Thursday

For the last two-and-a-half weeks, there has been a green Buick Century parked directly outside of my work. It sat beneath a tree in our gigantic parking lot. Every time I opened the shipping doors to receive freight it sat there, silently and obtrusively, collecting dust.

Eventually my coworker asked me what was up with the car. Wondering the same thing myself I headed out to get a closer look.

I’ve learned in the past that if someone leaves a seemingly decent car parked in a private retail parking lot, there’s a good chance that this is because the car was stolen and dumped. I have seen this very scenario play out once before.

To me, the car seemed odd. It was from out of state, and from the looks of what was inside, the person driving it was on the move. There was a basket of laundry in the back seat, half-finished water bottles on the passenger seat, and a garbage bag with things like snack foods, a tube of toothpaste, and a single DVD sitting on the back seat.

I called the cops.

I knew it was probably nothing, but just in case it would be best to be sure.

The officer was in and out within less than five minutes, and when he poked his head into my door, all he had to say was that the car’s plates were, “Clear.”

I wondered.

Why would someone leave their car in a place where it was sure to be towed without any notice?

Still, with the plates coming up clean, I knew there was pretty much nothing left to do.

By yesterday afternoon, however, I decided to have another look into the car, jot down the license plate number, and look it up online myself. Three weeks was just too long. Something just seemed wrong.

Aside from a single page at Carfax which simply verified the VIN number, I found nothing.

Then, last night, as we were watching the news, a story comes on about how about three weeks ago a woman wandered in to a medical clinic right in our immediate area. She was suffering from total amnesia, and also from several seemingly non-life-threatening head injuries. She was 25 to 30, and without any ID of any kind. A near-total cipher.

A number was given to call the police with any information.

There was one overlapping coincidence: the car was in our lot almost exactly as long as the girl had been discovered.

I called the cops for a second time. It was after hours for the detective assigned the case, so I just left my story with the officer who answered the phone. She told me that she would pass it on and that I would get a call back in the morning.

Sure enough, 7:30 AM, I received a call from the detective assigned to the case. I gave him the plate number, make and model, and he told me he would call back if anything came up. I noticed that he sounded almost hopeful. Still, I figured that would be it.

But then, around noon he called back. He told me they were coming out to check out the car, and that when they arrived they wanted to talk with me if I didn’t mind. I said sure and went back to work.

Around 1:30 the detectives showed up. As I walked up, they already had the car all opened up and were going through the items inside.

I Introduced myself, and the officer looked at me smiling very wide, “It’s her! You were right. congratulations, sir, you’re a hero!”

For the record, this is the first time in my life I had ever heard a homicide detective tell me that I was a hero. Okay, it was the first time I had ever spoken knowingly with a homicide detective, period. Very surreal. Ridiculous, yes, and very surreal.

In his hand he held her bank card, and there on the card was her photo. And yes, it was indeed the girl from the news.

I can’t describe to you how happy I was to know that I had actually helped them identify this poor woman. I could tell that they were very happy too and additionally relieved as well, and I can imagine that since they were homicide detectives, they probably didn’t get too many of these somewhat happy endings.

In a sense, the whole thing is really sad. This woman, driving a car from Washington (the state) for whatever reason was in Houston, parked her car in our lot, locked it with all her important documents inside, took her dog, and was next seen wandering into an office building, injured, totally disoriented, and completely befallen by amnesia. The office, not wanting any part of her, sent her to the nearest medical clinic.

She ended up somehow finding the clinic at the end of my home street.

Her car was in my work lot.

Most likely someone got ahold of her, beat her up, maybe worse, and left her unconscious. For nearly three weeks not a soul knew who she was, including herself.

I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to help this woman get one step closer to remembering what happened, and more importantly - who she is.

I felt sort of silly calling the police last night, thinking of myself as one of those people who call whenever something like this happens just so they can be a part of something that has nothing whatsoever to do with them. That was never interesting to me. I have a daughter, and furthermore my girlfriend’s daughter lives with us for half of the year. I can’t , as a parent and as someone who loves the people he loves very deeply, begin to imagine how her parents might feel wondering where the hell she was. And worse, I can’t imagine having no idea who you are. It must be horrible. Who knows where she goes from here. Hopefully with time she will regain her memory.

I could tell that the cops liked this woman, and I could tell that these two homicide detectives, guys who see the very worst of humanity on a daily basis, were moved by being able to help her.

Man, do I know the feeling.

Whatever happened to her three weeks ago, and whatever brought her to Houston, I imagine her life hasn’t been easy recently. I can only hope it improves. Maybe today can be one of the steps in that direction.

Tomorrow, another Friday.

And Saturday after that...