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.
Could have Burton done the surgery out of the clinic setting? Absolutely not. Nose and cheekbone surgeries required special equipment and a sterile environment, unless one didn’t mind the patient dying on the operating table or suffering from serious post-op complications.
Was it possible that Burton had received the pictures from his colleague at another clinic? To test this hypothesis, Miranda sent inquiries to every plastic surgery clinic on the East Coast that did nose and cheekbone surgeries. Why hadn’t he asked Dillon himself about Burton? He had a hunch Dillon wasn’t going to tell him the truth.
Later that day, Miranda listened one more time to the recording of the conversation between Burton and the cop posing
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.
Could have Burton done the surgery out of the clinic setting? Absolutely not. Nose and cheekbone surgeries required special equipment and a sterile environment, unless one didn’t mind the patient dying on the operating table or suffering from serious post-op complications.
Was it possible that Burton had received the pictures from his colleague at another clinic? To test this hypothesis, Miranda sent inquiries to every plastic surgery clinic on the East Coast that did nose and cheekbone surgeries. Why hadn’t he asked Dillon himself about Burton? He had a hunch Dillon wasn’t going to tell him the truth.
Later that day, Miranda listened one more time to the recording of the conversation between Burton and the cop posing
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