My wife changed our plans, canceling my casual get-together with friends and setting a more important get-together of her own. I was available to watch our 5-year-old son that Saturday evening after all.

The three-bedroom house was silent—not the silence of mischief, but the silence associated with peace—and I was enjoying it.

Then everything changed.

I plodded into my son's bedroom to see what he was fussing about. Clutching his favorite teddy bear—appropriately named Bear— he showed me a long rip across the furry stuffed animal's right armpit.

"What's this?" my son demanded as if I was responsible.

"What's what?" I asked my son.

"This rip on Bear," he said. "Did you do this?"

"I didn't do nothin'," I said.

Two years ago, when Bear lost an eyebrow, my son climbed onto his train table and said he'd jump, that he didn't want to live anymore.

He showed no signs of this dramatic behavior now. Maybe he was growing up. And then stuffing spilled out of Bear's underarm.

"Oh my God, he's dying!" he yelled out.

Bear's injury was no accident, I was sure. I had to find out who hurt my boy's fuzzy-bunches-of-love. The criminal had to pay.

I didn't have much. An injured bear, stuffing all over the floor and an angry child. I tried to pinpoint the time of the crime.

My son awoke to singing birds that morning with Bear in his arms. All was well. The boy abandoned Bear for the rest of the day until the moment he discovered the crime that evening.

As far as I knew, nobody but my wife, my son and I were in the house that day, though I'd left on three occasions to run errands.

Giving my wife and kid the benefit of the doubt, I allowed the idea that someone could've come over while I was out, unbeknownst to me, and committed this heinous act against Bear.

My son said a neighbor came over to play while I was gone. Bingo!

I called a friend who worked at the play gym the neighbor kid once attended. He gave me the dope on the kid, said he had a long criminal past. He broke the wheels off toy trucks. He bit the heads off toy soldiers. Most telling, he ripped the wings off a stuffed duck.

My son protected this neighbor kid, said he didn't go near Bear. I really didn't have enough evidence to walk over and accuse the rotten kid. That's a no-no in California. In California, you can't be brutally honest. You risk being called rude, and we sensitive Californians can't take such harsh evaluation.

"Bear is dying!" my son yelled. The boy was a crumbling wreck.

I called Grandma to see if she could race over and repair Bear. Grandma was out of town on business. Not good. Grandpa hinted that he could fix Bear, said he was a Boy Scout once. Perfect. He could take needle and thread to Bear and calm my boy down. Then I could concentrate and solve the crime.

Grandpa arrived and went to work on Bear. I picked up the phone to call my wife, digging for more clues. The dial tone indicated a voice mail. Grandpa had sent it earlier that day.

"It's Dad," Grandpa said in the message. "Gimmie a call." Then I heard a sharp sound from his end of the line, as if he'd pressed the wrong button when hanging up the phone. And while thinking nobody but Grandma was listening, Grandpa spilled his guts. He'd torn Bear's arm when he was over that morning. He called it an accident.

I slammed the phone down on the receiver.

Grandpa was finishing up Bear's repair. He was quiet. Was he going to say anything about the crime he committed? Was he going to remain silent and play hero?

I couldn't let Grandpa walk away from this. I had to say something. I had to take this criminal down.

"Thanks for fixing Bear," I said in perfect Californian tongue. To this day Grandpa remains a free man.

E-mail Michael Picarella at michael.picarella@gmail.com. To read more of his stories, go to www.michaelpicarellacolumn .blogspot.com.