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Chapter One
I liked his hands. The way he gripped his glass in one, then reached for me across the table with the other. Warm hands. Strong. I traced the lines of the corded veins over his wrist and webbed around his knuckles.
“Mara?” he asked. “Did you hear me?”
My focus snapped back to his dark eyes. “What? Oh. Right. Hojo. Yes. I think he’ll be okay for the time being.”
Sheriff Sam Cruz raised a brow and brought his glass of lemonade to his lips.
“The time being,” he repeated. “You think he’s gonna run for the open seat outright in January?”
“I doubt it.” My colleague, Howard Jordan had been thrust into the position of acting prosecutor after our last duly elected one ended up recalled for misconduct. “Hojo was starting to set up an exit strategy, not run for higher office. He’s doing a serviceable job though. He’s better in front of a camera than anyone gave him credit for.”
“You know, oddly, Gus and I were saying the same thing just this morning. I don’t know why it should surprise anyone. Howard’s got that aw shucks charm thing. It serves him well against defense attorneys and in front of juries. You think he’s just some local yocal, then he zings you with something.”
“That’s always been his strong point,” I agreed. “Hojo benefits from underestimation. The problem is, I don’t think he’s handling the stress of it very well. He pops antacids like candy. He’s gained weight. I think his wife isn’t fully on board with his new role. So, something’s going to have to give.”
“Are you two ready to order?” Sam and I sat on the outdoor patio of the newest downtown Waynetown eatery, The LadyBird. Right across from the Public Safety Building and the City-County Building, we were each a two minute walk from our offices. With as busy as things had been for both of us, it was the first time we’d been able to steal an hour just the two of us in almost two weeks.
“I’ll try the chicken salad sandwich,” I said.
“Kettle chips or French fries?” the server asked.
“Chips are fine.”
“I’ll do the Reuben,” Sam said. “Chips here too.”
The girl took our menus and headed to her next table.
“What about you,” Sam asked. “I know I’ve asked you before. And I know you know everybody’s wondering what you’ll do.”
“You already know the answer to that,” I said. “I like my current job. Running for political office was never an ambition of mine. I like trying cases. I’m good at trying cases.”
“You’re great at trying cases,” Sam said. “I’ll admit, for my position, I like you right where you are. I like knowing I’ve got a superstar sitting at the prosecutor’s table in that courtroom. But if Hojo doesn’t want to run, you leave yourself vulnerable to whoever comes in to take his place.”
“I haven’t given up hope that Kenya will come back.”
A year and a half ago, my former boss, Kenya Spaulding was ousted in a political upset. She’d spent the intervening time as a woman of leisure but I knew it couldn’t last much longer. She did have the political ambitions I lacked. And she was damn good at her job.
“Well, that would be fantastic,” Sam said. “If there’s anything I can do to help persuade her, you let me know. Still, if you change your mind, you know you’d have my backing. You’d have the entire department’s backing.”
“You sure that wouldn’t cause a conflict for you, Sheriff Cruz?”
“I do not,” he said. “And I wouldn’t care if it did. And there’s nothing that says you couldn’t still try as many cases as you want if you took the top job instead of assistant prosecutor. You could run that office any way you wanted.”
“I know,” I said. “For a while, anyway. But I mean it. I’m not interested in the politics of it.”
A shadow crossed his face. “Mara,” he said. “I get what you’re saying. I do. I just…I want to make sure you’re not saying it because of me. Because of us. Sure. Us being together. Me as sheriff. You if you were elected prosecutor. It could get complicated. But there’s no law against it.”
“I know that. But I also know people would use it against you in your next election. That’s not too far off.”
“Mara…”
“No,” I said. “I need you to trust me on this. I’m not turning my back on a potential promotion because of the boy I’m dating.”
“Boy?” he said, letting his voice drop low in almost a growl.
“Figure of speech,” I said. “Don’t change the subject. Sam, have you ever known me to not say what I mean? Or mean what I say?”
He squeezed my hand, sending that little thrill of heat through me. It was like that a lot. Even after months as a bona fide couple, the newness of it still caught my breath.
“I suppose not,” he admitted. “I just worry about having an open field. I’d like a known quantity. So if Hojo doesn’t want to run and Kenya won’t come back, that’s a pretty big hole.”
“Nah,” I said. “Let’s be real. The only serious trouble my office would be in is if Caro decided to make good on her threats to retire.”
Sam laughed. “Don’t say that. She’s not seriously considering that is she? That woman is an institution.”
Carolyn Flowers’s official title was office manager. But she kept us all running like a well-oiled machine no matter who sat in the big office down the hall from mine.
“I hope not.”
“I think Caro’s been working for the county longer than anyone else I know.”
“She has,” I agreed. “Forty two years. Longer than I’ve been alive. She turns sixty next month. Though she doesn’t want anyone to know. The good news is with Hojo in Kenya’s job, Caro knows he’s sunk without her. She loves him. She wants him to succeed. She’s the original work mom to all of us. For now, I plan to use her codependency as a weapon.”
Our server arrived with our sandwiches. I thanked her and spread my napkin over my lap. Sam managed to take a bite out of his Reuben with such gusto, it made you jealous of the sandwich. God. I was like a teenager around this guy sometimes.
We ate in companionable silence. The chicken salad was delicious. A relief for now. This building had become somewhat of a retail no man’s land over the years with every new store coming in cursed to fail within a year. But we could use a good restaurant in this part of town.
“So,” Sam said. “Is Will ready for school?”
I crunched a chip and wiped my hands on my napkin. “He may be. I don’t know if I am.”
“High school,” Sam smiled. “How’d we get here?”
We. Just that simple word. I liked it. But it scared me too.
“I’m just worried,” I said. “Like always. We got into a pretty good groove at his last school. It’s a lot of changes.”
“He’ll be great, Mara. He’s ready. There will be bumps. All kids have bumps. It’s part of the experience.”
He was right. But my fourteen year old son wasn’t like all kids. We’d had a long stretch of stable calm but that hadn’t always been true. Even the slightest change in Will’s routine could cause a meltdown, or even worse, a shutdown. Sam had been a steadying influence in my son’s life. And in mine. But High School was the great unknown.
“He won’t let me drive him on his first day,” I said. “He wants to ride the bus.”
“He told me. I think it’s good, don’t you?”
“I do,” I admitted.
“How about we both take the day off on his first day? Plan something fun and distracting.”
“I’d like that,” I said. “I’ll have to check my schedule…”
“Sheriff Cruz? That’s you right? You’re the Sheriff? I’ve seen you on the news.”
I looked up. The girl standing at our table looked to be about eighteen or nineteen. She was tall and thin with wheat-blonde hair and a dusting of freckles across her cheeks. Pretty, but her face deeply flushed and she trembled so badly I feared she might fall over.
“May I help you?” Sam asked, concern filling his face.
The girl looked at me. “You work…you’re the prosecutor, right? I saw you on the news once too.”
“I am,” I said, deciding it wasn’t the time to point out the finer points of my job description.
“C-can we…I’m sorry. I need to talk to someone. I need to get this out.” She started to cry.
“Honey,” I said, rising, my maternal instincts kicking in. There was something seriously wrong with this girl. She wore a large, cross-body satchel. Whatever was in it looked like it weighed a ton. Sam pulled out another chair and the girl sank into it.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t want to interrupt. But you’re both here. I don’t know who else to talk to.”
“What’s your name?” I asked.
She shot a frightened look at Sam, then back to me. “Hayden. Hayden Simmons.”
“Okay, Hayden,” Sam said. “Are you hurt? Are you…safe?”
Hayden looked like she was about to be sick. Sweat beaded her brow. The reddish tone to her skin turned positively purple.
“I didn’t know what to do,” she said. “I didn’t want…I can’t…there isn’t…”
“Honey,” I said. “What is it? Did somebody hurt you?”
She shook her head almost violently. “No. No. I’m okay. It’s not me. It’s…please. I don’t even…It’s…I have to…God. I have to report a crime.”
Sam and I shared a look. For an instant, I felt certain what Hayden Simmons would say next. Someone had hurt her. Badly. But the girl finally settled. She went still. She took a breath and turned to Sam. Her voice was low enough that no one but Sam and I could hear it. But she spoke clearly.
“I need to report a crime. I need to tell you. I have to tell you. It’s my father. He…my father killed someone. He’s a murderer. I brought proof.”
Chapter Two
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 says. “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 then 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 just 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 just 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 the murder was for god sakes. 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. 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 have 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. Two 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 Sam.”
“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.
“I was telling Sheriff Cruz and Ms. Brent. For half my life, I didn’t even know Ellie Luke existed. I thought my mom was an only child.”
“Your mom,” Gus said. “Your mom is Erin Luke?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“I was always told not to bring it up. My dad would say it made my mom too sad. My mom would say the same thing about her parents. You just don’t talk about Ellie. It’s too painful. Too hard. I just have so many questions. What happened? Why couldn’t you find out who killed her? Who was she? So finally, maybe eight months ago, I started looking for answers online. It didn’t take long before I stumbled on this forum. All these people, amateur sleuths. They had subforums talking about different unsolved murders in the state. I found one dedicated to my aunt. It was so strange. Strangers knew more about her than I did.”
“What was the name of the forum?” Gus asked.
“CCTS. Cold Case Truth Sleuths. I will admit. I got a little obsessed. But it felt like it was the only way I could talk about my aunt. It felt like these people cared more about her and what happened to her than her own family did. I know that’s not fair. I know it’s just painful for my mom and grandparents. This thing ripped them all apart. And it answered so many questions about how they are. Why my grandma has been so sad. Why she stares off into space sometimes and won’t talk. Why my grandpa ended up in AA. Why my mom is such a people pleaser and so nervous all the time.”
“That had to be really hard to grow up around,” I said. “It’s natural you would have questions.”
“But they had answers. The people on CCTS. They knew everything about Ellie. That she was a nursing student. She worked nights doing home health care. She had friends. Got straight As. Was a cheerleader. They knew the details of her murder. How she was found months later, nothing but bones. How she was posed under a tree. Morbid stuff. Some of these online sleuths had pictures of my family I’d never seen before.”
“What kind of pictures?” Gus asked.
“Yearbook photos. But also all these candid shots of my Aunt with her friends. It was this one in particular that just…got me. I felt hollowed out when I saw it.”
Hayden reached into her satchel and pulled out an 8×10 grainy picture reprinted from the internet. I recognized Ellie Luke at the center of it from the photo I’d found online after a ten second search. Ellie was pretty. Thick, long dark hair and ice-blue eyes. She had a stunner of a smile with dimples in her cheeks. She looked fun. Young. Full of energy. She sat with a group of friends, a mixture of men and women.
“Why this picture?” Sam asked, leaning in close to see it.
“Because of him,” Hayden said, tapping the face of a skinny, blond guy sitting next to Ellie.
“Who is he?” I asked.
“Jamie Simmons,” Hayden answers. “He’s my father.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” Sam said.
“Then you’re having the same reaction I am,” Hayden said. “Confusion. See, I’ve talked to my dad and my mom so many times since I found out about Aunt Ellie. Mom would only talk about things that happened when they were growing up. Never about the murder itself. Which was understandable. And my dad would just kind of support her. Tell me how tough it had all been on Mom. He never ever told me that he knew Ellie. That they were friends. That's how he met my mom in the first place.”
“Your Aunt Ellie introduced them?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “That’s what was so wrong about all of it. I found this stuff out from strangers online. My dad was a classmate of Aunt Ellie’s. They were in nursing school together. They hung out. They were close. I never knew that.”
“You think your dad killed Ellie Luke,” Sam asked.
“No,” she said. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I know it.”
Gus looked like he was about to erupt. He grabbed the photo and put on his readers. “I don’t see him anywhere in this picture,” he muttered. I’m not even sure if he meant for the rest of us to hear it.
“See who?” Sam asked.
“Who the hell is your dad, Hayden,” Gus asked.
“Jamie Simmons,” she said.
Gus took off his glasses and squeezed the bridge of his nose.
“Walk me through it, honey,” Gus asked.
“He has a workshop in the basement,” Hayden said, her tone filled with distress. “I never go down there. He gets single minded. He works on these models. Ships in bottles. I always know when he’s upset or angry. Because he’ll go down there for hours. But it just all kind of built up. Two weeks ago, I went down there. I wanted to talk to him about Ellie. I couldn’t find him at first. He wasn’t at the bench. Our house is older. There’s this room off to the side that used to be a coal bin in the 1930s or something. He was there. The door was cracked and I could see the light on. He was sitting on a stool and he had this box in his hands. I was going to knock. I tripped over a pair of shoes near the boiler. He heard me. He shoved the box under these blankets and he came out. He was enraged. Accusing me of spying on him. Just…completely flipped out. I’d never seen him like that.”
Hayden reached down and lifted her satchel onto the table. She rested her hands on top of it.
“My dad didn’t finish nursing school. Instead he works at the hospital as a respiratory therapist. He’s been on midnights for the last month. Last night, I went down to the basement. My mom took this trip to Shipshewana with some friends. It was just me alone in the house. I don’t know if that’s ever happened before. I don’t know what made me go back down there. But I knew. I just knew.”
She slid a large, cardboard box out of her bag. It had a pink lid and flowers painted on the sides.
“I found this,” she said. “I didn’t want to believe it. But I think on some level, maybe I’ve always known.”
Hayden Simmons rose to her feet. She lifted the lid off the box. At once, Sam, Gus and I leaned in, our foreheads practically touching each other’s.
Gus spoke first. “Son of a bitch!” The shock of it overcame him. He reached out. I grabbed his wrist.
“Stop,” I said. “Don’t. Just freeze. Don’t touch it. Hayden, for the love of God, please close that back up.”