Chapter 15 #3
Tate was sitting in the living room with his parents, watching TV while they were continuing to make plans about moving, when his phone rang. When he saw who was calling, he got up and left the room to answer.
“Hello, this is Tate.”
“Tate, this is Detective Alvarez. We found Bethie Shipley’s body, right where you said it would be.
I’m not going to pretend I understand how you do what you do, but I do want to thank you for your help today.
You have made a believer out of me, and I intend to acknowledge you and your help when the news is released.
In no way will I take credit for the Las Cruces police being the ones who solved this case.
We would never have found her had it not been for you.
There’s still a killer out there somewhere, but him, we’ll find. You can’t hide from DNA.”
“Thank you,” Tate said. “I will be moving to New Orleans in the near future to continue this work.”
“Are you setting up shop there?” he asked.
“Not an office. Just an ad in the lost-and-found section of the local papers, and a phone number and email address for points of contact, and word of mouth. It’s already getting out of hand, which is why I’m moving away from my parents.
I spent a couple of hours with six different news crews this afternoon.
They’ll spread my name all over again whether I like it or not, and the only way I can control any part of this is to treat it like a job. ”
Alvarez almost smiled. “Charging by the hour or by the job… Makes sense to me. Stay safe. There are crazy people out there.”
“I know, but I have an edge. I can always see them coming.”
The line went dead in the detective’s ear, but Tate Bandy’s last comment made him shiver.
* * *
Every news outlet in the state was running its own edited version of the Tate Bandy press conference in the park.
Briar saw one of the interviews when she and her dad were having breakfast. She said nothing to her dad, but even after it was over she kept thinking how proud she was of Tate.
Roger, on the other hand, was choking down his toast and looking at his phone, rather than acknowledging what was happening in Tate Bandy’s life.
He’d watched that boy grow up, expecting him to fail miserably in life.
What was happening was a hard pill for Roger to swallow, and it was embarrassing that he wasn’t man enough to admit he’d been wrong.
The day after those stories aired, the Las Cruces PD held a news conference, announcing the recovery of Bethie Shipley’s body.
And as he promised, Detective Alvarez also released information about the tip they were given that led to the discovery.
But the moment Tate Bandy’s name was mentioned, they lost control of the media. Questions came at them from all sides.
Alvarez had been expecting blowback from his admission that the tip came from a proclaimed psychic. He had not prepared himself for the public’s growing belief in this young man’s prophecies, and the revelation only added to Tate’s growing fame.
By evening of the same day, the national wire services had picked up on the story, which continued to embellish the growing résumé of Tate Bandy’s success.
* * *
Up on the mountain above Sparta, Tennessee, his people also saw the news and heard the reports and felt a growing sense of pride.
Tate’s uncle, Joseph Bandy, was sitting in his recliner that same evening when the report about recovering the body of a missing high school girl was aired.
He glanced at his wife and sighed. “We would never have left the mountain or put ourselves out to be ridiculed as that boy has been. Now he’s beginning to reap the success of his determination to be who he was born to be.
I said it before, and I’ll say it again.
There was a reason that boy wasn’t born on the mountain, and why their life was so hard where they lived.
They weren’t meant to put down roots there.
Tate was meant to take the knowing out into the world, and his mama and daddy were meant to come home. ”
* * *
The five-thousand-dollar reward money for finding the Shipley girl arrived in the form of a check made out to Tate Bandy.
He took it straight to the bank, purposefully choosing the teller window where Bev Harwell worked, and deposited it in his account.
The look of shock on her face was worth the curiosity he knew it would arouse—and almost as satisfying as telling her at Sparks Grocery that she was a peck shy of a bushel thinking he’d ever help her again.
But it was also becoming apparent that if this was going to be his work, then he needed to set up different methods of getting paid. So, when he got home, he signed up for Venmo, Cash App, and PayPal, then got online and began searching on Zillow in New Orleans for the costs of places to rent.
Getting set up was all about baby steps. The knots would work themselves out as it went. What he needed most now was a way for people to contact him without swarming Star Ridge, and it was Briar who solved that problem for him.
* * *
It was two days before the first day of school, and Tate knew that their free time being together was coming to an end.
She had one last semester to finish without him.
He was on the phone that night, talking to her about the business part of his new job and trying to figure out how to let the world contact him without advertising his actual whereabouts, when she offered a suggestion.
“My darling Tate, bring your laptop to my house tomorrow. I know exactly how to solve that,” she said.
He sighed. “Deal. I wish I could put you in my pocket and take you with me on this ride.”
She laughed. “I fear I would be a terrible distraction, and you’re going to figure it out, because you have no other choice.”
So, when he showed up at her house the next morning, she was already set up and waiting. He met her at the door with a soul-shattering kiss, then handed her a bag of doughnuts.
“Sustenance,” he said. “So, what’s the big solution?”
“Follow me,” she said, then led him into the dining room and pulled up a chair next to the one she sat down in.
“Your laptop, please, and open it for me.”
He did so, then pushed it in front of her. “What are we doing here?”
“Updating your social media profile,” she said.
He frowned. “I don’t have a social media profile.”
She laughed. “I know, but you’re about to. Watch and learn,” she said, and proceeded to create a profile for him on every social media site, adding all of the security features needed as she went. Uploaded a photo, and an email address.