Run: 2026-09-23-01M37PG8ZDZKQKHFEH36GGZCCX

The bell above the door jingled, and cinnamon-scented warmth rushed out into the gray October morning. "You're early. The scones won't be out for another ten minutes." "I'm not here for scones, Martha. I'm here about the pie." "Which pie? I bake forty a day." "The blue-ribbon cherry. The one Harold Pickett was eating when he collapsed at the church social." Flour drifted from her apron as she set down the rolling pin. "Now, Sheriff, you can't possibly think my pie had anything to do with that." "I don't think anything yet. But Doc Whitley found almonds in his system. Harold was allergic. Everybody in Maple Hollow knew it." "Then it wasn't my pie. I use vanilla, never almond extract. Forty years, same recipe." "You're certain?" "I'd stake my oven on it." She wiped her hands slowly, eyes narrowing. "But I'll tell you something. That pie sat on the dessert table for a good hour before anyone cut it." "Unattended?" "Oh, hardly. Dolores Finch hovered over it the whole time. Said she was admiring the lattice." "Dolores. The same Dolores who lost the ribbon to you three years running?" "The very same. Now, how about that scone?"