Last Wednesday, I went to the Chase bank on Tennessee and Broadway.
Standing in front of the teller, finishing up my business, I placed my
keys on the ledge in front of me so I could sign the receipt. Just as I
was about to put the keys in my pocket, my phone rang, and I grabbed the
phone from my pocket instead, spoke for half a minute, then looked back
to my keys.
But they were gone.
Several people at the bank
tried to help me find them. They weren’t in my car, or in my pockets,
not in my bag or on the floor, or anywhere. While the search was going
on, certain the key-snatcher would steal it, I kept an eye on my little
red Honda FIT, parked in the first space in front of the big glass doors
of the bank. I asked the security guard to continue the vigil while I
went home to get my duplicate key. A kind customer at the bank, Tom
Green, a veteran and a gentleman, who lives in Country Club Crest, and
to whom I am eternally grateful, drove me home and back. When we
returned some 20 minutes later, my car was still there.
Why would someone snatch my keys and not steal my car? It makes
no sense. Once home I decided to wait a day or so before making a new
set of keys, on the off chance someone picked them up by mistake and
brought them back to the bank. But I never really believed that would
happen.
Next day, I got a call from a fellow named Jason who works
at the Fairfield Public Library, asking me to call Detective John
Corcoran of the Pinole Police Department about some keys. Imagine my
shock when Detective Corcoran told me he’d arrested a couple driving a
stolen car in Pinole the day before, and a search turned up my keys in
the back of their car. My library card was on the key-ring and that’s
how he found me. The little plastic card contained a bar-code that
allowed Jason to trace me in the library’s data base. How about them
apples!
As there was a warrant out for the woman’s arrest, Detective
Corcoran was also able to search their motel room, where he found piles
of mail stolen from Vallejo. Incidentally, he told me the mail would be
turned over to the Post Office, but would probably never be processed
because the Post Office to too understaffed to handle that work.
Why
didn’t they steal my car? They could have had they acted quickly. The
detective guessed they may have had a change of heart. I’ll never know. I
didn’t press charges.
The story gets better: Detective Corcoran not only found my keys,
and found me, he drove all the way up to Vallejo to deliver them in
person. What a fine fellow!
Heartfelt thanks and three cheers for
Detective John Corcoran of the Pinole Police Department — and to the
Good Samaritan at the bank, Tom Green of Country Club Crest.
And
here’s a $1 million idea for the Vallejo Police Department: Manufacture
and sell small plastic cards for key-rings with bar-codes containing the
owner’s ID that only police can read.
