I finally found a buyer for it on the MML, a guy from Massachusetts who was interested in restoring it. (Which was my primary motivation for getting rid of it, I was never going to get around to it.) I'd been out of town for a bit, and I didn't quite make my monthly drive, but I was only a week or two late last saturday when I went to drive it around.

It wasn't there.

Now, this car is not in incredible shape (to get an idea, hit http://www.forinash.net/~jdf/fury.html ), and I hadn't moved it in about six weeks, so I assumed it had been towed. I dropped by the leasing office where the polite young lady explained that she really didn't know who they used as a towing company, she just showed apartments on the weekends. But she'd call her superiors and find out.

Eventually she hooked me up with the complex's "Courtesy Officer", who also happens to be a Fulton County police officer. She told me they used McCullough Towing. I called them to find out that the person who handled towed abandoned vehicles wasn't in (it being a weekend) and she'd be available on Monday at 9AM.

Well, that wasn't the optimal solution. See, Andy (the guy buying the car) had a flight down Monday evening and this car was his way home. But that was the best I could do, so I resigned myself to calling in bright and early that Monday morning.

...to find out McCullogh Towing didn't have any record of towing any Plymouth with the same last-four of the VIN as mine. "Any possibility it's registered as something else?" Registration says Plymouth, title says Plymouth, car says Plymouth, VIN decodes to Plymouth... No, it's a Plymouth. She says they've never seen it, and I tell her I'll call back the apartment complex to find out exactly when it was towed.

Before I do that, I call up Andy to get him up to date. He says he's got other arrangements to get home if there's no car, so he's going to come down.

The person at the complex says that it had to have been last week, but she's not entirely sure. It had been there just recently, and it hadn't been long since they put the sticker on the car to get it towed. She verifies that they don't use _anybody_ but McCullough for towing derelicts. I call back McCullough and Jennifer there tells me she'll go through the new arrivals.

A couple hours later I get a call from the courtesy officer. She's talked to the people at the apartment complex and found that I was looking for a white Plymouth Fury, and she says that it's never been towed, but instead she had seen some guy from apartment working under the hood and then moving the car. Once she'd found that out, she called this guy, who said he'd only moved it to keep it from being towed. She informed him that if the car did not return to complex within an hour, that the owner would be quite likely to press charges.

I called her back a few hours later; she said that the man who had my car had basically given her a sob story about how the car had broken down and he couldn't get it there, and she'd told him to have it towed. She gave me the phone number of the guy who took the car. I couldn't get a hold of him. She said he'd mentioned Azalea Drive, so Scott (a cow-orker) and I took a quick look out that way, figuring if we found it we could steal my car back.

I swung by the old apartment complex on the way in to work the next morning and of course, it wasn't there. I called up the officer and asked if she'd heard anything, she says she'd look into it. A couple hours later, I get a call back from her saying she's with the guy who took my car. A very frightened individual explains it's in the Azalea Park apartments, and wanted to talk to me. He assured me once again he only took the car 'cause he knew that I didn't want it towed. Said he'd tuned it up for me. Yeah, those two statements go together. What a samaritan. The officer said she'd go take a look and see what shape the car was in. She called back later saying it was there.

Scott and I headed back out there with a gas can, a spare battery, and a pile of tools in my truck to get the car. The apartment lot was gated, which for the first time ever, turned out to be a good thing. I went into the leasing office to ask for access to the property, explaining what had happened. And the lady there told me that she'd seen that car before, and someone was changing the license plate on it. She'd also talked to the police officer while the officer was there, so she knew I was legit. I continued on my way, and sure enough, that's not my license tag on the back of the car. I called up the person who took the car and left a note on his machine politely asking to return my license plate.

Scott and I couldn't get the car to start, but it was due to a problem I'd seen before (mediocre starter) and never got around to fixing. I noted my new, uh, samaritan friend had replaced the plugs and wires and the locking gas cap with a non-locking one. I arranged to have the car towed over to Alvin at the Goodyear nearby (he'd done good work for me in the past...)

That's what's happened so far now. With any luck, Alvin will be able to sort out the starter today or tomorrow morning and Andy can get on his way soon. I still haven't heard back about the license plate-- I probably don't technically need it, but it'd be nice to know what happened to it. I'll probably report it stolen if the samaritan thief doesn't return it, last thing I need is getting accused of hit-and-run because the tag number of the vehicle that did it was mine... I would be interested to find out how he got the new tag-- if it was stolen from another vehicle, or if he managed to register my car in his name...

Update: Wednesday

I once again talked to the officer, who said that the culprit was once again available, so I called him and talked to him. He claimed my license plate was on the dash. It's not. The officer suggests I should file a stolen tag report.

Andy met me at the Goodyear shop and I signed the title and a bill of sale over to him, and he's on his way to Tennessee.