The ID belonged to a girl named Kendra Ames. I had never heard of her. But Phoebe had, and when Ogden said the name, my daughter finally lifted her head.
Kendra was Phoebes roommate from two years ago. They had shared an apartment off Center Street before the baby. Kendra had lost her wallet at a party in the spring, and she had filed a report with Omaha Police that Ogden had pulled up on his phone. Drivers license, debit card, a library card. Never recovered.
It had been recovered. It had been in Traviss jacket pocket the whole time.
Travis, it turned out, was not welcome at any pawn shop in the metro area. He had a history. He used a stolen ID because his own would have been refused at the counter, and he picked a girls ID because the clerks do not look closely, and he was right about that. The shop on L Street logged the card and took the picture and that was that.
Phoebe said, in a voice I could barely hear, that she had known. She had found the license in his glove box months ago and had asked him about it, and he said he was holding it for a friend. She had wanted to believe him.
Doug did not shout. He put his hand on his daughters shoulder and he said, Honey, thank you for saying it. That was the whole sentence.
Travis said it was a misunderstanding. Ogden, who had been patient through all of it, said that a misunderstanding does not come with a photograph, and asked Travis to walk with him to the parking lot. Travis went. He did not take the baby.
I had bought a crib so that my granddaughter would never sleep in a laundry basket, and in the end it was a stolen library card that brought her home.
The pawn shop had held the items for the required thirty days, and the crib and the stroller were still on the shelf, because nobody wanted a crib with a bent rail. Ogden recovered both as evidence and released them to me the following Friday with a signature on a form. The car seat had been sold, so I bought another.
Travis was charged with identity theft and with receiving stolen property. There was a plea, a fine, a long probation, and a condition that he stay away from the pawn shops of Nebraska, which I thought was a wonderful sentence. Kendra got a letter of apology. She wrote back that she had always thought somebody would find the wallet.
Phoebe called me the night after the party. She said, Mom, can I come home? She did not say it like a girl who needed a favor. She said it like a woman who had decided something. She came that weekend with the baby, a suitcase, and a bag of laundry, and she slept in her old room with a crib at the foot of the bed, the same crib, with the bent rail fixed by her father.
Doug had it fixed with a bolt from the garage. He said that was the best use he had ever made of a Saturday.
Phoebe works at the Hy-Vee bakery counter now. I got her the job. She is learning cakes. Last week she piped a rose so good that a customer asked who had trained her. She said, My mother. She said it loud enough that I could hear it from the back.