Page 22 of Renegade

McNulty frowned a little. “I’ll reiterate, though. If it was stolen, it didn’t happen at the Flores estate.” He sat forward and reached for his keyboard. “I’ll show you what I’m talking about.”

We exchanged a glance, though, Raven said nothing, he sent me the smallest nod as McNulty typed.

“Here.” McNulty swung the monitor around so we could see a graphic layout of a property with several red circles as well as other markings drawn on it. “This is a bird’s eye view of the Flores mansion.” He tapped the screen in several places. “Front lawn…house… Backyard—tennis court and pool. Guest cottage…greenhouse…gardener’s shed.” He ran his finger around the edge of the entire property. “Perimeter, front and back.” He glanced over at us.

“Every inch of this property is covered by security cameras. That’s how I saw you drive up today.” He tapped a few more times on the keyboard. When a photograph came up, he zoomed in on a familiar black truck idling at the front entrance. The angle was expected. The still photo of Raven face-on, showed him leaning toward the box, speaking to McNulty. It had been taken from the camera located on the box itself, not the overhead camera which had been looking down at us from its perch above.

When McNulty tapped more keys, a second picture came up. Raven’s truck traveling up the drive toward the gate before it got to the box. It had been taken from the security camera which had swept one hundred eighty degrees left and right to see the entire street where Tawny Flores lived. McNulty brought up the bird’s eye view of the property.

“Every red dot denotes the placement of a camera. There are twenty-four on the perimeter walls of the property alone. I can see every inch of it.” He tapped several other dots on the house itself. “There are cameras here…here…here…and so on. They’re located on every corner of the mansion as well as both the front and back doors.” He finally twisted the monitor back to face him and leaned back in his chair. “So, as you can see, nothing, including the tiniest rodent can escape the scrutiny of the cameras on the exterior of this property.”

“Hmm…”Raven said. “It sounds like a bug couldn’t escape the scrutiny.” He smiled to soften the joke.

McNulty let out a satisfied grunt of approval as he nodded. “All true.”

“And the interior of the property?” I asked. “Does it also have cameras?”

McNulty shook his head, sighing. “I suggested that be part of the contract. It was my opinion, that if a thief knew about the artwork in the house, the property would become a target, regardless of the excellent alarm system I installed at each and every window and door, including the garage door. I even installed an alarm on the guest cottage out back, so Mr. Flores could assure anyone staying there that they were safe.”

“You suggested cameras for the interior of the house?” Raven asked.

McNulty nodded. “Yes. Mr. Flores was in favor of them because of the artwork.”

“Why weren’t they installed then?”

“Well, that’s a tricky question,” he hedged. “Actually, there were cameras already inside the property when Mr. Flores contacted me to come out and bid for the job. One of the questions he had was whether they could be turned on again or whether new equipment needed to be installed to get the coverage he wanted.”

I exchanged a glance with Raven before turning back to McNulty.

“What did you tell him?” I asked.

“I told him that frankly the system was antiquated when he bought the house, and that yes, I could see that they got turned back on, but his best bet was to have me install new cameras with updated technology which would integrate seamlessly with the exterior cameras I was installing.”

“I see,” Raven said. “What did he say to that?”

“He was in favor of it. He loved his artwork, and wanted it protected, which I appreciated. You don’t own a collection like that without taking care of the security around it.”

“So, why didn’t you replace the system?”

He flattened the palms of his hands on the desk as he leaned forward. “Because Mrs. Flores vetoed the idea. She said she didn’t like the idea of anyone being able to monitor the interior of her property. She felt like someone would be spying on her.” He made impatient hand gestures as he frowned. “I told her that during the day, I’d make sure the system was turned off inside the house, that no monitoring would be going on during the hours she set.

“I suggested that the cameras would only be turned on when Mr. and Mrs. Flores were away or were turned off at whatever hour Mrs. Flores chose. That’s the option most of my residential clients insist upon whenever I install interior cameras, and the suggestion was made from my extensive expertise, not out of the blue. Commercial properties and businesses are a whole different thing, of course.”

I nodded. “Of course.” Personally, I hated the very idea of being monitored with cameras. It gave me the creeps. Then again, my Recon experience had taught me to live and work in the shadows, the exact opposite of what we were talking about here.

“See, this is the thing,” McNulty went on. “Mr. and Mrs. Flores didn’t spend all their time in Bel Air. Though they list the house as their primary residence, Mr. Flores has several other residences. One in the Caribbean, and one out in the desert near a casino he has…had an ownership interest in. The couple spent a lot of time away, so it made perfect sense that Mr. Flores treat his Bel Air property where all his art is kept, like I do commercial properties with high-value assets. I have a client who collects cars and the garage where he stores them, is covered with interior cameras.”

“Well, a garage isn’t a house where someone might want to walk around in the nude,” Raven said, “but I get your meaning. It sounds like you gave them good advice.”

McNulty nodded, smiling. “Thank you. Would you like to discuss the alarm system I installed?”

“Is there more to it than the fact that you installed it on all the doors and windows?” I asked.

“No, I just thought you might want to know the details in case you wanted to check on everything,” he replied. “I can print out a list of each and every time the alarm was tripped if you’d like.”

“Was that a problem? Were they constantly setting off the alarm?” Raven asked.

“Not that I recall.” He turned back to his computer and typed while we waited. He nodded. “In fact, after I was hired, the alarm was set off twice and both on the back door which is located in the kitchen. The report states that their maid, Maria, set it off once when she was taking out the trash, setting it off when she returned to the house and forgot to reenter the passcode. Neither Mr. nor Mrs. Flores were at home at the time. Another time Mrs. Flores opened the back door to go out to speak to the pool man. She stated that she forgot to turn it off before exiting the house.”

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