Janet Evanovich - Wicked Appetite

“Leonard More is the stepbrother with the silver Camry,” Diesel said. “He lives in Salem. His brother, Mark, lives in Beverly. We’ll visit Leonard first. He’s a claims adjuster for an insurance company and should be home from work by five o’clock.”

Lenny lived in a medium-size colonial on a tree-lined street in north Salem. A plaque on the house proclaimed it to have been built in 1897. The Camry was parked at the curb when we arrived. A FOR SALE sign was stuck in a patch of sketchy grass in the front yard. Diesel found a space half a block away, parked the Cayenne, and we walked back to Lenny’s house.

“According to my source, Lenny’s recently married and recently divorced,” Diesel said. “He was a junior exec in a bank, got fired six months ago, and picked up the claims adjuster job at the end of March.”

Lenny answered the door in dress slacks and a rumpled dress shirt. He had a drink in his hand, his breath was hundred-proof, his eyes were bloodshot, his thinning, sandy blond hair was mussed, and he was wearing a thick, spiked dog collar around his neck.

“Had a hard day?” Diesel asked him.

“Not necessarily,” Leonard said, “but things could pick up. What can I do you for?”

“I’d like to talk to you about your inheritance.”

“You and everyone else.”

“Who’s everyone else?” Diesel asked.

“My brother, for starters. And some cool dude who looks like he has real pain potential.” Lenny slurked down his drink and stared into the empty glass. “Uh-oh, all gone.” He turned and walked into the kitchen, and we followed.

“Do you know the cool dude’s name?” Diesel asked.

Lenny poured more whiskey into his glass. “Wolf. Is that a badass name, or what?” He blinked up at Diesel. “You want some hooch?” He squinted over at me. “You want some?”

“No,” I said. “But thanks. This thing you inherited, it was a ladybug, right?”

“Wrong. And I’m not telling anybody anything, because then I’ll have bad luck forever and ever.”

“That’s baloney,” I said. “No one can put a whammy on you and give you bad luck forever.”

“Hah!” Leonard said. “You didn’t know Uncle Phil. He was a scary kookadoo. He could give you the stink eye.” Leonard held one eye closed with his finger and looked at me with his other bloodshot eye. “And one time, I saw him turn a cat into a fry pan.”

Two days ago, I wouldn’t have believed that was possible, but now I didn’t know what to believe.

Diesel was handing me things off the kitchen counter. Egg timer, key ring, Ping-Pong paddle. I held each of them for a moment and gave them back. Spatula, pot holder, saucepan.

“What’s with the dog collar?” Diesel asked.

“It’s an accessory,” Lenny said. “Some men wear ties. I prefer a dog collar.”

“Fondle it,” Diesel said to me.

“No way!”

“It’s an accessory,” Diesel said. “Think of it like jewelry. He probably got it at Cartier.”

“Wrong,” Lenny said. “Petco.”

I reached out and touched the collar. Nothing. I touched his watch. Nothing there, either.

“Suppose I guessed the inheritance?” I asked Lenny. “Would that be okay?”

“It’s a free country,” Lenny said. “I can’t stop you from guessing. Anyway, you’ll never guess it, and even if you do guess right, you’ll never find it. It’s hidden and booby-trapped.”

Diesel opened an under-the-counter drawer and pulled out handcuffs attached to a heavy chain.

“Sometimes I’m a bad boy, and I need to be punished,” Lenny said. “I have more stuff in my bedroom if you want to see.”

“No!” I said. “Gee, look at the time. I have to go now.”

Diesel wrapped an arm around me. “We can take a couple minutes to check out the dude’s bedroom,” Diesel said. “I bet he keeps his inheritance in there.”

“Don’t know. Don’t care,” I said.

“Has Shirley seen your inheritance?” Diesel asked Lenny.

“Nope. Nobody’s seen it but me and good ol’ deader-than-a-doorknob Uncle Phil. And nobody’s gonna see it, either, because I can keep a secret. You can ask my wife. Oops, I mean ex-wife. She didn’t know about lots of things. And then when she found out, she turned into a real party pooper.”

“Did you tell her about your inheritance?” I asked.

“No. I told her about my paddle collection and my cyber slut. I thought she’d be excited, but she packed her bags and left.”

“Gosh, go figure,” I said, thinking I’d touched the Ping-Pong paddle, wondering if I had hand sanitizer in my purse.

“When did you start collecting paddles?” Diesel asked Lenny.

Lenny rocked back on his heels. “Five or six years ago. One day, it just came over me that I needed a good whacking. And now I can’t get enough of it.”

“Jeez,” I said.

Diesel leaned close, his lips brushing my ear. “At least it’s not fattening.”

If I had to make a choice between getting disciplined by the cyber slut or gaining a hundred pounds, I’d probably go with the cupcake obsession.

“We need to talk to you about the inheritance,” I said.

“Sure. What about it?”

“Where is it?”

“That’s for you to know and me to find out,” Lenny said.

Diesel and I exchanged glances. Lenny was snockered. Helpful for extracting information. Not helpful if he didn’t make any more sense than Shirley.

“Is it in the bedroom?” I asked.

“Used to be.” He looked into his glass. “Empty,” he said. “So sad.”

“He needs food,” I said to Diesel.

Diesel opened the refrigerator and looked inside. “A half-empty bottle of Aquavit, a can of Crisco, and a rubber chicken. That’s it.”

“There’s no food in here,” I said to Lenny.

Lenny stuck his head in the fridge. “There’s a chicken.”

“It’s rubber,” Diesel said, looking like he was going to rupture something trying not to laugh out loud.

“Is that bad?” Leonard asked.

I looked around the kitchen. No bread. No fruit. No coffeemaker. No kitchen knives. No cookie jar. The lone metal spatula I’d tested was propped up in the dish drain. I now had new concerns about its use. I ransacked the cupboards and came up with a box of granola bars. I gave one to Diesel and one to Lenny.

“About the inheritance,” I said to Lenny.

“Can’t get it,” Lenny said. “It’s booby-trapped.”

“Yes, but you know how to disarm it, right?”

Lenny shoved half a granola bar into his mouth. “Nuh. Didn’t think of that. It was during the divorce, and the party pooper took the toaster, and so I got this idea that she was after my inheritance, so I hid it and booby-trapped it. I was doing recreational drinking at the time. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. It’s a piece of junk.”

“Here’s the thing,” I said to Lenny. “It turns out your inheritance might be… enchanted.”

“Don’t care.”

“Of course you care. It’s a Gluttonoid.”

Diesel grinned at me and rocked back on his heels. “Gluttonoid. Boy, that’s a great name. How’d you ever come up with that one?”

Lenny slumped against the counter. “What’s a Gluttonoid?”

“It’s an object that turns people into gluttons. In your case, you’re a glutton for punishment. If we remove the object, there’s a good chance you’ll return to normal,” I told him.

“No more hanky panky spanky?” Lenny asked. “What if I’m a bad boy?”

“Dude, you’re freaking me out,” Diesel said. “Get a grip.”

“This is creepy. And I don’t like the whole booby-trap thing,” I said to Diesel. “Why don’t we let Wulf get this one? With any luck, he’ll blow himself up.”