Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 127, No. 6. Whole No. 778, June 2006

The Theft of the Blue-Ribbon Pie by Edward D. Hoch

Copyright © 2006 Edward D. Hoch

Nick Velvet, the most popular of Ed Hoch’s series characters, has been under almost continuous option for television over the past decade. With any luck, 2006 will finally see him make his American TV debut. French TV ran a short series starring the thief of valueless things back in the ’70s. How much longer must U.S. fans wait? For statistics on other Hoch characters, see this month’s Jury Box.

When Nick Velvet told Gloria he’d never at-tended a county fair, she couldn’t believe it. “Never? In your whole life? That’s like saying you’ve never been to a circus or ridden on a train. Everyone’s been to a county fair.”

They were driving across northern New Jersey, bound for the fair in Jackson County, just over the Pennsylvania line. It was a hot August afternoon with only a few wispy clouds drifting across the blue of the sky. “I don’t think they have county fairs in Manhattan,” he told her. “At least I never heard of any. I grew up in Greenwich Village, remember.”

“Still—” She twisted in her seat to face him as he drove. “Didn’t you have an aunt or uncle that you visited on a farm every summer? I sure did!”

“They sent me off to a boys’ camp one summer and I hated it. I wouldn’t go back the following year. I guess I was always a city boy.”

“So here we are, heading for the Jackson County Fair. What happened?”

“Milo Marx is paying me to steal an apple pie — whichever one wins the blue ribbon at the fair tomorrow morning.”

Marx was a well-known artist and collector of pop-culture artifacts who could have purchased ten thousand pies for what he was paying for this one, but Nick had stopped questioning the motives of his clients. Just one visit to Milo Marx’s home — really a museum in the making — convinced him that a blue-ribbon pie from the Jackson County Fair was the only thing that would satisfy him. “The entire place was filled with objects,” he’d told Gloria. “Books, sewing baskets, starfish, ironing boards, you name it. He finds a perfect shape or design in everyday items, or even in nature, and he collects them. He sprays the things with a plastic coating to preserve them, or entomb them, if you’d prefer. He’s heard that the apple pies at the Jackson County Fair are real works of art, and he must have one for his collection. He tried to buy last year’s winner and they refused to sell it to him. They said the pies only went to local people.”

Nick had pointed out to Marx that he could hire a couple of kids to run in and steal the pie for a hundred bucks, far less than his fee, but the collector insisted, “It’s not as easy as it seems, with a building full of people watching. Kids might drop or damage it somehow. The pie must be intact to preserve the beauty of its design.”

Nick and Gloria had left early Wednesday morning, taking Route 78 across Jersey to Middletown, Pennsylvania, then turning north to Jackson County. It was a rural area at the edge of the Poconos, and they passed a few dairy farms along with the usual fields of corn and various crops Nick couldn’t identify. The fair was at Clydestown, the county seat, a place of neat frame houses with a few brick buildings and churches clustered around a little park at its center. “Isn’t this lovely, Nicky?” Gloria said. “I didn’t know places like this still existed.”

He slowed down a bit, spotting a sign with an arrow pointing toward Jackson County Fair, August 6-13. “This is it.”

“We missed the first half of it.”

“And we’ll miss the end of it, too.” Nick told her. “I’ll pick up the winning pie in the morning and we’ll be out of here.”

“You sound as if you’ll just walk in there and they’ll hand it to you.”

“Something like that.”

They left the car in a massive field that had been turned into a parking lot for the week’s festivities. The cars and SUVs were almost outnumbered by pickup trucks, and there were even a few horse trailers for transporting livestock. “This is real country,” Nick decided, wading through the oil-stained grass and weeds already trampled half to death. They’d barely entered the Show Pavilion when they were greeted by a stout woman wearing a straw hat trimmed with daisies. “Welcome to the fair, folks! You from Scranton?”

“How’d you guess?” Nick acknowledged with a smile.

“Oh, I can tell city folks. I’m Beth Buckley, chairman of the organizing committee. If you want to see the Junior Fair Horse Show it starts in thirty minutes in the Horse Ring.”

“We’re more interested in the apple-pie-baking contest,” Gloria informed her.

Nick quickly tried to explain their interest. “We have a cousin who was thinking of entering.”

“Oh? Perhaps it’s someone I know.”

“I doubt it. She’s new to the area.”

“Well, you’re a day early. The pie judging isn’t till tomorrow morning at eleven in the Fine Arts Building. It’s down this way, that building just beyond the Activities Tent.”

“Thank you, Miss Buckley,” Gloria said.

“It’s Mrs. Buckley, but you can call me Betty. Everyone does.”

“How is the pie judging done?” Nick wondered. “Do you have a panel of judges?”

“No, no! If we had a panel they’d eat up the whole pie and we couldn’t auction it off. We just have one judge, our local baker, Leonard Fine. He has the Fine Bake Shop out on Union Road. Makes the most delicious pastries!”

“We’ll have to give him a try,” Nick promised. “How does he go about the judging?”

“It’s a wonder to watch,” Betty told them, obviously warming to one of her favorite topics. “He sits on stage behind a table with the apple pies lined up, maybe six or eight of them, each with a small slice taken out. He studies each one, touches the crust, tastes the slice, and makes a few notes. Sometimes he goes back to a pie for another taste. All this time he never changes his expression. And of course he doesn’t know who submitted which pie. They’re all numbered, and the women who baked them are seated there in front of him with their friends and family, just dying of the suspense. Finally he announces the winner and usually says a few words in praise of that pie. The woman who baked it comes forward to accept her blue ribbon.”

“That’s all she gets?” Gloria asked. “A blue ribbon?”

“It’s a great honor, believe me.”

“Do men ever enter?” Nick asked.

“We had a man win the second-place red ribbon a few years back, but he took a lot of kidding. Haven’t had any men since then. That’s not to say a man can’t bake a good pie or cake, though. Len Fine is the best proof of that. I’ve heard of some county fairs that have a men’s contest for pie baking, but we don’t have enough men interested in it here.”

“You mentioned auctioning off the winning pie.”

“That’s right,” Betty confirmed with a nod. “Actually we auction off all the pies. There’s always a husband or beau willing to bid on them. That’s why the judge only eats a small slice. The pies are delivered in covered plastic containers and they’re sold in the same container. The proceeds go to the 4-H Club. Of course the blue-ribbon winner always brings the highest bids. Last year it went for ninety-five dollars.”

“That much?” Gloria asked with just a touch of irony.

Betty glanced at her watch. “Look, I’m supposed to be at the swine evaluations in five minutes. You two enjoy yourselves and maybe I’ll see you at the pie judging in the morning.”

“Well, the people are certainly friendly here,” Nick decided when she’d gone.

“This is great, Nicky! You won’t have to steal the pie at all. Just bid on it and you’ll get it for under a hundred dollars.”

“So it would seem. But apparently Milo Marx tried that last year and they wouldn’t sell it to him. Told him the pies were just for locals.”

Gloria chuckled. “Maybe they add a little pot or something, like that Chicago restaurant owner you used to know.”

“Can you picture that at the Jackson County Fair?”

“No, I guess not.”

They drove out to the Fine Bake Shop on Union Road and found it to be a bustling little place with a tempting selection of pies, cakes, and breads. While Gloria was purchasing an angel food cake with white frosting and multicolored sparkles, Nick asked if Len Fine was around.

“He’s in the back,” a teenaged clerk replied. “Want me to get him?”

Presently a handsome muscular man appeared, wearing a flour-covered apron over a bright red shirt. “I’m Len Fine. What can I do for you?”

Nick produced a business card he sometimes used. “My name is Nicholas. We’re doing a feature on county fairs for Sunday Magazine, and I understand you’ll be judging the apple-pie contest in the morning.”

“That’s right. Do it every year. Sometimes I judge the cakes, too, but this year I’m just doing the pies.”

Nick produced a notepad and pen, giving his best imitation of a journalist. “What do you consider the most important factors in judging a good apple pie?”

“First of all, the flavor of the apple must come through, and I always give high marks to appearance as well. The pie crust is important. I look for a crust that’s a bit flaky without falling apart. There’s a woman here in town, last year’s blue-ribbon winner, who has a near perfect crust recipe using egg and vinegar. I always know her pies. And her designs, occasionally with an intricate latticework covering, are the best I’ve ever seen. She may repeat her win again this year.”

“I’d be interested in interviewing her,” Nick told him. “Could you give me her name?”

“Sure, it’s Maggie Oates. She lives just a few blocks from here, and I know she’d love to see her name in the papers. I can call her if you’d like.”

“That would be helpful, especially if she ends up winning again.”

They parked in front of a two-story house with light green siding and a wide front porch. Maggie Oates was a pleasant, attractive woman in her thirties who greeted them at the door with a broad smile. “You’re the magazine folks Len phoned me about?”

“That’s right,” Nick said, offering his card. “This is Gloria, my photographer.” On cue, Gloria produced her impressive-looking digital camera.

“Come right in! My husband’s still at work but he’ll be home soon.” She led the way into the kitchen, a room that seemed to dominate the first floor of their modest house. Several pie tins were deployed along the countertop, and a finished pie cut into six pieces already had two pieces missing. “You’ll have to excuse the mess. It’s always like this at county-fair time. I like to work alone and ignore the clutter.”

“Is this your entry?” Nick asked, eyeing the partly eaten pie.

“That’s a test run. The final product is in the oven now. They taste the same, but my official entry has a fancier top crust. Want a piece?”

“Sure,” Gloria answered before Nick could decline.

Maggie Oates glanced at the cluttered kitchen table. “Let’s go in the dining room. It’s pleasanter there.”

She brought the remains of the pie along with some plates and forks. The dining room, like the rest of the downstairs, had a neat but lived-in look about it. She quickly doled out a piece of pie for each of them and took another for herself. “This is my third one,” she admitted. “I like my own baking.”

“It’s delicious,” Gloria decided after her first bite, and Nick had to admit it was tasty.

“I make grape pies during the fall harvest and sell them from here,” Maggie told them. “I do a nice little business, and that pleases Wayne.” A car pulled into the driveway. “That’ll be him now.”

Maggie’s husband was the sort who’d probably been a star athlete in high school before he acquired a pot belly and receding hairline. He seemed to like sharing in his wife’s sudden fame, and Nick hoped he wouldn’t be disappointed when the picture of the two of them that Gloria snapped never got published anywhere. A chime on the stove told Maggie that her apple pie was ready and she hurried to remove it from the oven. “I’ll let it cool a bit and then put it in its container for the judging.”

Nick and Gloria joined Wayne in admiring the finished product. There was none of the latticework Nick had expected. The top crust was solid, but an artistic outline of an apple had been cleverly formed by air holes. “Where did you learn to bake like this?” Gloria marveled.

“From my mother, of course. Isn’t that how all girls learn? Fran Oliver made the best cakes and pies in the county. Good as I am, I could never beat her. She won four blue ribbons at the fair and so far I only have one.”

“You’ll get there,” Wayne promised, squeezing her shoulder.

“I don’t know. Jenny Wadsworth was tough competition last year, and I’m sure she’ll have a pie in tomorrow’s contest.”

“Jackson County pies seem to attract attention,” Nick remarked as they returned to the dining room. “We heard a report that some art collector even tried to buy one last year to add to his collection.”

“That fellow Marx!” Wayne Oates said with a snort. “He was offering thousands of dollars for the prize-winning pie but Beth Buckley wouldn’t let him buy it. She got the county-fair commission to rule that only county residents could bid during the auction. She said the pies were for eating, not for display in a museum, and I suppose she had a point. He even asked Maggie to bake an identical pie for his collection but she refused.”

“I was tempted,” Maggie admitted. “He offered a great deal of money. But by that time the county was really up in arms. It had become a matter of civic pride that the winning pie stay here.”

“Speaking of pie, did you save a piece for me?” Wayne asked.

“Right here!”

“I’ll just get a knife from the kitchen,” he said, but when he returned with it he realized he didn’t need it. “There’s only one piece left. I can handle that.”

When the test pie had been consumed to everyone’s satisfaction, Maggie returned to the kitchen and placed the contest entry in a clear plastic container, sealing it with tape and adding a removable tag with her name, ready for delivery.

“What happens now?” Nick asked.

“I’ll give it to Beth at ten tomorrow morning and she’ll assign a number to it. Then it goes on the table for the judging.”

“How long does that take?”

“It depends on how many pies are entered. Betty cuts a thin slice out of each one and places it on a paper plate.”

“For Leonard Fine,” Wayne supplied. “He’s the judge.”

Nick smiled at him. “It would be a thrill to see your wife win another blue ribbon. Will you be there?”

He shook his head. “I work security at the county hospital and we’re short-handed. I have to be on duty. If Maggie wins, take lots of pictures.”

“We’ll do that,” Nick promised as they were leaving.

They found a room at a motel outside of town. Over dinner Gloria said, “You could have stolen the pie from her kitchen and we’d be on our way home now.”

Nick shook his head. “You’re forgetting it has to be the blue-ribbon winner. I have to wait for the judging. Just because she won last year doesn’t mean she’ll win again.”

“How are you going to steal it?”

“You’ll see.”

But things rarely went as smoothly as Nick planned. Returning to their motel room, they found a middle-aged woman in a sweatshirt and jeans waiting for them. “Are you Mr. Nicholas, the journalist?” she asked.

“I am. How can I help you?”

“My name is Rita Wadsworth. Maggie told me you’re doing a story on her pies and I want to make sure you include me. I’m going to win the blue ribbon this year.”

“Is that so?” Nick took out his key card for the door. “Please come in. We’ll certainly want to get your name in the story.”

Inside the cramped motel room the woman glanced at the queen-size bed as if wondering whether they both slept in it. “Now tell us about yourself,” Nick suggested. “Have you always lived in Clydestown?”

She sat uncomfortably on the edge of the sofa, clutching a large manila envelope. “Born and raised here. My husband and two sons work our dairy farm out on the Post Road. Maggie Oates and I have been rivals for years in the apple-pie judging. I won two years ago and she won last year. I’m out to reclaim the championship this time. When I phoned her tonight and she said you’d interviewed her, I checked the motels until I found where you were.”

“That was clever of you,” Gloria offered.

“I’ve got pictures of my prize-winning pie from two years ago if you’d like to see them.” She unclasped the envelope and slid out some color photos.

“Very nice,” Nick commented, passing them on to Gloria.

“The judging here has always stressed the appearance of the pie as much as its taste.” She added, “Sometimes I think the appearance of the baker counts, too, at least with Leonard Fine.”

“Isn’t it a blind judging?”

“Yes, but everyone recognizes Maggie’s special crust flavor. I try to be clever with my crust design, but she still beat me out last year.”

“You don’t approve of Fine’s judging?”

She shrugged. “The women all love him. We all wish we had a husband who could bake like he does.”

“If he picks your pie, be assured you’ll be seeing more of us.”

“You may keep the pictures for your story if you wish.”

Nick hesitated. “Let me just keep one and you take the rest.”

“Will you be at the judging in the morning?”

“I certainly will,” he assured her. “Good luck.”

The next morning they finished breakfast, picked up a New York paper, and drove out to the fairgrounds, arriving before ten so they could witness the delivery of the pies. Beth Buckley had positioned herself at the entrance to the Fine Arts Building, accepting apple pies in their plastic containers. “Hello there,” she greeted them. “I hear you’ve been getting around our town, talking to our baker and some of the ladies.”

“They’re talented people,” Nick assured her. “Gloria bought one of Fine’s angel food cakes and we had some last night.”

Already there were three apple pies in front of Beth Buckley and as they chatted Maggie Oates arrived with hers. Beth used a marking pen to write a number on the nametag and the same number on the plastic container. Then she removed Maggie’s tag and placed it with the others in a cigar box. “All set,” she told the young woman. “Good luck!”

“How many entries are there?” Maggie asked.

“Yours is number four, and I know we’ll be getting one from Rita Wadsworth.”

“Here she comes now,” Gloria observed, seeing her approach from the parking lot.

“That makes five,” Beth said as she accepted Rita’s pie. “Good luck to you both.”

“Come on, Maggie,” Rita urged. “We might as well sit together and show everyone we’re friends.”

Maggie followed her inside with some reluctance and Beth commented, “They’re not really friends at all, not during the fair. Last time they had a big argument about the merits of single-crust pie versus double-crust.”

Nick and Gloria strolled around a bit, watching children on the Ferris wheel and teenagers caring for their animals. One girl was leading a llama toward the Livestock Building and Gloria commented, “In my day we had pigs and goats.”

“Times change even on the farm.”

“Some things don’t change. They still have milking contests.”

They were back in time for the judging, just as Beth Buckley was up on stage slicing a slender piece from each pie and placing it on a paper plate. The pies themselves were in their original containers, opened so the judge could study their design. The spectators and contestants themselves were at the foot of the low stage, straining for a look at the entries and trying to guess who’d submitted each pie. There were still only five in the line, and when Nick asked Beth about it she shrugged. “I guess Rita and Maggie are strong contenders. They frightened most of the others away. But we’ve still got some great-looking pies.”

“Good enough to eat,” Gloria agreed.

They found seats in the third row as Leonard Fine entered and mounted the platform. He carried a black ledger in one hand, perhaps to record the results of his judging, and he’d exchanged his red shirt for a more dressy black one with gold braid on the sleeves. “Good morning, folks,” he greeted them. “It’s nice to see so much interest in the apple-pie judging, and I hope you’ll keep up that interest at auction time. Those of you who’ve attended my previous judging know that I give high marks for both taste and appearance. I understand we have two prior blue-ribbon winners among this year’s entrants, so my taste buds are really looking forward to this.”

The baker sat down behind the table and pulled all five slices of pie a bit closer. Starting at his left he cut a small piece with his fork and tasted it. The process was repeated with the next four. He seemed to enjoy every bite, but tried to keep his face impassive. Twice he went back for a second helping and the contestants in the front row seemed to hold their collective breaths.

Then, without warning, Len Fine’s expression changed. It was as if he’d suddenly bitten into a hive of bees. He opened his mouth and reached for a glass of water Beth had left on the table. Gulping it down, he seemed to recover for an instant. “The blue ribbon goes to pie number four,” he said clearly, then was seized by a fit of coughing. He slipped out of his chair and hit the floor.

Beth and a couple of others ran to the stage while the rest of the audience rose uncertainly to its feet. “Did you do that, Nicky?” Gloria whispered.

“Of course not! I think he’s been poisoned.”

Len Fine was dead by the time the ambulance crew arrived. Two women had fainted and the Fine Arts Building was in an uproar. Beth Buckley was on the platform trying to calm everyone down but it was a losing battle. Nick hurried to her side, speaking in a loud voice, and asked everyone to file out quietly. It seemed clear to him that Fine had been poisoned by one of the apple pies and he had a motive for lending Beth a hand with the crowd. It gave him an opportunity to slip the baker’s journal into the folds of the newspaper he carried. At that moment he didn’t know himself why he wanted it.

Once outside, Gloria asked, “Where does that leave us?”

“He lived long enough to name pie number four as the winner. That was Maggie Oates’s number.”

“Yes, but surely the police will take all five pies as evidence. You’ll never get your hands on any of them.”

They remained on the scene while the body was removed and the county sheriff questioned Mrs. Buckley and the spectators who’d been closest to the stage. All agreed that Fine seemed in perfect health when he entered the building and spoke to them. It wasn’t until he tasted the pies that he seemed to become ill.

The sheriff, a man named Pike with a bushy red moustache, asked Beth if Fine had eaten anything else. “Not a thing,” she replied, but was immediately corrected by Ruth Wadsworth.

“He drank some of the water,” she reminded them.

Sheriff Pike glanced at the half-empty glass and motioned to a deputy. “We’d better take that, too.”

When the building was finally cleared, Nick and Gloria headed back to their car. He produced Fine’s journal from the folds of his newspaper. “What’s that?” Gloria asked.

“He had this with him. I thought it might have information about the pie judging, but it appears to be mostly an appointment book with the fair dates and his personal schedule.”

“That won’t tell us anything.”

“No...” He hesitated and flipped through several of the pages. “I wonder what this is. Every week or ten days there’s a notation Moo.”

“Maybe he has a thing about cows.”

“Or dairy farms,” Nick suggested, remembering Rita Wadsworth’s farm.

They drove back to the motel while Nick tried to decide his next move. Gloria was certainly correct that Maggie’s prize-winning pie was beyond his reach, and by the time the police finished their tests it wouldn’t look like anything Milo Marx would want to preserve in plastic. Somehow he had to convince Maggie to bake a duplicate pie without mentioning Marx’s name.

Later that afternoon they returned to the Oates home. Maggie had called Wayne at work with the news of Fine’s death and he’d come home early to comfort her. “She’s pretty broken up,” he told them at the door. “I don’t think she wants visitors.”

Maggie heard them talking and put in an appearance. “It’s a terrible tragedy, what happened to Len. He was such a fine man. I gave a statement to the police about my pie, but there’s no way it could have been poisoned.”

“If he was poisoned I’m sure it came from elsewhere,” Nick said.

But even as he uttered those reassuring words the sheriff’s car pulled up in front of the house with a state police car right behind it. Sheriff Pike came onto the porch and spoke the dire words. “Sorry to bother you again, Maggie, but we’re going to have to take you in for further questioning. The preliminary lab report indicates the poison was in your pie, though they haven’t determined the source of it yet.”

“That’s impossible! I didn’t poison Len, and I was alone here when I baked it. After it cooled I sealed it in its plastic box. It wasn’t opened till Beth cut the slices for judging this morning, and she did that before a roomful of people.”

The sheriff tried to calm her. “No one’s saying it was deliberate, Maggie. Maybe some drain cleaner accidentally spilled into your filling.”

“No!” she insisted. “No, no, no! Why would I kill him when he gave me the blue ribbon last year and again this year?”

“You didn’t know you’d be winning again,” the sheriff pointed out. “Maybe you thought he’d give the ribbon to Rita.”

Wayne Oates tried to intervene. “If Maggie leaves this house, I’m going with her. You’ll have to lock me up, too.”

“The state cops just have some more questions, Maggie. You’ll have to come along.”

Nick watched them lead her away, with Wayne following behind. “There goes your chance of getting another pie,” Gloria said.

The following morning it was announced that Maggie Oates was being held without bail and the case would be referred to the grand jury for possible indictment. Nick was finished in Clydestown. He had failed an assignment for the first time in his career. The prize pie was being dissected in a police lab and the only person who might duplicate it was behind bars. Nick and Gloria checked out of their motel and headed home.

“You shouldn’t feel bad,” Gloria said, trying to comfort him. “There was nothing you could do.”

As they headed out of town he could see the top of the Ferris wheel and the tents for the fair. A truck came out of the road ahead with two prize cows in the back, their blue ribbons proudly displayed. “Cows, Nicky. Moo!”

“Are you trying to cheer me up?”

“I was reminding you of the notes in the baker’s appointment book. Remember?”

“I remember,” Nick replied after just a moment’s silence. He made a quick U-turn on the nearly deserted road. “We’re going back.”

“Back where?”

“To the sheriff’s office.”

They arrived within minutes and he parked behind the sheriff’s car. “What are you trying to do?” she asked.

“Deliver the winning pie to Milo Marx. And the only way I can do it is by getting Maggie Oates out of jail.”

“You’re not planning a jail break!”

“No, I’m planning to convince them that she didn’t poison Len Fine.”

They found Beth Buckley and Rita Wadsworth in the waiting room. “The sheriff and county prosecutor are taking statements from everyone,” Beth explained. “They’ve got Maggie’s husband in there now.”

Nick strode forward and knocked on the door. An angry Sheriff Pike opened it. “We’re not to be disturbed. What are you doing here, Nicholas?”

“I have important information regarding Leonard Fine’s death, Sheriff.”

“Just wait out there till we’re finished with Mr. Oates.”

“It can’t wait,” Nick said, forcing his way into the room. The county prosecutor half rose from his chair, looking startled, and Wayne Oates merely seemed puzzled.

Nick dropped Leonard Fine’s journal on the sheriff’s desk. “I accidentally picked this up along with my papers after Fine’s collapse. When I realized what it was, I had to return it right away.”

“Accidentally,” the prosecutor repeated, but Nick ignored him.

He flipped open the book to the daily appointments section and pointed to the series of MOO notations. “Do you have any notion as to what these mean?” he asked, holding the book for Wayne Oates to see.

“Not the slightest.”

“That’s odd, since they’re your wife’s initials. She happened to mention that her mother’s name was Oliver. She’s Maggie Oliver Oates.”

The sheriff and the prosecutor were both out of their chairs, crowding around for a look at the book. “What’s this mean, Wayne?” Sheriff Pike asked.

“I don’t know.”

But Nick had an explanation. “It means that Len Fine and your wife were meeting regularly, every week or ten days. Can you think of any reason for those meetings?”

Wayne Oates moistened his lips. “No.”

“Since you had no knowledge of these meetings, is it safe to say they were clandestine in nature?”

That brought Wayne out of his chair, too. “Listen, if you’re implying my wife and Fine were lovers, you’re—”

“That’s exactly what I’m implying. And somehow you found out about it.”

Sheriff Pike stepped between them. “Let’s everyone calm down and be seated. If Maggie and Len were having a secret relationship, maybe he broke it off. Maybe that’s why she poisoned him.”

“Would she have poisoned her own pie, Sheriff, knowing it would make her the number-one suspect? And would Fine have used his dying breath to declare her the winner if they’d broken off their relationship?”

Sheriff Pike was shaking his head. “Then you tell me, Mr. Nicholas, who else could possibly have poisoned that pie? The testimony shows that Maggie was alone when she baked it, and sealed it in a box as soon as it was cool. She delivered it to Beth Buckley at the fair. Beth opened the pies and cut slices for judging in full view of the spectators. There was no chance for her or anyone else to have poisoned it.”

“You’re forgetting the matter of motive,” Nick said. “If Maggie and Fine were having an affair, there’s one other person with a motive for killing him — and who wouldn’t be too upset if Maggie got blamed for it.”

“Look here!” Wayne said, out of his chair again. “I didn’t kill anybody! There’s no way I could have poisoned that pie.”

“Ah, but there is,” Nick told them. “While the pie was cooling in the kitchen you went out there to get a knife to cut yourself a piece of the test pie, even though there was only one piece left. While you were out there with the pie it was a simple matter to poison it.”

“How?” Wayne demanded. “Tell me how! The pie was already baked, with its crust intact.”

“By injecting the poison into the pie with a hypodermic needle, through the air holes in the top crust. You’re a security guard at the hospital, with plenty of opportunity to obtain both the poison and the needles.”

That was the beginning of the end. By day’s end, Wayne Oates had made a full confession and Maggie had been freed. Nick and Gloria waited for her and drove her home. “I can’t thank you enough,” she told them. “You’ve saved my life. And Beth is awarding me the blue ribbon, even though Wayne poisoned my pie. If there’s anything I can do to repay you—”

“There is one thing,” Nick told her with a smile. “You could bake us one of those prize-winning pies.”