Chapter 15
The reporters and journalists, and two random strangers who’d driven a long way to find the boy from Star Ridge, were all gathered at the gazebo. Some were glaring at each other, unhappy with the way this was going down. Others were waiting in silence, planning what they were going to ask.
And then somebody saw a car pull up at a nearby curb and a big, dark-haired man emerge from the driver’s seat.
It took them a few seconds to realize that that man was the nineteen-year-old kid they’d come to interview, and that the stride in his step looked like he meant business.
They stayed silent, uncertain as to how this was going to work, as he ascended the steps and then turned to face them.
“Turn on your cameras and your recording equipment,” he said, so they did.
Tate waited a few moments, then continued.
“Don’t talk over each other. Don’t argue with me.
If you don’t approve or believe in ‘the knowing,’ then that’s your problem.
I will answer any question about myself, but if you start prodding into my family or personal life, then I will reciprocate in kind.
If I wanted, I could know your secrets without asking, but I have my own boundaries and rules.
So, if you don’t want your secrets told, then you don’t share mine. Are we straight here?”
It was the suggestion that, if he chose, he could reveal their personal lives as carelessly as they had planned to do to him. They nodded their heads in agreement and waited.
“Okay, then we’re good. Are you ready?”
They nodded again.
“My name is Tate Lee Bandy. I will turn twenty years old this coming January. This ‘knowing,’ as my people call it, is inherited from a long line of men on my father’s side of the family.
There is only one born with the gift per generation.
I am the sixth. I don’t know how this works.
It’s how I came into the world, but we consider it a blessing and honor it.
“It is my intention to use it when help is needed. I will open an office somewhere in New Orleans in the coming months. I have nothing to do with private investigations. I’m not staking out cheating men and women.
I know my path is to help people find what they have lost, whether it be an object or a person.
No, I don’t see ghosts. No, I don’t conjure up spirits.
I have a kind of precognition, and I can connect with something or someone by touching them, or by holding an object that belongs to the person they are asking about.
I see flashes of what’s going to happen before it does.
Sometimes those precious, split-second moments are enough to change fate before it happens.
Sometimes it’s just seeing it soon enough to seek safety.
I assume all of you have questions, so raise your hand. I’m your man.”
The questions began.
“What, exactly, did you see when you first saw Trevor Stennett? How did you know the driver wasn’t his father?”
“I saw flashes of scenes of what had happened. Think of yourself watching TV, holding the remote, and changing channels rapidly. Sometimes it’s slower, like a scene in a movie. But it’s never an analogy of what’s going to happen. It’s either something that already has, or certainly will.”
“How did you know the boy’s name?”
“I heard it in his head. He knew who he was, but he didn’t know any of us. Not the EMTs pulling them out of the wreck, or the police, or me.”
The next person down the line asked about the tornado when he was a child, and then recently saving his girlfriend and getting hurt.
Tate told them about the school, but he drew a line at talking about Briar. “We were both interviewed while I was still in the hospital. There’s nothing more to say. Watch the clip that aired.”
And so it went, answers without elaboration, right down to the last reporter.
“How has it been growing up here with this gift?” she asked.
That’s when Tate leveled down on the truth.
“Hard, and in a way, sad. Plenty of people around here wanted my help but at the same time, as a child, left me out of all forms of entertainment that did not occur at school. In other words, they were screaming their heads off or clapping in the stands if I hit a home run, but God forbid I ever set foot in their houses. They cruelly shunned my mother. When I was still a child, she was physically attacked in the park, and why? The explanation given in court by the accuser was that she’d given birth to an unnatural child.
I was that unnatural child of whom she spoke, watching in horror at the blood spilling out from beneath my mother’s head, and the whole side of her face turning purple from the impact of someone’s fist. The woman who did it was found guilty of assault and spent a year on parole.
The town didn’t ostracize her for what she’d done, but they continued to shun my mother because of me.
There are good people here, but the prejudices of the others far outweigh the good.
Within a short time, we will be gone, and they’ll have to learn to look for what’s lost on their own. ”
Then one of the strangers, a woman who’d been sitting and listening, slowly raised her hand.
Tate knew she wasn’t a reporter, but he saw the pain in her eyes and nodded at her. “Ask your question.”
“My name is Yvonne Shipley. Louis is my husband. We came from Las Cruces, New Mexico, and I am not a reporter.”
“I know. Come stand by me.” She got up and walked toward him. He put a hand on her shoulder. “Now ask me.”
She started to cry. “Our daughter has been missing for over a year. In my heart, I believe she’s dead. But now I grieve the not knowing, worse than the absence. Her name is…”
Tate interrupted. “Bethie. You called her Bethie, didn’t you?” He’d forgotten the cameras were still rolling, and reporters were present. He was in the moment with the mother who’d lost her child.
The woman began to sob. “Yes, Bethie. She was fifteen years old, a sophomore in high school. She went to school one day and never came home. The police searched for her for weeks and weeks, but all of the leads went nowhere. There’s a five-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to finding her, but it’s a cold case now.
Do you know where she is? What happened to her? ”
Tate’s heart was aching. “Yes, ma’am. But we’ll need to contact the detective in charge of the case, and you’re going to have to accept his reluctance to believe me. He’ll go check out what I tell him to pacify you, and then they will find her.”
“Thank you.”
“You can thank me after they find her.” Then he looked up and gave the reporters that look.
“Leave them alone. If you want to write about this happening, do it with their permission, and only after the recovery. I will be honest. I long for the day when the headline in a paper has nothing to do with death, corruption, or disaster, and I think we’re done here,” he said, then kept his hand on Yvonne’s shoulder.
“You and your husband are coming home with me. We’ll make that phone call at my house, via Zoom. You can sit with me as I talk to the detective. Okay?”
“You will do that for us?” Louis Shipley said.
“Yes, sir. Where are you parked?”
“At a motel. We walked down here.”
“Then come get in the car with me. When we’ve finished, I’ll take you back to the motel.”
“What about your parents?” Yvonne asked.
“My mother will want to feed you. My dad likely isn’t home, but he’s a good, quiet man. He honors my gift.”
They walked across the park, got into the car with Tate, and rode back to the house. Tate called out as they were walking in the door.
“Hey, Mama, I’m home. We have guests.”
Lilith came into the living room, smiling and smoothing down her hair.
“Mama, this is Louis and Yvonne Shipley. They came all the way from Las Cruces, New Mexico, to find me. We’re going to make a Zoom call to the detective in charge of the case of their missing daughter, and then I’ll take them back to their motel, okay?”
Lilith’s expression shifted into one of compassion. “Can I get you all something to drink while you’re waiting for Tate to get set up?”
They nodded. “Much appreciated,” Yvonne said.
“Okay if I use the dining table to set up?” Tate asked.
“Of course. And I’ll make myself scarce after you start,” Lilith said.
Yvonne had all of the contact information for the detective, and called him personally, told him he was being sent a Zoom link via email, that they were in Star Ridge, Missouri, and had new info on their missing daughter, and then she hung up and turned it all over to Tate.
Tate had his laptop open and was connected to Zoom. He’d already set up the meeting and sent the link to the detective. Now he had to wait for the detective to link in. And when he did, Tate was ready and waiting, with Louis and Yvonne sitting on either side of him and visibly in the picture.
“Detective Alvarez, thank you for calling in. My name is Tate Bandy. The Shipleys have reached out to me about helping locate their missing daughter.”
Tate saw recognition dawn on Alvarez’s face. “You’re the guy who claims to be psychic,” he said.
“I’m not here to argue the point. I am here to tell you what I know…what I saw…when I spoke to the Shipleys. You’ve checked every other lead for the last year without success. It’s not gonna kill you to follow this one, but it will close your case. Are you ready? Take notes.”
“Listen…just because…”
Yvonne started crying. “Don’t play games with this man. This is me, begging you. You’re gonna look like a fool if we have to drag this boy all the way to New Mexico to prove a point. Just please God…one more time.”
Alvarez crumbled. He was as bothered by not finding their daughter as they were losing her. “Yes, ma’am. I will. I promise to follow up on this information too.”