This reminds me of the time when I had first moved to a small midwest college town with just my bike and a '93 geo metro half full of belongings. I spent the night at a friend's apartment with my nice (for me) mountain bike locked up at the bike rack. My mistake was in only locking up the frame; in the morning, both wheels (with expensive at the time disc brakes) were missing. First thing I did when the local bike shop opened was take my wheel-less frame there to see about getting new wheels.

On my way into the shop a dude approaches me and tells me that he "borrowed" my wheels and that they are in the shop. What? I'm confused. I enter the shop and sure enough, there are my wheels! But wait, the shop clerk says. How do you know these are your wheels? Because, good sir, this bike thief right next to me admitted as much just now! See him nod! Yes, he stole those wheels from this bike! No, says the shopkeeper; you must be mistaken; that good fellow right there sold me these nice-ish wheels for a really good price; how could they be yours?

Aghast, infuriated, I left. Fuming. Why didn't I call the cops? Why didn't I firebomb this chop shop and leave it a smoking ruin, a warning to all future bike thieves and their accomplices? Alas, this was nearly half my life ago. Life goes on.