The Thief

On the coast of Florida in a small jail there was a man named Todd who was an inmate for 5 years now and was serving life in prison rape and murder. He was very stalwart, he was about 29 years old, and he was big with 5 o'clock shadow. One day while in the jail yard he had been deftly working on digging a ditch under a bulwark and that one day he finished it and on that day he finally escaped from prison. The hole was finally large enough to fit through. He planned it perfectly while the guards were too distracted on watching the new inmates enter the prison off the bus. He slipped under the bulwark to the other side and he sprinted, tripping over his own feet across the green field, across an estuary, and into the mangrove forest.

It took about a day to reach Miami and he lived in the city for about two weeks. One day a kind lady approached him with a very happy and open countenance. She worked at a shelter where they took in people from the streets. He had been wearing and old tattered shirt and was very dirty and displeasing. She hesitantly offered to take him in to their home and he accepted the offer. She couldn’t just let him live out on the street alone. She decided now that she would instead of send him to the shelter she would bring him home.

He was lying on the couch watching TV and the woman was tending to his every need. She wrapped poultice cloth around his cut on his leg he had gotten on the street. “So what’s your name anyway?” Said Todd.
“My name is Laura” she said.
“Do you live here by yourself?”
“No.” she stated, “My husband and I live here together but he’s at work right now.”
“Oh.” He said disappointingly, now his plan would be much harder with another person in the house.

At supper that night the husband, Jim, came home from his long day at work and saw Todd sitting at the table. “Who is this!?” said Jim surprised.
“This is Todd.” Said Laura, “He’s going to be living here for a while until we can get him back on his feet.”

Jim didn’t say anything else and he just let it go. Todd told him about himself but no that he escaped form jail. He embellished his story and said that he was a previous business owner whose business went bankrupt to make him sound a little better. Todd could tell that Jim didn’t care for him and that he was only wanted in this house by Laura.
As time went by Todd began to gain Jim’s trust. Todd had his own job and he was actually making decent pay. Todd was now thought of as a part of the family. Todd knew that now he could finally fulfill his plan. He decided that he would do it tonight when they were sleeping.

After Jim and Laura went to sleep Todd snuck out of his bed down the hallway and into the closet of Laura and Jim. He was being as quiet as he possibly could. He remembered to bring some tools from the cellar and he went over to the safe and opened it. He took all of their stuff he took, money, bank; account numbers, passports, and even went into their wallets and took their credit cards. He ran into the driveway and he started their car and drove away. He dumped it into the ocean where no one would ever find it.
When Jim and Laura woke up they called the police and the story made the all the tidings in the local area. Todd had been living under a false name so no one really knew his real name, it was really Tyler. Todd thought he had made out perfectly and now no one could stop him.

After about a month when he thought things had cooled down Todd went to the bank to deposit some money. He opened the account of Laura and Jim. What Todd didn’t know is that the police had been waiting for an inkling or someone to open the account of Jim and Laura so that they could catch him. The bursar signaled to the person working in the back of the bank to call the police.

Right after Todd deposited his money he casually walked out the door without a care in the world when he heard’ “Freeze it’s the police!” Todd dropped his stuff and just surrendered without ant fight at all. He was handcuffed and walked through all the fracas to the cop car. Before he knew it he was back where he started in the first place doing life in jail, it was déjà vu all over again.