The Neon Lawyer (5 page)

“But he didn’t pull over and stop.”

“Not right away.”

Brigham glanced at the judge, who was on the computer. The screen was turned away so no one could see, but from her expression, it appeared she was watching something humorous—YouTube, maybe.

“So you have flashing lights and a siren, and he speeds up, and then pulls into the number two lane.”

“I don’t know if he sped up, but yeah, he pulled into the other lane.”

“It’s reasonable to say that if a speeding cop car is coming in behind you, you might speed up too, right?”

“I . . . I guess that’s reasonable.”

“Thank you. Nothing further.”

The judge snapped out of whatever trance the computer had put her in and looked up at them. “Great. Closing arguments.”

The prosecutor rose and was about to speak when Brigham said, “I’d like to call Mr. Dolls to the stand.”

The prosecutor sighed audibly and sat back down. Jake rose and walked to the stand, sat down, and was sworn in as the officer had been. Brigham stayed at the lectern. Jake looked so nervous that Brigham mouthed the words
It’s fine
at him.

“Please state your name,” Brigham said.

“Jacob Dolls.”

“And Mr. Dolls, you heard the officer’s testimony relating to the events on August fourth?”

“Yes.”

“Is his account accurate?”

“Not really. What happened was I was coming down the hill, there’s this hill right there before Pioneer Park, and he comes up behind me. Like,
right
behind me. He said around twenty feet but I’d say more like ten. And his siren wasn’t blarin’ yet, so I thought he was tryin’ to pass me. So I sped up, ’cause if I woulda hit my brakes, he woulda rammed into me. Then when them sirens turned on, I changed lanes to give him a clear road.”

Brigham nodded. “Would you have been speeding otherwise?”

“No.”

“Thank you, nothing further.” Brigham sat back down.

The prosecutor was on her phone again. She rose, looked at Jake, and asked one question. “Were you speeding in Salt Lake on August fourth?”

“Well, yeah, but I said why.”

“Thank you. Nothing further.”

Jake walked through the well back to his seat. Speeding was a strict liability offense, meaning there was no element of intent. It didn’t matter if your house was on fire or your pregnant wife was delivering in the backseat. If you were speeding, you were guilty. And Jake had just admitted that he had been speeding.

“Your Honor, I’d like to call Sandra Dolls to the stand,” Brigham said.

Jake’s wife was wearing a strapless dress. Her figure was slim and muscular, and Brigham wished he’d known she would be wearing that. He would have told her to wear a sweatshirt and glasses instead. Something that didn’t scream
partier
to the judge.

He went through the same questions with Sandra as he had with Jake and she testified identically. They had not been speeding until the officer got behind them. The prosecutor had no questions for her, and Brigham rested.

“Closing arguments,” the judge said.

The prosecutor said, “Waive closing.”

Brigham rose again. “Your Honor, Mr. Dolls was entrapped. He was traveling at a normal speed until this officer got behind him. Mr. Dolls and his wife both testified that they were traveling at a normal speed, the officer got behind them, and they sped up to avoid a collision. For entrapment, we have to show that the defendant was enticed or encouraged into doing something the defendant would not have otherwise done. Mr. Dolls would not have sped except for the officer’s actions.”

The prosecutor rose, anger flashing across her face. “Your Honor, entrapment requires providing the City with notice of an affirmative defense ten days prior to trial.”

“There’s an exception for infractions,” Brigham said, thumbing through the court’s copy of the
Utah Code Annotated
that sat on the defense table. He found the entrapment statute. “Um, may I approach?”

“Yes,” the judge said.

Brigham crossed the well with the prosecutor right behind him. He set the thick book before the judge and pointed to a section at the bottom of the page. “It states that notice is only required when incarceration is possible. No incarceration is possible on an infraction.”

The judge read it and looked at the prosecutor. “Ms. Rollins, any response?”

“Entrapment is when an officer puts someone in a situation where they are coerced into committing a crime. The defendant didn’t have to speed. He could’ve kept his pace.”

“And the officer might’ve rear-ended him.”

“That’s bullshit.”

The judge held up a hand. “All right, everybody calm down. It’s a traffic ticket. Get on back and I’ll make my ruling.”

Brigham glanced to the bailiff as he sat down. A few lawyers were still in the courtroom behind him, and one gave him a thumbs-up. The officer glared at Brigham. Jake leaned over and whispered, “Did we win?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m prepared to make my ruling,” the judge said, writing something down on the court’s file. “It was a nice shot, Mr. Theodore, but I don’t see entrapment here. The officer has to have the intent to encourage the defendant to commit the crime. I didn’t hear any evidence that indicated to me that he had that intent. When defense counsel makes a motion for entrapment, the burden then shifts to them to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that entrapment did in fact occur. We don’t have that here. So I do find the defendant guilty of the offense of speeding. But I’ll give you this—it was original. I’ve never heard that defense applied to speeding before.” She turned to Jake. “Mr. Dolls, you have up to forty days to come back and receive sentence, or you may waive the forty days and be sentenced today. Which do you prefer?”

“Today, please.”

“All right. I am imposing a fine of two hundred sixty-three dollars, and an order of six months’ good behavior probation—that means no new traffic tickets. You get a new one within six months, and you’ll have to come back here and explain to me why, Mr. Dolls.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Brigham was staring straight ahead. He couldn’t look at Jake. Instead, he gathered his things and hurried out. Jake followed him and Brigham realized he wasn’t going to be able to sneak away, so he turned to face him.

“Thanks,” Jake said, brushing past him. “Asshole,” Jake muttered when he was a few steps away.

Eight

Night fell quickly, and Brigham sat at home on his couch and stared at the television screen. He hadn’t gone back to the office after his loss that morning. He couldn’t face Tommy. The man had trusted him, and Brigham had failed him on his first try. Tomorrow, he would go back to the school and beg for his old job back.

As he put a beer to his lips, the doorbell rang. Brigham answered, and Scotty and Tommy stood there.

Tommy glanced past him inside. “We gotta get you a better pad, Brigham.”

“Oh, um, you guys want to come in?”

“No,” Tommy said, wiping his nose with the back of his index finger. “Let’s go out.”

Brigham grabbed his jacket and wordlessly followed the two men out of his building. They were discussing a personal injury case, something about a woman who had been hit in a crosswalk. Scotty wanted to settle for a hundred thousand, but Tommy thought they could get double that if they held out.

A black Mercedes was parked out front, and Tommy drove. Brigham sat in the back and tried to think of what to tell him about why he’d lost. All he could think to do was apologize and let Tommy know he’d be quitting.

“I’m sorry about today,” Brigham said.

“Sorry?” Tommy asked without looking back. “About what?”

“Losing.”

Tommy laughed and Scotty snorted.

“Brigham, I talked to one of the lawyers who was there. He said you argued entrapment. I’ve never heard an entrapment defense on a speeding ticket. That’s creative thinking right there.”

“Yeah, but I lost.”

“What do you think the national average is for not-guilty verdicts?”

“
I don’t know. Fifty percent.”

“It’s twenty-five percent. That means we lose three in every four trials. The prosecutor’s got all the evidence before we do, so they only bring the cases they think they can win, which keeps their success rate up. Then you got cops willing to lie on the stand, and the ones that aren’t willing to lie are willing to embellish the truth. On the other side, you got our clients, most of whom have criminal records and no juries or judges believe anything they say. The system is stacked against us from the get-go. You gotta get used to losing, or else you ain’t gonna make it. Besides, Jake’s probably going to appeal the loss. Another thousand bucks for us.”

Brigham had had a knot in his stomach since that morning, but it slowly faded away. He relaxed into the leather seats and stared out the windows.

“So I’m not fired?”

The two men laughed again. “Fired? Hell, I’m promoting you.”

Brigham looked to him. “Promoting me to what?”

“We’ll talk tomorrow. Tonight, let’s just have fun.”

They went to a downtown bar that had a pig painted on the wall. Tommy parked the Mercedes on the street and they walked in. The bouncer nodded at Tommy, and Tommy nodded back. Once they were inside, he said, “Former client. Got him a great deal on a drug charge.”

They sauntered up to the bar and Tommy ordered three shots of whiskey. The bartender was a shapely woman with big, fake breasts, and Scotty was staring at them like they were the Pyramids of Giza.

Tommy held up his shot glass and Scotty did the same. Brigham had already drunk his but he held it up and tried to cover it with his hand so they couldn’t see that it was empty.

“To hopefully.”

They shot the booze and Tommy motioned for refills. A man sat in the corner with his arms folded, and the two of them exchanged glances.

“Be right back,” Tommy said.

When he was gone, Scotty and Brigham shot the refills, with Scotty, who seemed to be relaxing, taking two. His awkward manner had softened and he even smiled at the bartender and commented on her hair.

“What does that mean?” Brigham said. “ ‘To hopefully?’ ”

Scotty ordered two beers. “Don’t totally know. Tommy’s been saying it forever.”

“Who’s that guy he went back there with?” Brigham asked.

“Client. This place is owned by the Russian mob, and some of them are our clients.”

“Really?”

Scotty nodded, his shoulder twitching as he took a sip of his beer. “Bought and paid. Bars are good places to launder money ’cause no one keeps track of tips. On paper, half a dozen bigwigs in the Russian mob work here as bartenders and waiters. You give each bartender five or six hundred bucks a night in tips, each waiter a few hundred, and before you know it you got fifty or sixty grand a month in clean money. They claim it on their taxes so you gotta pay that, but so what? What else you gonna do with it? Works out nice.”

Tommy was gone for a long while, and when he came back out he laid three hundred-dollar bills on the bar. “You boys have fun,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Brigham. And we’ll talk about that promotion.”

Brigham watched him leave. It seemed like everyone, from the cocktail waitresses to the managers, respected Tommy. He wondered what someone would have to do to get people already in the Russian mob to respect you.

“You liked Molly, didn’t you?”

Brigham looked to Scotty, who had a mischievous grin on his face. “Was I that obvious?”

He shrugged. “She’s a man-eater, though. I’ve never seen her with a guy. I think she scares people.”

“She seemed nice enough.”

“You haven’t seen her pissed off yet. I saw her tear a cop apart on the stand once
—it was so bad he started crying right there in the courtroom.”

Brigham sipped his beer. A young woman smiled at him from across the bar. He smiled back, but knew he wasn’t interested.

“What’s the promotion he was talking about?” Brigham asked.

Scotty sipped his beer, his eyes twinkling as he smiled. “You’re gonna love it.”

Nine

Brigham rose early and went for a run through the Avenues. Though the Avenues themselves were congested, if he headed north up the mountain he came to a trail around to the other side with an open view of the valley below.

A solid forty minutes got him to the pinnacle of the first mountain, overlooking Davis and Weber counties, two counties dominated by industry. Several factories and oil refineries were spewing thick, gray exhaust into the sky. The acidic clouds whirled and danced in the wind, hovering above the cities and leaving a sour taste in the air before eventually dissipating.

Brigham jogged back home and changed. He would need to buy another suit as soon as he had some money. Checking his bank balance on his phone, he saw he had exactly nine hundred and fifty-two dollars left. His rent was three fifty, so as long as he ate corn dogs and Top Ramen, he had enough to live on for two months.

At work, he was passing Tommy’s office when Tommy shouted, “Brigham, come here.”

He went in and sat down across from him. Tommy removed a check from the printer and gave it to him. It was for two hundred fifty dollars.

“Twenty-five percent of the speeding case,” Tommy said.

It was more money than he earned in a week cleaning the school, and it had only taken him a few hours to make. There was a warm sensation in his gut that he didn’t recognize—maybe something between satisfaction and the beginnings of greed, for someone who had never felt greedy. He pushed it away with the thought that ten percent of it would have to go immediately to charity: a lesson his mother had taught him. If people gave as soon as they earned, it would keep them humble, as his mother had told him at least once a week. Brigham had stuck to it his entire life.

“Got something else, too,” Tommy said. “Your promotion.” From the floor behind his desk, he lifted up a box with several files and shoved it across to Brigham. There was also a padded envelope in there with at least twenty CDs.

“What is it?” Brigham asked.

“Your new case,” Tommy said, lighting a cigar. “Amanda Pierce. I have a public defender contract with the county, and they send us things every now and then. Ten thousand for the case and fifteen hundred a day for the trial, plus you get all the experts and investigators that you need, all paid for by the state.”

Brigham looked up at him, not sure what to say. Some quick math told him that was $2500 for the case and $375 a day for the trial: more money than he’d ever earned at one time.

“What’s she charged with?”

“Murder, my friend. Aggravated murder, actually—part of the code says if you create a great risk of death to a person other than the victim and the actor, they bump murder up to aggravated murder. She’s lookin’ at the death penalty.”

Brigham became aware of the dryness of his mouth; his tongue was stuck to his teeth, and he tried to swallow, but it felt like his throat had closed up. He finally managed to work his tongue loose and said, “I don’t think I can do this, Tommy.”

“Sure ya can.”

“The only case I’ve ever handled by myself was that speeding ticket yesterday, and I lost.”

Tommy shook his head. “It’s all elements. Criminal Law 101: every crime has elements the prosecutor must prove, whether it’s speeding or murder. You pick the element you got the best shot at beatin’, and you attack it like a pit bull. Don’t matter what the underlying charge is.”

“Can I . . . think about it, at least?”

“Do this for me—go visit her. Right now. You can’t be at the jail during mealtime, but you should be able to make it before then. Go visit her, and then tell me what you want to do.”

Brigham nodded absently, staring at the thick file in front of him. “Go visit her?”

“Yup.”

He rose, slipping out the first page in the file covering the charges and a summary of the allegation. “All right, I’ll visit her.”

Tommy took a puff of his cigar. “Come see me after.”

Brigham left the office and googled the Salt Lake Metro Jail. It was a good distance away. At times like these, he wished he could afford a car. He got on his bike and turned onto State Street anyway.

The distance gave him time to think. This was ludicrous. He wasn’t prepared for a murder case, and certainly not one in which the client was looking at the death penalty. He would have a quick meeting with this lady, hear her story, and then assure her that Tommy would take care of everything. Then he would ask Tommy for more speeding cases.

The jail was on the corner of an intersection. He could see nothing but dirt fields and empty parking lots farther down the road. As Brigham rode up, he saw there was no place to lock up his bike. He took it inside and leaned it against the wall.

A row of jail staff in uniform sat behind a counter. He went to the farthest one on the right, designated for professional visits. Taking out his Bar ID card, he watched the woman behind the counter. She wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to him.

“Um, excuse me? I need to visit one of my firm’s clients—Amanda Pierce.”

“What cell block is she in?”

“I don’t know.”

The woman sneered. “Hold on.”

She ran through a few queries on a computer before speaking into a microphone and asking someone to bring out Amanda Pierce for a professional visit. She examined his ID card, then handed it back and pointed to the metal detectors. “Through there. Cell block D One.”

Brigham was shown one of the small lockers that were available to everyone visiting an inmate. He placed his keys, wallet, and phone inside, and then went through the metal detectors, got wanded a good half a minute, and then continued on. He turned toward the D cell block and continued down a concrete corridor.

The corridor was painted gray and yellow. The only decorations up in the hallways were the artwork that the inmates made themselves: drawings of nude women riding stallions, of Aztec kings, vanquishing conquistadors, of death and sex.

Brigham came to a cul-de-sac. The doors were lettered and numbered, and he pressed the buzzer for D-1. The door clicked open and he went in.

Metal stools stood before glass partitions. On the other side of the first one sat a woman. Her hair was down to her shoulders and she looked frail, as though she could collapse from exhaustion or malnutrition at any moment. The woman glanced at him and then looked down. He thought she had been crying recently.

Brigham sat down across from her. “Hello,” he said.

“Hi,” she said shyly, not looking up.

She looked nothing like what Brigham had pictured. He had been imagining tattoos and needle marks from meth. What he got was a frightened housewife in a world she couldn’t possibly belong in. She had a cast on her left wrist and the fingers of that hand looked swollen and red.

“Um, my name is Brigham Theodore. I’m with the law offices of Tommy . . . well, TTB Law Offices. We’ve been assigned your case as part of the public defender contract.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“I read the information and it alleged that you shot and killed a Tyler J. Moore.”

She nodded. Brigham waited for her to say something else, but she just sat there quietly. When she finally did look up, her eyes held a palpable pain and sadness that got to him.

“Um, do you deny that, Ms. Pierce?”

“No,” she said.

Brigham skimmed the file, which consisted of two sheets of paper. “The report said that you didn’t confess, which is good, but I did read that, at the time, Mr. Moore had been facing charges of child abduction, forcible sodomy, and murder for the death of—”

Brigham stopped when he heard her make a sound. He looked up from the file. Her hand covered her face, and her slumped shoulders jolted with each sob. He read the rest of the report quietly. It stated that the victim in Tyler Moore’s case was an underage relative of Amanda Pierce with the initials TP.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

She shook her head and wiped the tears away. Brushing her hair aside, she raised her eyes to his. “She was my daughter. Tabitha.”

Brigham nodded. The entire thing came into focus now. He had pictured a jilted lover or a bingeing meth addict killing someone who had wronged her . . . but he hadn’t made the connection that Tyler Moore had been killed because of the victim he had chosen. Brigham guessed the information only had initials because the victim was a juvenile. “How old was she?”

“Six. Almost seven.”

Brigham glanced through the rest of the charges that Tyler Moore had faced. Aggravated sexual abuse of a child: five counts; forcible sodomy: two counts; rape of a child: three counts; aggravated kidnapping of a child: one count; aggravated mayhem: four counts; aggravated murder: one count.

As the last moments of Tabitha Pierce’s life became clear, cold revulsion swept through him. He tried desperately to push the images away, to think of something else, but he couldn’t. He looked at her mother. Her eyes were focused on his.

“I . . .” Brigham wanted to say something comforting, something that would reassure her. But no words came. Instead, he just said, “I’ll be defending you. I’ll come back tomorrow with my laptop to take notes, and we can go through what happened in detail. I just wanted to meet you.”

She nodded, still wiping away the tears on her cheeks. “Thank you,” she said softly. She rose, and Brigham saw the missing leg, the crutch leaned against the wall that Amanda placed under one arm as she pounded on the steel door with the other. The door slid open and a guard came and got her.

Brigham sat in the room, staring at the glass divider that had separated him from her. He read the list of charges in front of him, charges that represented a nightmare for a little girl, and felt the warmth of a tear down his cheek. He wiped it away and rose, leaving the jail and heading back to the office for the file.