The Neon Lawyer (6 page)

Ten

Brigham sat in his office with his feet up on the desk, balancing the folder on his lap.

Amanda Pierce was only twenty-eight years old, and the state was looking to put her to death: she would be the first woman ever executed in Utah.

She had worked at a Walmart part time as a cashier, and her file said she had received disability payments from the government. She had been a private in the army medical supply line. She had been injured during her first three months stationed in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and she had lost her left leg below the knee. She wore a prosthetic, but seemed to be having trouble adjusting to it.

She had an ex-husband, Tabitha’s father, who was currently living in California. He had been convicted of domestic violence and violation of a protective order. Brigham saw on a court docket that he had served ninety days in jail and then moved to Los Angeles. Tommy’s investigator had tried to contact him, but he said, and the investigator made sure to quote this: “I don’t give a shit ’bout either o’ them whores.” Amanda had no other living relatives.

The police reports in the case were only five pages in total. Brigham couldn’t tell if that was normal or not, but thought that a homicide might require more, given that the speeding ticket had been one page. The case, according to the detective on scene, was open and shut. Five rounds into the victim, one round missing him and found embedded in a tree behind him while another round ricocheted off the curb. Amanda then dropped the weapon before the deputies transporting the prisoner tackled her. One of them dislocated Amanda’s wrist, which explained the cast.

The detectives had taken her back to the station and interrogated her, but she didn’t say anything. Didn’t even ask for a lawyer. She just sat at the table and wept. The file included a DVD of the interrogation, and Brigham pulled it out. He pushed it into his laptop and watched as the detective strolled into the room and sat across from a trembling Amanda Pierce.

“Ms. Pierce, you need to talk to me. I can understand why you did what you did. I woulda put a bullet in him myself. But you need to tell me why, so I can help you with the DA. Do you understand? I’m here to help. Just tell me you did it and why, and we can talk about getting the DA down here to talk about deals. What do you say?”

Amanda stared at the floor. Even on the grainy video, Brigham could see her hands shake and the tears that flowed down her cheeks. At one point, she put her head down on the table and sobbed. The detective closed his binder and left the room.

Brigham looked at the autopsy photos. The only dead people he’d ever seen were in movies. And none of them had been through an autopsy. The man was rough looking and the one thing that struck him was how dirty Tyler Moore’s socks were before the autopsy. For some reason, that disgusted him more than the autopsy.

The pathologist had cut him open, peeled his face off, removed his brain, and all manner of other horrible things that Brigham did not understand the reason for. He could only stomach a few photos before flipping through the rest of the file, which was mostly supplemental narratives of the follow-up investigation that the detectives had done, CAD call logs to dispatch, and criminal histories and court dockets for Tyler and Amanda.

Brigham went to the small library the Law Offices of TTB maintained in a room no bigger than his bedroom. He then took out the
Utah Rules of Criminal Procedure
, sat at a table, and began reading.

He read the rules and then the cases associated with the rules in the annotations. He read an entire transcript of a homicide trial similar to his that he found on Xchange, the Utah court case information system. He read motions filed by attorneys in that case and several others, and he read several blog entries written by defense attorneys relating to capital cases.

Then he dug into
Mangrum and Benson on Utah Evidence
, and read every relevant rule and the associated cases out of Utah.

By the time he was done, he looked out the window and it was pitch-black outside. The clock on his phone said it was nearly midnight. He stood up, stretched, and went home.

June didn’t open her door when he went in. She was dating a couple of guys. Once, she had introduced Brigham to one of them and it was awkward for both of them. After that, she didn’t introduce him anymore.

Brigham went down to his room and collapsed onto the bed without even bothering to slip out of his clothes. Then he remembered that he was supposed to inform Tommy whether or not he was taking the case. He felt his pockets for his cell phone and then just sent a single text:
I’ll do it
.

The next couple of days were a blur of research and coffee-fueled all-nighters. He read a treatise by someone named Judge Boyce about how the rules of privilege related to capital cases and several other treatises on how capital cases were different in scope from homicide cases in which the death penalty wasn’t on the table.

And then he came across a book by a law professor out of Berkley on mental health defenses in capital cases. The book was less than three hundred pages and Brigham read it twice in four days. The only breaks he took were to eat, use the bathroom, and speak briefly with Scotty, who was a nice guy, but even the most basic legal concepts confused him. Scotty quickly found that he could ask Brigham about any issues he had and save himself hours of research.

Tommy had been gone for the past three days. Scotty said he disappeared sometimes, probably on trips to visit some of the clients he had overseas. One night, Scotty brought a bottle of bourbon and two glasses into the library and poured one for Brigham. They sat and drank and talked about the firm.

“What kind of clients does Tommy go and check on overseas?” Brigham asked.

“The kind you shouldn’t know about for plausible deniability.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah.”

“Can I ask you something, Scotty? Why does he go by the nickname Tommy Two-Balls?”

Scotty’s face turned serious and he leaned close. “I have to invoke attorney-client privilege on this. Assuming you’re my attorney.”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

Scotty glanced out the door and listened quietly a few moments. “He’s Russian, you know. Tommy’s not his real name. It’s Taras. Taras Fokin. Supposedly, he was in the mob before he moved to America, but he left it when he went to law school—left the whole thing, and no one just decides to leave them. It’s bad for their reputation. So one night, some guys broke into his house and cut off one of his balls. They didn’t kill him ’cause he’d earned a lot of respect, but they couldn’t let him off, either.”

“So why two balls, then?”

“You didn’t let me finish. So he, again, supposedly, found the guy that had done it. And Tommy ripped his ball off and had a surgeon put it inside him.”

Brigham was quiet a moment. “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

He shrugged. “It’s what they say.”

“Did Tommy tell you that?”

“No. He doesn’t talk about it. Ever. So don’t ask.”

Once Scotty had left, Brigham went back to studying. It was amazing to him how little he had actually learned in law school. Even simple things, like what the different court hearings in a criminal case were called, or where to file different motions.

It was morning by the time he finished. He went home and managed to sleep for four hours before showering and heading back to the office.

Eleven

Brigham sat in his office and read through the Amanda Pierce file again. He read every word in the detective’s reports until he knew them by heart. He watched the interview over and over until he felt he knew Amanda. And then he realized he hadn’t visited her in jail like he said he would. He put a reminder in his calendar to visit her the next day.

He closed the file and looked out his window to the parking lot. A tree was swaying with the wind. A few clouds dotted the sky but didn’t completely block out the sun. The temperature was warm and it almost lulled him to sleep.

“Murder? Seriously?”

He looked over and saw Molly Becker leaning against his doorframe. “I know.”

“You’re not ready for that.”

“I know.”

“Did you tell him you couldn’t do it?”

He shook his head. “No, I said I would.”

She was quiet a moment. “This isn’t a game, Brigham. Someone’s life is in your hands.”

“I know.”

“Then what makes you think you can go up against a prosecutor that has twenty years’ experience on you? I know Vince Dale. He’s an attack dog. Why do you think you’re ready?”

He shrugged, looking back out the window. “I don’t know.”

She scoffed. “That’s not an answer. I’m talking to Tommy about taking you off this.”

She disappeared, leaving him alone. He flipped through the file again, and then decided he needed to go for a walk.

The temperature outside was warmer than it had been inside, so he took off his jacket and carried it, heading for a nearby coffee shop. He passed the library, the groups of homeless youths lounging on the green lawn, and construction sites on a new public-safety building.

The coffee shop was two floors and quiet, with photos of native coffee farmers from South America on the walls. It was the type of place that tried to make you feel guilty if you bought your coffee anywhere else, even though they probably didn’t do anything different than Starbucks.

He got a vanilla steamer and climbed the steps to the second floor, taking a seat at a table by the window looking down onto Main Street. He watched a few transients loitering around Trax, the inner city train. Buses didn’t run often down here anymore. Brigham took out his phone and dialed home.

“Brigham!” His mother was probably beaming; he could tell just by the sound of her voice. “I was just thinking about you.”

“How are you, Ma?”

“I’m great. When you texted me and said you got sworn in, I told Claudia that you got sworn in to the Bar and you’re a lawyer now. She said to tell you she’s really proud of you.”

“Tell her thanks.”

“So how’s everything going?”

“Fine. I guess. I got a job.”

She gasped. “Already!”

“It’s not a big deal, Ma. It’s kind of an eat-what-you-kill place.”

“But still, they must have seen somethin’ in you to hire you so quick.” She paused. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there. I just couldn’t swing the money.”

“You don’t have to apologize. Do you need anything? I don’t have much but I could send a few bucks.”

“Don’t be silly, son. We’re fine.” She exhaled loudly. “I’m so proud of you, Brigham.”

“Thanks, Ma. I just wanted to check in. I’ll call you later.”

“Okay. Love you.”

“Love you, too.”

Molly came tramping up the stairs just as he was putting his phone down on the table. She sat across from him and folded her arms.

“How’d you find me?”

“I followed you. You’re not ready for a murder case.”

“I’ve already agreed with you.”

“Then why are you doing it?”

He leaned forward on his elbow, staring into the foamy top of the steamer. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t even know her.”

He took a thin red straw from a dispenser on the table and swirled it in the drink. “When I was ten years old, my parents got into a huge fight. Don’t even remember what it was about. They don’t either. But my mom stormed outta the house, got on her bike, and took off. There was this park by our house and even though it was like ten at night, she went through there to clear her head . . . she remembers a white light, and a pain in the back of her head. When she woke up, she was naked and bleeding. She had, like, cigarette burns over her body. Two homeless guys had beaten and raped her.”

He looked up and her eyes were glued to him.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“I know how Amanda Pierce felt. That hopelessness, the pain that no one else can feel. I was right there with her.”

She sighed and rested her hands on the table. “You could let someone else handle it.”

“What’ll happen to the case if I turn it down?”

“Tommy will assign it to someone else.”

“You?”

“No.”

“Is there anyone in that office who would care about it as much as I do?”

She was silent a moment. “You’re going to need help.”

“I’ll take whatever I can get.”

Twelve

Tommy’s investigator leased a space in downtown Salt Lake City next to an adult novelty shop. Brigham sat in the passenger seat of Molly’s Chrysler 300, impressed by how clean she kept it.

“Can I ask you something?” he said.

“Why am I with Tommy?” she guessed.

“You seem like the big corporate lawyer type.”

“And spend a hundred hours a week with bosses that just see me as a pair of tits? I’ll pass. Tommy respects me. He sends me enough work where I’m busy but this isn’t my life.”

“What is your life then?”

She glanced to him. “Triathlons.”

“Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. I’ve done twelve. My thirteenth is in a month in Saint George. You ever competed?”

“No. I boxed for a little bit as a kid. Just some stuff my daddy taught me, and I competed in that. I run every day, though. How’d you get into triathlons?”

“I wanted something challenging that I had to work on every day. You can’t fake your way through a triathlon. You have to put in the preparation or you’ll die out there. The building’s right here.”

The building was red brick, right next to a neon palace. The adult store had dildos, mannequins dressed in lingerie, and boxes of pornography stacked behind thick glass. With the flashing lights, it looked like a circus.

“The investigator’s here?”

“The best investigators are the ones willing to get their hands dirty. And Kris is certainly willing to get his hands dirty.”

They walked into the office of A Plus Investigators. The interiors of the office walls were brick, just like the outside. Leather furniture was crowded into the waiting room, with several magazines on the coffee table. Molly went up to the reception desk and asked for Kris, and moments later a man strolled out from the back. He wore a suit that seemed to shine underneath the lights, and gold lit his black skin wherever possible—gold bracelets, rings, necklace, and even golden-toed cowboy boots.

“Molly, what’s up, baby? How you doin’?”

“I’m good. This is Brigham, Tommy’s newest.”

“Brigham, my man, how you doin’?”

“Good, thanks.” They shook hands and Brigham smelled the overpowering scent of expensive cologne applied liberally.

“Somethin’ to drink? Coffee, soda? Somethin’ harder?”

“We’re good,” Molly said. “We just wanted to talk to you about a case you did the prep work on. Amanda Pierce.”

“Oh, right. Yeah. Well, come on back.”

They followed him down a hallway. On the walls hung posters of outlaws from the twenties and thirties, like Al Capone and John Dillinger. His office had the same décor with the addition of Kris posing with several celebrities in photos hanging behind his desk.

“So what you wanna know?” he said, taking a seat in his leather chair.

Brigham sat down and put his hands on the armrests. They were greasy. He hoped whoever had sat there before just had a lot of lotion on. “I read your report. I was just wondering if there was anything else we need to look into.”

“Anything else like what?”

“She shot someone in broad daylight. I think the only defense we’re going to have is a type of temporary insanity.”

He nodded. “That’s something. Better than getting up in front of a jury with your dick in your hands, I guess.”

“Only about one percent of insanity defenses work, Brigham,” Molly said. “I think we need to try using sympathy to get the prosecution to give us second-degree manslaughter.”

“She could still serve fifteen years for that.”

“It’s better than the death penalty.”

Kris stared at Brigham a moment. Brigham presumed he was sizing him up for something, but couldn’t guess what. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-six.”

“And how many felonies you handled?”

“Um, none.”

He shook his head. “Even the public defenders work a few years before gettin’ a homicide, man.”

“I can handle it.”

He shrugged. “Up to you. Just make sure Molly or Tommy is backin’ you every step. So what you wanna know about her mental health?”

“I’d like to find any friends, neighbors, churchgoers, anyone that knows her, who can testify to her mental state after her daughter was killed.”

Kris made a note on a legal pad. “Anything else?”

“That’s it for now. I’m going to go visit her again so I’ll let you know if there’s anything else.”

“All right, man. I’ll keep you posted. You got balls, I’ll give you that.”

“Thanks.”

They rose and walked out. Once in the car, Molly put the keys in the ignition before she paused, turning and looking at him.

“What?” he said.

“I think we need to go for manslaughter.”

“I’ll talk to her about it.”

“I’m serious, Brigham.”

“So am I. I’ll bring it up and if that’s what she wants us to do, that’s what we’ll do.”

Molly dropped him off at the jail and left to attend a mediation on a divorce case. Brigham stood outside the jail and watched as several groups of people walked out: families visiting loved ones, a few of them crying. One little boy held a picture drawn in crayon that said, “I love you dad.”

He walked inside and the same clerk was working. The line was so long that it took her a good twenty minutes to get to him and call down to the cells to get Amanda Pierce ready for a visit.

Once through the metal detectors, Brigham walked more confidently down the hallway, ignoring the drawings on the wall. The first visit had been like landing on an alien planet. But the anxiety had diminished and he hoped with a few more visits he wouldn’t feel so out of place.

Amanda was already sitting at a counter when he got there. Her hair was pulled back in a clip. When she saw him, a weak smile cracked her dry lips.

“How are you holding up?” Brigham asked. He had read on one attorney’s blog he should never ask an inmate how they were doing because the answer was always “shitty.”

“Okay. Thank you for seeing me again.”

“It’s no problem. I wanted to go through some things with you.” She nodded. “First, I’ve reviewed everything in the case several times, Amanda. A colleague of mine who is helping with this case has reviewed it, too. She thinks we should try and negotiate a deal to get the charges reduced to second-degree manslaughter.”

“What does that mean?”

“Manslaughter is where you kill somebody but you didn’t mean to.”

“But I did mean to.”

He paused, her bluntness taking him aback. “I know. But it’s what’s called a legal fiction. We’re all just going to assume you didn’t and you’ll enter a guilty plea to the manslaughter.”

“So how long would I be in jail?”

“You wouldn’t be in jail. Jail is only for people awaiting trial or serving misdemeanor sentences less than a year. You’d be transferred to the Utah State Prison. For a second-degree felony, you’d serve one to fifteen years. Manslaughter can also be a first-degree felony and that’d be six to life. But we’re shooting for a second. It’d be up to the parole board how much of that you actually served.”

She nodded. “I understand.”

“The other option is we can fight it. We can go to trial and do everything we can to win.”

“But if we lose, I could die?”

He nodded. “Yes. The state has filed a notice saying they’re looking for the death penalty.”

She sighed, running her hand over her forehead and into her hair. “I don’t care either way. I don’t . . . I don’t want to think about this anymore. So, I’ll take the manslaughter.”

“Are you sure? Once you enter a plea to something like that you won’t be able to change your mind.”

“I’m sure.”

He nodded. He should have been excited. He had just earned his share of the ten thousand that the state was paying for her public defender and he didn’t even have to go to trial. But his gut was tight and anxiety ate at him—he didn’t want her to take this deal. Who knew how long the parole board would keep her? And once she was out, she would be a convicted felon.

“I’ll set up a meeting with the prosecutor,” he said. “Do you need anything?”

She smiled. “You’re sweet. No, but thanks.”

Brigham rose. He watched as a guard took her arm and helped her out of the room. He could see into the cell block. Inmates were stacked on top of each other like chickens in a coop. A few of them were sleeping, some watching television. One woman looked at him and pulled up her shirt, exposing her breasts, before the metal door slid shut.