Mortal Danger

there—and really wanted to move back. The house was very nice, worth close to half a million dollars as the housing market boomed in Washington State. Any property with a view of the water was desirable, and this gray-and-white house was much larger inside than it appeared to be from the street. It had two bedrooms, two luxurious bathrooms, an expansive modern kitchen, a large living room with a fireplace, and a backyard that opened onto a greenbelt. The only flaw, as far as John was concerned, was that Liv’s house was very close to neighbors on either side—probably not more than a dozen feet away from them. But he and Turi could drive into the garage and enter their home from there, so there was no need for him to interact with any neighbor on their street.
    They could step through the sliding glass doors in the kitchen, sit on their deck at the rear of their home on warmevenings, and hear the wind in the tall fir trees. It was the reasonable move for them to make. Turi soon made friends with people who lived in Seascape Hills, but John remained aloof and discouraged Turi from getting too friendly with the neighbors.
    They did go to the Gateway Fitness Center to study yoga with Randall Nozawa, but John didn’t mingle. Randall was a frequent visitor in their home. He lived only a few blocks away and would often walk down to see John and Turi when they invited him.
    Turi was relieved when Randall visited, because he seemed to calm John down when he was agitated. It became a habit for her to call Randall when she saw trouble coming with John, whose emotions ran up and down the spectrum from depression to ebullience, from rage to joy.
    Randall was happy to help her out, but he soon saw that Turi lived in John’s shadow. This lovely, kind woman seemed cowed by her husband! Nozawa was shocked at the way John treated her. He used demeaning swear words in front of her and called Turi derogatory names. He seemed to want to have complete control over her, and her boundaries grew more and more confining.
    “John had no friends,” Randall said. “He had a very unlikable attitude, an aloofness that turned people off.”
    Randall worried about Turi. “She wasn’t allowed to talk. He kept such a tight lid on her that when John left the room, she would whisper quickly to me, trying to get a few thoughts out before he came back. It was a burst of words, as much as she could say.”
    John scarcely let anyone talk, as he constantly monopolized the conversation. He was worse than ever about that. Of course, Turi’s daughters saw that, too. Once he had their mother under his control, he dropped his charming mask. He was arrogant and insufferable, with an opinion on everything, and as far as he was concerned, his opinion was always the right one.
    “He was totally nonsupportive of Turi,” Nozawa said with a sigh. “She was there to handle the computer, to look up what John wanted, and keep the books. And if John wanted access to the computer, she had to get up and let him use it—no matter what she was working on.”
    Randall Nozawa probably knew John Williams as well as anyone else did, and he grew used to John’s neurotic compulsions. Most of them revolved around his need to be in command of his own life—as well as other people’s.
    “He was obsessive about cleaning,” Randall said. “He did the cooking and he washed the dishes to be sure that the food was to his liking and that the kitchen was up to his standard of cleanliness. When I was there for meals, he would start wiping the table while I was still sitting there. He’d come back to wipe the table three or four times before he was satisfied.”
    John also made the beds, because he didn’t think Turi did it correctly. And he did all the shopping. None of this made Turi feel confident or capable.
    “He made long, precise lists of what he wanted to buy,” Randall recalled. “He told me that he couldn’t go shopping without a list. One time, we drove all the way to Port Orchard—thirty miles—to shop at Wal-Mart. When we got there, he realized he didn’t have his list with him, and said we couldn’t go shopping.”
    Randall suggested that they could probably reconstruct the list, but John was adamant—they would just have to go home. He couldn’t possibly remember all the items that were on the list, and he didn’t want to waste time. To Randall’s consternation, they turned around and went back to Gig Harbor without buying anything.
    John’s