Five years ago, David Bushee came to Lancaster with a flatbed truck to collect a dream car.

It wasn't his dream; it was his wife's. All her life, she had wanted a classic Ford Mustang. So when Bushee saw the 1966 Mustang GT convertible listed on eBay by a seller from Willow Street, he jumped at the chance. Eight thousand dollars and a long journey to and from his home in Holliston, Mass., later, the car was his. Over the next few years, he put $60,000 and countless hours of work into restoring the vehicle.

It was a labor of love.

And then the cops showed up.

The car, they told him, had been stolen in Lancaster County. He couldn't give it to his wife. In fact, he might have to give it back.

What followed was an eight-month investigation that resulted in the Lancaster County Auto Theft Task Force filing criminal charges against a Quarryville man earlier this month for receiving stolen property.

The car, police said, had been in storage for nearly two decades before it was sold — without the original owner's knowledge or permission. Exactly how it all transpired remains unclear.

Especially to Bushee's lawyer, Bradley Phipps. For months, he said he's been trying to get information from police in Lancaster County, to no avail. Investigators won't even tell him the name of the original owner.

The whole matter, he said, appears destined for the courts to sort out.

"We've done everything we can to try and be forthright, but nobody will assist us," Phipps said.

"Frankly, the whole thing is suspicious."

Not to mention complicated.

Police say the original owner of the car, an elderly local woman, does not want to speak about the case publicly.

On Dec. 16, Detective Stephen Owens, of the Lancaster County Auto Theft Task Force, filed a single charge against Timothy Scott Turner, of Quarryville, owner of Turner's Towing and Salvage in Christiana. In the affidavit, filed at the office of Magisterial District Justice Isaac H. Stoltzfus in Intercourse, Owens alleges that Turner sold the car to a Willow Street man, who then sold it to Bushee on eBay.

The details of how Turner got the car remain murky. "If you can answer that, you've cracked the case," Owens said.

The car was purchased new and driven for several years before the owner put it in storage some time in the 1970s at Customs Classics in Conestoga, according to Owens.

Two messages left for Customs Classics owner Joel Herzog seeking comment for this article were not returned.

All parties who replied agree that the car sat in storage, gathering dust, until earlier this decade when it was removed from storage and sold.

Turner, in an interview, said he was approached by then-Customs Classics co-owner Thomas Herzog Sr. and told that the owner hadn't paid storage fees on the rusting vehicle for some time, and that Herzog wanted to "get rid" of it.

Turner said he asked around and, through an employee of his towing business, found a buyer, Leroy McClune, of Willow Street. Turner said he was merely the go-between, selling the car to McClune on behalf of Herzog. "The car never even made it to my junkyard," he said.

McClune, reached at his home, declined to comment. But according to the affidavit, the story he told investigators differed from Turner's account in a few key places. McClune "was adamant he went to Turner's residence to see the vehicle," the affidavit states. McClune told police he bought the vehicle for $1,500, and Turner provided him a handwritten receipt dated Feb. 18, 2004.

Thomas Herzog Sr. died in 2001.

"Upon being informed that Tom Herzog Sr. had died in 2001 and that the sale of the vehicle had taken place in 2004, Turner was unable to explain how he had received the vehicle from Tom Hertzog Sr.," Owens wrote in the affidavit.

Turner told the Sunday News he doubted the receipt was legitimate. "He has something scratched out on a piece of paper. ... I always use a bill head. I can't imagine I would have written a receipt like that."

All sides agree that when the car was sold to McClune, there was no title for the vehicle. But when Bushee bought it on eBay in 2004, it had a Pennsylvania title.

It's not difficult, Owens said, to get a title to an older car. "Basically, you sell it to [a company] on paper — they never actually see the car — and then they turn around and get it titled" in a state such as Maine, which issues legal titles for cars more than 10 years old.

Once the company has the title, "They sell it back to the person who contacted them and bring the Maine registration back to Pennsylvania," Owens said.

Most businesses that sell vehicles check the vehicle's identification number to make sure the car hasn't been reported as stolen. The Mustang wasn't — until March 23 of this year, when the original owner decided she wanted to restore it and went to retrieve it.

She filed a complaint with Southern Regional Police, which began the investigation before turning the case over the Auto Theft Task Force this fall.

About a week after the initial report was filed, police in Holliston, Mass., paid Bushee a visit and told him the car might be stolen. The case has been the subject of three articles in the Holliston Metrowest Daily News. Bushee told the paper his wife "always wanted a Mustang, ever since she was a kid," and that he was almost finished with the restoration:

"I've got everything I need to make it move, but everything's just sitting there," he told the paper. "Everybody's waiting to see who's going to blink first."

Police in Holliston say they will not seize the car from Bushee; if authorities in Lancaster want the car, Lt. Keith Edison said, they'll need to come and get it.

"Nothing criminal occurred here," Edison said.

Chief John Fiorill of Southern Regional Police agreed. "The guy that has it is totally innocent and bought the car legally," he said. "We want to do what's fair for all parties involved ... but the fact is that the rightful owner of this car" resides in Lancaster County.

There are three ways local police could retrieve the car, Fiorill said: Bushee could relinquish it voluntarily, local officials could file a civil lawsuit, or they could get a warrant from the district attorney in Holliston.

Owens said the Auto Theft Task Force is in contact with the Holliston District Attorney's office to try to resolve the matter.

But Phipps, Bushee's attorney, wonders why no one has called him to clear things up.

"I have contacted the police [in Lancaster] four or five times, formally," he said. "I have spoken to an officer on a couple of occasions. I've sent correspondence to [Fiorill] in hopes of finding out who the alleged owners are, but I'm unable to speak to whomever supposedly owns this vehicle."

Fiorill said that's because the local owner "was adamant about us not revealing her name, and we had to respect that." He also said a Southern Regional officer had responded to Phipps' letters, and called the attorney at his Holliston office. Phipps never responded to the message, Fiorill said.

Phipps notes several incongruities in the official story, including the fact that the original owner claims to have seen the vehicle in storage as recently as last year — impossible, given that Bushee has had it since 2004.

"My client has put over 60K into his vehicle. It's going to be showroom-quality when it's finished, and [the original owner] is not entitled to all these improvements," Phipps said.

"We're willing to talk to the owner. We're willing to make some kind of resolution. But I have people who at all points have done the right thing, and they want to move forward on this vehicle, but they can't," Phipps said.

"They're victims as well."