Page 85 of Reckoning

Alvarez motioned for his team to follow as they walked across the campus to the big brick edifice housing the school gymnasium, then circled around to the back of the building. Alvarez immediately saw the opening. His first thought was that it was entirely too small, then he remembered Tate Bandy saying something about boxes being stored in front of the chute, which meant down in the old basement.

“I assume this chute emptied into the basement when it was in use. We’re going to need access, and lights,” Alvarez said.

“We need to go inside from the front entrance,” Redding said, and led the way, into the gym, then down a long hall and through a door and steps leading down. He flipped on the lights at the head of the stairs, then led the way down.

It was huge. Nearly the entire footprint of the building above, and the old furnaces were still in place at the far end of the building. Even from where Alvarez was standing, he could see portable metal shelves lined up near a wall, with boxes on them.

“What are in those boxes?” he asked as they neared the area.

“Old school records from the 1920s through the 1950s. Most everything else has been digitized,” Redding said.

The skin crawled on the back of the detective’s neck. So far, Tate Bandy was two for two with describing the scene. As they approached the shelving, he saw the old coal chute behind them, with a metal, boxlike structure at the end. For a moment, the urge to turn around and run was huge. Instead, he issued an order.

“Men, I need those shelves moved away from the chute.” And so they began—moving boxes from the shelves and dragging the shelves aside. “Who’s got the crowbar?” Alvarez asked.

An officer stepped forward, already gloved and ready. “I do, sir.”

“Then pop off the cover, and do it carefully,” he said.

The officer stepped forward, first prying off a rusted padlock and then wedging the prybar beneath the cover and pushing up.

The metal cover came off and hit the concrete floor with a clang, and then he staggered backward in shock.

“Sweet Jesus,” he mumbled, and turned away and threw up.

There was no mistaking the decomposed body, and Alvarez had the file with him of what she’d been wearing when she disappeared. Blond hair. Red shorts. A red-and-white top, and red sneakers. It had to be her, and with her head pillowed on what looked like her backpack.

“God in heaven,” Alvarez mumbled. “Three for three. Bandy called it.” He pointed at one of his detectives. “Get forensics down here. According to my tipster, there will be enough DNA on all of this to ID the killer too.”

Redding had turned away in shock and was unashamedly weeping. “All this time. All this time,” he kept mumbling. “If only we had known.”

“Mr. Redding, this is a dump site. This girl was already dead when her killer hid her here. You couldn’t have changed her fate.” Then Alvarez began issuing more orders. “Get up top, cordon off this entire building. And I have two phone calls to make. One to the parents, and one to the tipster.”

“Maybe the tipster was the killer,” one of his officers said.

Alvarez shook his head. “No. Bethie’s parents went looking for the same guy who helped find Dan Stennett’s kidnapped son and saved that reporter from KSDK in Missouri from the stalker who’d been trying to kill her. Mr. and Mrs. Shipley were with him this morning when I received a Zoom call from his home in Missouri. I thought the kid was a scammer. I didn’t believe he was real. But he told us where to look, and what we’d find and where. And there she is. We tore up this state for over a year looking for her, and in five minutes, he gave us a blueprint to what was left of her. The mistake we made was that cursory search on the first day she went missing. We assumed she was taken on her way home. Lord, Lord.”

Every officer and detective went silent, staring in disbelief at their boss. Cops deal in facts. Not psychic shit. And yet here they were.

That was when Redding turned around. “Tate Bandy. That’s his name. I remember Mr. Stennett saying it. And I saw Amy Wall name him from KSDK when she aired her own story, and now this.”

“Mr. Redding, I’m asking you to say nothing about what we’ve found until I can officially notify her parents. They’re supposed to be on their way home from Missouri. The police will make the announcement at the proper time.”

Redding nodded. “Yes, of course. If you have no further need of me, I’ll get back to my office.” He walked away with his head down and his shoulders slumped.

Alvarez put two officers on guard in the hall above the basement, and more in the parking lot outside as they were roping off the area. Seeing the crime-scene tape strung up at school was never good, and it didn’t take long for the word to get around that something dire had happened at the gym. But not once did anyone think it had to do with “the little girl lost.” In fact, most people had forgotten that she’d never been found.

* * *

Louis and Yvonne Shipley received the phone call on the trip back and cried off and on the rest of the way home. The news was not a shock. This was what they’d feared all along, which was why they’d gone looking for Tate Bandy. Now their daughter was no longer lost, and they could finally lay her to rest.

* * *

The sun had long since set by the time Alvarez stopped to make that phone call to Tate. He didn’t want to talk to him, but he felt he owed him that much respect.

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.”