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

“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.”