Ted,” he said.

  “What? You barely had two bites.”

  “That’s all I wanted. Nice meeting you folks.”

  “Okay,” Ted said. “Eight thirty tomorrow morning.”

  “Yes. Don’t be late.”

  Brigham walked off and glanced over his shoulder at the table. Ted was laughing, his arm around Devan. He seemed calm for a man who was facing life in prison. But Brigham had seen all sorts of reactions to the prospect of lengthy incarcerations. One of his clients had overdosed on drugs, another had committed suicide, one had locked herself in her house and knit sweater after sweater until the house was cluttered with them. Maybe relaxing with his family was how Ted dealt with it. At least he’d had the foresight to have some relatives stay with his kids. That would probably be enough to stave off DCFS for a while.

  The sky was an off shade of pink as dusk fell. Timothy had given Brigham a ride to the restaurant, with Brigham’s bike in the trunk. He had taken it out and locked it to a bike rack. As he got on, he glanced up at the moon, which he could just make out. Checking his cell phone, he saw several text messages and a voicemail. Apparently he hadn’t felt them in his pocket.

  One was from Molly: Call me please.

  She answered on the first ring. “Hey,” she said.

  “Hey.”

  “I need to see you. You still want dinner?”

  “Yup, starving. I’m in Draper, though. Can you meet me at the India House?”

  “Be there in ten.”

  Brigham rode down to the restaurant, a brown building with a pawnshop across the parking lot. The pawnshop had half a car sticking out of the brick wall outside, and he touched it as he passed. The car was real, not a plastic model.

  He waited outside until he saw Molly park. He gave her a kiss on the cheek, and they went inside.

  “What’s so urgent?” he said.

  “Let’s sit down first.”

  They were seated by a window. Brigham ordered an appetizer, his stomach growling, and leaned back in the seat as he loosened his tie. “I found Ted. He was—”

  “Brigham, I have to tell you something. And you’re not going to like it.”

  “That’s a weird way to start a conversation.”

  “I’m serious. This… is serious.”

  “Okay, what’s going on?”

  She swallowed. “Vince Dale has been offering me positions at the DA’s office all year. And I’ve turned him down. About a month ago, he offered again. I didn’t turn him down. I accepted two days ago.”

  Brigham was quiet for a time long enough to be awkward. “You’re quitting?”

  She nodded. “I’m sorry. I just feel it’s the right move.”

 
“Wait a second. You’re quitting your own firm… to work for Vince Dale?”

  “You say that with such hatred. I don’t think he’s what you think he is.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me? He’s everything that’s vile and soulless in our profession.”

  “Keep your voice down.” She glanced around to see if anyone was watching. “I’ve known him a lot longer than you. He does what he thinks is right, and sometimes that rubs people the wrong way.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t believe it. We’ve just become successful, and you’re gonna bail on us? You helped build this firm into what it is. How can you leave it to be some government stooge?”

  “I won’t be a stooge,” she said, irritated. “He’s putting me in Special Prosecutions. The high-profile division. I’ll have autonomy.”

  “No, you won’t. You don’t understand men like Vince Dale. I know them, I know them really well. My father was one of them. You can never have autonomy with a guy like him. It will always be about the power he has over you. Nothing else will matter to him.”

  “I think you’re wrong.”

  He stared out the windows at the passing traffic. “What is this about? Really? Don’t lie, either, I don’t deserve that.”

  “I wasn’t going to lie. I just don’t think defense is a good fit for me.”

  “What’re you talking about? You’re great at it.”

  “Being good at something doesn’t mean it’s a good fit for you.”

  Brigham gazed at her, his eyes catching hers and not letting them go. He had so much anger that he didn’t know how to express it without ruining their relationship forever. But the anger was only the surface. Something much deeper hurt, and he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. Betrayal maybe, though he didn’t know what exactly she was betraying. “It’s about that chi mo, isn’t it? Because his victim killed himself? You had nothing to do with that. You had no control over it happening in the first place—the acquittal, or the suicide. That had nothing to do with you. Your job is to defend the Constitution. That’s what we’re fighting for, not individual clients.”