Deception (A Miranda Murphy Thriller) (7 page)

When Miranda returned to her office, she learned the results of the voice analysis: Burton’s voice matched the voice of the man that had met Officer Ted Winslow at Appleton Bakery Café. 

As for Kieffer, he had still not come back from Chicago.

At nine in the evening, Miranda called Noah Burton’s home number. The phone was answered by his wife. She said that Burton hadn’t been home since last night, that his cellphone was turned off.

“None of his friends or relatives know where he is. If he doesn’t come home by tomorrow morning, I’m going to report him missing,” she said. 

5.

“I don’t care what that criminal told you. You’re wasting your time with me.” It was the fourth time John Kieffer had uttered this phrase since their conversation had begun half an hour earlier. Apparently, he refused to realize the gravity of the situation.

It was four hours ago when Miranda had been informed that John Kieffer had finally showed up at and that she could speak to him whenever she was ready. She had asked the New Haven cops to set up the rendezvous outside the walls of the police department, preferably in the open air.

“I’d like to make this meeting very informal,” she said.

They granted Miranda’s request and told her to come to Long Wharf Pier, which was located only a few minutes away from the New Haven PD building. She arrived there at half past six.   

“I have nothing more to say, Detective.”

Miranda began to conspicuously play with her gun. A cool breeze smelling of seaweed came blowing from the ocean.

“Let me predict the future, John,” she said, peering into Kieffer’s eyes. “Five minutes from now you’re going to suddenly pounce on me, snatch my gun, and shoot me in the forearm. I’ll fall down on the ground. You’ll run. And those two fellows will chase after you.” Miranda waved towards the cops standing fifty feet away. “They’ll shoot at you. And you know what I think? I think at least one bullet will hit the target. And I have a premonition it will be a fatal wound. How do you like my prediction, John?”

“Listen... Of course it’s possible that I could have a criminal among my acquaintances, but no one is guaranteed against that,” Kieffer replied. “That hitman is lying to you. I did not hire anybody to kill Jeff Hackett. Take me to the police station and talk to me there. But first, I need to call my lawyer.”

“John, you should understand that I’m very serious about what I just said. If you think I was joking, you’re wrong.”

“I have no opinion about it, Detective. I demand that you take me to the police station right now. Or the FBI office, whoever is in charge of this. I refuse to continue our conversation here.”

“Tell me the truth.” Miranda took her gun off safety. “You must be afraid that the people you work for will make you pay for ratting them out?”

“I’m not afraid of anybody, okay? I’ve got nothing to do with this crime.”

“Well, you should be afraid of me. My prediction is your biggest problem right now. Will it come true or not?” Miranda put the barrel of his gun to his left forearm. “How long will my wound take to heal? Perhaps no more than a month. Too bad you won’t be able to bring me flowers to the hospital.”

“Hold on, Detective. You can’t do that. That’s against the law. You’re going to lose your job along with those two cops. And go to jail, too.”

“I think I should take a chance. For some reason, I’m feeling lucky. I’m generally a very lucky guy, you know.” Miranda smiled.

Kieffer heaved a deep sigh and covered his face with his hands. “All right, I’ll tell you what I know. But it won’t help you. She’s going to get away with this. She’ll figure something out.”

“Who will?”

“My cousin, Monica Staggs. It was all her idea.”

Miranda put the gun back on safety. Okay, he finally got confirmation that Monica Staggs was behind the hunt for Hackett.

“Why does she want to kill Hackett?”

“I don’t know. We never talked about it. She offered me a chance to make fifty thousand dollars, and I agreed. Most people would have agreed.”

“What do you think she’s after?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she just didn’t like him. She holds grudges forever. And she’s cunning, too. You’re not going to make her talk, you’ll see.”

Unfortunately, Kieffer was right. Taking into account that she would hire the best lawyers the money could buy, they needed solid direct evidence to put Staggs behind bars. Right now all they had was Kieffer’s word against Monica’s.

As Miranda drove back to Boston, she called Hackett and told him about the new development.

“Why would Monica want to kill me?” Hackett asked.

“I thought you might have some ideas on this,” Miranda said.

Hackett frowned. “I saw her a few times. She looks like a nice person,” he said. “Frankly, I have no clue why she would hate me so much. What does she gain from my death?”

“Maybe your half of Marshall’s inheritance? You are his only son after all.”

“They’re not married.”

“They may be planning to get married.”

Hackett shook the head. “After he divorced Mom, my dad said he’d never marry again. He’s kept his word so far.”

“People change their minds all the time, especially when it comes to marriage. Anyway, it’s clear that Monica Staggs is involved in this. Now we need to find out who’s helping her.”

Then Miranda dialed Dillon’s number and asked him if they could meet later today. Dillon agreed.

6.

 “I’m sorry, Ms Murphy, I don’t have a lot of time,” Dillon said. “Therefore, you’ll have to cut to the chase.”  

“Sure. What can you tell me about your friend Monica Staggs?”

“Monica? Why are interested in her?”

“I suspect she might be involved in the attempt on your son’s life.”

Dillon frowned and leaned back in his chair. “Why do you think she might be involved?”

“I recently came across evidence pointing to her involvement.”

“What evidence is it?”

“I can’t answer this question at the moment. I’d much appreciate it if you could share with me everything you know about Miss Staggs. You don’t have to do it today. Please take your time and think this over.”

“It seems to me you’re looking under the wrong rocks.”

“I have to follow every lead since there aren’t many. I thought you’d like my thoroughness.”

After a short silence, Dillon nodded. “Yes, you’re right. You should follow every lead.” He glanced at his watch. “Here’s the thing, Miranda. I doubt I can be objective to Monica. I’m not sure if any man can be objective to a young beautiful woman. Monica is very beautiful, I suppose you noticed that.”

“She certainly looks good.”

“I just can’t imagine why she would want to kill my son?”

“Are you going to marry her?”

Dillon shook his head. “I’ve already been married once. It was not a particularly entertaining experience to me. Besides, I believe that a woman marrying a rich guy thinks about his money first and foremost, no matter what she says. This is my personal opinion, and you don’t have to agree with it.”

“Has Monica ever mentioned marriage to you?”

“No. She knows what I think of marriage.”

“Do you have a will?”

Dillon smiled. “Just like in that Columbo show. No, I don’t have a will. But your idea is pretty clear to me. You think Monica wants to get rid of Jeff so nobody will have a claim on my money after my death. No, Miranda, this motive doesn't apply here. Monica knows very well we’re never getting married, which means she’s not inheriting a dime from me unless I specifically leave it to her.”

“I see. And now my last question. Did you ask Monica to tell to me that you’d like to talk to Jeff as soon as we found him?”

Dillon nodded. “Yes, I did.”

7.

They found Noah Burton on Friday. The surgeon sat in his BMW, his eyes shut, two miles north of Medford, a northwestern suburb of Boston. There was a hole in his head, from temple to temple. The gun, a nine-millimeter Browning, that had been used to shoot Burton was lying on the floor of the car. According to the forensic pathologist, the death had occurred on Tuesday, the day Burton had disappeared.

Burton appeared to have killed himself, but Miranda wasn’t in the mood to rush to judgment.

The search of the area around the car yielded no evidence. Three days, one of which had been rainy, were enough for the clues, if there had been any in the first place, to vanish.

What did they find inside Burton’s BMW? Nothing useful. There were Ray-Ban sunglasses and a bunch of music CDs in the glove compartment. No signs of fight. All the blood in the car was the same type as Burton's. The trunk contained a spare tire and a half-empty jug of coolant.

The pistol? The gun was unregistered but turned out to have no criminal history.

Chapter 6.

1.

 On Monday, Miranda received the autopsy report on Noah Burton. The pathologists had determined that Burton had no alcohol or drugs in his system. They had found no traces of poison either. The surgeon had died from a gunshot wound to the head. The most curious piece of information was at the end of the report.

The pathologists had stumbled upon a foreign object in Burton's stomach. The foreign object was a yellow flat key, which had no markings identifying what kind of locks it opened.

Apparently, Burton had swallowed the key shortly before getting shot.  

What conclusion could he draw from this?

It was pretty clear that Burton had not committed suicide. A man wouldn’t swallow a key before blowing his brains out, that just made no sense.

Now Miranda had to figure out why this key was so important to Burton. First, he was going to chat with the surgeon’s wife Helen Burton.

2.

“Did your husband have enemies?”

Helen Burton, Noah Burton’s wife, shook her head, staring into space absentmindedly. “No, Noah had no enemies; at least not the kind that would want to murder him,” she said in a soft voice. “He was a decent man. He had always avoided confrontation.”

“Did he have a reason to commit suicide?”

“No, he didn’t. It was not a suicide, I’m sure of that.”

“Have you seen this key before?” Miranda handed Helen a clear plastic bag containing the key they had extracted from the surgeon’s body.

 Helen inspected the key without much interest and returned it to the detective. “No, I’ve never seen it.”

“Do you have a safe at home?”

“Yes, we do, but it’s not the key to our safe.”

“We found this key on your husband. What do you think it opens?”

Helen shrugged her shoulders. “Maybe some drawer in his work office,” she said.

“Would you mind if I came by your house and looked for the lock matching this key?”

“Be my guest. And don’t forget to check the check, too.”

3.

Neither Burton’s house, nor his clinic had a lock that matched the key found in the surgeon’s stomach.

To make the search area more manageable, Miranda elected to assume that the key opened a safety deposit box at some bank. Taking into account that the surgeon hadn’t wanted his killer to get the key, it was reasonable to suggest that the deposit box contained something important or valuable or both. There could even be clues pointing to the killer’s identity in it.

So they had to find the deposit box. Can you say “needle in a haystack”?   

What bank was it? What city was the deposit box in? What country? Burton could have easily rented a box in Mexico or Canada. Miranda hoped the surgeon had chosen a local institution to satisfy his safety storage needs. Positive thinking, ladies and gentlemen—it did wonders.

Under the best case scenario, Burton had used his real name to rent the box. It was a very different story if he had rented it as Bruce Wayne or Austin Powers or whatever his imagination had conceived.

What was the plan? First, Miranda would do the easy thing—ask every bank in the Greater Boston area to search their safety deposit box records for Noah Burton. Second, she was going to collect safety deposit key samples from the banks and check if any one of them was the same type as Burton’s. If the match was found, they would have to try Burton’s key on all the boxes that used this type of key. The second option sounded like a lot of work—and mind-bogglingly tedious to boot—but there was no way around it if Noah Burton had rented the box under an assumed name.   

4.

They found the surgeon’s safe deposit box on Thursday. Thankfully, Noah Burton had gone the easy route and rented the box under his own name, thus saving them hundreds of man-hours and tons of headache.

What had Noah Burton kept in his deposit box? A flash drive with photographs. Twenty photographs of Marshall Dillon’s face from different angles. 

Besides the pictures, the flash drive contained a small Word document, which read, “Nose and cheekbone surgery, April 15. Marshall Dillon. American Discount Tires.”

“That’s common practice,” Helen Burton said. “Noah took pictures before and after every surgery. It must be one of his patients.”

Burton had operated on Dillon’s face?

What kind of surgery had Dillon asked for? A facelift? A nose job? Silicone cheek implants? Had Marshall Dillon decided to rejuvenate himself and shave ten—fifteen years off his face? Had he done it for Monica Staggs?

Unfortunately, the car accident Dillon had gotten into three months ago might have undone some or all of Burton's efforts. Or had the accident taken place before the surgery? Let’s check it later.  

Dillon. He could be involved in this. The question was how?

5.

After a little digging, Miranda found out that the car crash that had almost killed Marshall Dillon had taken place ten miles south of Rome, on May 7
^th
of this year. Dillon had lost control of his Maserati Quattroporte and slammed into a tree at sixty miles an hour.

Miranda had gone through the patient records at Burton’s clinic and found no trace of Marshall Dillon. According to his schedule, Burton had performed no surgeries on April 15
^th
of this year. He had operated on women on April 15
^th
of the previous two years.