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Donald Rabin carefully placed his silver and 18-karat gold flute next to him in a Chicago subway train.
“Don’t forget it, Donald, don’t forget it,” he recalls thinking as he struggled with other personal effects, including a suitcase and a laptop, on Jan. 29. He had just spent two weeks in St. Louis with his family and stopped in Chicago to visit a friend for the weekend before returning home to Somerville, Mass.
As the Blue Line train pulled to the Logan Square stop, Mr. Rabin, 23, a graduate student from the Boston Conservatory in Berklee, gathered his things, rushed out of the car and jumped up. up the stairs to the station to take a ride.
Suddenly panic seized him.
“Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god,” he recalled thinking. “I don’t have my flute.”
For the next four hours, Mr. Rabin hopped from train to train, still carrying his luggage, as he searched in vain for the instrument, which he said he bought for $ 22,000. He spent the weekend calling every Blue Line station and the Chicago police.
Then he started calling news outlets all over town, hoping the publicity would help him. He posted a call for help on Facebook, describing the sentimental value of the flute, which he said he bought in 2016 with money he inherited after his grandmother died from cancer. breast.
He refused to give up hope.
“There must be a good soul out there who made it,” Mr. Rabin recalls thinking. “I’m going to put all my faith in this person.”
It turned out that someone had found the flute, but Mr. Rabin would need more than faith to get it back.
On January 30, Gabe Coconate, 42, owner of West Town Jewelry and Loan, said he was about to close his shop when two men and a woman approached the store and offered to sell him a flute. in silver and gold.
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 to tell how the flute once belonged to his late father. .
Mr Coconate, who has worked in the pawn shop for 20 years, was skeptical.
“I hear stories of my mother’s and father’s deaths all the time,” he said in an interview on Saturday.
But Mr. Coconate agreed to loan the man $ 500 and keep the flute for the weekend so he could research the instrument and find out its value. He took the man’s ID card and entered his name and date of birth, along with a picture of the flute, into LeadsOnline, a website that tracks stolen goods.
The next evening, Mr. Coconate was watching the news with his wife when Mr. Rabin’s story crossed the screen.
Mr Coconate said his wife asked if it was the same flute he had in his pawnshop.
“Yes it is,” he replied, then called the Chicago Police Department.
On February 1, Mr. Mcentee, his girlfriend and his friend returned to the store and asked Mr. Coconate to buy the flute or return it, telling him that he had offers from other stores ready for him. donate $ 10,000.
On the advice of the police, Mr. Coconate lied to him and said he sent the flute to be evaluated to see if it was real gold.
Mr. Mcentee came back the next day, took out a wad of cash and said he wanted the flute back.
“I said, ‘Lukas, this made the headlines,'” Coconate recalled on Saturday. “’You are not in trouble. You didn’t steal it, but it’s not your flute. ”
“Researchers, keepers,” replied Mr. Mcentee, according to Mr. Coconate, who refused to take the money or return the flute.
That’s when Mr Mcentee got restless, Mr Coconate said.
Mr Coconate then called the Chicago Police, who explained to Mr Mcentee over the phone that the flute was under investigation and he had to leave the pawnshop.
The Chicago Police Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Mr. Mcentee declined to be questioned.
Mr. Rabin, who returned to Boston that day, later received text messages from Mr. Mcentee apologizing for attempting to pawn the flute. He said he would return the instrument, but Mr. Rabin would have to wire him $ 550 first so he could repay the loan he had obtained from Mr. Coconate.
Mr. Rabin called the police, who told him not to wire anything. Police told him on Wednesday that they recovered the flute.
He returned to Chicago, where the officers returned the flute. As a thank you, Mr. Rabin performed “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” for 20 officers at the police station. It was the first time he had performed for a live audience since March.
Mr. Rabin said he was so happy that he wanted to cry.
“I was in a totally different world,” he says.
He said he felt bad that Mr. Coconate lost $ 500 and asked people on Facebook to help him raise money for the owner of the pawnshop.
Mr Rabin said he was not angry with Mr Mcentee, who raised more than $ 13,000 on a GoFundMe page that says he and his girlfriend “have both been homeless for years. “. Mr. Rabin donated $ 25 to Mr. Mcentee and sent an additional $ 67 through an instant payment app.
“I really understand what it was like not having money,” said Rabin, who took out loans to pay for his education and had to borrow money from friends to pay the rent. “We are just humans on this planet. Everyone is bound to make mistakes this way.
He and Mr. Coconate spoke on Thursday about what had happened. Mr Coconate said Mr Rabin expressed hope Mr Mcentee could reimburse him for the $ 500 of the money he had raised for himself.
Mr. Coconate said he was not optimistic.
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