Donald Rabin carefully placed his silver and 18-karat gold flute next to him on a Chicago subway.
“Do not forget it, Donald, do not forget it,” he recalls as he struggled on January 29 with other belongings, including a suitcase and laptop. He has just spent two weeks with his family in St. Louis. Louis spent and stopped in Chicago to visit a friend for the weekend before flying home to Somerville, Mass.
As the train with a blue line pulled in at the Logan Square stop, Mr. Rabin, 23, a graduate student at the Boston Conservatory in Berklee, gathered his belongings, hurried out of the car and climbed the stairs of the station to make a ride.
Suddenly panic gripped him.
“Oh woe, oh woe, oh woe,” he remembered, thinking. “I do not have my whistle.”
For the next four hours, Mr. Rabin jumped from train to train and still dragged his luggage while searching in vain for the instrument, which he said was bought for $ 22,000. He called every station on the blue line and the Chicago police over the weekend.
Then he started linking news stores across the city, hoping that publicity would help. He posted a plea for help on Facebook in which he described the sentimental value of the flute, which he said was bought in 2016 with money he inherited after his grandmother died of breast cancer.
He refused to lose hope.
“There must be a good soul there who could put it in,” he said. Rabin remembered. “I will put my trust in this person.”
It seems someone has found the flute, but Mr. Rabin will need more than faith to get it back.
On January 30, Gabe Coconate, 42, the owner of West Town Jewelry and Loan, said he was getting ready to close his shop when two men and a woman approached the store and offered a silver-and-gold whistle. to sell to him.
According to Mr. Coconate, one of the men, who identified himself as Lukas Mcentee, 33, said he wanted $ 7,500 for the instrument and began telling a story about how the flute once belonged to his father, who died. should.
Mr. Coconate, which has been in the pawn shop industry for 20 years, was skeptical.
“I hear my mom-and-dad-dying stories all the time,” he said in an interview Saturday.
But Mr. Coconate agreed to lend the man $ 500 and keep the flute for the weekend so he could do research on the instrument and find out its value. He took the man’s identity card and entered his name and date of birth, along with a photo of the whistle, in LeadsOnline, a website that tracks stolen goods.
The next evening Mr. Coconate with his wife to the news Mr. Rabin’s story flashes across the screen.
Mr. Coconate said his wife asked if it was the same whistle he had at his pawn shop.
“Yes, it is,” he replied, then called the Chicago Police Department.
On February 1, Mr. Mcentee, his girlfriend and friend returned to the store and Mr. Coconate asked to buy or return the flute, saying he had offers from other stores that were willing to give him $ 10,000.
On the advice of the police, Mr. Coconate lied to him and said he sent the flute to be judged to see if it was real gold.
Mr. Mcentee comes back the next day, pulls out some cash and says he wants the whistle.
“I said, ‘Luke, that was all the news,'” Coconate recalled on Saturday. “You’re not in trouble. You did not steal it, but it’s not your whistle.”
“Finders, keepers,” replied Mr. Mcentee according to Mr. Coconate, who refused to take the cash or return the flute.
It was then Mr. Mcentee got excited, Mr. Coconate said.
Mr. Coconate then called the Chicago police, who telephoned Mr. Mcentee explained that the whistle was the subject of an investigation and that he should leave the pawn shop.
The Chicago Police Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Mr. Mcentee did not want to be interviewed.
Mr. Rabin, who flew back to Boston that day, later received text messages from Mr. Mcentee received to apologize for trying to pawn the flute. He said he would return the instrument, but first Mr. Rabin had to pay him $ 550 so that he could get the loan he had from Mr. Coconate got, could repay.
Mr. Rabin called police and said he should not wire anything. Police told him Wednesday they had recovered the whistle.
He flew back to Chicago, where officers returned the whistle. As a thank you, Mr. Rabin played for 20 officers at the station house ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow’. It was the first time he had played for a lively, personal audience since March.
Mr. Rabin said he was so happy he felt like crying.
“I was in a whole different world,” he said.
He said he felt terrible that Mr. Coconate was less than $ 500 and asked people on Facebook to help him raise money for the pawn shop owner.
Mr. Rabin said he was not angry with Mr. Mcentee, who raised more than $ 13,000 on a GoFundMe page, says he and his girlfriend have been homeless for years. Mr. Rabin gave $ 25 to Mr. Mcentee donated and sent an additional $ 67 through an instant payment app.
“I really understand what it was like not to have money,” he said. Rabin said, who took out loans to pay for school and had to borrow money from friends to pay rent. “We are just humans on this planet. Everyone will make mistakes this way. ”
He and mr. Coconate spoke Thursday about what happened. Mr. Coconate said Mr. Rabin expressed hope that Mr. Mcentee would be able to repay him the $ 500 from the money he raised for himself.
Mr. Coconate said he is not optimistic.