St Kilda Consulting 04 - Blue Smoke and Murder

into something close to a smile. “Well, at least you trust me that much.”
    “So give us your opinion,” Zach said.
    “If those paintings aren’t by Thomas Dunstan, I’ll eat my whole collection of Anasazi pots. But I don’t have droit moral. I don’t have Ramsey Worthington’s stature in Western art circles. With my opinion and four hundred dollars, you could frame a small painting.”
    “Don’t be too sure of that,” Zach said. “Your kind of reputation doesn’t disappear, it becomes legendary.”
    Frost looked at Zach the way he’d looked at the Dunstans. Then he nodded abruptly. “What can I do to help you?”
    Jill sensed rather than saw the long breath Zach let out.
    “Thank you,” Zach said. “St. Kilda will be glad to pay for your—”
    “Don’t insult me,” Frost interrupted curtly. “Get the ladder out of the garage and take down my Dunstans.”
    Zach started to bridle at the orders, then smiled slightly. “Yessir.”
    Frost looked surprised, then almost smiled, too.
    “I’ll get the ladder,” Jill said quickly.
    “Never mind,” Zach said. “I’ve played monkey for this man more times than either of us wants to remember.”
    “So stop yapping and get the ladder,” Frost said. “I want those Dunstans side by side.”
    “Yours are bigger than mine,” Jill said to Frost.
    “No matter what a teenage boy tells you, bigger ain’t better,” Frost retorted.
    Jill blinked, then laughed. Garland Frost wasn’t an easy person, but she liked him in the same way that she preferred rapids to lazy, sweeping river curves.
    Without a word, Frost disappeared into another room. Jill could see just enough of it to know that it was a library.
    Zach reappeared, carrying a big aluminum ladder. He set it up beneath the two Dunstans and started climbing. He handed the first painting down to Jill.
    “Get a good grip,” he said. “It’s heavier than it looks.”
    She took the weight without staggering. Rowing rivers was a great way to build upper-body strength. “I have it. You can let go now.”
    “Lean it against the desk pedestal,” Zach said.
    Carefully she placed the painting by the desk and went back for the second one. By the time she put it next to the other one, Zach was beside her, looking at the paintings.
    “One of them has a figure in it,” she said. “Very small, but still there.”
    “Male,” he said, examining the painting closely.
    “Maybe. And maybe it’s a woman in jeans. Women did wear pants back then. Working on a ranch, long skirts are worse than useless.”
    “The great icon of the masculine West painting a woman in or out of pants?” Zach asked dryly. “Worthington would dump a brick at the idea.”
    “I’d like to dump a brick on him.”
    “Frost’s paintings are signed,” Zach said.
    “Lucky him.” She hesitated. “Do you really think my twelve paintings are by Thomas Dunstan?”
    “I’d bet a lot more on it now than I would have two hours ago.”
    “Frost is that good?”
    “Yes. And he knows it.”
    “Does Ramsey Worthington?” Jill asked.
    “Yeah.” Zach grinned like a pirate. “Should be an interesting pissing contest.”
    Frost appeared with a large, rather thin book. He set it on the desk and opened it to a previously marked page.
    “These are my Dunstans,” he said. “ Canyon Dawn and Before the Storm .”
    Jill looked at the plates of the paintings, then at the front of the book. “Dunstan’s catalogue raisonné. When did it come out?”
    “Tal Crawford commissioned it eighteen months ago,” Frost said, “about the time Dunstan’s paintings started to soar in value. And I mean soar.”
    “Who is Crawford?” Jill asked.
    “A major collector,” Frost said. “I made a lot of money off him when I was in the gallery business. Heard he’s been bidding on every Dunstan that comes on the market. He’s been angling after my two paintings for years.”
    “Why?” Jill asked. “I mean, sure, I love Dunstan’s paintings, but I don’t feel a need to own every available one.”
    “You’re not a collector,” Frost and Zach said together.
    “Different breed entirely,” Frost continued.
    “Amen,” Zach said. “Like river rats.”
    “Gotcha,” Jill said, smiling. “Crazy within predictable parameters.”
    Frost looked at her. “Thank god Zach’s taste in women has improved.”
    “I’m a client,” Jill reminded him.
    Frost smiled. “You keep telling yourself that.”
    Zach changed the subject. “If