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“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.
CHAPTER 4
McIntosh, Virginia Thursday, September 26, 2013 6:08 p.m.
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 lot that abutted the back of their property. Neither had spoken since they left the courthouse earlier in the afternoon. Emotions were high and nerves frayed, but so far their strategy had worked to perfection. Donna’s time on the stand had taken them to the end of Thursday. Alexandra’s testimony would start Friday morning, and if things went according to plan the judge would adjourn for the weekend when Garrett rested his case, leaving the jurors to mull Donna’s and Alexandra’s testimony all weekend. The problem, Garrett realized now as he sat in silence with his wife, was that their words would stick with him as well.
Ice clinked against the glass tumbler when he swirled the bourbon in front of him. He took a sip and allowed his mind to flash back to that night. To the cold night in January when this chapter of their lives started. He looked across the patio where Donna sat with her hand around the stem of a wineglass. Her eyes were closed and Garrett knew she was thinking of the same night.
McIntosh, Virginia January 15, 2013 1:12 a.m.
The Channel 2 News van pulled up to the address on Montgomery Lane where the scanner they monitored had indicated there was an active shooter. The house was bathed in the spotlights from police cruisers parked out front. The news crew hurried out of the van to capture footage. The neighborhood was alive with red and blue lights pulsing from the tops of squad cars and an ambulance. A coroner’s van had just backed into the driveway and the news crew had arrived in time to capture the medical examiner entering the home. With any luck, they’d soon have prime footage of at least one gurney rolling out the front door, a white sheet draped over its occupant.
The reporter tapped the microphone to confirm it was live and then positioned herself so that the brightly lit home was behind her, the morgue van over her shoulder.
“This is Tracy Carr reporting from the Brittany Oaks subdivision in McIntosh where police have responded to shots fired inside the house behind me. As you can see, the medical examiner has just arrived but at this time we have no word on how many casualties might be inside.”
Off camera, the producer gathered a couple of willing neighbors who agreed to be interviewed.
“I’m joined now,” the reporter said as a man entered the frame and stood next to her, “by a neighbor who heard the shots and called nine-one-one.”
The reporter placed the microphone to the man’s face.
“I’ll tell y’all what I told the first officer when she got here. I was watching TV when I heard a loud bang. Couple seconds later, heard another. So I walked onto my back deck to see what was going on. That’s when I heard the third one and, ’cause I was outside this time, I knew right away it was a gunshot. I’m a hunter and the noise registered immediately, ’cept nobody’s hunting this time a night.”
“The shots were coming from inside your neighbor’s house?” Tracy asked.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“That’s when you called the police?”
“Yes. I was tempted to go over there with my own gun to see what was happening but the police arrived real quick. A whole bunch of ’em are in the house now.”
“So you heard three gunshots?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The reporter turned to the camera and offered her audience a summary of what she knew. “Again, I’m at the Brittany Oaks subdivision in McIntosh, where police are currently inside a home where at least three shots were fired. The medical examiner is now on the scene and entered the home only minutes ago.”
Just then, the front door opened and a female police officer led a teenaged girl out of the house, her hands cuffed behind her back and her shirt painted red with blood. Tracy Carr beelined to the end of the driveway with her cameraman close behind, arriving just as police escorted the girl into the street and toward one of the police cars.
“Officer, Tracy Carr with Channel Two News. Can you tell me what’s happening?”
