Page 30 of The Last To Know (Hallowed Halls Series #2)

“I need to tell you something . . .”

Dread cloaked him like a coat as he put the Armada into Drive. “Go ahead.”

“I saw a photo of Noland’s wife in his records.” She swallowed several times. “Cooper, I recognized her.”

He shot her a look. “How?”

“From my dreams . . .”

He prepared for the other shoe to drop. “You’d better explain.” His hands actually shook on the wheel.

“Off and on since I received the transplant, but lately more often, I’ve had dreams—vivid dreams of a woman. Brenda Noland—she’s the woman from my dreams, and, yes, I realize how crazy that sounds.”

He kept his doubts to himself. “What are the dreams about?”

“She—Brenda is terrified of her husband. He beats her. She’s afraid of leaving him.” There were tears in her eyes. “She feels so helpless. I think Brenda knew he would kill her one day.”

“You think you’re experiencing these dreams because you have her heart?” He tried not to show his doubts, but it sounded like a bunch of hocus-pocus to him.

“They’re called cellular memories, and there have been many documented cases of transplant patients having them.”

He wanted to believe her, but Cooper was a black-and-white guy. And this was definitely a gray area.

He let the subject drop and didn’t miss her disappointment. “What do we know about Doctor Archibald Hoffman?” Cooper asked as they headed for the interstate.

Hannah had spoken briefly to Dr. Hoffman, who had a lot to say. “The hospital where Noland was incarcerated fired Hoffman.”

Cooper whipped his head her way. “What? Why?”

“The doctor says it was because he didn’t go along with what was being suggested.” Hannah shrugged.

“And that was . . . ?” Cooper did his best to squelch the sinking feeling in his gut. They desperately needed a break on finding Noland.

“He said the board of trustees at Brookhaven wanted Hoffman to medicate, treat, and release, regardless of the inmate’s condition, to allow for more patients, which meant more government funding. Hoffman mentioned he warned them about releasing Noland. Said he understood the man was violent and a sociopath that showed no signs of rehabilitation. The board didn’t listen to his recommendations.”

Cooper glanced out the windshield as they entered a quiet suburban neighborhood and tried to understand why anyone would okay the release of a violent person like their killer obviously was. “You’re kidding. Can he substantiate any of those accusations?”

Hannah threw him an “oh, please” look. “Nope. They covered their tracks too well. The good doctor had a long list of grievances against him by the time they fired him. I checked them out. The worst being that Doctor Hoffman’s a drug addict. He’d gotten caught prescribing narcotics to himself. Hoffman’s not exactly credible, but he’s all we have. I’m hoping he can shed some light on Noland’s friends, hangouts—anything that might help us find him.”

Cooper ran a hand across his bleary eyes. “Great. This case keeps getting better and better.”

“It’s the one on the left,” Hannah told him.

Doctor Archibald Hoffman’s house was one of the more affluent ones in the neighborhood.

“Not bad for a fired drug addict.” Cooper let out a low whistle as he pulled in front of the two-story red-brick Georgian. “Was he selling the scripts?”

“Not according to him. There’s nothing I found that backs that up. But then, the information available is slim.”

Cooper got out of the Armada and waited for Hannah. He wished he had more confidence in this visit, but the doctor’s drug allegations hung in his head. If the case came to trial, any decent defense attorney would shred the good doctor’s testimony to bits.

As they approached a small flagstone porch, Hannah rang the doorbell, and they waited in silence.

The front door opened and a slightly built middle-aged man with glasses pushed high on his forehead appeared puzzled by their appearance. As if they’d interrupted an afternoon perusing of a book.

“May I help you?”

“Doctor Hoffman, I’m Hannah London and this is Cooper Delaney. We’re with the FBI.” When the confusion didn’t clear, she added, “I called you about one of your patients. Luis Noland.”

“Oh, yes.” The doctor cast a curious look Cooper’s way.

“May we come in?”

The gray-haired man stepped back and let them inside. “Of course, of course. I was in the middle of reviewing some cases.”

Cooper gave Hannah a “what’s going on?” look.

Doctor Hoffman saw their exchange and grinned. “Ah, your partner told you the reason they fired me from Brookhaven. Well, I’m working in the private sector now.”

“I see.” Cooper couldn’t believe the man would be permitted to practice until completely cleared of the charges against him.

“I will be cleared, I assure you,” he said as if reading Cooper’s thoughts. “I’m in the process of suing Brookhaven for wrongful termination.” The doctor showed them to a small office and indicated they should have a seat.

“With all due respect, doctor, if you didn’t fight the charges against you when they fired you, why are you suing now?” Cooper had to ask the obvious. According to Hannah, the doctor had been fired more than a year earlier.

“Because I wanted out of that horrible place. I’d seen things that no human being should ever see. When I brought the list of wrongdoings to the board, they told me I was overreacting. That I should keep my mouth closed.”

“So, you’re saying they fired you to keep you quiet. It must have been some list,” Cooper challenged.

“Oh, it was. The list was long indeed. Patient abuse. Over-prescribing drugs. Falsifying patient records to make it look as if they were getting better when in truth that wasn’t the case.”

“Is that what happened with Luis Noland?”

“Oh my, yes,” the doctor acknowledged with a grim shake of his head. “They pushed me to recommend that he even be free to work in the administration office. As a trial run.”

That didn’t make sense to Cooper. “Really? Even knowing he’d murdered his wife?”

The doctor lowered his head. “Our goal is to help our patients overcome their disease and live a productive life again, Agent Delaney.” He glanced at them. “As I said, he’s good at fooling people. He had everyone else there fooled. But not me. Never me.”

According to what they’d discovered, Noland had tracked down women he believed to have had his wife’s heart and slaughtered them. “What more can you tell us about Luis Noland?”

Doctor Hoffman hesitated. “As I told Agent London on the phone, my identity must remain secret. No one can suspect I was the one who spoke to you concerning this patient. I’m filing a wrongful termination lawsuit against the institute. If they found out I talked to you . . .”

“Doctor, we don’t care about outing you to anyone. We need your help. Noland’s been stalking Agent London because of her heart transplant. I believe he’s stepping up his attempts to get to her. Whatever you choose to do regarding the lawsuit is your decision.”

The doctor expelled a heavy sigh. “Those foolish people. Those foolish, foolish people. I tried to tell them what I believed him capable of, and what did they do? Replaced me with an incompetent yes-man and drummed up false charges against me to make me seem disreputable.”

Hoffman shook his head. “You see, I was the original psychiatrist assigned to Noland’s case when he arrived at the institute. From our first session together, I saw the potential for much evil in him. I warned the board if they let him free, he’d not only kill again, he’d do it repeatedly. The man is a sociopath. He has no conscience, no sense of right or wrong. Frankly, he scared the daylights out of me.”

Hannah had been busy scribbling notes. She stopped long enough to add, “Obviously the court agreed with you when they sentenced him to Brookhaven. I’ve read the court records. He became so deranged the judge recommended Luis Noland never be released.”

The doctor nodded. “Yes. They had to sedate him on high doses of Desyrel Trazodone for a month before I was able to see him, much less get him to talk to me somewhat rationally. When he did, all he talked about was his wife. He was like an injured animal. He spoke as if she were still alive. I tried to get him to accept the fact that he’d killed her and, hopefully, come to some type of terms with it, but he insisted she was still living. He seemed to think she talked to him.”

“If Noland thought his wife was still alive, then how did he explain her organs being used for transplants?” Cooper asked.

The doctor gave them a weary smile. “I don’t know. He is a very intelligent man. When he was allowed to work in the office . . . I soon discovered he’d been using my medical license to check out medical records. When I confronted him with this, he told me he needed to find out where they’d taken his wife.”

Cooper exchanged a skeptical look with Hannah.

“Oh, yes,” the doctor confirmed. “Well, needless to say, after that he was no longer allowed in the office. It was at that time I started receiving thinly veiled threats from him during our sessions. As a precaution, I dug around in his background. I wanted some idea what I was dealing with. Just how sick this man was. What I learned scared me more than any other patient I’d dealt with. Luis Noland worked as a carpenter before he murdered his wife. After getting fired from numerous jobs, working construction was all he found.”

The doctor’s expression grew serious. “I discovered a record of where he’d applied to the Naval Academy when he was young. They did an IQ test, and the man was a genius. Most colleges are anxious to recruit such a candidate, but the Naval Academy rejected his application. Of course, they sealed his files, but I was able to talk to the recruiter privately. He told me Noland scared the daylights out of him as well. The recruiter quit his job soon after he started receiving menacing phone calls.”

“He believed Noland was behind the calls?” Hannah asked.

“Yes, in his mind, there’s no doubt. They rattled him so much that he later left the state. In fact, I tried to contact him again, but he’d changed his number. I have no idea where he is now.”

Cooper was beginning to see what the doctor meant. Luis Noland was one deranged individual. “Why do you think Noland killed his wife?” he asked because it didn’t add up in his book. “Clearly he adored her.”

The doctor took a moment to consider his answer. “He didn’t express any reason for doing it. As I’ve said, he didn’t admit to the crime, and I often wondered if this wasn’t some ploy created by his legal team to get him off. After his release, I feared the worst. That he would come after me. ”

The doctor’s glance ping-ponged between them. “His mental condition had been deteriorating for a while, apparently. Brenda had sent a note to her family. They received it after her death. She accused him of abusing her for years. Her medical records backed those claims. In the note, she seemed to indicate she’d finally mustered the courage to do something about it. The family believed she was going to leave him. She’d hinted at someone new in her life, a friend, perhaps someone from the neighborhood, since Brenda didn’t work. I believe Brenda realized she didn’t want to live in fear any longer. My guess is that sent Noland into a rage and he ultimately killed her.”

As interesting as all of this was, they still didn’t have a clue where to find Noland. “Doctor, we must find him before he kills again. Can you tell us anything about where he might be hiding? Did he mention any place in particular that he liked to go?”

The doctor scratched his chin as he considered the question. “As I’ve said, he refused to talk about his wife’s murder or anything related to the crime. Most of our discussions were about abstract things like world conditions or sports. I do remember he was passionate about movies. Not what you’d expect, he preferred Westerns. He adored the Duke. He’d seen every one of his movies. I told him once he could watch John Wayne anytime online, but he insisted he preferred seeing the Duke’s movies on the big screen only.” The doctor shook his head. “He could recite them by heart. John Wayne’s work was one of the few movies the institute allowed the patients to see. Luis was in heaven then. It’s not much, I realize.”

The doctor sensed Cooper’s growing frustration. “I’m sorry. Really, I wish I had more, but Noland was an enigma. He kept his secrets close.”

Cooper had never felt so discouraged. He got to his feet. “Thank you for seeing us, doctor.”

Hoffman stood as well. “There is one more thing. Last year before I was fired, Noland checked himself back into the hospital for a short stay. He wanted more treatment. Needless to say, the new doctor was thrilled. He thought it proved everything I said was wrong. In my mind, it was suspicious at best. Noland hated his time at Brookhaven. He wouldn’t have come back without reason. I have a feeling he wanted back there to check out medical records again.”

The doctor’s glasses slipped from his forehead. He smiled briefly and positioned them back on his nose. “Ah, I wondered where these had gone.”

Cooper turned to Hannah. “Can you give us a minute? It’s a private matter.”

Though clearly curious, Hannah didn’t question Cooper. “I’ll wait outside.” She thanked Hoffman for his time.

Cooper waited for the door to close before asking, “What can you tell me about cellular memories? Are they real or just some claims by desperate people?” He had to figure out if what Hannah was experiencing in her dreams was real or just part of the stress she’d been under lately.

“Why do you ask?” the doctor lifted his brows, clearly curious. “Is this connected to the case in some way?”

Cooper decided he trusted the man. He told the doctor about Hannah’s dreams. That she recognized her donor as well as Noland from them.

“Ah, well, I’ve done extensive research in the field because it is fascinating to me.” The doctor sounded intrigued. “I’ve interviewed many recipients who claimed to have their donor’s memories. In my opinion, their claims were real, at least to them. Hang on a second. I have some information that I published in the Psychiatry Today Journal a few years back. It might help you understand what your friend is dealing with.” The doctor dug through a stack of papers until he found the magazine in question.

“Here we go.” He handed Cooper the magazine. “It amazed me to learn how many cases there are where heart transplant recipients possess memories attributed to their donor. I found an entire website dedicated to cellular memories. It’s listed on page five. There you can read about case after case of recipients recounting specific memories from their donors’ lives. ”

“Thanks for this.” Cooper held up the magazine while feeling overwhelmed. “I’ll pass it on to my friend. I think she’ll be relieved to hear she's not alone.” Although he knew Hannah had this information already.

Once they said their goodbyes, Cooper stepped outside where Hannah waited next to the SUV.

“What was that about?” Hannah asked once they were on their way.

Cooper told her what the doctor said.

Her huge eyes showed shock. “You had no right to discuss my medical information with someone else.”

He clasped her hand. “I know and I’m sorry, but I just wanted a professional opinion on the matter. For now, let’s focus on finding Noland.”

She blew out an angry breath. “You’re right. He’s dangerous.” She paused for a long moment. “Unfortunately, the good doctor didn’t give us much else to go on, did he?”

Cooper had to agree. “No, but as soon as we get back to the hotel, I want to check around the local movie theaters that show old movies. Let’s see if John Wayne is playing anywhere.”