SACRAMENTO  (AP) — A Sacramento County man whose car was stolen from a local car wash is praising the vehicle’s return, but mostly because of what was inside: his late wife’s ashes.

Television station KCRA in Sacramento reports that Port of Stockton police recovered 78-year-old Melvin Hayes’ Ford Fusion when they arrested two people near the port’s main entrance on Saturday morning.

Hayes and his son found the metallic blue urn containing Anne Marie Hayes’ ashes wedged in the Fusion’s trunk under bags belonging to the alleged auto thieves.

Hayes tells KCRA the car was stolen on Thursday when he stopped to get it washed on the way to his wife’s burial service.

He says a woman there chatted him up while he was waiting and that an attendant mistakenly gave her his keys when the job was done.