W is for Wasted

It has been ages since I read one of Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" series, although I have them all and have read them all. Kinsey Millhone has aged slightly but it is still the late 1980's when we encounter her in this book. Her PI business has been going well enough that she is not worried about the fact that nothing new is coming in the door right now and she can kick back a little. Then she is contacted by the Coroner's office who inform her that a recently deceased homeless man has her name and phone number on a card in his pocket. Kinsey can't identify him, but as she seeks to identify him, she is shocked to find he is related to her on her father's side and that he has left her his entire estate--almost half a million dollars--and disinherited his three children. Since she has been named executor of his will, it is up to her to deliver the bad news to the children who do not take it at all well.
A seemingly unrelated death of a somewhat sleazy PI Kinsey had known is tied into the whole complicated mess when former lover Dietz shows up at her door claiming he is out $3 K after working for the dead PI and that it was Kinsey who sent the job his way. The deaths of both the homeless man, now known as R. Terrence Dace, and the dead PI, Pete Wolinsky, are eventually tied back to a drug study at the university that the lead researcher, Dr. Linton Reed, will do anything to protect.  The usual cast of characters, Henry, William, and Rosie are all here as is a new addition, Ed the cat. Grafton never fails to entertain, and, in this case, provoke.