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

by Barbara Bentley

  “John, John!” I shook him with my right hand. No response.

  Looking back now, it may seem unreal that I didn’t suspect that this might be another ruse to deflect me from the truth. But my ailing husband had just suffered what appeared to be a heart attack. Why would I have reacted any differently? I immediately switched into survival mode to get help for the man I loved.

  Pay attention to traffic, I told myself. Be calm. Where are you? Think! Stoplight ahead. Good, it’s turning green. Major intersection. Need to go east, toward Biscayne Bay. Get in left-turn lane.

  I was now on SW 17th Avenue. At its intersection with South Miami Avenue there was a blue sign with a white H and an arrow pointing left. I followed it, and the slow truck in front of me. One block. Two blocks. “Hang in, John, we’re almost there.”

  Finally I saw the hospital, set back from the road. I swerved into the driveway and pushed the speed limit as I followed the emergency entrance signs. John was now moaning. At least he was alive! I slammed the car into park and ran through the automatic doors, yelling at the nurse behind the desk. “Please help. My husband just had a heart attack.”

  The emergency staff jumped into action, and within minutes John was on a gurney and whisked away out of my sight. I stood glued to the floor. “Dear God, please let him be all right.”

  A security guard approached. “Ma’am, you’ll have to move your car from the driveway.”

  I followed orders. As I walked back into Emergency, it hit me. We had missed the appointment with Harrington at the bank. I needed to call. I immediately returned to the car and looked in the backseat to get John’s briefcase, but it wasn’t there. I looked on the floor, then in the trunk. No luck there, either. I couldn’t figure it out. John had paperwork for Randolf in it. It was another piece of the crazymaking puzzle, but it didn’t register.

  I returned to the nurses’ station and was told they were still working on my husband. I dragged myself into the waiting room, sat next to the pay phone, and looked up the bank’s phone number in the well-worn telephone book. After I fumbled through my purse for the correct change, I dialed. “Mr. Harrington, please.”

  I listened to scratchy music for almost two minutes that seemed like two hours. Someone finally picked up the phone. “I’m Mr. Harrington’s secretary. May I help you?”

  I told her about our scheduled meeting and John’s emergency, and apologized for any inconvenience. “Oh my,” the secretary said. “I don’t see an appointment for Admiral Perry this morning, or this afternoon. In fact, I don’t see anything at all for this week.”

  “There must be some mistake,” I stammered. “We came to Florida specifically to conduct business with Mr. Harrington.”

  “Perhaps you should speak to Mr. Harrington. I’ll get him for you.”

  When Randolf Harrington came on the line, I explained the situation. He seemed very confused and said he didn’t know a John Perry. I told him about when he and John went to summer camp as kids. He still couldn’t recall John. I explained the family crisis and the trust and the mortgage. He was perplexed, but tried to help. “Perhaps my real estate loan officer is handling it.” However, when I was connected to her secretary she, too, said there was no appointment on the books. I hung up, baffled. One more puzzle piece, but out of context it meant nothing but frustration. I would have to attend to it later.

  “Mrs. Perry,” the doctor called from the hallway, “you can come in now.” He led me into the emergency room and drew back the white curtain. John was lying there, groggy but awake, hooked up to a horde of beeping and thumping machines. I scooted close to the bed, bent over, and kissed him on the cheek. He gave me a weak half grin.

  The doctor reeled off the battery of tests they had performed, things foreign to me. “We think he’s had a heart attack,” the doctor said. “His blood pressure is dangerously elevated. We’re moving him to ICU for a couple of days.”

  I grabbed John’s hand and squeezed. My eyes filled with tears as I relived my fear of losing John. Only this time, it was fear of his death. I was consumed with grief but didn’t want to show it. “It will be okay, John,” I said. “It will be okay.”

  Back at the Holiday Inn in Fort Lauderdale, the clerk helped me secure a room in a hotel closer to the hospital. I rushed upstairs to pack. The doctor said it would take a couple of hours to get John admitted, and I wanted to be back with him as soon as I could. When I pushed open the door, I saw John’s briefcase lying on top of his bed. I assumed he had forgotten it, a not uncommon occurrence.

  I gathered the bathroom toiletries, including John’s eight prescription bottles, and threw them down onto one of the beds, next to the Pullman bag. I grabbed clothes off the hangers and from the bureau drawers and tossed them onto the other queen-size bed, next to the matching garment bag. We never did pack lightly. Finished, I set the two bags by the door.

  I mentally checked off my “to do” list. Next I had to take care of the airline tickets. They’d be in John’s briefcase. I grabbed the case and moved closer to the telephone on the nightstand. I snapped the latches, lifted the lid, and stared. There were seven more pill containers and two objects wrapped in aluminum foil. Puzzled, I moved the objects and searched around until I found the tickets. A quick call to American Airlines and our return flights were canceled, the tickets left open-ended.

  As I started to place the pills back into the case, I noticed they were for drugs I had never seen John take before. I made a list of these new medications. I don’t know why. Next I grabbed the odd-shaped, larger wrapped object and peeled back the foil. It was a gun! I dropped it on the bed and recoiled. I hate guns. My hands shook and hesitated over the second package before I unwrapped it. It was ammunition. I had never seen it before.

  I sat frozen on the bed. Then it hit me. John had carried his briefcase through airport security and the X-ray machines. That idiot! Just like John to get us nearly detained and arrested when we were on our way to such an important meeting. I felt nauseated but forced myself not to throw up. I swallowed an aspirin to ease the pounding in my head, rewrapped the foil surprises, and drove back to the hospital.

  When I entered John’s room I was livid, but I waited until the nurse left to let loose. “You stupid son of a bitch, why did you have a gun in your briefcase?”

  “Hey, don’t fire at the patient.” John chuckled. A nurse walked by and I lowered my voice, but I couldn’t keep my arms from flailing in the air as I paced around John’s bed. “What in God’s name did you think you were doing? We could have been arrested.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic.”

  “Dramatic? How am I supposed to feel when you’ve done something so stupid?”

  “Calm down. I’ve had a heart attack. Remember?”

  “If we had been arrested we would have been in a real mess. We don’t have the money for lawyers, let alone bail. Why carry a gun?”

  “For protection, little one. I brought it for protection. Miami is a rough place, and we were going to have sixty thousand on us.”

  “Not cash. It would have been a cashier’s check.” I accepted his explanation. Never in a thousand years would it have crossed my mind that he might have brought the gun along to kill me.

  John grimaced and grabbed his chest with one hand and his leg with the other. “Get the nurse, quick,” he cried. “Oh...the pain... the pain.”

  I grabbed the intercom from John’s bed and called for the nurse. She came immediately, syringe in hand, and injected its contents directly into John’s IV. Now I felt terrible. Here was my husband, lying in bed, having just suffered a heart attack, and I come in with both barrels blazing. I walked over to the window and waited until John’s pain subsided. “I talked with Randolf Harrington today,” I mumbled through my tears as I looked at the placid bay waters. “He says he doesn’t know you.” I turned and looked at John, pathetically hooked up to a multitude of IVs and monitors.

  “He must have misunderstood the name,” John whispered. “Maybe he thought
you said Terry. You are quite upset.”

  I nodded. He was right. John understood me and knew what I needed to hear him say. “I’ll call Randolf tomorrow and set everything right,” he said. “Don’t worry your pretty little head about it.”

  John’s eyes slowly closed, and he drifted into a deep sleep. I felt alone and lost. I didn’t know anyone in Miami. I had never met John’s family and didn’t know their phone numbers, even if I had wanted to call them and tell them about the heart attack. I meandered back to the ICU visitors’ lounge, but the droning television was no company. I was restless and needed to talk with someone. I decided to call Gene Janofsky to say hello.

  He was pleasant enough when I spoke to him, but his closing comment mystified me.

  “Mrs. Perry, I recommend that you get away from John, before he hurts you.”

  I didn’t understand why Gene gave such an ominous warning. It was another piece to my puzzle, but there was no way I could make any sense out of it. So I ignored it. I had to. Hadn’t I just caused John major distress when I railed on about the gun in the briefcase? John’s recovery was foremost in my mind, and I would do whatever I could to get him home safely. I decided not to mention it to him—or anyone else.

  SEVENTEEN

  Deep Waters

  On the second Saturday in September, John was in his upstairs office checking out his latest volume of Jane’s Fighting Ships. I insisted he take it easy after his week-long stay at Mercy Hospital in Miami, where John had split his time between the ICU and a private room. The myriad tests he underwent proved inconclusive. My fear for John’s life pushed all concerns about our anemic finances to the back burner. Getting him well was priority number one.

  While I was out front trimming the junipers, the postman drove up and handed me the mail. I took it over to the brick porch and sat down. The top envelope from State Farm intrigued me. I tore at the envelope. It contained a copy of a notice providing proof of insurance to a Walnut Creek loan company for a $13,400 second mortgage on August 1. I looked closer. The loan was on my house in Antioch. No! It couldn’t be! I scanned it again. The loan seemed valid. Then it gradually sank in. The money we received right before the trip to Miami wasn’t from a loan on John’s property... it was from mine! A corner piece of the puzzle was in my hands, but I didn’t recognize it at the time. I felt sick. Trembling with rage, I raced inside and ran up the stairs. Heart attack or not, John had to be held accountable. “You son of a bitch!” I screamed. “How’d you do it?”

  John looked up from his book and removed his reading glasses. “What are you shrieking about?”

  I rattled the notice in his face. “How dare you!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The loan...on my property. And it’s not even for the full amount that appeared in the checking account.”

  “Oh, that,” he said dismissively. “Someone had to do something about getting some money. So I got the loan, and a two-thousand-dollar advance from your mom to go with it.”

  His audacity was shameless. “You approached my parents? You got a loan on my property? How? I didn’t sign any papers.”

  John slammed his fist on the desk. I jumped back. “Who do you think you are, second-guessing me? My loan got stalled and we needed the money, so I took charge. Don’t you ever appreciate anything I do for you?”

  I opened my mouth to continue questioning, but the glare in John’s eyes said I was on the edge of a precipice, so I dropped the subject.

  “My father is dying, John,” I sobbed. “I don’t have the energy for further discussion.” I turned and left the room, tears streaming down my face. Someday I’ll look into this, I told myself, but not now. Other problems with higher priorities besieged me. How was I going to control this damage? I was halfway down the stairs when the decision came. I spun around and returned to the office.

  “I’m going to have an extra fifteen thousand added to the pending HFC loan. I don’t want any second mortgage on the Antioch house, and I don’t want to encumber my parents.”

  Another second mortgage for $150,000 on the Concord house was already in the works. With no other funds to count on, John had insisted, and I wasn’t able to defend my position. What position? We were over our heads in debt. There was no alternative. I was forced into a corner and I hated it.

  This time the funds would pay off the current second mortgage, the charge cards, and the car loans and bring the first mortgage up to date, as well as pay off the Antioch second, and my parents.

  John assured me he would get his inheritance and the money from Jason. Desperate, I believed him. I had to believe in something. I wondered how we would make the high monthly payments. “Remember, John, this is the last time we’re using my property to bail us out. The last time, do you hear? We can’t afford any more until you come through with some money.” I turned sharply to leave.

  “It’s not my fault my family found a legal way to stop me from completing the refinance with Randolf Harrington,” John said.

  I escaped to the backyard and dangled my feet in the pool, throwing the rubber toy in the water for the dogs to retrieve. Splash. They loved to swim, and I loved to watch them. Today their antics weren’t enough to dispel my feelings of being trapped with nowhere to turn. My heart was breaking from fear and disillusionment, and no one could help mend it.

  To share with anyone else would reveal I wasn’t perfect. No, I had to remain silent. I would solve the problem myself. My family and friends and the outside world would only see me smile, so I would look good and be accepted. Who would like me if they knew I was in a terrible financial situation and a failure in marriage? I was bound by what the world thought of me, when I didn’t even think enough of myself to get help.

  It was now ten months into my Crazy Year—ten months since the FBI had shown up at my door—but at the time I did not recognize the connection between their visit and my continuing chaos amid unexplained events. All I knew was that it felt like I was drowning, just as I nearly had once when I was seven years old, settling toward the bottom of a community swimming pool in Bishop, California, watching the moving arms and legs above me in amazing silence. Drifting, drifting ever so slowly to the bottom in deep waters. It was my own fault. I didn’t know how to swim, yet I had tempted fate with treacherous childhood bravery. I couldn’t save myself then, and as my mind swirled with financial complications and a husband who became more of an enigma with each passing day, I didn’t know how to save myself now. No matter how hard I tried to make John change, no matter how hard I thrashed about trying to get our finances under control, I was drowning, and I didn’t possess the tools or knowledge to extricate myself. But deep inside me the little voice was getting stronger, more resilient, and less trusting. Deep inside me the metamorphosis had begun. I just didn’t recognize it yet.

  About ten minutes later, John emerged from the house with two drinks in his hand. He came down the wooden stairs and set the drinks on the patio table nearest me. “Here,” he said. “I think you need this.”

  I didn’t move. He sat down. “I’m sorry things have been a little tight lately, but I have been listening to you.”

  I turned and silently glared at him.

  “I’ve talked with my professor at Berkeley and worked out a deal with him to teach at UC Davis and Cal. I’ll even get paid and have it count toward my doctorate.”

  I perked up. His words offered to dispel my misery. “You’ll actually be working again?”

  “Three days a week at the Davis campus, and two days a week at the Berkeley campus. My thesis subject is in demand. My course will be about schizophrenia and the influence of electrical impulses on the brain.”

  I stood and walked along the submerged bench in the pool, came up the steps, and sat at the table with John. “I haven’t signed the contract yet,” John said, handing me my drink. “I wanted to check it out with you first.”

  “Go for it,” I said. “It’s about time.”

  “Yeah, I know. I
haven’t been the best provider. I love you for understanding, about my health, absent family and all.”

  “Hold on, hasn’t the semester already started?”

  John said it had, but this was considered a fill-in class and wouldn’t start for another month. He told me his checks would be automatically deposited into our checking account, to make it easier for me to pay the bills.

  John struggled to his feet, walked over to me, took my right hand in his, and kissed it. My emotional seesaw moved me from bottom to top. John picked up the rubber duck and threw it into the pool for the dogs. Splash! Splash! I smiled and relaxed a little. We looked like a typical suburban family enjoying a Saturday afternoon by the pool. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

  Because I worked five days a week and John hadn’t started to teach, it was more convenient for him to coordinate the details of the second mortgage with Household Finance Corporation. The papers were consolidated and ready to be signed. Late in the afternoon during the first week of October, John and I walked into the HFC office in a strip mall near our house. A blond woman in her twenties was on the telephone. She gave us a smile and a wave to come and sit down at her desk until she was finished, and pushed a fat manila folder toward me. I opened it and started reviewing the forms. “Thanks for waiting,” Kirsten said as she hung up. “Would you like any coffee or tea?”

  We both declined. I had too much acid in my stomach already. This was not a pleasurable event.

  “Okay, let’s get down to business,” she said. Using her pen as a pointer, she commented on each section of the form—confirming the distribution of funds, the loan amount, annual interest, penalties. I followed along nervously. When she got to the section on life insurance, she paused and looked at John. He spoke. “Kirsten said we could get insurance that would pay off the loan if you die.”

  “What?” His statement caught me off guard. We had never discussed life insurance. “That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “You’re much older than I. If we take it out on anyone, it should be you.”