Chapter 18
Cutler stood at the lectern for a moment, rifling through notes I suspected he wasn’t even reading. More likely, he wanted to build anticipation. Make Hayden even more nervous as she waited for his attack.
“Thanks for your patience,” Cutler finally said. “I’d like to talk about this so-called box of yours for a minute. You say you found it in a drawer in the basement of the home you shared with who, again?”
“At the time, I lived with my mother and father. Erin and Jamie Simmons,” she said.
“But they weren’t the only ones with access to the house, isn’t that right?”
“We’re the ones who lived there. I don’t know what you mean.”
“Who is Willa Jennings?”
“Willa’s my mom’s cleaning lady.”
“She comes once a month, isn’t that right?”
“Yes.”
“And she has the passcode to get into the front door, correct?”
“Yes.”
“Last spring, isn’t it true your parents hired contractors to do a kitchen remodel? Isn’t that right?”
“Yes.”
“How many workers were in and out of the house that you recall?”
“I … what? I don’t recall. It took them a couple of weeks, I think.”
“Was it more than five workers?”
“I think so.”
“More than ten?”
“I don’t think more than ten.”
“Willa works in the home by herself sometimes, doesn’t she?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean a lot of the time the house is empty when she’s cleaning, right?”
“Um … sure.”
“Good. Okay. Thanks for clarifying that. And the coal bin. The space in the basement you say your father has converted to a workshop. Is there a lock on that door?”
“There’s a latch on the outside of the door.”
“A latch. So no key.”
“No key, no.”
“And it latches from the outside. Is there any way to lock that door from the inside?”
“I don’t think so, no.”
“So then anyone could unlatch that door and enter the room, correct? If they were in the house already, that is.”
“I suppose so, yes. But nobody goes in that room but my dad. It’s his space. My mom doesn’t go in there. He gets mad at her if she does. I learned when I was little not to go in there.”
“But you went in anyway, isn’t that right?”
“No. I never went in that room.”
“Right. Except when you claim you went in and took this box out of it when your dad wasn’t home.”
“I … Yes. I went in there that time. Yes.”
“Fine. Thank you. Ms. Simmons, you never asked your father about what he kept in his desk, did you?”
“No.”
“And you never spoke to your mother about this so-called box or its contents either, did you?”
“I said I tried to. She confronted me in the driveway of my friend’s house. But she wouldn’t listen to me. She just kept screaming.”
“So you’ve never given either of them a chance to explain or defend themselves. You just assumed you had everything all figured out.”
“Objection, argumentative.”
“Sustained, Mr. Cutler.”
“Ms. Simmons, how would you describe your relationship with your parents today?”
“We don’t … we don’t talk. I no longer have a relationship with them.”
“I see. Not even your mother?”
“She won’t return my calls. My father won’t let her. He controls everything. He always has.”
“Your Honor,” Cutler said. “I’d like the last part of the witness’s statement to be stricken as unresponsive.”
“I’d say it’s entirely responsive,” I said. “Mr. Cutler may just not like the answer to his own question.”
“I agree,” Saul said. “Objection overruled.”
“Let me ask this another way,” Cutler said. “Isn’t it true that your mother has since taken out a restraining order against you for harassment?”
“Objection!” I said. “Your Honor, may we approach?”
Saul waved us forward.
“Your Honor,” I started. “This issue of Erin Luke’s petition for a restraining order against her daughter is irrelevant and highly prejudicial. It’s a stunt. No order has been granted. Counsel has manufactured this issue for the sole purpose of asking this witness about it.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Cutler said. “I didn’t file that petition. I had nothing to do with it. Hayden Simmons’s mother filed it on her own.”
“You expect me to believe that?” I said. “It’s got your prints all over it, Bennett.”
“Stop,” Judge Saul said. “Counselor, are you planning to try to enter Mrs. Simmons’s petition as an exhibit with this witness on the stand?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“He can’t,” I said. “That petition is filled with hearsay.”
“Court proceedings are an exception to the hearsay rule,” Cutler said.
“And you cannot try to shroud Erin Luke’s statements as an exception to the rule simply because they were written on a bogus petition filed for the sole purpose of trying to get around the hearsay rule. It’s ridiculous.”
“Here’s what I’m going to do,” Judge Saul said. “We’re not going to get into the status of this other legal proceeding. If you want to call Erin Luke …”
“Erin Simmons, Your Honor,” Cutler interjected.
“Fine,” she said. “Erin Simmons. If you want to put her on the stand and ask her about her relationship with her daughter, you certainly can. But I agree with Ms. Brent that you can’t try to recharacterize her statements as non-hearsay because of the format they’re in.”
Judge Saul made a shooing gesture, directing us back to our ready positions. I went to my table. Cutler went back to the lectern. It took him a moment to regroup as the judge asked the jury to disregard Cutler’s last question.
“Ms. Simmons,” he said. “I’d like to ask you some questions about your online activity. Can you remind me when you first joined the cold case crime forum you described on direct?”
“It was about a year ago, now.”
“You claim you were just researching information about your aunt’s alleged murder case?”
“That’s correct.”
“You understand that your phone records, computer usage, and online activity were submitted to me during the discovery phase of this trial?”
“I know I gave the police access to all of that,” she said.
“I’d like to direct your attention to some screenshots, if I may.” Cutler marked a series of screenshots from the cold case forum for identification. I’d already stipulated to the entry of many of them.
“Ms. Simmons, I just want to make sure I’m being accurate. Which of these posts are yours?”
Hayden pointed to a post on the screen. Cutler highlighted it.
“For the record,” he said. “You’re pointing to an entry authored by a Shimmer417. Is that your handle on the forum?”
“Yes.”
“I’m curious. What’s the significance of Shimmer417?”
“It’s just … Shimmer is kind of a mashup of my name. H for Hayden. Simmer is kind of like Simmons.”
“And the number?”
“April 17th was my aunt’s birthday.”
“Got it. Clever. Do you recall how many times you logged on to this forum after you joined it last year?”
“Not off the top of my head, no.”
“Well, do you at least recall how frequently you logged on once you found it?”
“I don’t know specifically. I know it was a lot. Especially in the beginning.”
“It was every day, multiple times a day, wasn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“In fact, you were spending upwards of eight hours a day in the forum, isn’t that right?”
“I don’t … if you have the records and that’s what it shows, I can’t dispute that. But it’s not accurate to say I was actively participating in the forum eight hours a day. Sometimes I’d just forget to log off. Forget to close my laptop.”
“I see. Ms. Simmons, I’d like to direct your attention to a post from November 10th of last year.
Do you recall this one? Shimmer417 posts, I’m new to researching the Ellie Luke case.
This happened not far from where I grew up.
I’d never heard of it before. Does anyone know whether there were any main suspects? ”
“I recall posting that, yes,” Hayden answered.
“But you weren’t being truthful in that post, were you?”
“I don’t think I was lying, no.”
“To say you were new to researching the case, that’s not accurate, is it? You’d been obsessing over the details for years, hadn’t you?”
“Objection to the characterization,” I said.
“Sustained.”
“I don’t think I was being inaccurate,” Hayden said. “I was new to researching the case.”
“Fine,” he said. “But you weren’t just someone who grew up in the area, were you?”
“I did grow up in the area.”
“But you weren’t forthright with the members of the forum about your relationship to the victim, were you?”
“I didn’t lie,” she said. “But no. I didn’t tell anyone Ellie Luke was my aunt.”
“So, isn’t it true that you solicited information from these so-called amateur sleuths under false pretenses?”
“No. That’s not true. They weren’t false pretenses. There was no requirement that you couldn’t be related to a victim to participate in the forum. If someone had asked me point-blank if Ellie was my aunt, I wouldn’t have lied.”
“The other members of the forum didn’t know they were interacting with a family member of the victim, isn’t that right?”
“I’m sure they didn’t,” she said.
Good job, I thought. Cutler had tried to paint Hayden as deceptive but she was smart enough not to let him.
“You gained their trust, didn’t you?” he asked.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean … you spent hours a day interacting with the other members of this sub-forum. Establishing a rapport with them. Isn’t it true that there can often be a culture of mistrust in forums like that?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Let me put it this way. Members of this forum wouldn’t have appreciated it if you’d been an undercover cop, isn’t that right?”
“I don’t know what they’d appreciate.”
“But they never suspected you were related to the victim because you never told them.”
“I can’t speak to what they suspected. I never got the feeling they suspected or mistrusted me. It’s true I never told them I was related to Ellie Luke. It’s also true nobody ever asked.”
Cutler sighed in frustration. I had to resist the urge to fist pump. Hayden was handling him brilliantly.
“You gained inside information into the investigation of your aunt’s case from members of that forum, isn’t that true?”
“I gained information. I don’t know that I’d describe it as anything on the inside.”
“Well, now you’re not being forthright, are you? You testified another member of the forum produced photographs of your aunt you’d never seen, isn’t that right?”
“That’s true. How is that inside information though?”
“You learned about what had been found at the murder scene through this forum, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
Cutler pulled up screenshots of the thread where the members discussed the crime scene and what had been publicly disseminated about it. One by one, he had Hayden tick off what she learned.
“You learned where your aunt had been found on November 18th last year, correct?”
“I learned that from reading a newspaper article. I don’t know what date I read the article.”
“You learned she’d been found partially clothed on December 2nd in the forum, correct?”
“Yes. I think that’s right.”
“But you had seen a photograph of your aunt wearing her gold hoop earrings, correct? That’s the one you identified as hanging in the hallway at your grandparents’ house?”
“Correct.”
“So you knew what earrings your aunt was allegedly wearing the night she disappeared?”
“I didn’t know she was wearing them the night she disappeared. I only knew she owned a pair that looked like that because I’d seen that picture.”
“You didn’t tell your parents you were frequenting this forum, did you?”
“No.”
“You kept it a secret from them, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t tell them. That’s not the same thing as keeping it a secret.”
“Hayden, where was your mother when you allege you found your dad looking at this box you claim he kept in his workshop?”
“What? I don’t know.”
“She wasn’t there, isn’t that right?”
“Not right there, no.”
“So nobody but you saw your father with this box, isn’t that right?”
“I don’t have any idea who else knew about the box. I only know he didn’t want me in that room. I only know he didn’t want my mother in that room and as far as I know, she never went down there. She respected his wishes because my mother always does whatever my dad says.”
Cutler threw up his hands. “That’s not what I asked you. I asked you if anyone besides you saw your father with this so-called box that day. Yes or no.”
“I don’t know.”
“But nobody was there when you claim you saw him with it, correct?”
“Yes.”
“And you never asked your father or your mother about it, did you?”
“No.”
“No. You just magically appeared in front of Sheriff Cruz with the thing.”
“Objection!”
“Sustained,” Saul said. Cutler put his hands up in surrender.
“Ms. Simmons, in a nine-month period, you spent more than thirty hours a week on the cold case crime forum, didn’t you?”
“I don’t think so. I told you. Sometimes I just didn’t log out. It doesn’t mean I was sitting at the computer the whole time.”
“You spent more time on the forum than you did at school. Or at your job, isn’t that right?”
“I wouldn’t say that, no.”
“You wouldn’t. But your login activity doesn’t lie, does it? Can you read the number at the end of the activity report that’s been entered as Exhibit 81?”
It was up on screen. The jury could already see it. Hayden sat back. “It says one thousand two hundred and thirty-one hours.”
“One thousand two hundred and thirty-one hours,” he repeated. “That’s the equivalent of fifty-one solid days. I’d say that sounds like an obsession, wouldn’t you?”
“Objection!” I shouted.
“Withdrawn,” Cutler said. “I have no further questions.”
“Ms. Brent?”
I was proud of her. She’d withstood Cutler’s attempts to paint her as a liar. As a troubled girl. She was neither.
“I have no more questions,” I said. I tried to lock eyes with Hayden.
She did well. The hard part for her was over at least in terms of the trial.
But as she left the witness box, I watched her walk through the gallery and toward the courtroom double doors.
Against the back wall, George Luke sat. He looked like he was seeing a ghost. Anger filled his eyes.
And for the first time, he was looking straight at Jamie Simmons.