Chapter 2

Chapter 2 of "My Life As A Thief"

Chapter 2

    The two days waiting for Officer Wayne went by faster than I would have thought. One of the officers had given me a deck of cards, so I spent most of the time playing solitaire or sleeping. The food was just as horrible as I thought it would be. I couldn't help thinking that even rats would be offended by these meals. After only two days here, I find myself missing things that I once took for granite. Like the ability to buy good toothpaste. I swear the toothpaste they have here was just crushed up rocks. I soon replaced the phrase "brushing my teeth", with "scraping my teeth". I don't even want to get started on the toilet paper, or as i call it, the S.O.S. pads.
    Most of all though, I missed my family. They had taken all my personal belongings when they searched me, including my wallet. In my wallet was a picture of my family, that I longed to have. It was a Christmas photo taken in 1982. I can picture it in my head. The background was a cheesy barn door. It had my wife, Judith, with her beautiful, long, brown hair, and green eyes. Her smile conveyed a happiness that never be described. Directly in front of her was our daughter, Amber Lynn. She was 10 at the time. She had Judith's hair and piercing green eyes. She was smart beyond her years, like her mother. Next to her and in front of me was our son, Thomas, who was 11. He had sandy blond hair and brown eyes, just like me. To say "Like father, Like son" was a drastic understatement. He was just as I was growing up. Always getting into trouble and trying to prove himself. Then there was me, standing behind Thomas. I looked so young and I had hair. If you were to look at that photo, you would never guess that the two adults were the most successful bank robbers of their generation. Maybe even the most successful ever.
    As I was sitting there picturing the photo in my head, I failed to notice the officer walk up to my cell. He cleared his throat to get my attention. He was a short man wearing a very nice suit. Obviously he was a detective. He had black hair that was buzzed like a military cut and coke bottle glasses. He had a very crooked nose that looked as though it had been broken numerous times.
    "Hello Jimmy. I'm Detective John Wayne. How are you today?"
    "John Wayne?" He looked annoyed at my question. I'm sure he'd heard it a million times.
    "My parents were big fans. I guess becoming a lawman was inevitable, but enough about me. We are gonna take you over to Room B, were we can start getting your statement." With that, he opened the cell door and beckoned me to follow.
    We walked through the station to the room I had been in before. On the way we passed the lady I had talked to on Friday. I winked at her as we passed and she returned a soft smile.
    I took a seat in a uncomfortable metal folding chair on the far side of the table. Detective Wayne sat down across from me. There was a folder already sitting on the table. I'm sure it was a file on me. I wonder how much they knew about me.
    "So Jimmy, I have been looking through your file here and the only record you have is an assault charge stemming from a bar fight in 1978. Other than that you have a clean record. So you claim to have robbed 50 banks?"
    "Yes, that's true."
    "Ok and you say that you and your wife robbed these banks together?" I could hear the doubt in his voice.
    "Yes. The first one was in 1972 in Wichita, Kansas and the last in Riverside, California in 1995."
    "Ok It says here that your wife, Judith Ann Carlin, died 11 months ago from breast cancer."
    "Yes she did."
    "I'm sorry to hear that. It must have been very hard for you after 39 years of marriage"
    "Harder than you can believe. I'd give anything to have her back." I held back the tears. It was still very hard for me to talk about.
    "I'm sorry." He paused for a second out of courtesy. "So do you have a lawyer Mr. Carlin?"
    "No, I don't trust them." Judith's brother, Stan, was a lawyer and he was a snake of a man. She always described him as "a man who would stab you in the front just to feed off the shock on your face."
    "Ok well we will have to assign you a public defender who will sit in on your statement sessions, and defend you in court."
    "In court? I'm confessing. Why do I have to go to court?"
    "It's just the way things work, Jimmy. Even with a confession we still have to go through the system in case you retract your statement at a later time. Now through this time the robbery's took place you had two children, Thomas and Amber. Were they involved with this as well?"
    "No. They have never known about it."
    "You never even told them about it?"
    "No. If we had ever got caught we didn't want them to be involved or know anything that could be used against them."
    "That's noble, I guess. So do they know that you are in police custody right now?"
    "No." Truth is I had been more scared to tell them, then I had been to turn myself into the police. They thought there father was an outright citizen. Just another blue collar working man. I was afraid they would disown me, which in my mind was worse than being locked up in prison for ten life times. It was inevitable that they find out now. I should have done it myself. I should have called them before I turned myself in. Told them in my own words, what I had done. I had tried many times. I would pick up the phone and start to dial their numbers, only to hang up half way through dialing. There is nothing worse than shattering your own child's life. I couldn't do it. It made me feel like a coward.
    "So I must ask you," Detective Wayne's words broke me out of my dismal thoughts. "why did you decide to turn yourself in today?"
    I sat for a minute staring at him. I didn't really want to tell him.
    "My reason's are my own."
    His face didn't change. He just continued to stare back at me. He looked like he was thinking very hard. After a minute he replied.
    "Ok. Here's the thing, we don't have you as a suspect, or even a person of interest, in any kind of crime. You have a clean record besides the bar fight, yet you come in here claiming to have robbed 50 banks. If it were one or two banks I could understand, but how do you pull off 50 robberies and not get noticed?"
    "We were good."
    "Well if it is true, I would say you were damn good." He paused for a minute, looking directly into my eyes. He was trying to read if I was lying, but i stared right back at him. It seemed like ten minutes had gone by when he said, "Well I guess we'll find out tomorrow, wont we?"

Author's Note

First draft of Chapter 2. I have a basic idea where the story is going but I'm coming up with a lot of things as i write it. I want to get the story all written out and then I will go back and add on once I have all the story elements figured out. Please review.

Reviews

[brenda]

its really good and lol i laughed at the last part damn good just like john wayne said its great:)