A short time after I moved to Minneapolis, I was in the garage searching for a tool. I happened to see something tucked at the back of a shelf, so far that I hadn’t noticed it earlier. I pulled out this painting. It’s an ugly still life on canvas, mounted by an amateur on a wooden frame. Not the work of an incompetent, but the sort of thing that wouldn’t even sell at a garage sale. Then I turned it over, and everything changed.

Someone wrote “De Colores!” with an exclamation point on the wood frame. On the back of the canvas itself, are some illegible words, possibly a name. What set my mind spinning was the neat writing, in pencil:

If found

Please Return

to Steve + Betsy

Nelson

There will be

a reward

A reward! What could it be? If this painting was valuable enough for Steve and Betsy to promise a reward, how could they let it out of their grasp? How did it end up in my garage? No one named Steve and Betsy Nelson ever lived in this house. I checked. Having tracked down plenty of people in my time, I know that there’s nothing worse than trying to narrow down all of the Steve and Betsy Nelsons to the ones you want. They didn’t leave a phone number or an address, only that tantalizing promise. Steve and Betsy, if you read this, I’m ready to claim my reward.