The Mystery of the Missing Cell Phone

It was a dark and drizzly Sunday evening when my wife, Andra, came home in a deep, concerned funk. "I can't find my phone," she said as she proceeded to search the house for the absent device.

I called her number with the hope that the sound of the phone singing "Linus and Lucy" would act as a homing beacon and lead her to the missing device. After several of such attempts, it was determined that the iPhone 4 was not on the premises.

"Maybe it's at work," she said unconvincingly. "I'll search there tomorrow."

Monday came and went with no sign of the AWOL handheld. I occurred to me that something that goes by the moniker of "smartphone" should be able to find itself and save its owner much grief. With this in mind I checked online for a way to track the phone. But unfortunately, all of the methods I found involved setting the phone up prior to being lost. Which were pretty much useless to us now.

The search continued.

Tuesday came and went.

On Wednesday, Andra found a solution. AT&T offers a service called FamilyMap which is intended to track family members (or at least their phones). This seemingly invasive service, I assume, is useful to parents who want to know the whereabouts of their children every moment of the day or night. And it has a free 30 trial which would serve my immediate need just fine.

After setting up the service on my iPad and putting in the household phone numbers, the service first successfully tracked my phone to within 12 yards of the coffee table on which it sat. Then it pinged Andra's phone.

It was in Lacey, Washington on Thornbury Ln SE, smack dab in the middle of a residential area where, I confirmed, my wife had not been. Putting on what I considered some "don't fuck with me" clothes, consisting of a black leather jacket and badass boots, I headed out the door.

A half an hour later, I was standing in front of one of the two possible houses which could be holding the phone.
I knocked on the first door. From outside I could hear the noise of a household full of teenagers with no parents present. And a teenaged girl answered the door. "Yes?" she asked.

"My wife's cell phone went missing a couple of days ago," I said. "And when I pinged it, it shows up at this address. Did anyone here happen to find a cell phone near Capitol Medical Center a few days ago."

A look of panic spread across her face. "Um, let me get my sister," she said and turned around and screamed at her sister to come to the door.

When her sister arrived at the door, I again explained the situation to her. She hemmed and hawed a bit before saying that her parents weren't home and could I come back when they were there.

This irritated me. I was sure that the phone was in the house, by the reaction I was getting. "Yeah, I'll be back," I said in my most intimidating voice. "And when I come back, I'll be bringing the police with me. I want that phone back!"

I stared her in the eye for a moment before she meekly said, "Okay," as I turned and walked off.

I went to the second possible house and knocked. A pregnant woman with three other kids in tow answered the door. I explained the situation. She smiled and said no she hadn't seen it. I asked her if she knew if she knew anyone in the neighborhood who might work at Capitol Medical Center. She said she didn't know, but the lady at the house next door, the house with all the teenagers, might be a nurse. I thanked her and left not ruling her out for having the phone.

I went back to my car and decided to ping the phone once again. But when I tried, the phone could no longer be found. I called the number from my phone and it bounced immediately to voicemail. The phone had been turned off. I had struck a nerve. The phone was indeed in one of those two houses.

I called Andra and told her what was going on. She decided to come down to help.

I then called the Lacey police. After being transferred to dispatch and then an officer, I explained the situation in detail and he said that I should stay there, he would be by in a few minutes to try to help resolve the situation.

Andra was in the car when I spoke to the officer and after I was done speaking to him, we decided to try to ping the phone again. And a funny thing happened, the ping located the phone at Capitol Medical Center.

Andra and I looked at each other, puzzled. How could that happen? Using my phone, she called her phone. A security officer from the hospital answered and told her that someone had just turned the phone in to them.

When the police officer arrived. We explained the situation as it now stood. He asked if I had seen anyone leave the house, I said I hadn't. He was convinced as I was that someone had turned the phone off after I confronted them, snuck out the back, and took the phone back to the hospital. It was far too coincidental for it to be any other way.

I thanked the officer for his help, he smiled and said it was no problem. Andra went back to the hospital and was much relieved to have her phone back. We now have "Find My Phone" set up through Mobile Me on all of our devices.

Who had the phone? I really don't care. But I think it's cool that I can still scare someone into doing the right thing.