A Dance With the Devil: A True Story of Marriage to a Psychopath

by Barbara Bentley

  “Haven’t been able to get it done.”

  “It’s been two years now. You promised when we got married.”

  “I’ve been trying, did again last week, in fact. But the issuing clerk at the Alameda naval base was on vacation.”

  “It’s always some excuse,” I said, realizing as the words slipped from my mouth that I had not chosen the right time to bring it up.

  John tensed and abruptly stopped. He turned to me with glaring eyes and hissed under his breath, “Are you trying to embarrass me? I told you I’d get them. You don’t believe me, and that really hurts. You’ve seen how the Navy treats us with respect, so get off my back.”

  Once again my aspirations of having tangible proof that I was indeed the admiral’s wife were dashed by his evasive words. Once again I felt guilty, as if my persistence were wrong. How could I not trust my admiral? Still, deep inside, it nagged at me that he had not come through.

  On July 24, 1985, Gobi and Gidget presented us with a litter of eight squirming puppies. The first one was born in our bed, in the middle of the night. We quickly hustled Gidget to the birthing area we had set up in my downstairs office and as each wet head popped into the world, we proudly selected a name from our list of male and female names that started with the letter “G.” (Ironically, we had had to use artificial insemination. Either Gobi couldn’t quite figure out how to connect with Gidget, or she was playing hard to get. She kept sitting down.)

  We sent out birth announcements with a photo of the new family and received visitors with gifts and good wishes. As the pups neared nine weeks old, we took applications for “adoption” and promised a pup only if the new family met our strict criteria for a loving environment. Departure days were heart wrenching. When the first car drove away with Gatsby, I stood on the curb and broke into tears. John hugged me but he did not cry. However, when Gigi left a couple of days later with our friends the Passinis, John joined me with big crocodile tears flowing down his cheeks and, as each successive puppy left, he sobbed right along with me. I took his tears as a measure of his love for the puppies. Now I have to wonder. I have since learned that psychopaths do not feel emotion and that they watch the reactions of others in order to mimic the feeling. Psychopaths are like magicians. They grab our attention and hold it by pulling whatever emotional prop they need out of the proverbial top hat.

  Almost a year later, in 1986, John and I stood in our garage, packing up salmon-colored floral arrangements that would decorate the tables at my graduation party that evening. After seven long years of dragging myself into the city, my day of reward had arrived. When John glanced at me and grinned, I grabbed my camera and clicked. I captured him in his well-worn fleece bathrobe, leather moccasins, and black felt beret. He looked comfortable. And he was mine. I sidled up to him and put my arms around his waist.

  “I couldn’t have done it without you,” I said. “You’ve been my encouragement and my rock.”

  “Now don’t get all mushy on me. You’ve got to get ready for the limousine. Remember, you have it for the whole day.”

  I smiled as I remembered my first limousine ride the year before, for my fortieth birthday. We cruised around Fisherman’s Wharf three times, then dined at the exclusive Big Four restaurant on Nob Hill. It was special then. It would be special now.

  “It’s a good thing we can afford limousines.” I laughed. John finished putting the artificial flowers into the back of our van as I continued, “I just wish...”

  “Wish what?”

  “Well, I wish your family were going to attend.”

  “You know how they are,” John said, shaking his head.

  “I know. But my family and friends will be there.”

  “Hey, don’t ruin your graduation day,” John admonished.

  “I know the invitations came back, like everything else we’ve ever mailed them, but I was hoping . . . just hoping that...”

  “. . . that the impossible would happen? Look at the positive side; we don’t need Grandmother’s money any more.”

  We were on an even keel, for a change. John’s salary was somewhat constant, and during the last two years the finances had remained in check, even if John’s spending had not. John had signed a contract with Westinghouse as a consultant. Then we formed our own company, Two Star Incorporated. John assured me everything would be fine; there wouldn’t be much to it. We’d keep our business spending separate, and our lawyer would help us with any legal issues. We received our own corporate stamp to use on official company business. The business cards I ordered were printed with two gold stars above the name Rear Admiral John F. Perry, to match his personalized license plate, TWO STAR.

  The main financial stabilizer during this two-year period was a settlement for John’s injuries from the baggage cart accident before we had met. I had watched him deteriorate during our courtship and marriage. John was constantly in pain from excruciating headaches and neck spasms, and in a state of discomfort from the numbness in his right arm. He still intermittingly wore a foam neck brace, especially when we traveled in a car. His leg crumpled beneath him without notice. His debilitating back pain still precluded sex.

  With the settlement came the relief of a check to help fill the financial gaps. We brought our creditors up to date. We contracted for needed renovations to the Concord house to help ease John’s afflictions—a therapeutic Jacuzzi tub and resloped stairs.

  “That’s the last of the graduation flowers,” John said as he shut the back door of the van. “The officers’ club at Treasure Island will look better than it ever has when we’re done decorating.” He put his arm around me as we walked back into the house.

  “I still can’t believe you arranged it,” I said.

  “My rank provides some privileges.” He laughed. “Also, it doesn’t hurt that we’re friends with the rear admiral who heads the base.”

  During the last two years, I learned that being the admiral’s wife did have advantages. When the USS Missouri was decommissioned in San Francisco, we were there. When John arranged to take several of our friends on a personal tour of the USS Enterprise, we lunched in the Alameda officers’ club. When John escorted a couple of male friends on an overnight excursion aboard a Navy ship, they had observed the respect given to him. When the Coast Guard Commander for District 12 hosted a luncheon for retired admirals and their wives, we were among the honored guests. If I ever had doubts about John’s status, I had none now.

  Today I was about to graduate with a bachelor of science degree in marketing from Golden Gate University, summa cum laude, and receive the Outstanding Student of the Undergraduate Business School Award. With hard work and sacrifice I had met the challenge and reached my goal. I would have preferred to complete my higher education right out of high school, but I was the oldest of five children, and my siblings then were all under age eight. We were a one-salary machinist’s family. My parents would have been happy to give me a four-year ride, but the money wasn’t there. So I settled for Diablo Valley Junior College, catching a bus every day to go fifteen miles over the hill to get there.

  I suffered from OCS (Oldest Child Syndrome), as I called it. Ask anyone who’s an oldest child. It’s hard. Parents are extra strict. They overreact. They’re afraid the baby will break or get in trouble, and they err on the side of caution while trying to figure out how to do their job.

  The oldest child is the trial run. My case was no different. I tried to be the good little girl, to help out in the house and with my siblings and still keep up my grades, but my parents’ attitudes affected my studies. I felt like I was being squeezed in a vise, and I didn’t know how to escape. Finally, when they balked at my taking the car to a nighttime lecture back at the college, I went to see a school counselor.

  I wanted out. She offered a way and I made a choice. I accepted a live-in babysitter and housekeeper position for a family in upscale Alamo, with full use of their car to help me keep up my studies. Within a year I confronted yet another life-changing c
hoice. When the family’s husband got promoted, entailing a move to Ohio, they asked me to come with them; they even offered to send me to Ohio State University. I was astonished by their generous offer, but was too scared of the unknown to do it. Instead, I moved back home and took a job as a lab technician at the same chemical plant where my dad worked.

  That was in the past. Today my biggest choice centered on who should ride with me in the limousine. I wanted to share my good fortune and make people happy. It was ingrained in me. Later, when I was called across the stage, the audience in the Masonic Memorial Temple broke into applause, and many of them stood up for me.

  After the ceremony I proudly showed my diploma to my dad so he could see I had included my maiden name on it. “Hmm,” he said and handed it back.

  “I thought you would be pleased to see your name on my diploma,” I said.

  This was my day. It was important to me to please Dad and make him feel honored. Why didn’t he? Because today was no different than any other. I had always tried to please him, hoping to hear him say three simple words . . .“I love you.” It was too much to expect. I never heard him tell anyone he loved them, not even my mother. His Germanic background forced his feelings into hiding and left his loved ones yearning.

  My father was an honorable man who worked hard for his family. He was strong, steady, and always there. He helped guide me in my schoolwork. He toiled in a chemical factory to provide a decent home, food, and clothes, even though his health suffered. He took us on exciting camping vacations to national and state parks. No matter how much I told myself that actions speak louder than words, a simple whisper of “I love you” would have resonated as loud as if it had been bellowed from a mountaintop.

  “I don’t know why you did it,” Dad said. “It’s no longer your name.”

  Even his negative reaction couldn’t bring me down, not today, with its beautiful weather, my award, and my upcoming party, where all our friends would have a grand time.

  The sun dipped behind the Golden Gate Bridge, and the white lights of San Francisco twinkled to life. The guests stuffed themselves with crab and prime rib. When I cut the cake, after the drum roll from the band, I announced, “We’ve got the booze, the food, the cake, the band, and the presents. But where’s the bride and groom?”

  The room rang with laughter.

  On the way home that night, at my godson’s request I opened the moonroof of the limousine. It was his first ride in such a luxurious vehicle. He grinned from ear to ear, stood up, and waved his arms into the warm air. Inside, I snuggled onto the chest of my admiral.

  ELEVEN

  The Admiral’s Family

  Two months later, I accompanied John on an August business trip to the East Coast. I didn’t mind sharing business with pleasure when it came to travel; I had done it since I’d met John five years earlier. For this trip, when John hinted at seeing some of his family’s history, my heart skipped a beat. Today our first stop was the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, to visit the grave of John’s father. The academy was a key ingredient to John’s family history. His father had gone to school there, graduating with the Class of 1923; taught there in 1946 and 1947; and been buried there in 1955.

  We sat in the visitors’ parking lot, with the engine running, as John scratched through his briefcase. “I know my security pass is in here somewhere,” John said. “I wouldn’t have left it in the hotel room. It’s too valuable.”

  John’s security pass was always a mystery to me. It was the magic wand he waved that opened gates to military bases and government facilities, both here and abroad. I witnessed its power many times. The enigma of the hardbound black leather identification wallet was that it contained a photograph that was not John Francis Perry, nor was the name typed under it—Robert Lee Stuart. I queried John the first time I noticed the discrepancy. He immediately shut me down and ranted about it being a high-level security issue. I let it drop, but still wondered.

  “A-ha! Here it is. It was hiding behind your photograph.”

  “That tattered photo from the Mexico trip?” I laughed. “I should get you a new one.”

  “Not on your life. I like this one.” He leaned over and kissed me.

  The overcast sky suited a visit to a cemetery. The wipers cleared the light mist on the windshield; I put the rental car in gear and maneuvered from the parking lot to Gate One. John flashed his magic ID card; the guard immediately saluted, then gave me a day pass. I drove onto the academy grounds.

  “Turn left at the next intersection,” John instructed. “The cemetery’s that way, toward the water.”

  “Of course,” I said. “We saw the cemetery last weekend, from the river.”

  I have always had a good sense of direction, a trait that has served me well on more than one occasion. Two days earlier, we’d sailed down the Severn River with our friends in their forty-eight-foot sloop. We slowed near the academy, and John pointed out its significant buildings and the cemetery, on the small peninsula that overlooked the river.

  As I drove into the cemetery we had to make an immediate choice, Cushing Road to the right or McCandless Road to the left. “Turn right,” John directed, but as we slowly moved along he seemed disoriented. “It’s been a long time since I was here,” he mumbled apologetically. “The trees have grown, things look different. I remember my dad’s buried on a small knoll, near a tree.”

  “It looks like there’s more than one knoll, and more than one tree,” I said as I scanned the grounds.

  “I thought I’d remember,” John said. His lower lip began to tremble.

  We circled the cemetery, and when Cushing intersected McCandless we took a left and ended up back where we started. “Let’s go down Sigsbee Road,” John suggested. “I saw it to the left, up ahead. It may help me remember.”

  It was the only other road in the cemetery, and it was short. We made another circle and ended up back at the entrance. I was beginning to wonder if there really was a grave. But why would John lie about his father’s final resting place? Was this going to be another episode in the missing-family saga we had lived with for the last five years? What was the truth?

  The truth was that John’s relatives were still phantoms. It had almost ruined our summer business/vacation trip to the Miami area the year before. I had been stubborn and relentless. “We will be right in your family’s neighborhood,” I said. “And they’ll see that I’m not a gold digger.” I was still intent on proving it, even after five years.

  In Key West we checked into a white-shuttered, historic bed-and-breakfast, with no telephone in the room. After lunch, John called his grandmother from a pay phone at the wharf, to set up a time to meet them in Coconut Grove. He looked debonair and relaxed, leaning against the booth, in his white shorts and shirt, straw hat and sunglasses. Suddenly he became visibly angry and tense, and slammed the receiver onto the hook. “No answer,” he mumbled. “I’ll have to try again.”

  Later that evening, John went down to the foyer, to a closet under the stairs designated as the phone booth. He told me to stay in our room, and I acquiesced for a moment, but I wanted to hear his conversation. So shortly after he left, I crept down the stairs and sidled up to the phone closet. Its door was ajar, but not a word was being spoken. John was just sitting silently with the receiver to his ear. I felt a cough come on and managed to stifle it to some extent, but the noise tipped him off that I was near, and he immediately started speaking Spanish in a louder and louder voice. Then he slammed the receiver down and emerged. His ruddy complexion had changed to deep red, and the veins in his neck bulged. “I told you to stay in the room,” he growled.

  “What’s the matter?” I said, ignoring his condemnation.

  “The maid says the family took my grandmother to the Ocean Reef Club, near Key Largo. They don’t want her to talk to me.”

  “We have to go back through Key Largo. Let’s stop in and pay them a surprise visit.” I was always looking for a way to put faces to the names of John’s
family.

  “You don’t understand. Ocean Reef Club is private and exclusive. We can’t just drive in. You have to have your name on a list to get past the guard, and ours won’t be on it. It’s the kind of place frequented by presidents and movie stars.”

  “And elusive grandmothers with lots of money.” I was stubborn and on a mission. Later, when we drove north through Key Largo, I insisted that John show me the entrance to the Ocean Reef Club. At least it was real. But no matter how much I whined and pleaded, he would not allow me to drive up to the guarded entrance. We were so close, I couldn’t understand his hesitation. Maybe he didn’t want to confront his grandmother. To me, John’s family was a mirage that disappeared whenever we got too near.

  Now it was going to happen again. The dead father’s grave would somehow turn up missing. What excuse would John give? Where could the dead go? Just as I was beginning to doubt him, John came through for me and quieted that nagging voice inside.

  “I think I see it,” he whispered. “Park here.”

  He was out of the car as soon as I turned the engine off. I reached into the backseat, grabbed the two carnation bouquets we had picked up earlier, and followed him as he started up the small rise. He stopped, stood erect in front of a large granite headstone, and saluted. When I finally caught up with him, he was quietly crying. I said nothing as I read the inscription:

  JOHN RICHARD PERRY

  REAR ADMIRAL CIVIL ENGINEER CORPS

  UNITED STATES NAVY

  1899-1955

  What John said was true. His father was buried in the U.S. Naval Academy cemetery. I handed John the flowers. He bent over and gently placed one bouquet of the pink, red, and white carnations to the right of the tombstone. As he straightened up, he winced in pain and grabbed the headstone for support. He wiped the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand and said, “I always tried to be a good son, but I could never be the man my father wanted me to be. He was strict, with his military background and all.”