Persistent.find() behavior

myPersistent has an id field, defined as primary key, two other fields,
number and year, defined as int and allow nulls, and some other assorted
fields.

the following code snippet:

PersistentFactory pf =
            (PersistentFactory) request.getService(
                PersistentFactory.ROLE,
                myDB); //request.getDomain()

        try {
            // This is the actual persistent, see the Appeal entity
            Persistent m = pf.create("occa.appeal");
            String genemsg = "";
            
            
            // Set the fields we are interested in
            if (
SuperString.notNull(request.getParameterAsString("Year")).equals("")) {
            	genemsg = genemsg.concat("tried with just id\n");
            	m.setField("id", request.getParameter("Number"));
            } else {
            	m.setField("number", request.getParameter("Number"));
            	m.setField("year", request.getParameter("Year"));
            }
            
            if( m.find() ){
            	res.addOutput("found", genemsg.concat("WOOHOO! YOU DA
MAN!!!\nNumber = " + m.getFieldString("number")));
            }else{
            	res.addOutput("found", genemsg.concat("YIKES! =0("));
            }
// end snippet

returns YIKES! =0( (meaning false on the find())

and i get this in the svc-persist-default log (same thing if i try with
hibernate actually):
DEBUG   2004-04-16 14:53:41.041   [persist-default]
(/org.keel.services.persist.defaultpersist.DefaultPersistent.retrieve(DefaultPersistent.java:961)): Executing: SELECT id, number, year, [OTHER FIELDS HERE] FROM appeal WHERE id = 10000 AND number = 0 AND year = 0

OR

DEBUG   2004-04-16 14:53:41.041   [persist-default]
(/org.keel.services.persist.defaultpersist.DefaultPersistent.retrieve(DefaultPersistent.java:961)): Executing: SELECT id, number, year, [OTHER FIELDS HERE] FROM appeal WHERE id = 0 AND number = 100 AND year = 2003

depending on which way I try to lookup the object. Please notice it is
attempting to set a value for all three fields, regardless.  The javadoc
says that find() trys to lookup based on "current" fields.  This is
where I think I'm getting things wrong.

Is this code snippet above not the proper way to look up a persistent? 
I've defined them as javabean style POJOs.

if I just set the id of the persistent, and use the following code:
	 m.retrieve();
            res.addOutput("found", m.toString());

i get the object as expected, so I know the db comm is working ok.

Any help appreciated,
gene