04 Four to Score by Janet Evanovich

and said she had something for me. I'm going to stop around later tonight.”
    “Why later? Why don't you go now? Cripes, can't you move faster on this? I need those letters.”
    “Maybe you should tell me what this is really about. I'm having a hard time believing you're in this much of a sweat about a couple of love letters.”
    “I told you they could be embarrassing.”
    “Yeah, right.”
    *    *    *    *    *
    I LOOKED in my shopping cart and wondered if I had everything. Ritz crackers and peanut butter for when I felt fancy and wanted to make hors d'oeuvres, Entenmann's coffee cake for PMS mornings, Pop-Tarts for Rex, salsa so I could tell my mother I was eating vegetables, frosted flakes in case I had to go on a stakeout, corn chips for the salsa.
    I was in the middle of my inventory when a cart crashed nose to nose into mine. I looked up and found Grandma Mazur driving and my mother one step behind.
    My mother closed her eyes. “Why me?” she said.
    “Dang,” Grandma Mazur said.
    I was still in the wig and the little skirt. “I can explain.”
    “Where did I go wrong?” my mother wanted to know.
    “I'm in disguise.”
    Mrs. Crandle rattled her cart down the aisle. “Hello, Stephanie, dear. How are you today?”
    “I'm fine, Mrs. Crandle.”
    “Some disguise,” my mother said. “Everybody knows you. And why do you have to be disguised as a tramp? Why can't you ever be disguised as a normal person?” She looked into my cart. “Jars of spaghetti sauce. The checkout clerk will think you don't cook.”
    My left eye had started to twitch. “I have to go now.”
    “I bet this is a good getup for meeting men,” Grandma said. “You look just like Marilyn Monroe. Is that a wig? Maybe I could borrow it sometime. I wouldn't mind meeting some men.”
    “You loan her that wig and anything happens, I'm holding you responsible,” my mother said.
    *    *    *    *    *
    I UNPACKED my groceries, replaced the wig with a Rangers hat, traded the skirt in for a pair of shorts and resigned the retro slut shoes to a back corner of my closet. I shared a Pop-Tart with Rex and cracked a beer open for myself. I called Dillon to tell him about my door, and then I went out the bedroom window to my fire escape to think. The air was still and sultry, the horizon dusky.
    The parking lot was filled with cars. The seniors were all home at this time of day. If they went out to eat it was for the early bird special at the diner, and even if they went to the park to sit for a half hour they were home by six. If they were eating in it was at five o'clock so as not to interfere with Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy.
    Most cases I get from Vinnie are routine. Usually I go to the people who put up the bond and explain to them that they'll lose their house if the skip isn't found. Ninety percent of the time they know where the skip is and help me catch him. Ninety percent of the time I have a handle on the sort of person I'm dealing with. This case didn't fall into the ninety percent. And even worse, this case was weird. A friend had lost a finger, and a mother had been scalped. Maxine's treasure hunt seemed playful by comparison. And then there was the message on my door. “I hate you.” Who would do such a thing? The list was long.
    A pickup pulled away from the curb half a block away, exposing a black Jeep Cherokee which had been parked behind the pickup. Joyce.
    I allowed myself the luxury of a sigh and drained the beer bottle. You had to respect Joyce's tenacity, if nothing else. I raised my bottle in a salute to her, but there was no response.
    The problem with being a bounty hunter is it's all on-the-job training. Ranger is helpful, but Ranger isn't always around. So most of the time when something new comes up I end up doing it wrong before I figure out how to do it right. Joyce, for instance. Clearly, I don't know how to get rid of Joyce.
    I crawled back through the window, got another bottle of beer and