My boss's car was broken into while his car sat on our company parking lot. The thief stole his leather jacket, which he had left in the back seat. The police came and made a report, and then went away. It wasn't until an hour or so later that my boss realized his cell phone was missing, too, and it must have been in the pocket of the jacket. He promptly dialed the number of the cell phone. Somebody answered. My boss said, "You son of a bitch! You stole my jacket!"

The guy on the phone protested that he didn't steal anything. He had just "bought" the cell phone from somebody else. My boss said, "I need that phone back. It's got all my business numbers programmed into it." The guy offered to sell the phone back to my boss for $50. My boss said, "I don't have $50 with me right now. I'll have to call you back."

My boss called the police again. They asked if he would come down to the station. So later that day, my boss called the thief again, this time from the police station, with officers listening in and recording the call. He made an appointment to meet the guy on the street that evening and get his phone back.

At the appointed time, a plain-clothes officer went to impersonate my boss and keep the appointment. My boss sat in an unmarked police car a half-block away and watched the whole thing. When the officer held out the $50 bill, the guy snatched it out of his hand and ran away, thereby adding to his list of crimes and providing ample "probable cause" in front of witnesses. The officer ran after him, tackled him, and completed the arrest. They soon identified the "perp" who already had a long rap sheet.

A few days later, my boss realized that he could call the phone company and get a list of all the calls that had been made to and from the cell phone while the thief had it in his possession. There were several. So he again called the officer who had handled the case and asked if he would like to have the list. The officer said, "Sure!" So my boss gave it to him. I never heard the outcome of that part of the investigation, but I like to think the police had a grand time identifying other crooks with whom the crook in question did business.