Kent, Hope you don't take offense to this but I want to clarify a couple of points for Stacka's sake.
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A ampmeter is always connected in series I.e. one lead to the wire and the other to the postive side of the battery which registers the milli amps passing through the circuit- to connect the ampmeter to the frame or earth is not good form and can destroy the instrument.
Point of clarification. An ammeter should be hooked up in series as you stated but it makes no difference if you chose the negative or positive side of the battery. I suggested the negative side because there is less chance of sparking. Attaching the ammeter between the neg battery terminal and the negative wire or frame usually won't cause any safety problems. Your statement suggesting that it has to be the positive side could be misleading.
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The volt meter on the other hand is connected in parallel i.e one lead to live and one to earth or frame.
This is true (voltage drop across something) but you can also put a voltmeter in series to measure potential. If an ammeter isn't available, a voltmeter will tell you there is "potential" between, say a disconnected battery lead and the battery terminal it is supposed to be connected to. It just won't tell you by how much.
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When checking for shorts with the ampmeter be aware that many do not have the fine readings required to pick up a very small draw and can throw you a curve ball. Take it carefully and write down what you have done with fuses etc until you get to the bottom of it. I am sure that some here will have dealt with the same issue if the alarm is the inherent cause of the fault.
Cheers
Kent 
True.
Stacka, you stated that your test leads were getting hot even with the key off. Just what were you touching? If you had the test lead on the negative terminal of the battery and then went to the frame or the negative wire (really doesn't matter) and you got sparking, then something is drawing a lot of current as Keith mentioned. If the 17 you registered on your meter was indeed 17 amps and not 17 milliamps, then I would imagine that a wire is grounded somewhere to the frame. I don't think there are any accessories that draw that much current. 17 milliamps on the other hand is nothing to worry about.
For safeties sake, make sure you clamp your test lead on the battery terminal first then go to the frame to keep any potential arcing away from the battery. I've seen a good number of batteries explode - not nice. Also, if you notice that there is sparking when you are hooking up the battery terminals to the battery, with the key off, then you really don't need an ammeter.
