Curtis explained quickly. Six weeks earlier, a stranger named Voss had offered him three hundred dollars a week to move our trash cans each Wednesday at 3 a.m., then retrieve a small package from beneath our bedroom window and hand it over. He said it was a weather sensor for a research study. Curtis, short on rent after his warehouse hours were cut, took the job without asking questions.

Last week, curiosity won. He opened the device at home and heard a recording of our kitchen, Laura and me discussing the accounting report I had filed against my employer, a regional trucking firm. He realized someone was listening to us. He had been too ashamed to confess, and too afraid to quit. The cans hid the pickup from the street, so nobody would notice.

I called Detective Mara Ellison, whose card I had kept since the bicycle theft. She arrived within minutes with two officers. The man in the sedan, Voss, turned out to be my employer’s security consultant, hired to find anything that could discredit me before the audit hearing. Officers arrested him beside his car. The metal case held a laptop, spare recorders, and an envelope containing four thousand dollars.

Curtis gave a full statement and cooperated, so the prosecutor agreed to probation instead of jail. My report held up, the company paid a large fine, and the executives behind the scheme lost their jobs. Laura and I invited Curtis to dinner and helped him find a daytime job. Now every Wednesday at 3 a.m. our cans stay by the garage, and Curtis waves from his porch.