What can I do to catch a thief?

So my car was broken into in my driveway. Like the genius I am, I had both my wallet and my ipod inside the car which I had left unlocked. I live in the bowels of suburbia, in a neighborhood with absolutely no crime in a house with a long driveway… so believe it or not this came as a bit of a shock.
Luckily, I had no credit cards in the wallet, no cash, and nothing really of value save for a drivers license and three un-cashed payroll checks (as I say… genius.)
The thief apparently wasn’t interested in my license because he threw it out the window (I found it in a flower bed down the street)
I went into work and had them put a stop payment on the checks too, so that’s all well and good.
My question is: what can I do from now on to help catch the guy and (possibly) get my ipod back?
If the thief tried to cash those checks after my work put a stop on them, would my work be notified of where/when he did it?
If so, could I report that kind of thing to the authorities?
can I give the license to the police and have them “dust for prints” or whatever it is they do… Or is that just my misguided fantasy from watching way too many CSI episodes?