Robbery Update

Later on Wednesday (the day of the theft) I got to speak with the hotel detective again. He think s he knows who stole my watch and ring. They saw him on the hotel security cameras. The community of hotel security people evidently keeps in touch, because he said he learned from his colleagues at other hotels that the guy was active at other hotels earlier in the week. He asked me to file a police report so they could try to get fingerprints from the coffee cup.

Speaking with the Boston police I learned it could be several days before a detective gets assigned to my case. Frown.

Yesterday I asked the police if it would be worth my effort to check area pawn shops, because I had a couple free hours before I needed to catch my plane home. The policeman said it was a good idea, and that occasionally someone is able to find their stolen property at a pawn shop.

I looked in the yellow pages and found two pawn shops within 15 minutes walk of the hotel. In all my life I had never before been in a pawn shop, so I was beginning to look forward to a new adventure.

In the first shop reality hit. The shopkeeper said I might have a very slight chance of finding my watch, but a gold ring would just be quickly melted down and used for other jewelry. I asked if there might be certain shops where stolen jewelry is more likely to show up; he said that any jewelry store buys gold jewelry, and that a thief would go to a jewelry store before a pawn shop because at a pawn shop they have to fill out paperwork, and at a jewelry store they can just sell it.

Onward to the next planned stop, which was around the corner and about three blocks away. Rounding the corner I immediately saw a jewelry shop with a large sign indicating they buy old jewelry. Upon entering the store, I saw it was more like a mini-market than a single store. Counters lined both walls all the way to the back of the store. Every 8 or 10 feet of counter was staffed by a different vendor. That was a LOT of second hand jewelry to look through.

Continuing my journey to the planned second stop, I encountered two more of the jewelry mini-markets. After looking through five shops in three blocks, and seeing that the same type of neighborhood extended for many more blocks, and assuming I'd continue to find a jewelry shop or two on every block, I determined that this haystack was much too large.

Every time I look at my bare wrist to see what time it is, I feel hassled that I now have to look somewhere else. But the loss of the ring is much worse. There's a lot of sentimentality attached to a ring of almost 19 years. Also, some of you who know that I'm a consummate fidgetter, and that my ring was my favorite subject to fidget with. Now I feel a loss every time I reach for my ring to give it a spin on the table, or move it from finger to finger, or slide it up and down my tie, etc.

I'm thinking about contacting the jeweler who made my original ring so long ago, to have him make me a new one just like the old one. Who knows, perhaps the same gold that was in my old ring will have made it's way to my jeweler friend, and my new ring will end up with my old sentimental gold. At least I can choose to believe that, and probably nobody can prove me wrong.