Art and Murder by Don Easton Page B

need time to tidy up. Call me back in an hour, say, quarter to nine my time — I realize from your area code that you’re nine hours ahead, yes?”
    â€œYou want me to call you back again?”
    â€œYes, but if I don’t pick up … well, I think you know what will have happened.”
    â€œPlease, I am doing my best. Don’t —”
    Jack hung up and squatted beside Bojan, then tapped the side of his skull with the barrel of his pistol. “Tell me, if I take what I found and leave, what will you and Anton do with the body in the next room?”
    â€œWe’d look after it, of course.” Bojan’s voice showed optimism that he might be left alive.
    â€œHow?”
    â€œWe’d dig a pit out back in the bush behind the building,” Anton said eagerly.
    â€œExactly what I thought you would do.” Jack stood up. “You guys really are stupid.” He glanced at Laura and muttered, “I hate talking to stupid people. It wastes my time.” He then looked at Anton and asked incredulously, “You would actually bury a body on property that you live on?”
    â€œWe only rent it,” Bojan said.
    â€œYes, tell that to the cops if it was discovered.” Jack punched out a number on his cell phone. “Tell me, Sammy’s Janitorial Service, how far away are you?”
    â€œThirty minutes,” Sammy replied.
    â€œGood. Call me when you’re at the gate.”
    Jack shook his head in disgust at Anton and Bojan, then blindfolded them again with duct tape and gestured for Laura to follow him to the front of the workshop to talk.
    â€œYou scared me,” said Laura. “For a second, I thought you really did shoot him.”
    â€œForget Anton, he deserves what I did. Let me fill you in.”
    Jack told her what was happening, then sent her back to watch the captives while he texted Rose a priority message:
Check out painting asap. Line up a curator or art specialist to see if genuine. I will arrange delivery.
    Jack then used his phone to take pictures of Clive Dempsey’s body from all angles, as well as the rest of the shop, including the workbench with the scales and the bag of cocaine he’d dropped when he dove for cover after Anton shot Clive.
    Next he took Clive’s keys and placed the crate with the painting in the trunk of Clive’s car. He then went back inside the workshop as Sammy called to say they were at the gate. He surveyed the room once more. Okay. I’m not as good as Forensics, but I-HIT will have to live with it.

Chapter Sixteen
    Jack gave Sammy the entry code, then dragged Anton and Bojan one at a time out to the main area and ripped the tape from their faces again. They watched as Jack slid the large door open and motioned for a green van to back inside.
    Seconds later, Anton and Bojan exchanged puzzled looks when two men, both dressed in suits and ties, stepped out. One man stroked his goatee as he glanced at them, then looked at Dempsey’s body. “Shouldn’t take long,” he said gruffly.
    The newcomers opened the rear doors of the van and put on coveralls, followed by latex gloves. Next, they unrolled a large sheet of plastic in the back of the van, before picking Dempsey’s body up and tossing it inside.
    Anton cringed when the man with the goatee gestured at him with his thumb and asked, “What about them two? Want us to dispose of them at the same time?”
    â€œI’m expecting a call in that regard in a couple of minutes,” Jack replied.
    The man with the goatee shrugged, then he and the other man took a jug of bleach and a mop and pail out of the van and proceeded to mop the floor where Dempsey had been lying.
    Jack received his call three minutes later, but for Anton and Bojan, it seemed much longer.
    â€œIs this phone okay?” asked Jack as soon as he answered. “I see you changed yours.”
    Roche waited a beat, then said, “There are other