The Salted Cherry Pie

Margaret Holt had spent thirty years as a detective in Milwaukee without anyone trying to bribe her with pie. Then she retired to the small town of Pine Hollow, Wisconsin, and agreed to judge the pie contest at the county fair, and suddenly her neighbors were dropping off "just a little something to try" every week.

She returned every single one, untouched. Old habits die hard.

The favorite was Doris Lindqvist, who had won the blue ribbon eleven years in a row with her famous sour cherry pie. Half the town only entered so that they could say they had lost to Doris.

So when Margaret took her first bite of Doris's pie on the afternoon of the contest, she nearly choked. It wasn't slightly salty; it was disastrously salty, as if every spoonful of sugar had been replaced with salt.

A murmur went through the tent. Doris, standing beside her table, went pale.

Within an hour, the whole fair had a theory. Some blamed Bev Sorensen, who had come second for nine years and had never hidden her feelings about it. Others blamed Doris's nephew Kyle, who had been seen near her kitchen the night before.

Margaret had no intention of playing detective again, but old instincts don't retire just because you do. She asked Doris whether she could take a look at her kitchen.

The kitchen was spotless. On the counter stood two glass jars, labeled SUGAR and SALT in Doris's neat handwriting. Margaret tasted a pinch from each and frowned. The sugar was sugar, the salt was salt, and both jars were full. Nobody had switched anything. Then she found an empty box of salt in the recycling bin, with a receipt from the day before.

She found Doris alone on the back porch and sat down beside her. It was Doris who finally broke the silence.

"Eleven years," she said quietly. "Every summer I tell myself it's the last time, and every summer somebody says, 'Doris, you can't stop now. What would the fair be without you?' My sister has been begging me to spend a summer with her in Alaska for five years, but summer means cherry season, and then the fair. If I'd ever learned to say no, I wouldn't be sitting here now."

"So you lost on purpose."

"If I'd simply withdrawn, they'd have talked me back into it within a week. But nobody begs a woman who's lost her touch. Are you going to tell anyone?"

Margaret thought of Bev and Kyle. Then she went back to the fair and announced that no one had tampered with Doris's pie and that the case was closed. Not only did the rumors stop by evening, but Kyle, who had only been fixing his aunt's sink, got an apology from half the town.

Bev won the ribbon that year and cried through her whole speech. Doris spent the following summer in Anchorage, and in September a postcard of a moose arrived in Margaret's mailbox. On the back, Doris had written: "Best summer of my life. No pie. Not even once."