Chapter 17
Before she even climbed into the witness box, I had to believe Bennett Cutler realized the problem he would have with Hayden Simmons.
She was nineteen years old. She could have passed for about twelve that day.
Thin, pretty, trembling as she raised her right hand and swore to tell the truth, Hayden had to be immediately reminded to speak up.
She folded her hands in her lap to keep them from shaking.
She fixed her gaze on me. She sat as straight in her seat as she could.
“Ms. Simmons,” I started after letting her introduce herself to the jury. “How are you related to the defendant in this case?”
“He’s my father,” she said, her voice gaining a bit of volume. Look at me, I thought, hoping she could read my mind. Look only at me. Don’t look at your father.
“How are you related to the victim in this case?”
“My mother is Erin Luke. She was Ellie Luke’s younger sister. Ellie Luke is my aunt.”
“Did you ever meet her?”
“No, ma’am. Ellie died almost three years before I was born.”
I wanted Hayden to be able to tell her story in as conversational a tone as possible.
Cutler would give me leeway to a point. Part of me wanted to push him.
Let Hayden get used to the sound of his voice.
The combative tone he’d take when objecting.
She wasn’t my client. But that didn’t mean I wouldn’t protect her.
“Hayden, when did you first learn your aunt had been murdered?”
“Objection,” Cutler said, as I expected. “The state has yet to prove Ellie Luke was murdered.”
“Your Honor … we’re going to be here a very long time if counsel for the defense intends to object to what amounts to semantics.”
“I agree,” she said. “The witness may answer.”
“It wasn’t until I was older. There were photographs on my grandparents’ wall that I assumed were of my mother. They bear a strong resemblance. But once when I was ten or eleven, I asked my grandpa about one of the pictures and he told me it was actually my aunt.”
“Did you know you had an aunt at that point?”
“No. I was young enough it hadn’t even really occurred to me to ask about that. There was always just my mother and my grandparents on the Luke side of the family. My dad was an only child, too. His parents died when I was little. We’re a really small family. I just didn’t know any other way.”
“All right,” I said. “So, your father is the one who told you about the circumstances of your aunt’s death?”
“No. I was playing over at a neighbor of my grandparents, and they told me ...”
“Objection. The question calls for hearsay.”
“The question isn’t being asked to prove the matter asserted. Only to establish what this witness believed about the victim.”
“I’ll allow it,” the judge said.
“The neighbor was the first one who ever used the word killed or murdered.”
“How did you react?” I asked.
“I was just shocked. It felt like she was talking about some other family. Other people. I didn’t understand why none of my family talked about it. It was this big thing that impacted all their lives.”
“Did you confront either of your parents about it?”
“I asked my father. I was afraid to talk to my mom.”
“Why is that?”
“I didn’t want to upset her.”
“What happened when you asked your father about your Aunt Ellie?”
“He was abrupt. He just said it happened a long time ago. That Aunt Ellie wasn’t careful and that I should never walk home alone in the dark.”
“He said your Aunt Ellie wasn’t careful?”
“Something like that. He dismissed me pretty quickly. He didn’t say I should never ask about it, but I felt strongly that it was a topic that shouldn’t be brought up. That it would be too painful for either my grandparents or my mother. So at the time, I let it go.”
“Did you ever ask your mother about her sister?”
“Not in those years, no. Like I said, I was pretty young. Ten or eleven. Still young enough, I kind of took whatever my parents said as the way things should be. It wasn’t until I was older, maybe fifteen or sixteen, I started asking more questions.”
“Who did you ask?”
“I tried to ask my mom. It was after I turned sixteen. I got my driver’s license and she lectured me about being careful.
She said something about not walking to my car alone after work.
I worked at an ice cream parlor then. So I asked her if she was scared because of what happened to her sister.
She just burst into tears. My dad stepped in and changed the subject.
He gave me this angry look. I felt like I’d overstepped.
And my mom was so upset. Crying. She had to go lie down.
I felt terrible. So I just didn’t bring it up with her again. ”
“Did you ever talk to your grandparents about Ellie?”
“No. Nothing substantive. I think I might have mentioned once or twice to Grandma that I knew the picture in the hall was of my Aunt Ellie. After seeing how upset Mom was, I was more careful. I wanted to give them the opportunity to talk about Ellie if they wanted to. But they never did.”
“I see,” I said. “So, how did you find out the details of what happened to your aunt?”
“Well, I was always curious. My father kept telling me to leave it alone. That it happened long before I was born. That my mom and her parents had moved on and we shouldn’t upset them.
Like I said, for a while, I accepted that.
But as I got older, I just had so many questions. So I started looking online.”
“What did you find?”
“I found news articles from when Ellie disappeared. It had been all over the local stations. There were search parties and everything. I didn’t know any of that.
I didn’t know that she hadn’t been found right away.
I mean, until I started looking it up online, I didn’t know whether she’d been stabbed or strangled or shot or raped or any of it.
I just knew she’d been killed, that it happened before I was born, and that you don’t talk about it with my family. ”
“Did you ever discuss what you found with anyone?” I asked.
“Not in person. No. But while I was searching for information about Ellie, I stumbled onto this website. An online forum about cold murder cases in Ohio. I discovered there was a whole sub-forum devoted just to Ellie’s case.”
It was here Hayden’s nerves seemed to fall away. She took the jury through how she connected with amateur sleuths who had researched the case.
“Did you learn anything you didn’t already know?” I asked.
“God. Yes. I learned everything. That she was found in the woods like that by hunters. One of these amateur sleuths had done some interviews on his own. He’d talked to a friend of my Aunt Ellie’s who went to college with her.
He posted photographs of her I’d never seen before.
Although that wasn’t hard to do. The only pictures I’d ever seen of her were the ones hanging in my grandparents’ house. ”
“I’d like to direct your attention to what’s been marked as State’s Exhibit 49. Do you recognize it?”
“Yes.”
“Can you describe it?”
“This is the picture my online friend showed me. It’s Aunt Ellie with a group of her friends from nursing school.”
I admitted the photo into evidence and displayed it on the overhead for the jury. “Did anything strike you about this picture?” I asked.
“That’s my Aunt Ellie in the middle,” she said. “I recognized her right away because she looks so much like Mom. For a second, I thought it was my mom. But the hair is different. Longer than my mom usually wore it. But that’s my dad sitting on the end of the bench there.”
Hayden pointed out her then twenty-four-year-old father. He sat on the edge in profile, looking straight at Ellie Luke. She seemed unaware of it, smiling at the camera like the rest of the young people in the photo.
“Your father,” I said. “That surprised you?”
“I had no idea my dad and Aunt Ellie were friends. Were classmates. He didn’t tell me. No one told me. It was unsettling for me to find this all out from strangers online.”
“What did you do next?”
“I printed the picture out and took it to my dad. I asked him about it.”
“What did he say?”
“He shut me down. Got really angry. He wanted to know where I found it. He said he’d never seen that picture before.
I asked him over and over, were you friends with Ellie too?
Did Mom know? He just refused to answer any of my questions.
He snatched the photo out of my hands and took it.
He told me to stop chasing ghosts. Told me I didn’t understand what I was messing with.
He was so angry. It scared me. So I just didn’t bring it up to him again. ”
“Was that the end of it? Did you do what your father asked?”
“No. I just … it bothered me how angry he got. He just exploded. I didn’t know what to think.
I mean, I guess I thought maybe he was trying to protect my mom.
But I didn’t understand why they wouldn’t want to remember my aunt.
Like they wanted to erase her. I felt … I don’t know. I felt like she deserved better.”
“What did you do next?”
“A couple of weeks after Dad blew up at me, he started acting strange around me. Like he wouldn’t talk to me.
He just avoided me. He has a workshop in the basement.
It’s an old coal bin he turned into his own little man cave.
He’d go down there and to be alone. I asked my mom if he was okay.
She just shrugged and told me not to bother him.
Well, I was worried. It just seemed out of character for my dad to be so moody and withdrawn like that.
So I went down there. Two or three times I saw him sitting at his workbench looking at something in a box.
When he heard me coming, he closed it so quickly and shoved it into a drawer.
The first time, he snapped at me. Told me to stop sneaking up on him. ”
“Did you ever find out what was in the box?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“What happened, Hayden?”