I stood. “Aunt Tessa. Are you sure he died in the fire?”
Her thin eyebrows drew together. “When they finally put the fire out, the basement was a mess. And since we never saw him again, I …” She smacked her hand to her forehead. “I never even thought of him!”
“Basements usually have windows or doors, other ways out in case there is a fire,” I breathed. “He’s alive. He’s alive, and he wants to summon Rhyzkahl. It makes sense. That explains how he knew Greg.” I grabbed my aunt by her shoulders. “Aunt Tessa, do you know what he looks like? Do you have old pictures of him? Anything?”
Tessa shook her head. “No, sweets, nothing like that. And if he stayed around here, he must have changed his appearance, because Greg always thought he was dead too.”
“Aunt Tessa, I have to go,” I said, as I snatched up my cell phone and took off for the door. This was almost worse than not knowing. I knew who the Symbol Man was now, but I had no idea how to find him.
I had my cell-phone headset jammed into my ear even before I got the car started. I punched Ryan’s number in as I backed out of my aunt’s driveway. “Come, on, Ryan. Pick up!” I muttered.
“Good morning, Kara,” Ryan said as he answered.
“Ryan! I know who the Symbol Man is,” I said in a rush. “It’s Greg Cerise’s dad, Peter Cerise, who was supposedly killed in a summoning, but I think he wasn’t killed after all. And now he wants revenge on Rhyzkahl and everyone else for letting his wife die, even though it was his own damn fault to begin with!”
“Whoa, whoa, slow down. Okay, it’s Greg’s dad. So where is he now?”
“I don’t know! I don’t know what he looks like or what he’s doing.”
I heard him mutter a curse. “All right. Well, it’s a start, at least. I can go back and do some legwork and see if he had any prints on file or anything like that.”
“I bet Greg had photos of his dad.”
“Mr. Greg Cerise is quite dead, and the search warrant on that residence is no longer valid.”
“Details, details!” I retorted. “I’ll find you a damn photo.”
“I’ll hold you to that.”
THE SEARCH WARRANT was expired, but at this point I really didn’t give a shit. I called dispatch and got the number for the owner of the house, Greg’s erstwhile landlady, a Ms. Dana Sebastian. I dialed as I drove to the house.
A woman answered on the second ring. “Hello?”
“Hello, this is Detective Gillian with the Beaulac Police Department. Is this Dana Sebastian?”
“Yes … yes, it is. Is this about the murder?”
“Yes, ma’am. I’m the lead investigator on the Symbol Man murders. Look, I know the search warrant has expired, but I really need to get back into your rental house and look for something.”
“Oh, damn, I’ve already had a crew come through to fix the door and scrub the place down, and I packed all of Greg’s stuff up. It’s all still there in boxes, though. I really don’t know what to do with any of it, to be honest. I don’t know if he has any family.”
“I can’t help you there,” I said. The only next of kin I knew of wasn’t likely to step forward just to claim some boxes of junk. “Is there any way you can come by to let me in and let me look through the stuff?”
“I’m at work and can’t get away until late this afternoon, but if you want you can let yourself in. The key’s under the frog statue on the back porch.”
“I really appreciate this,” I said fervently.
“Sure thing. I hope it helps you out. I still can’t believe this happened. Greg was a supernice guy and a good tenant.”
“I met him only once, but he seemed pretty cool,” I said. “Of course, the neighbor across the street was convinced he was up to no good.”
“Oh, my God, that racist bitch? I swear, I wanted to rent the place out to a black Jewish gay couple just to piss her off, but then I figured it wouldn’t be fair to the black Jewish gay couple.”
I smiled wryly. “Makes me glad I live way out in the country with no neighbors.”
“Lucky you! Look, if you need anything else, just let me know.”
“You got it. Thanks again.”
THE BLOOD HAD been cleaned up in the kitchen and the tile scrubbed and bleached. The cleaning crew had done a good job; there was no visible sign at all that a gruesome murder had taken place here. But it was still going to be hard for her to rent or sell the place.
The house had been stripped down to the walls, and I found about a dozen boxes piled in a back bedroom. I began looking through them and made the delightful discovery that Dana had labeled each box with a short description of its contents. Oh, I do so love this woman!