You know how when you know you should do something but don’t want to do it, you find other things to do? Within an hour, my kitchen was sparkling down to the chrome on the water faucet at the sink and refrigerator grate.

I scolded myself, and, sinking down into my most comfortable chair, called the police. Detective John McBrennain was in charge of car trafficking and, I was told, he would be given the message and would contact me.

The next evening a loud knock on my door startled me, and, although the moon hadn’t yet risen, I had my pajamas on – a wild floral combination of red, orange, and spring green. I flew into my bedroom, pulled sweatpants and a sweat shirt over my pjs and raced to open the door before I realized I should look through the peek hole first. My first hope was that it was the rough stranger with gray eyes even though he might be a car trafficker. How desperate was I? It wasn’t.

Detective McBrennain showed his badge and stepped across the threshold. I invited him to sit at the kitchen table, made coffee (my policy was no decaf, but he looked like someone who preferred the dark of night to the light of day anyway), and told him my story. I told him about the car, the man with glorious gray eyes, and seeing the same car on a Facebook post of a missing car. I told him the car must have been given a paint job, otherwise – and here I held up my beautifully manicured nails – it had been white. I told him I recognized the car by a triangle of tiny dings on the door handle.

Okay, I didn’t describe the trafficker’s eyes as glorious. I do have some sense. As I waited for John McBrennain to finish his furious scribbling in a little notebook, I looked down and noticed wild red, orange, and spring green sticking out from under my sweats. I tried pulling the bottom of my pant leg down with my foot, then gave up, reached down, and gave it a yank.

When I looked up, Detective McBrennain had placed a picture in front of me on the table. His eyes looked dead as he stared at me. “Are you playing games with me, Ma’am?”

“What? No!”

“We have been trying to track this guy down for years. And now I’m called to a house and given a story by someone who is next to him in a picture dropped at my office just one day ago. It certainly looks current.”

He gave me a perfunctory once over, clearly unimpressed.

“May I see your phone?”

I wondered if he could actually ask for it, but I couldn’t think of a reason to refuse. He gave it a couple of taps and frowned.

“You’ll need to come down to the station with me.”

I couldn’t believe this was happening. “No! This . . . this . . . guy, the car owner or trafficker or whoever he is took the picture with my phone.”

John McBrennain raised his eyebrows and tilted his head.

“Look, I know how this sounds . . .”

“Do you know how it looks, too?”

I paused, my mind racing. Someone who looked that glorious wouldn’t be as awful as I was beginning to think he was.

My mouth was dry as I said, “He set me up, Detective.”

The Detective rose as if he hadn’t heard me, pulled out a pair of handcuffs, and led me to his car.

to be continued . . .

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