When they arrived Fred brought the pictures into the house and hung them in their original locations while they had lunch, and Stone related to Dino his conversation with Anita Mays and Bill Murphy.“So we’ve got a witness to the burglary and a description of the burglars?”“Not really. The burglars were the Drago brothers, and they took the pictures to Crane’s house on East Sixty-first—until they were re-stolen—but Anita and Bill aren’t going to be around to testify against them. They’ll clear out before dawn tomorrow. Your art squad will recover a hell of a lot of stolen stuff, and the previous owners will be happy about that, but the thieves will be gone.”“So why didn’t I just arrest them today?”“Because they wouldn’t have told us anything, and now we know for sure that Crane and Dugan were behind the theft.”“A lot of good that will do us.”“Wrong. Now you can eliminate all other suspects and concentrate your investigation on the two of them.”“Well, that’s something, I guess.”“And you may bag Jake Sutton, as well.”“The jewelry squad is all over him.”“I wonder if he’s smart enough to know that?”“He’s been getting away with it for so long that he’s probably overconfident by now.”
