Strawberry Cannoli

Police officers are everywhere on the strip mall searching for the culprits who broke into the Ninth Street Bakery. They enhance the streetlights with flashlights, search light and noise from a helicopter draws curious onlookers from the surrounding apartment buildings. The bakery’s ceiling lights make it easy for the police crime scene officers to search for evidence. Detectives Bogart and Cagney stand in the doorway observing.

           The bakery owner, Joseph, with his family arrives but the police officer manning the tape stops them. “I own the place,” Joseph yells. His family reinforce him. “Let them through,” Bogart shouts. Joseph leads his family to the door. Cagney stops them from entering the store. “We need for you to wait a moment for our officer to clear out from their search,” he says.

           “We got a call from the security company that the alarm went off,” Joseph says.

           “Yes that’s right,” Gloria, his wife, says.

           “We thought that it was our son Michael forgetting to reset the alarm until we got a call from you guys,” Joseph says.

           “Is Michael here now?” Bogart asks.

           “Yes, right there,” Gloria says. She points.

           “He was dress and ready to come and start the oven and begin the mixing when I called him,” Joseph says.

           Crime scene signals that they’re done.

           “We want you to go inside and check for anything that is out of the ordinary,” Cagney says.

           “Yes of course,” Joseph says. He leads his family into the store.

           “The only thing that got our attention was the point of break-in and got some prints, but we’ll need their fingerprints to rule them out,” Sergeant says.

           “We will let them know,” Bogart says.

           Joseph finds that the day’s startup money is still on the premises and nothing else of value has been taken or disturbed. “It seems the alarm scared whoever off without taking anything,” he says.

           “Well, in that case, we will leave the bakery to you, except that an officer will standby for a couple hours just in case the burglar gets his nerves up and come back,” Cagney says.

           The family puts the bakery into operations. It all goes along well until Stephanie, the youngest child, in a stun manner says, “the recipe for our strawberry cannoli is gone.” Joseph examines the recipe binder then Gloria then both stare at each other. “The son of bitch took our holidays money maker,” Joseph says, “get that officer down here.” Their middle child, John, rushes up the basement stairway.

Joseph tells Bogart and Cagney. “We leave it out all the time since nobody comes down here but us.”  

           “We will need to check it for fingerprints,” Cagney says.

           “Nobody touches it but us,” Michael says.

           “We have so many recipes that we have to make sure the ingredients gets into the right product without guessing about it,” Gloria says.

           “And the holidays are right around the corner,” Joseph says.

           “Who are your biggest competitors?” Bogart asks.

           “Every bakery in the city,” Michael says.

           “They make copies,” Stephanie says, “it’s our secret ingredient that makes ours the original.”

           “Done,” crime scene Sergeant says. He leaves.

           “Okay. Any others have access to the binder besides you and your family?” Cagney asks.

           “No, just the family, we have clerks, but they’re not permitted down here, an insurance reason,” Joseph says.  

           “Okay, we’ll have to check out what we have so far, and we will keep in touch with you,” Bogart says.

Two days later, in the bakery office, Joseph sits at his desk opening, reading mail until he see sees an envelope without a stamp. He opens it, then reads the letter then yells for Gloria. She hurries into the office, sees Joseph’s expression of fear, anger. “What’s wrong?” she asks. He gives her the letter. She reads it, stun, asks, “is this jerk kidding?” The culprit is holding the strawberry cannoli recipe for ransom, for a sixteen-inch-high round wedding cake with red velvet flavor with pink champagne filling. The exchange date will arrive in two days. The detectives are called.

“Are you sure that no other persons had gone into the basement other than you and your family?” Bogart asks.

           “No one, like I said, it would mess up our insurance if anyone got hurt,” Joseph says.

           “Utilities readers?” Cagney asks.

           “All the meters are outside,” Joseph says.

           “Well, we believe that someone had come down there, maybe, without you knowing,” Bogart says.  

           “Have you fired any clerks lately?” Cagney asks.

           “Not in twenty years,” Joseph says.

           “We would like to talk to your children and clerks,” Bogart says.

           The interviews take place in the bakery office. First the clerks then Michael then John then Stephanie. “I once let my high school boyfriend look around the basement.”

           “Did you talk about the recipe binder?” Cagney asks.

           “Well, yeah, but that was four years ago,” she says.

           “Do you remember his name and address?” Bogart asks.

           “His name, yeah, I mean it was four years ago,” she says.

           “We’ll take that into consideration,” Cagney says.

           Stephanie tells them the boyfriend’s name, Harry Rogers, what he looked like when she last saw him, where he lived when she last saw him.

           Bogart does a computer search for Harry Rogers. He has several drug arrests and arrests relating to drugs. Crime scene forensic Sergeant tells the detectives that the types on the letter is not from a computer printer but an old-style typewriter and on the back of the letter they lifted a print from the tip of a finger and they’re running a search as he speaks.  

           The fingerprint belongs to Harry Rogers.

Joseph receives the exchange date and location. On the detectives suggestion, he had baked the cake.

           Bogart and Cagney has no real address for Harry, so they put out an all-points bulletin that a patrol officer notices and informs the detectives that Harry is a homeless fellow with a female companion who is also homeless. He haven’t seen them on the streets in a while.  So, the detectives devise a plan to surveil the exchange location.

           The exchange is made; Harry is apprehended. The recipe is saved. The female companion appears screaming, crying “that’s my wedding cake.”

“She can keep the cake but lock that son-of-bitch up,” Joseph says.  

           “She gets to eat cake; we don’t get no donuts,” Cagney says.

           “Well, at least we caught the bad guy,” Bogart says.