Chapter 2
The girl shivered so badly I worried she might fall out of her chair. Sam set her up in one of the interview rooms on the first floor of the Public Safety Building. She asked for water but had left it untouched in front of her.
“Are you okay?” I asked her. “Would you like me to call someone to be with you? A friend? Do you have family?”
At the mention of the word family, her head snapped up. “No. They won’t help me. You don’t understand.”
“Okay,” Sam said. “You can take all the time you need. Whatever you want to talk about, we’re here to listen, okay?”
“Okay,” she said. She reached for her water bottle but rather than drinking it, she clutched it to her chest.
“Can you tell me your name again?” Sam asked.
“Hayden,” she said. “H-A-Y-D-E-N. Simmons.”
“Hayden,” Sam asked. “Where do you live?”
She cleared her throat. “1492 Gulliver Lane. That’s over in Hemingway Estates. The subdivision off Route 7 near Bear Lake.”
“I know right where that is,” Sam said, his voice calm, soothing.
The girl was like a scared kitten. We both felt any sudden movement might startle her and have her diving under the table.
She couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds.
The leather satchel she carried had something big and bulky inside of it.
She dropped it to the ground at her feet.
“Hayden,” I said. “Did someone hurt you? Do you feel safe in your home?”
“No. What? I mean, yes. Nobody hurt me. Nobody’s trying to hurt me. This isn’t about me.”
“Then what’s it about, honey?” Sam said. “You said you think your dad killed someone. Did I hear that right?”
Hayden put her water bottle down and laid both hands flat on the table. “Yes,” she said.
“Who?” Sam asked.
“How long have you been here?” she asked Sam. “I mean, with the Sheriff’s Department?”
“A long time,” he said. “I was a detective for a number of years before they elected me sheriff. I’ve been with the department eighteen years.”
“Eighteen,” she repeated. “Then you wouldn’t have known her. She died before I was born. I just turned nineteen.”
“Okay,” Sam said. “Maybe you should start from the beginning.”
Hayden nodded. “Right. My aunt was Ellie Luke.” She said it as if the name should mean something to us. Hayden looked from me to Sam, then realized we were both at a loss.
“Right,” she repeated. “So … nobody in my family ever wants to talk about my Aunt Ellie. My whole life, she was just this … mythic figure. I didn’t even know my mom wasn’t an only child until I was maybe ten or eleven.
That’s how much they don’t talk about it.
My grandparents are the same. There was this picture in the hallway.
Like a senior picture. I just thought it was my mom.
I never asked. Then one day, my grandpa was in the hallway staring at it.
And he was crying. Like I said, I was maybe ten.
I went up to him and asked him why that picture of my mom was making him sad.
He looked at me and all the blood drained from his face.
He told me that wasn’t my mom. That was my Aunt Ellie.
And he walked away like that explained everything. ”
Hayden grabbed the bottle of water and unscrewed the cap. With shaking hands, she took a sip. It seemed to settle her a little.
“I finally asked my mom about it. Maybe a day or two later. We were all staying at Grandma’s that weekend because Mom was having the whole house painted.
My mom said she had a sister, Ellie. But she died a long time ago and it made everyone too sad so I shouldn’t ask any more questions.
Well, I was young enough to be satisfied by that.
Well, not satisfied. But young enough, I knew not to upset her anymore. ”
“Who was she?” I asked.
“Ellie Luke,” Hayden repeated. “It was the next day. I was out in the yard playing with this girl who used to live next door to my grandparents. She was a year younger than me but we got along. Her mom, April, was baking cookies and we went inside to sample the batter. I don’t know what made me do it, but I brought up what my grandpa said.
I asked her if she knew I had an Aunt Ellie.
Did she used to live next door? Well, April got real quiet.
And she started to cry. But she talked about it.
She told me somebody hurt Ellie very badly and then she died.
I was old enough to know what murder was, for God’s sake.
So I said that. I asked April if Ellie was murdered.
She said yes, but that it was something I needed to talk to my mom about. ”
“What happened to her?” I asked.
“I looked it up online. Like immediately after I came home that weekend. I found all these articles in the local papers about her. Aunt Ellie just disappeared one day after work. She worked overnight doing home health care for this older lady in Pine Ridge. There were interviews with my grandparents. Their pictures were in the paper. Grandma said Ellie just didn’t come home.
And she was pleading for somebody to come forward and say what happened to her. ”
“They didn’t find her,” Sam said. “I know of the case. It was in the spring. There were search parties. Nobody knew anything. But they found her, what, six months later?”
“Something like that,” Hayden said. “Some hunter found her deep in the woods not far from Pine Ridge. Her bones anyway.”
“It’s a cold case,” Sam said. His tone shifted. He’d grown serious. His posture went rigid. “Hayden, I need to make sure I’m understanding what you’re saying. Do you believe you have information about what happened to Ellie Luke?”
“Yes,” she said. She’d stopped trembling. As the minutes passed, Hayden became more self-assured and purposeful.
“Hayden,” he said. “Would you mind waiting here for a couple of minutes? There’s someone else I’d like to come and listen to what you have to say. Is that all right with you?”
She took another sip of water. “It’s okay. I’m here. I have to get this out.”
“Just give us a minute,” Sam said. He nudged me under the table. I gave Hayden a reassuring smile, then followed Sam out into the hallway.
“Gus needs to be here,” Sam said.
Gus Ritter was the most senior detective with the Maumee County Sheriff’s Department. He’d been working homicides for decades.
“Was this his case?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Ellie Luke’s murder predates me.”
I pulled out my phone and opened a browser. Ten seconds later, I found some of the articles a ten-year-old Hayden Simmons must have.
“She was only twenty-one years old,” I said.
“Don’t let her leave,” Sam said. “Keep her talking. I’m going to go find Gus.”
“Got it.”
I went back into the room with Hayden. She’d picked up her satchel and held it on her lap. The water bottle in front of her was empty now.
“Are you sure you don’t want anything else? More water? I’m sure I could scrounge up a sandwich or something.”
“No,” she said. “I can’t even think about food.”
“That’s understandable. Sheriff Cruz wants one of the detectives to be part of this conversation. If you have information about an unsolved murder, we need to do this the right way.”
She let out a huff. “The right way. Ms. Brent, I’ve been trying to figure out what that is for a long time.”
“Do you still live with your parents?” I asked.
“Yes. My mom and my dad.”
“And your mom is …”
“Erin Simmons,” she said. “Erin Luke Simmons. Ellie was her older sister. They were three years apart.”
The door opened behind me. Sam walked in first followed by Gus.
Hayden straightened upon seeing him. Gus could have that effect on people.
He had a gruff appearance and a constant scowl.
It took a while to get past all of that with him.
When you did—if you were one of the lucky few Gus Ritter allowed close to him—he was one of the kindest, most loyal people I knew.
Sam introduced Gus and Hayden. Gus took the seat Sam had occupied. Sam and I moved to the other end of the table.
“I’ve brought Gus up to speed with what you told us so far,” Sam said.
“Okay,” she said.
“Ms. Simmons,” Gus said. “Do you mind if we record the rest of this conversation?”
“No,” she said. “Actually, I would prefer it. I know who you are, Detective Ritter.”
“You do?” he said.
“Yes. This was your case. You’re the one who worked on my Aunt Ellie’s murder all those years ago. Do you remember it?”
Gus did something I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him do. He flinched.
“Yes,” he answered. “Ellie Luke was my case.”
“Then I think I have as many questions for you as you have for me,” Hayden said.
“I’ll do my best to answer them,” Gus said. “But your aunt’s case is still open. Some things I won’t be able to discuss. You’re okay with that?”
“I’m not okay with any of this. If I had some kind of time machine, I might just want to erase the last two months. That would be easiest. But … then I think about living in that house with them. And I can’t breathe.”
“Hayden, I asked you before,” I said. “Are you saying you don’t feel safe in your home?”
“No,” she said. “Nobody wants to hurt me. Not physically. But I don’t know what they’re going to do when they find out what I told you people.”
“One step at a time,” Gus said. “What’s going on, Hayden?”
“Tell them,” she said. “Tell them what happened to Ellie Luke, Detective Ritter.”
“We don’t have all the answers,” he said.
“But Ellie was last seen at the home of one of her patients. She worked an eleven to seven a.m. shift. Sometime after she left, something happened to her. She never made it home. Her mother … I guess your grandmother … reported her missing just before noon the next day. She just vanished. No trace. Nobody seemed to know anything. Then, a few months later, her remains were found in the woods by a hunter. There wasn’t much to go on there.
But it was determined she died of blunt force trauma to the back of her head. ”
Gus’s words were cold, clinical. But I knew him well enough to know he was leaving a lot out.