Page 105 of Reckoning

Tate glanced at Raina. “Can you step into the hall with me for a moment?”

She nodded and followed him out.

As soon as they were alone, Tate told her what he’d seen. “There is an abandoned antebellum mansion about six miles outside of New Orleans. I don’t know the address, but I would recognize the house. The man who killed her lived there then. He might have been someone she knew or worked with. I saw an oil company connection. He buried her behind a wall in the attic. The local police are not going to want to follow through with this. I don’t know who owns it now, but I think it’s unoccupied. But if your grandmother reported her as a missing person, they might be inclined to investigate just to close a case. I’ll let you know what they decide.”

Raina sighed. “I have no memory of her, but she is forever fixed in my mind from my grandmother’s stories. Thank you. This has eaten at her every day since my mother disappeared.”

“I will be in touch,” Tate said, then left the hospital and went straight to the New Orleans PD.

He’d already encountered them for other less serious reasons, and they hated every time that he’d been right. This wasn’t going to be any different.

He drove to the PD, went up to the front desk, and asked to speak to a detective in Missing Persons.

The desk sergeant smirked. “Here comes the lost-and-found man again. Find yourself a dead body this time, did ya?”

Tate glared silently, and the sergeant decided he was too big and scary to mess with. “Have a seat. I’ll let them know you’re here.”

Tate walked to the window, shoved his hands in his pockets, and waited.

Detective O’Brien got the message and headed up front. He thought it was someone coming to report a missing person. But when he saw Tate Bandy, he frowned. If this dude was real, he should already know who was gone and where they were. What the hell is he doing here?

“Mr. Bandy, you wanted to see me?”

Tate nodded.

“Follow me,” he said, and walked him back into the division. “Have a seat and tell me why you’re here.”

Tate gave him the short version, including the fact that the old woman who’d asked for his help was in the hospital, on her deathbed.

“Her granddaughter, Raina Hooper, who was abandoned at the age of three by her mother’s absence, is now twenty-six years old and wants answers for the grandmother she loves.”

“I need some info,” O’Brien said. “Did the LeBlanc lady file a missing person report with us?”

“Yes. The daughter who went missing was Caroline Hooper. The date was June 3rd, 2002. The mother’s name is Marjolynne LeBlanc.”

O’Brien turned to his computer and typed in a name, and a file came up. He scanned through the notes, frowning as he read.

“There was never a lead. They interviewed her employer and the people she worked with. They never had an actual date for when she went missing, only the date when she left her child with her mother. There was no way to know where she disappeared or when. That’s why the case went cold,” he said.

“Yes, I know that, but I know where the body is and who killed her, and you don’t. Now…do you want to solve a cold case and give a dying woman some measure of relief, or would you rather make another sick joke like the desk sergeant did and send me packing? Your choice.”

O’Brien glared.

Tate never blinked.

“Where the hell is she then?” O’Brien asked.

“Six miles out of town, stuffed behind a wall in the attic of an abandoned antebellum mansion. The man who killed her owned it then. His name was Billy Joe Dubois. He got away with murder, but karma kicked his ass. He caught COVID before there was a vaccine and spent three long weeks in a hospital, under oxygen, gasping for every breath like she did when he strangled her. I like to think that her ghost was sitting on his chest the whole time, and that he could see her. That would be his karma.”

O’Brien shuddered. “You don’t have an address?”

“I will know it when I see it. I know the road it’s on. You follow me to the house now. I’ll show you the wall. You do the rest.”

“You’re freakin’ scary,” O’Brien said.

“No, people who kill are freakin’ scary. I like to think people like me are created to be the conscience they don’t have. I’m parked down the street. It’s a blue Ford Explorer, and I don’t like to wait. Justice has been too long coming. I want to be able to tell Mrs. LeBlanc that her daughter has been found before she passes.”

O’Brien signaled at a detective. “Would you please walk Mr. Bandy out? I need to make some calls.”