In the commission of a crime

So, I bought this 1942 Buick.  I liked the way it looked and the price was right.  I had talked with my auto mechanic before I bought it, to make sure he would be willing to work on it whenever it needed anything.  He seemed as excited as I was to get it.

The first thing I did when it arrived was to wash it.  It had been transported here on a flatbed truck, and it wasn’t all clean like you see in this photograph.  Once I had it dry, I began going through the thing, just making sure there were no surprises.  Actually, the inside was not too bad. 

I found one cash register receipt that was too faded to read, one wrapper from a candy bar and a few small pebbles under the floor mats.  Inside the trunk was a car jack and tire iron.  The spare tire was under a false bottom, so the trunk looked empty when I first looked in it. 

It was when I lifted the false bottom to reveal the spare that I saw the handgun.  It was laying on top of the spare.  I was shocked at seeing it.  My first thought was to not touch it.  I didn’t know anything about it, who owned it, how it got here and I certainly didn’t want my fingerprints on it.  I closed the trunk and went back into the house.  I needed to think this through. 

I poured myself a cup of coffee and sat at the kitchen table.  I though about calling the police and let them remove it and dispose of it however they wanted, or I could put gloves on and pick the thing up, slide it into a zip-lock bag and drive it to the police station and hand it over to the desk sergeant, but they may want to see where I got it from.  Also, if for whatever reason I’m stopped on my way to the police station, they’d freak out at seeing a gun in my possession.  Then, when I said, “I just found it and was bringing it to you.” they’d never believe me. 

Suddenly the excitement of having this car was gone.  Yikes, that didn’t last long.

 

 

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