Page 55 of Shadow of Justice
“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.”
