Wicked Appetite (Lizzy and Diesel 1)

Diesel opened the downstairs door to Mark’s apartment, and we all trooped upstairs into the living room. Mark had only the bare essentials for furniture. A couch with a quilt draped over the back, a side table with a table lamp, a flat screen television set into a shelf system. Every other space was taken up with gnomes crammed into an eclectic assortment of glass-fronted display cases. China gnomes, plaster gnomes, wooden gnomes, bejeweled gnomes, paper gnomes, books dedicated to gnomes, intricately carved marble gnomes.

Carl rushed up to one of the cases and stared at the gnomes. “Eee?”

“Gnomes,” I told him.

He tapped on the glass, but the gnomes didn’t do anything. He frowned and tapped harder. He looked up at Diesel.

“That’s as interesting as it gets,” Diesel said to Carl.

Carl moved on to the open shelves around the TV and stopped in front of a bobblehead gnome. He carefully touched the head with his fingertip, and the head bounced and jiggled. He looked at it more closely and touched it again. More vigorous bouncing. He grabbed the head, and it came off in his hand.

“Eep!”

He set the head back on the spring, but the head fell off and rolled onto the floor. Carl looked up at Diesel.

“Broken,” Diesel said.

Carl thought about it a beat, gave the headless gnome the finger, and kicked the head across the floor.

The gnome collection extended into the dining room and then gave way to stuffed rabbits. Big rabbits, little rabbits, pink rabbits, fluffy rabbits. Every kind of imaginable bunny. They were all stacked up in a jumble in the two far corners of the room.

Carl carefully skirted the two piles and moved into the short hall that led to the bedroom, on his best behavior after the gnome beheading.

“Mark has some strange collections,” I said to Diesel. “Locks, gnomes, and stuffed rabbits. It’s like he indiscriminately decides to collect something.”

We started to follow Carl, and we both stopped at the same time.

“What the heck is that smell?” I asked, hand over my nose.

“Animal,” Diesel said.

“Dead?”

“No. Alive.”

“It must be Bigfoot.”

There was a single bedroom at the end of the hall. I let Diesel go first, since he was the indestructible half of the team, and I hung back.

“Oh man,” Diesel said. “You have to come see this.”

I crept up behind him and peeked into a room filled floor to ceiling with cages housing slinky, sleek-coated, beady-eyed ferrets.

“This is a strange man,” Diesel said. “He could have chosen stamps or coins or bottle glass, but he decided to collect ferrets.”

Carl looked mesmerized. He was in the middle of the room, his arms at his sides, knuckles resting on the floor, eyes wide as they went cage to cage.

“I think it’s safe to assume Mark didn’t inherit a ferret,” I said to Diesel.

“I can’t see him inheriting a gnome or a bunny, either. My money is still on the l

ock collection. Let’s see what’s in the kitchen.”

At first glance, the kitchen looked cluttered but normal. At closer inspection, it became obvious all the bottles and tins were filled with olive oil. Virgin olive oil, slut olive oil, olive oil infused with herbs.

“At least this is healthy,” I said to Diesel.

“Only if you eat it. I don’t think collecting it does much for you.”