"I'm goddam sick and tired of it," he said, squinting in a really ugly way. "I think my fucking nephew is stealing stuff out of my own house. The problem is I can't catch him at it. Can you help me?"
Gavin looked desperate. He lived in a beautiful home just a few doors down from me but, because of his job, he was seldom in it. His cousin Susan and her good-for-nothing son Robert would frequently stay in his house while extensive renovations were going on in their place.
To add insult to injury, Gavin was helping them pay for the renovations since his cousin was pretty near bone-poor and her son Robert had never held a job in his life although he was almost 23 now.
I knew them both pretty well. She was a big, raw-boned kind of woman, well into her 50s. She owned very little, including the teeth in her mouth, from what I could tell. Nice person, though, even if she wasn't very bright. On the other hand, she was a regular Einstein compared to her son, Robert. He liked playing video games but couldn't quite find the time to finish his GED. He'd pick up odd jobs in the neighborhood to make a little money but he never had regular employment. He was a big kid and while he was dumb-looking, he wasn't particularly unattractive.
And here's the kicker. He was the pick of the family's litter. His oldest brother was serving 5 to 10 upstate for some petty crime he got caught at again and his other brother was living off his girlfriend in another state. Dad would beat Susan regularly but, mercifully, he had died a few years back. Not exactly an Ozzie and Harriet family. Susan and Robert had moved down here a few years ago to be close to Gavin.
Gavin wanted to throw them out but he needed proof first. He told me he discovered that stashes of money he kept around the house were disappearing and then a few small art objects (Gavin liked collecting antiques). Robert would then show up a few days later with a new video game which he would play while smoking the weed he bought at the same time. The problem was always worst when Gavin was out of town and he was headed out for a week in a couple of days.
"Can you set up one of those video things?" he asked me. "You know, something they won't see."
I work with video surveillance and I knew this job would be a piece of cake. I told him I'd install something tonight while he took them out to dinner or something.
"I want to see what's going on. And I want to hear what they say too," Gavin said. "I don't know if they're into this together. Dammit, I feel awful doing this but I'm not letting thieves live in my house, even if they are blood."
I nodded, agreed on a price and that night when I saw them leave, I grabbed some extra equipment and mikes and put them in place in the living room area. With a fish eye lens, I could pretty much see the entire living area and hear everything too. Because the equipment was so close to my home, it was easiest to just transmit the pictures and sound to my place where I could record them.
Gavin left town a few days later and I set the equipment to record what was going on whenever anyone was in the house. Later in the evening, I would review it and save any clips that I thought might be enlightening.
One thing that was enlightening to me – although probably of little interest to Gavin – was the video I saw of Susan the first night Gavin was gone. She was strutting around the house absolutely topless. No shirt, no bra, nothing.
Like I said, she was a big woman. Not fat, just large but she had tits that were so big and long I thought she'd be able to tie them into knots. And she had great big nipples on those tremendous hooters. When she walked through the living room, her tits swung from side to side like the trunks on two elephants looking for water . . .
But that wasn't the really interesting thing. What was interesting is Robert was engaged in his second-favorite activity, watching television, and she strode around like he wasn't there. Or like she didn't care that he was there.
