The Case of the Misplaced Cookbook

The Case of the Misplaced Cookbook

Maple Glen, Iowa, wasn’t known for much. It was a typical Midwest town—old, dusty, damp, and friendly. The kind of place where the newspaper still ran a column called Seen Around Town, folks kept casseroles in their freezers “just in case.” It helped that the crossroads was a long, gritty one hundred and seven minutes from Des Moines, give or take a tractor.

The town boasted a single blinking stoplight, a diner with world-class rhubarb pie, and a population of just under 1,200 souls, 1,198 of whom had never been in trouble with the law.

Edna Mae Pilcher was one of them.

At seventy-eight, Edna Mae was as law-abiding as anyone in Maple Glen. She’d been a substitute crossing guard, once turned in a ten-dollar bill she found in the Rexall parking lot, and still mailed birthday cards with hand-pressed flowers and a real stamp. Every Wednesday afternoon, rain or shine, Edna Mae hosted a potluck recipe club in the basement of First Lutheran Church. It was the highlight of her week.

This is why the sheriff’s arrest of her for grand theft shocked her first—and then all of Maple Glen.

It all started with a library book.

Specifically, Betty Gunderson’s Prize-Winning Midwestern Casseroles: 1947–1984. The book was a spiral-bound treasure, with food-stained pages, typewriter font, and a foreword written as a prayer (“Lord, bless this tater tot bake, and the hands what made it…”). It had gone out of print decades ago, making it a prized local relic.

Edna Mae had checked it out months ago—far longer than she meant to, really—but between a hip replacement and the surprise birth of her third great-grandchild (Baby Tucker, born at six pounds and with a full head of red hair), the book had simply slipped her mind.

When the library began sending overdue notices, Edna Mae didn’t see them. She didn’t do email, though one of her sons had set up an account for her under the user name “SpunkyGran42.” Phone calls? She stopped answering the phone after her eldest grandchild gave her a smartphone and ported her landline over. “It buzzes like a bug,” she said. “I don’t trust it.” The final warning letter? Tucked beneath a stack of church bulletins and the obituary clippings she was saving “just in case someone needed a nice quote.”

It was a sleepy Thursday morning, one of those beautiful, clear days that generally ended in tornadoes, when Sheriff Duane Haskins knocked on her door.

“Morning, Edna Mae,” he said, holding his hat politely over his chest. “I’ve got a warrant.”

“For what?” she asked, apron still dusted with Bisquick and a crockpot of ambrosia salad cooling on the counter.

“Theft of government property,” he said sheepishly. “From the library.”

Edna Mae stared at him. “Well, I suppose I should’ve seen this coming. I never did return that Tupperware to Dottie Peters, either.”

The next few hours were like something out of a Hallmark crime special—if Hallmark had a subgenre for geriatric misdemeanors.

The sheriff drove Edna Mae to the station in his truck (he let her ride up front and even turned on the seat warmer). Along the way, they passed Trudy Webber, who was walking her poodle, and Mr. Clemens, who was on his porch with his oxygen tank. Each waved, then paused, mouths agape.

At the station, Edna Mae was fingerprinted (“They’re going to think I’m one of those internet scammers now!”) and photographed, both from the side and front. She complained she hadn’t put on makeup and asked if she could at least fix her hair. Deputy Ricky handed her a comb.

Sheriff Haskins explained that the library had officially filed a complaint after repeated attempts to recover the book. Apparently, due to a recent policy change, any unreturned materials valued over $50 could be considered theft of public resources. Betty Gunderson's Casseroles now qualified thanks to a recent bidding war on eBay.

“I didn’t steal it,” Edna Mae insisted between sobs into a floral handkerchief. “I just forgot! I was going to return it right after the potluck!”

Word spread like dandelions in July.

By noon, the entire town knew.

By three o’clock, casseroles were stacked on the sheriff’s desk—chicken tetrazzini, tuna noodle bakes, and one ill-advised pineapple enchilada—and a small protest had formed in the library parking lot. The protesters held signs that read “FREE EDNA!” and “CASSEROLES ARE NOT CRIMES.” Someone even tried to organize a GoFundMe, but gave up after accidentally listing Edna as “an aspiring rapper.”

“She’s a good woman,” said Gladys Krantz to the Channel 6 news van. Gladys hadn’t spoken to Edna Mae since the Great Chili Cook-Off Controversy of ’09 (it involved beans, sabotage, and a mislabeled spice jar), but bygones were bygones. “If this can happen to her, it could happen to any of us.”

The mayor and the high school civics class got involved, turning the incident into a semester-long unit on civil liberties and local government overreach. Three of the students later became attorneys.

Finally, after three days of scandal, casseroles, and surprisingly civil town meetings, the library board convened in an emergency session. They voted (4–1, with Doris Beckley abstaining due to conflict of interest—Edna was her canasta partner) to drop the charges.

But only on one condition: Edna Mae would help reorganize the library's cooking section and bake one of her award-winning casseroles for the next library fundraiser.

She agreed, gladly.

Betty Gunderson’s Casseroles was returned with a handwritten apology, two new pages of notes (“Try the ham loaf with root beer glaze!”), and a Post-it that said, “I regret not returning the book on time.”

The next library potluck was standing room only.

At the pace of a quiet small town a plaque was placed in a corner near the entrance to the Maple Glen library, that reads:

IN HONOR OF EDNA MAE PILCHER

Who reminded us all that a missing casserole book is not a crime,

but forgetting your neighbors might be.