frankenbike stolen; recovered 1 block away

This past Saturday, my frankenbike was found 1 block locked in someone's yard. One week ago, it was stolen out of my back yard. Then, I didn't really care for it. As I saw it, a block from my house, I decided to call the police. The police had to laugh when I filed the report. 'wait a minute, you're telling me you had your bike stolen out of your back yard, and now, you see it locked up in someone else's yard? okay we'll send a car over.
A car did come, but at the time I could not verify that it was my bike. Since the people at the house weren't home, the property, that being my bike, could not be recovered. It was basically just my word that it was my bike.
Luckily I had a detective living across the street from me, whom I knew. So I left him a note about my bike later that night, He came over and said want to go get your bike back? So we went with a set of cable cutters which he said he got from a bike thief. We had trouble cutting the cable lock so we gave up, and he said he would come back in the morning with a cruiser.
The next morning he came back with my bike and a few bike registration forms.