To Catch A Thief

Remember my poor stolen car? We savaged a few things from it after it was found--a road atlas, a few old tapes. There also was a bag of receipts--we wanted to rip them up rather then leave them in the car for someone else to find. So tonight, Nick was going through them and ripping them up. (Yes, we could have done that almost 10 months ago, but you know--what's the rush?) In the process he found a receipt from April 12th. "Who would have thought that it would be your last time driving the car," he said.

I looked at the receipt suspiciously. I definitely did not go to a CVS Pharmacy in Dorchester at 9:40pm on the night I parked the car for the last time. I did take the car through a car wash, but I was home by 8:30pm at the latest. The more I thought about it, the more I became convinced that this was not my receipt. In fact I parked the car for the last time on Tuesday, April 10. I remeber because it was the day of the Red Sox home opening game, and it took me forever to find a parking spot. And it was not until the fateful morning of April 13 when I returned to find my car missing.

I brewed over this receipt for a few hours. (Nick carefully deposited the evidence in a clear Ziploc bag.) Finally I could stand it no longer. I called police. Yes, they could have used it if I had found the receipt earlier. The police could have scanned through the pharmacy's security video tapes around the time on the receipt to try and identify the thief, but those tapes usually get destroyed after 30 days.

Oh, the rush of hopes and the disappointment. How many more cars did these guys steal, and are they still in the chop shop business?