A stolen bird

Last night, a thief broke into our house and stole our bird. They jimmied the lock on our back door, which admittedly was inadequate, cracked the doorjamb, entered in the dark and, heading across the kitchen to the small cabinet near the living room, unlocked the cage on top of it, clasped the bird, somehow doing it quietly, and disappeared back out the door. Following our call, the police arrived at 8.47 this morning and ‘dusted the place’, as the expression goes. We haven’t done that for a while ourselves, so there’s a novel thing in itself, that virtuous dusting. Soon after, they asked to interview my wife, Giddy, and then me (I prefer to call it a ‘consultation’, because they sure seemed unsure of what to ask me). Then they took some phone photos of the open cage. Clearly, ‘examining evidence’ doesn’t mean what it used to mean. They gave me a name of a good builder who they said was ‘not the cheapest but probably the best’, (frankly, I figured a few short nails and some caulking cement and we’d be done), and they suggested I update the deadlock. The real problem started when one of the officers – a tallish guy with a pronounced blond cowlick, looking much like a cartoon quarterback from somewhere back in time – asked, casually as they were packing up, taking their mugs to the sink and the like: