Those Empty Eyes

by Charlie Donlea

Genres: Female Sleuths; Psychological Thrillers

Synopsis

From the #1 internationally bestselling author and master of modern suspense comes a brilliantly twisting and propulsive standalone novel about a woman whose dark past as the lone survivor of her family’s slaughter collides with present-day crimes.
Alex Armstrong has changed everything about herself—her name, her appearance, her backstory. She’s no longer the terrified teenager a rapt audience saw on television, emerging in handcuffs from the quiet suburban home the night her family was massacred. That girl, Alexandra Quinlan, nicknamed
Empty Eyes by the media, was accused of the killings, fought to clear her name, and later took the stand during her highly publicized defamation lawsuit that captured the attention of the nation.
It’s been ten years since, and Alex hasn’t stopped searching for answers about the night her family was killed, even as she continues to hide her real identity from true crime fanatics and grasping reporters still desperate to locate her. As a legal investigator, she works tirelessly to secure justice for others, too.
People like Matthew Claymore, who’s under suspicion in the disappearance of his girlfriend, a student journalist named Laura McAllister.
Laura was about to break a major story about rape and cover-ups on her college campus. Alex believes Matthew is innocent, and unearths stunning revelations about the university’s faculty, fraternity members, and powerful parents willing todo anything to protect their children.
Most shocking of all—as Alex digs into Laura’s disappearance, she realizes there are unexpected connections to the murder of her own family. For as different as the crimes may seem, they each hinge on one sinister truth: no one is quite who they seem to be …

Release date: March 28, 2023

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

GARRETT LANCASTER WALKED TO THE COURTROOM PODIUM AS TELEVISION cameras recorded his every move and millions watched the live coverage. The defamation trial of Alexandra Quinlan versus the state of Virginia had captured the attention of the nation. Ever since the night the Quinlan family was slaughtered and the seventeen-year-old daughter was arrested for the murders, the country had been fascinated with Alexandra Quinlan. First, when she was accused of the crime and labeled a sadistic killer. And later, after she was exonerated when evidence surfaced that proved her innocence. And especially now, when Alexandra had turned around and sued the state of Virginia, claiming that the McIntosh Police Department and the Alleghany district attorney’s office had not only botched the investigation into her family’s murder, but ruined her life in the process.

Because of the media attention the Quinlan murders had received, Alexandra’s defamation case had been fast-tracked. Predicted to last two weeks, the trial was right on schedule. For the first few days—Monday through Thursday morning—the jurors had listened to testimony from a careful list of witnesses Garrett Lancaster had called in strategic order. Now, Garrett had Thursday afternoon and all of Friday to finish presenting his case. He planned to fill those hours with testimony from just two individuals, his final witnesses. If things went according to plan, the state’s defense attorneys would sit silently for the final two days of the prosecution’s case. They wouldn’t dare go after the testimony they heard today, and wouldn’t so much as think of cross-examining his witness tomorrow.

Garrett knew the untenable position he was about to put the state’s defense team in. He knew this because Garrett was usually the attorney doing the defending. It was only through a bizarre set of circumstances that he found himself in the unusual position of being the prosecuting attorney representing Alexandra Quinlan in her defamation suit against the state of Virginia. The managing partner at one of the biggest defense firms on the East Coast, Garrett was a defense attorney by trade, and therefore in the unique position of knowing his opponents inside and out.

Garrett had designed his strategy carefully. Despite the temptation to allow the jury to hear testimony from his two star witnesses earlier in the week, at the start of the trial when juries were easy to impress, he instead saved their testimony for now—Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. The plan was to wrap things up the following morning before lunch and then persuade the judge to adjourn for the weekend. Garrett wanted the testimonies from his final two witnesses—as well as their faces and tears and cracking voices—to be fresh on the jury members’ minds as they headed into the weekend. He wanted the testimony to linger for two long days before the jury reconvened Monday morning to listen to the attorneys for the state of Virginia mount their full, unfettered defense against Alexandra’s claims that the McIntosh Police Department was incompetent and that the Alleghany district attorney’s office was corrupt.

“Your honor,” Garret said after reaching the podium. Dressed smartly in a crisp navy suit and yellow tie, he carefully arranged his notes in no hurry, putting forth a sense of composure and confidence. He knew a television audience of millions was tuned in and he did not shy away from the attention. In his midfifties and handsome, Garrett knew how to use his presence to work a jury and was no amateur when it came to high-profile cases. “The prosecution calls Donna Koppel.”

The first officer to arrive at the Quinlan home on the night of January 15, Donna Koppel was the first into the house, the first up the stairs, and the first to witness the carnage in the master bedroom. The four other police officers who had responded to shots fired at 421 Montgomery Lane had already taken the stand. Garrett had expertly used the officers’ testimonies to lay out for the jury exactly what was found the night the officers entered the Quinlan home. Their testimonies were identical—they’d each described the bloodshed of a family slaughtered in the middle of the night. They’d each testified about finding a young girl, identified as Alexandra Quinlan, sitting on the floor of her parents’ bedroom holding the shotgun that had been used to kill her parents and brother. Garrett hadn’t attempted to sugarcoat or soften the officers’ recollection of the scene. In fact, he made sure each offered painstakingly detailed accounts of that evening—from arriving at the scene, to climbing the stairs, to stepping over Raymond Quinlan’s body in order to gain access to the master bedroom, where Dennis and Helen Quinlan lay dead in their bed.

It was part of Garrett’s strategy. Initiating each officer’s testimony and eliciting it in step-by-step detail had essentially diffused the defense’s cross-examination. Nothing more could be ascertained from the witnesses. Garrett had not refuted any of the officers’ testimonies about what they had seen and found when they entered the Quinlan home. Instead, Garrett took the officers’ recollection as gospel and confirmed that each officer’s testimony matched perfectly with that of the others—a gruesome night that had shocked each of them to their core, and a disturbing crime scene that had gone on to astonish the nation.

Earlier in the week, Garrett had called forensic specialists to the stand who testified that the gun used to kill the Quinlan family was a Stoeger Coach side by side 12-gauge break action shotgun belonging to Mr. Quinlan. In court on Tuesday morning, Garrett had dramatically presented the shotgun to the jury. Many jury members, when Garrett asked, admitted that outside of television they’d never seen a gun before. Garrett knew from jury selection that eight of them had no experience with guns, and that four were registered gun owners. Holding the weapon that had been used to kill three people, and allowing the jurors to see it up close, was startling. But this, too, was part of Garrett’s plan. He did it so that when he brought the gun out again tomorrow morning when he questioned his final witness, it would seem less lethal and more ordinary. The gun would not cast Alexandra Quinlan as a deranged teenaged killer, but as the clever young woman she was.

But that bit of showmanship was for tomorrow. Today, he stood at the podium and listened to Donna Koppel’s heels click as she walked up the courtroom’s center aisle to whispers from her fellow officers in the gallery. The entire McIntosh police force considered the testimony Donna was about to give a betrayal. Things had gotten so bad leading up to the trial that Officer Koppel had taken a leave of absence from the McIntosh Police Department. The leave was scheduled to last for as long as the trial went on, but Garrett suspected the chances were slim that she would ever return to the McIntosh police force.

Donna pushed through the wooden partition and walked past Garrett. He noticed the quick sideways glance she gave him on the way. If looks could kill, he’d have fallen dead on the floor. Instead, from Donna’s brief eye contact he read her predominant thought: I hope to hell you know what you’re doing.

Donna sat in the witness box.

“Please raise your right hand, ma’am,” the judge said from the bench to her left.

Donna did as instructed.

“Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?”

“I do.”

“Counselor,” the judge said, nodding to Garrett.

Garrett took a moment as he stood behind the podium to turn a few pages in his notebook. The stall was not to impress the jury with his command of the courtroom this time. It was for Donna, to give her an opportunity to gather herself with a few extra breaths. When Garrett saw that she was steady, he found his place in his notebook and looked to the witness stand.

“Ms. Koppel,” Garrett said. “Can you please state for the court your role inside the McIntosh Police Department?”

“I’m a police officer.”

“How long have you been employed by the department?”

“Eighteen years.”

“And you’ve served as an officer the entire time?”

“Yes.”

“Are you currently working as a police officer?”

“I’m on leave, presently.”

“Why is that?”

Donna swallowed. “My testimony this afternoon is not . . . popular inside the McIntosh police force.”

“It’s not popular, but it will not be dishonest in any way, am I correct?”

“You’re correct.”

“Why do you think your testimony will be unpopular?”

Donna hesitated and took a brief glance into the gallery and at her fellow officers.

“Because it goes against the narrative.”

“What narrative is that?”

“The one set forth by the McIntosh Police Department about what happened on the night of January fifteenth, both at the Quinlan home and then later at police headquarters.”

“Okay,” Garrett said. “But since no one here is trying to win a popularity contest, only seeking justice for the errors made that night, I believe your testimony is vital even if it’s not respected by your colleagues. Do you agree?”

“Objection,” the state’s attorney said.

“Sustained,” the judge said.

Garrett nodded at the judge and looked back to Donna.

“Before we begin, can you let the court know how you and I are related?”

“We’re married.”

Garrett walked from behind the podium and approached the witness stand.

“Hi,” he said when he was next to her.

Donna smiled and the jury members let out quiet laughs.

“Hi,” Donna said.

“On January fifteenth of this year, were you on duty working the overnight shift?”

“Yes.”

“Did you receive a call that night?”

“Yes. I was on my routine patrol route when I received a call for shots fired at a residence.”

“What did you do?”

“I immediately responded. I was just a few blocks away.”

“Were you the first officer on the scene?”

“I was.”

“Can you take us through that night, Officer Koppel? From the moment you first arrived at the scene, and describe what you did and what you observed?”

Donna took a deep breath, and Garrett felt her nerves. No matter how many times they rehearsed this at home, there was no way to re-create the stress of sitting on the witness stand and talking to a packed courthouse with twelve jurors hanging on your every word and television cameras rolling.

Come on, baby. Garrett encouraged his wife with a subtle nod. You’ve got this.

GARRETT WALKED BACK TO THE PODIUM AND SET HIS HANDS CALMLY on the sides of the lectern. He consulted his notes.

“At that moment, Officer Koppel, as you entered the home, what was your state of mind? What were you thinking?”

Donna paused a moment. “I was nervous.”

“You had a witness who lived next door to the Quinlans tell you that he distinctly heard gunshots emanating from inside the Quinlan home. Nervousness would be a fair emotion for anyone to feel. But what else did you and your fellow officers feel?”

“Objection,” Bill Bradley said, the government’s lead attorney in the case of Alexandra Quinlan versus the state of Virginia. “Officer Koppel can’t offer her opinion on how the other officers felt that night.”

“Sustained,” the judge said.

“Besides being nervous,” Garrett continued, “what else did you feel?”

“A lot of adrenaline.”

“So you were nervous and filled with adrenaline. In your opinion, the other officers felt the same way.”

“Objection,” Bill Bradley said.

“I’m asking Officer Koppel about her mindset when entering the house, not her fellow officers’.”

“Overruled,” the judge said. “Go ahead.”

“So you were nervous, and you were filled with adrenaline, and you felt that your fellow officers were experiencing the same emotions?”

“Yes.”

“Had you ever before, in your eighteen years on the McIntosh police force, responded to shots fired or to a call involving an active shooter?”

“No.”

“Had any of the other officers with you that night ever responded to such a call?”

“No.”

“So entering the home with a suspicion that there was an active shooter inside was a new experience for you?”

“Yes.”

“Other than department training on such an event, you had no practical experience?”

“No.”

“Is it reasonable to say, Officer Koppel, that handling a stressful, dangerous, and unique situation with which you had no previous experience opened the door to the possibility that things could be handled poorly?”

Donna paused, then swallowed hard. “Yes.”

“Nervous and filled with adrenaline, is it possible that the four officers who found themselves in a situation they had never before been part of could have misinterpreted the scene inside the Quinlan home?”

“Yes.”

“Knowing what you know today, would you have handled that night differently?”

Tears welled in Donna’s eyes as she answered. “Yes.”

“Can you tell the court what you found when you entered the Quinlan home on the night of January fifteenth?”

Donna took a deep breath to settle her nerves, blinked away the tears, and told the courtroom what she, and her fellow officers, discovered inside the home.

“WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST IMPRESSION UPON ENTERING MR. AND Mrs. Quinlan’s bedroom?” Garrett asked, still standing at the podium.

“I saw three victims and a suspect with a gun.”

“How would you describe the atmosphere inside that room?”

“Tense. Our weapons were drawn and I was on edge. My first impression was that Alexandra had shot her parents and brother, and that she was a danger to herself and my team.”

“And so you disarmed her?”

“Yes. We followed department protocol for disarming an active shooter.”

“And then you placed Alexandra in handcuffs?”

“Yes.”

“During those initial moments when you entered the master bedroom—when you stepped over Raymond Quinlan’s body and saw Dennis and Helen Quinlan dead in their bed, the sheets stained red, blood spatter covering the wall behind them, and a teenaged girl sitting on the floor with a shotgun across her lap—would you describe those moments as confusing?”

“Yes.”

“Officer Diaz,” Garrett said, flipping a page on his note pad, “who was the second on the scene, also described the scene as ‘terrifying. ’ Would you agree with that notion, as well?”

“Yes, we were all scared.”

“Objection,” Bill Bradley said. “Again, Officer Koppel cannot offer testimony about how her fellow officers were feeling.”

“Sustained.”

“Your Honor, I understand that Officer Koppel can’t speak for her fellow officers, but their testimony is already on the record. Each of them described feelings of confusion, horror, sadness, and a sense of being overwhelmed by what they found inside the Quinlans’ home. I’m asking if Officer Koppel felt those same things.”

“The objection was sustained, Mr. Lancaster,” the judge said. “Move on.”

Garrett took a moment before he nodded and readdressed Donna.

“Officer Koppel, in the moments after entering the Quinlans’ bedroom you felt some powerful emotions. Was confusion among them?”

“Yes.”

“Horror and shock?”

“Yes.”

“Sadness?”

“Yes.”

“A sense that the scene was overwhelming?”

Tears welled in Donna’s eyes. “Yes.”

“With all those emotions coursing through you at once, was it possible that seeing a teenaged girl sitting at the foot of her parents’ bed—parents who had clearly been shot—was it possible that you could have mistaken the scene for something it was not?”

“Yes. We obviously did.”

“With your emotions so high and wild, you assumed Alexandra Quinlan had killed her family. Is that correct?”

“That was my assumption, yes.”

“Did you ever while you were at the Quinlan residence consider that there was another explanation for what you found?”

“Not while I was at the crime scene, no.”

“Did you speak with any of your fellow officers about other possibilities that might explain what you found inside the Quinlan home?”

Donna shook her head. “Not while I was at the scene, no.”

“But there was a moment, Officer Koppel, wasn’t there, when it dawned on you that your interpretation of the crime scene was inaccurate?”

“Yes. When we got back to headquarters and I was watching Alexandra’s interview, I began to suspect that we had gotten things wrong.”

“What was the time frame from when you entered the scene and experienced all those overwhelming emotions, to when this epiphany finally came to you? This realization that you might have gotten things wrong?”

“It was probably two hours later.”

Garrett checked his notes. “You responded to shots fired at the Quinlan home at twelve forty-six a.m. You called for backup and EMTs at twelve fifty-eight, after entering the home. Detective Alvarez started his interrogation of Alexandra Quinlan at three-twenty in the morning. So almost three hours had passed from the time you responded to the call until the time you watched Alexandra being interviewed. Do I have the timeline correct?”

“Yes.”

“So after you entered the Quinlans’ bedroom, it took you three hours to process images and emotions few officers ever experience in their careers. It took three hours to allow those overwhelming emotions to dissipate. Three hours to allow reason and logic to attach themselves to the confusing crime scene and allow common sense to sort things out. Do I have that timeline correct?”

Donna nodded and wiped away tears. “Yes.”

Garrett paused for effect. He stood without speaking long enough for the silence to make the jury uncomfortable. To make them alert and hyperfocused.

“When those emotions settled, Officer Koppel, and reason and logic came to you, what was it that you noticed?”

Donna cleared her throat. “I watched Alexandra being questioned in the interview room and assessed that she was no longer in shock, as she clearly had been when we found her at the scene. It was then that I saw a girl who was lost and confused about what she was being accused of.”

“You noticed after three hours—a time period sufficient for Alexandra to process what had happened—that she finally understood she was being accused of killing her family. And when that understanding dawned on her, what in Alexandra’s demeanor changed?”

“She was no longer in a trance. It looked to me like she finally understood that she was being interrogated, and she looked scared and lost and like she needed help.”

“So a seventeen-year-old girl who was the sole survivor on the night her family was killed needed help from the adults around her. Is that what you thought?”

“Yes.”

Garrett walked from behind the podium to the front of the jury box.

“The idea that a young girl in that situation would need adults to protect her seems like common sense, doesn’t it?”

“Objection. Argumentative.”

“Sustained.”

“It seems like the first thing adults should do is protect this girl who just lost her mother, and her father, and her brother. But instead of help, what Alexandra Quinlan got were responding officers who misread the scene and jumped to conclusions, didn’t she?”

“Objection! Argumentative.”

“Sustained.”

“Instead of help, what Alexandra Quinlan got was an aggressive detective who, during an illegal interrogation of a minor at three-thirty in the morning, accused her of killing her family. Instead of help, what Alexandra Quinlan got for surviving that night was a two-month stay at a juvenile detention center. Instead of help, what Alexandra Quinlan got was to be dragged in handcuffs from her home while a news crew recorded every detail and broadcasted it to the world. Instead of help, what Alexandra Quinlan got were weeks and weeks of headlines accusing her of killing her family—because we all know that in the news media, if it bleeds, it leads. We also know that the twenty-four-hour news cycle is quick to cast judgment, but slow to repent. So what Alexandra Quinlan got was a lifetime’s worth of branding and slander to overcome. What Alexandra Quinlan got was the terrible nickname of ‘Empty Eyes,’ given to her by an overzealous reporter and repeated by every news organization in Virginia, and many around the country. All because a young girl had the audacity to look lost and confused in the moments immediately following her entire family being killed. What Alexandra Quinlan got was the exact opposite of what a civilized society and an ethical, impartial justice system should have given her.”

“Objection!” Bill Bradley was on his feet and angry. “Your Honor, Mr. Lancaster is giving a closing argument when he should be questioning a witness.”

“Mr. Lancaster,” the judge said, “you’re testing my patience. Do you have a question for Officer Koppel?”

“I do.”

Garrett’s voice softened as he looked from the jury members back to Donna.

“Alexandra’s family was killed on the night of January fifteenth. Alexandra survived. Officer Koppel, do you agree that the misconduct of the McIntosh Police Department that night, and in the weeks to follow, will negatively affect Alexandra for the rest of her life?”

“Objection!”

Garrett watched as Donna began to cry. It nearly ruined him to exploit his wife’s role in this situation.

“Withdrawn, Your Honor. I have no more questions.”

“Mr. Bradley?” the judge said. “Your witness.”

Bill Bradley simply closed his eyes and shook his head at the judge. He didn’t dare make an attempt at cross-examination. Not while the jury was so clearly emotional.

“Officer Koppel,” the judge said, “you may step down.”

The courtroom was silent as Donna left the stand and walked down the center aisle. This time, Garrett noticed, she did not make eye contact as she passed him, and there were no whispers from the officers in the gallery.

“Mr. Lancaster, do you have further witnesses?” the judge asked.

“Just one, Your Honor. Our last. Alexandra Quinlan.”

The judge looked at his watch. It was after 4:00 p.m.

“Considering the late hour, and assuming that Miss Quinlan’s testimony will surely take up a substantial amount of time, we will adjourn until tomorrow at nine a.m.”

The judge banged his gavel. The jury box emptied and the gallery filled with cloistered whispers as the spectators and reporters discussed what they had witnessed that day. The defense attorneys packed up and left. Garrett gathered his notes from the podium and sat at the prosecution’s table. He took a few deep breaths, knowing that he had just one more day to make this right.

Donna and Garrett sat on the back patio of their home and listened to the evening cacophony of chirping birds and buzzing locusts from the wooded. . .