Keeping It Safe
David’s astonishment quickly became fear as he realized just what he had in his possession. He had to hide it away from prying eyes. Ironically, the only door that locked in the store was the bathroom, so he moved the 40-by-30 inch painting there and locked it inside. “We were afraid someone would bash it or flick paint off it so that’s when we decided we would pick it up and stick it somewhere safe,” Van Auker explained later. Then, he called the Tucson museum.