The Neon Lawyer (8 page)

Sixteen

The Matheson Courthouse was named after a former US Attorney and current federal judge for the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals. It was rumored he had never actually seen it.

The building was square and consisted of blue glass with a few white pillars thrown in to remind people it was actually a court.

Brigham waited in line at the metal detectors. He looked at the fresco on the ceiling five stories above him, but he couldn’t make out what it was.

The bailiffs made him take off his belt and shoes. He still set off the machine and they checked him with the wand before he could put his belt back on.

The directory past the metal detectors said that Judge Ganche was on the third floor. Brigham took the elevators up with a group of attorneys. They were discussing buying distressed properties from the Catholic Church. Apparently the Church was selling off prime real estate for pennies to pay off all the settlements for sexual abuse at the hands of priests.

The third floor was packed with attorneys and defendants rushing to courtrooms and the clerk’s office. Judge Ganche’s room was down the west hallway, and a group of defendants were sitting outside on benches. The courtroom was overflowing; people were lined up outside the door. Brigham slipped between them, muttering, “Excuse me,” several times before he actually made it in.

The courtroom was windowless, as most were, and cold. He walked to the front. A line of attorneys sat there. The three prosecutors had stacks of files on the table in front of them, in alphabetical order. Vince wasn’t there.

Brigham got in line. Molly came in a few minutes later. She stood next to him. “Hey.”

“Hey,” he whispered.

“So address bail, but I don’t think Ganche is going to release.”

“How much is reasonable?”

“She killed a man in front of witnesses and didn’t care. I don’t think any amount is reasonable, so you might as well go for broke and ask for her to be released on her own recognizance.”

The bailiff bellowed, “All rise. Third District Court is now in session. The Honorable Thomas Ganche now presiding.”

“Be seated,” the judge said.

He was an older man, perhaps sixty-five or sixty-six, and had a droopy, bloodhound face. He looked unhappy to be there and his position meant he didn’t have to hide it.

“Any private counsel ready to go?”

An attorney jumped up, cutting off an older woman who needed help getting to her feet. He called his case as the woman glared at him from behind.

Brigham didn’t want to cut anybody off and he didn’t want to fight with old ladies, so he waited. Besides, he had nowhere else to be.

When his turn did come, he meandered to the podium. This courtroom was much larger than the ones he’d been in before. At least a hundred people were packed in like sardines. Suddenly he felt nervous, and his voice cracked when he said, “The matter of Amanda Pierce, please, Your Honor.”

The bailiff opened the door to the holding cells and shouted, “Pierce, you’re up.”

Another bailiff escorted her out. She was in her orange jumpsuit with a white laceless slipper. Thick handcuffs around her wrists were linked by a chain to her one ankle. The chains rattled as she walked with her crutch, and were so large that they looked like they could slip off her hands at any second. She gave him a melancholy smile and then faced the judge.

“We’d like to enter ‘not guilty’ pleas, Your Honor.”

The judge scowled at him. “First state your appearance.”

“Oh, sorry. Brigham Theodore for the defense.”

“Rob Heil for the state, filling in for Mr. Dale.”

The judge quickly flipped through a file. “Mr. Theodore, this is a felony. You don’t need to plead not guilty, it’s just assumed it’s not guilty and we set it out for another date.”

Brigham cleared his throat. He needed to take some action, make some movement, and couldn’t think of anything else to do. “Yes, Your Honor. Just wanted to be clear. I would like to address bail, however.”

“So address it.”

Brigham took out his phone and glanced at the bullet-point list he’d made and read over twenty times. He had it memorized, but now couldn’t remember a single item on it.

The only two things the judge looked at in setting bail were flight risk and a threat to the community. If the defendants were at risk of driving to Mexico, the judge would keep them. And if they were going to go out and hurt somebody while released, he’d keep them as well.

Years ago when Brigham had first learned that, it had shocked him to his core. What it said essentially was that the government didn’t need to convict a person of a crime to lock someone up and ruin the person’s life. All they needed to do was accuse that person. And if accused of something serious enough, they would lock the person up until it was resolved. Even if found innocent later, the person could easily have served a year or two in jail already.

“Your Honor, Ms. Pierce is a veteran with no criminal history. She has ties to the community through her work and her church and has never done anything to make this court think that she is a flight risk. She doesn’t even have a passport or a car anymore. As far as threat to the community, this was an isolated incident, something that could only have affected one person, and that person is no longer with us. She had a disposition to—”

“Bail is denied, Counsel.”

“Your Honor, if I might be heard, I’d like to point out that—”

“She killed someone in broad daylight. Sorry, but I’m not letting her roam free. Bail denied. I’m guessing you want a roll call hearing, right?”

“Um, Your Honor, I would like to finish addressing bail.”

“Counsel approach, please.” The judge pressed a button on his bench that made static noise play through the speakers so no one in the courtroom could hear what they were talking about. Ganche waited until both Brigham and the prosecutor stood in front of him.

“Mr. Theodore,” the judge whispered, “you’re new, so I’m going to take it easy on you. But once I’ve made my ruling, I’ve made my ruling. You don’t question me. I am the law in here. Do you understand?”

“She shouldn’t be locked up, Your Honor. She’s not a threat to anybody.”

“I think she is. And what I think is more important than what you think.”

“What happened to innocent until proven guilty?”

The judge smirked. “A wet dream Jefferson had. Now get back to the podium.”

Brigham walked back and stood there as the judge’s clerk searched for a date for the roll call. His anxiety and nervousness had turned to anger. He wanted to lash out at the judge, but he looked over at Molly. She moved her palm down, reminding him to calm down.

“Two weeks from today,” the judge said. “Make sure Mr. Dale is here so we can settle this, Mr. Heil.”

Brigham put his arm on Amanda’s shoulder. “I’ll come visit you soon.”

He watched as the bailiff pulled her back into the holding cells, and the door slammed shut.

Seventeen

The weather had turned from rainy and gray to sunny and cloudless in an instant. Brigham sat in his office reading a law review article from the University of Texas describing the standard of proof in mental health defenses. Scotty shuffled in. He paused in the doorway, but changed his mind and left. Then he stopped in the hallway, mumbled to himself, and came and sat down across from Brigham.

“What’s up, Scotty?”

“This case makes me nervous.”

“What case?”

“Amanda Pierce.”

“Why does it make you nervous?”

“
’Cause you seem like a nice kid. I’ve seen a bunch of lawyers grow bitter because of what happens in court. I just don’t want that to happen to you.”

Brigham couldn’t help but grin. Scotty’s concern seemed genuine and it wasn’t a trait he’d seen in many law students or attorneys. “I’ll be okay.”

Scotty nodded sadly and rose, wringing his hands as he trudged back to his office.

Molly came in after that and sat down without a word. She ran her finger along the edge of the desk, wiping off some debris that had fallen from the wood-paneled ceilings. Brigham put the law review article down and looked at her.

“What?” she said.

“I think you’re starting to care about this case.”

“There’s nothing wrong with hating to lose.”

“There’s nothing wrong with caring about a case, either.”

She looked out the window. A car was parking and a man in a suit got out, wiping his nose. A woman stumbled out of the passenger seat in a nearly see-through dress. “I have to admit, this is more interesting than divorce cases. You have someone’s life on the line.”

Brigham watched her. The way the ends of her hair rested on her shoulders. The perfect outline of her face, her hands with the slender fingers that ended in brightly colored nails.

“I’d like to take you to dinner and a movie tonight,” he said.

“Like a date?”

“Not
like
a date.
A
date.”

“That’s pretty forward of you.”

“I’ve been practicing in the mirror.”

She chuckled. “I can see it . . . okay, yeah. Dinner and a movie. But I’m paying. I’m not having you miss your rent because you took me out.”

“I’m secure enough in my masculinity to accept that.”

“Tonight then. After work.”

Her phone buzzed and she rose, answering it as she walked out. Brigham went back to his article but couldn’t concentrate. Excitement tingled in his belly. He finally put the article away and decided he needed to be somewhere else. The coffee shop seemed as good a place as any. He strolled over there casually and found a seat near the entrance.

He checked Facebook, something he hadn’t done for at least a month. Old friends from back home were posting photos of their children. He flipped through, a smile on his face as he watched a video of a young boy trying to get the family dog out of his bed. He’d always figured twenty-six was too young for children and marriage, but now he wondered if he’d missed something, if that age—the age where you’re dirt poor and have to scrape together enough to eat every night—built some sort of bond in the marriage that was required to last long-term. Everyone he knew who had married later in life got divorced.

“Brigham?”

A man with brown hair and glasses stood in front of him, a Columbia coat wrapped tightly around him though it wasn’t that cold. The man had studied with Brigham at the library for the Bar, along with probably a dozen other graduating law students.

“Terrance, what’s up, man?”

Terrance sat down, removing the backpack that hung from his shoulder. “Haven’t seen you since the internship,” Terrance said. “How you been?”

“Good. Did they finally offer you a position?”

“No, unfortunately. The public defenders are usually the first thing cut in a budget crisis. They said they’d keep my résumé for whenever a position opened up, though.”

“Seems like a fun place to work.”

Terrance grinned. “Better than clerkships and big firms, man. I never wanted to go that route.”

Brigham noticed a ring on Terrance’s finger. “Are you married?”

Terrance held up his hand, displaying the ring fully. “Yup. Two weeks ago. Can’t afford a honeymoon yet, but hopefully soon.”

“Your wife’s cool with that?”

He shrugged. “What can she do? We don’t have the money. And our parents aren’t helping us. So where you working nowadays?”

“Law Office of TTB.”

“Haven’t heard of them. What type of law?”

“Criminal defense.”

“Seriously? Good for you.”

“It’s nothing serious. I get a cut of any cases I work. No salary or benefits.”

“Better than nothing, which is what I got right now. I might have to fall back on my computer science degree and get another programming job. That’s what I was doing right before law school put me eighty grand in debt. I think law was a bad decision.”

“Too late now.”

Terrance smirked as he glimpsed a couple coming inside the coffee shop. “Ain’t that the truth.” He stood. “It was nice seeing you. Stay in touch.”

“I will. You on Facebook?”

“I am. Look me up.”

Brigham surfed the Internet another few minutes before a smell caught his attention. He saw someone with a panini and a bag of chips. He pulled out his wallet. Exactly two dollars.

Brigham bought a bag of chips for a dollar seventy-five and left the quarter change in the tip jar. He ate slowly by the window, hoping to drag out the snack to make his brain think he was fuller than he was. A light drizzle of rain began. It pelted the window and his reflection looked speckled. The streets were quickly gleaming wet.

Across the street near the Trax station, an officer sprinted after a man trying to flee. The officer tackled him at the waist and two more police cruisers pulled up. Brigham pictured the man in jail and then in court. He saw the officers testifying about what happened, embellishing the man’s attempt to flee. He saw himself in court, trying to fight for him in a system where fairness had no place.

What the hell have I gotten myself into?

The first date came quickly. Brigham stood in front of his bathroom mirror and stared at every hair to make sure it was in the right place. His best shirt, a blue polo shirt he’d gotten at a secondhand store, looked about two years past its prime. He flipped the collar up, decided he looked like a frat boy, and then folded it down. Then he tried it with a jacket, then with a baseball cap. Eventually, he decided the best policy was to be himself. Molly was clearly out of his league, and there was no way there was going to be a second date so he might as well relax and have fun. He left the shirt on but took off the slacks and put on jeans and sneakers.

She picked him up and he felt elated in a way he could only describe to himself as giddy. Then he felt stupid for being almost thirty and feeling giddy, and tried to play it cool. Which, of course, backfired when he brought up
Battlestar Galactica
on the drive to the restaurant and Molly looked at him like he was crazy.

The dinner was in a trendy Italian restaurant. Boccio’s. The lights glimmered like gems in the dark as they strolled inside, a doorman holding the door open. The doorman looked to Molly, who wore a beautiful gown, and then his brow furrowed when he looked to Brigham.

I know
, Brigham thought.

Brigham felt awkward there among people for whom money was just a given, like air. He had a deep sense that they were different than him. Not better, but different.

“You don’t go on many dates, do you?” Molly said between the main course and dessert.

“That obvious?”

“I don’t either.”

“Really? You seem like a pro. I don’t mean pro, I mean . . . I don’t think you’re a hooker, I meant . . . I’m going to go ahead and be quiet now.”

She chuckled, and Brigham thought making her laugh had to be the best feeling he’d ever had.

“You’re adorable when you’re flustered,” she said.

After dinner, Brigham insisted on paying but Molly took the check. “You buy the ice cream,” she said.

A sense of relief washed over Brigham. Though he had planned on paying, the check was more than he spent on groceries in a month.

The two of them strolled downtown. Though Utah had a reputation as being conservative, downtown Salt Lake City at night was always packed with crowds rushing into the various bars and clubs, art shows, and improv theaters.

“Why Salt Lake?” he said, as his hands went inside his pockets and Molly hooked her arm in his.

“It’s slow. People are more friendly here than in California. Less stress, I guess. That’s the great destroyer of civilizations now. Stress.” She paused. “You don’t seem that stressed to me.”

“Maybe I just shove it way down where I don’t think it’ll affect me.” He looked to her. “Until I blow up and jump off a bridge, I guess.”

She smiled. “Well, don’t jump just yet. I’m actually having fun.”

Molly leaned in and kissed him. The kiss was light, a peck, but his lips seemed to buzz afterward. As though the touch rejuvenated him. A sense came over him that Molly could have asked him to do just about anything for her right now and he would’ve done it. But all she did was rest her head on his shoulder as they walked the clean sidewalks, and gaze at the stars in the clear sky on the way to an ice cream parlor up the street.