Those Stolen Secrets

Sheriff Wilt glanced over the broken glass and empty bottles of spices. “That damned thief is going to put us out of business,” he grunted, and Mrs. Pierce wasn’t going to let him talk her out of her idea this time. “This wouldn’t have happened if you would have listened to me.” She looked at the Sheriff as she continued. “This tool thought that spending a little bit of money on a security system was a ‘stupid idea’, and now look at us: robbed and without our secret recipe. I told him, but he didn’t listen. I-” “Well maybe if she would have let me lock away the recipe in the cellar like I intended on doing, we wouldn’t have-” “Calm down, both of you,” said the Sheriff. “I’m here to help, not be sucked into this quarrel between you two. You’ve been together some thirty years. I’m sure that you can forgive and forget about this one thing. I’m sure it wasn’t that important. It’s just a piece of paper, after all,” he said, and they both turned red. “A piece of paper?” he asked. “That was my dad’s famous recipe. Now it’s in the hands of who knows who. I’ll never see it again. All because she wouldn’t let me write it down somewhere else so that it would be safe.” “If you wrote it down, you would double the amount of effort we would have to do to make sure that nobody ever found it.” “Well, it would have doubled the amount of copies of it that existed. Now there’s just the one, and it’s gone.” Wilt looked at the ground and let out a sigh as they fought, but as he looked up, his smile came back. “I’m sure that it will turn up somewhere. Who knows, maybe the thief will find the kindness in their heart to return it. You never know when the spirit of the season will change the hearts of even the coldest people.” As he spoke, they seemed to calm down. “There’s nothing else that I can do at this point. My deputies are working on this. So if there’s anything that you need, don’t hesitate to call me.” He took his hat from the rack beside the door and gave them one last glance. He walked out the door. As he left, Mr. Pierce strode over to the counter and looked through the register where the deputy was taking pictures. He looked up at the deputy, and he looked down from the camera that he was looking at the back of. The deputy was a man, not any older than 25, who stood at a height of around six and a half feet, but never really took advantage of his height. “This has to be the strangest robbery that I’ve ever seen,” he said, and he took the lollipop out of his mouth. “Why?” asked Mr. Pierce, who was leaning over the counter. He tilted his head and continued. “Well, first of all, there’s no money missing from the register.” He pressed the top button on the register, and the tray slid out, confirming his statement. “Why would they just take a recipe card? That’s the part that I don’t understand. I’ve seen some high level robberies in my short career, with some even ending up in a chalk outline on the ground afterwards - whether it be the robber or the person that was robbed. But the thing is, I’ve never seen somebody steal something as both convenient and obscure as a recipe card. It just doesn’t add up. Why didn’t they just clear out the register?” Mrs. Pierce walked over and put her hands on her husbands shoulders. “That’s the part that you don’t understand. The recipe card wasn’t the real secret. It was a fairly typical pie recipe, with a few extra things thrown in here and there. The secret was the last ingredient on the list, which makes our pies unique. If anybody used that ingredient, we would be just another baked goods store. We can only count our blessings, though. Thank heavens that nobody else was here and that nobody got hurt in the process. Things could have turned out a lot worse. I’m glad that things worked out the way that they did.” She pulled her arms around her husband and pulled him into her embrace. “I love you, sweetheart. I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to you.” The Sheriff looked away as they kissed, both uncomfortable with affection and preoccupied with the evidence photos that he was tasked with taking. “Right. Well, it seems that I’m done here. If there’s anything else that I can do for you lovely people, don’t think twice about giving the station a call. Have a lovely day.” He exited the bakery, leaving just the Pierces and a lot of banana cream pies in the showcase. 

As Mrs. Pierce threw off her socks, she readied herself for bed. “Hey honey,” she said as she rounded the corner to the hallway. Mr. Pierce sat in the kitchen reading a magazine, particularly the latest edition of Botany Weekly. His ears perked up, and his attention was diverted from his leisurely read. “Yes, dear?” “Do you really think they’re going to find the person who broke into the bakery?” He pulled his head back in confusion. “I have hope in the police in this town. I have faith that things will go our way, why?” She fumbled around with the cords to the toaster. “I was just thinking about today and it keeps bothering me.” She pulled up a seat to the table and sat down. “So you think there’s something else going on?” She looked at the plants on the wall, trying to avoid the question, but realized that she had brought on the impromptu interrogation. “No. Maybe. I don’t - I just think that maybe the person who broke in might be somebody close to us, that’s all. It’s just one of those feelings, you know what I mean?” He nodded his head, but not with as much zeal as she had hoped. "Yeah. Sometimes we try to see the strength in people, and they just see the weakness in us, and they prey on that. You can know somebody your entire life and not see the monster behind their eyes. I don't wish anything bad to whoever stole the recipe. I hope they have a merry Christmas." She nodded at what he said. "Yeah."

Sheriff Wilt wiped away a tear as he held the recipe card in his hand. He sat in his 2003 Subaru and wiped away tears with his handkerchief. "I just wanted to be different. I wanted to help people, and now this. This is what I've become." He let out a painful sigh as he shoved the recipe card into his glove box. As he did, he rested his head on the steering wheel. "I just wanted to help people."