Mortal Danger

lived in northern Idaho, and Los Angeles Police Department ex-detective Mark Fuhrman, who testified in the O. J. Simpson trial, did, too, commuting to Spokane for his radio show. In many ways, it was almost like the last frontier; those heading farther west into Washington State and Oregon found a lot more “civilization.”
    Most Idahoans hasten to disavow the less savory racist groups in their state. An actress on ER said, “I’m from Idaho—the potato part, not the white supremacist part.”
    Idaho is a beautiful state, and, all things being equal, Turi might have grown accustomed to living there—as long as she could have seen her family regularly. John might have told her that they would keep the Idaho property but not live in it full-time unless he saw that the world as they knew it was coming to an end.
    At any rate, Turi agreed to buy a prefab Lindal cedar home to be put up on the Priest River land. Lindal homes are expensive and attractive. As they waited for it to be delivered in late 2006, John, Andrew, and Randall did manage to get the concrete foundation for the cedar home poured. But bad weather and snow were just around the corner. When all the sections of the prefab arrived, Randall saw to it that they were protected from winter storms, covering them with tarps and other materials to keep them safe.
    In the spring of 2007, they could start putting the house together.
     
    John couldn’t understand Turi’s desire to be around people, to have friends. He had no friends—except for Randall Nozawa, whom he sometimes described as his best friend. And it was easy to see why he didn’t have any other friends. “He was not easy to like,” Randall said. “His language was terse. The things he said when Turi was in the room were terrible, and he showed her no respect. He was always shutting her up or trying to make her feel bad.”
    In early 2007, John planned a campaign for Isagenix, using Randall as their spokesman at the Gateway Fitness Center. He wanted to feature posters with Randall’s face superimposed on Uncle Sam’s body. He thought it was a brilliant idea, even though it had no relevance whatsoever to Isagenix, and Uncle Sam had been around for more than half a century. In fact, it was an incomprehensible and silly idea. Turi loyally commented that she thought it had possibilities and maybe they should suggest it to the corporate board of Isagenix. Taking his cue from Turi, Randall pretended to be impressed, too. In fact, if this was John’s idea of a brave new world of advertising, it only showed that his mind was failing him.
    For some reason, John thought that Turi and Randall were trying to take credit for the Uncle Sam campaign.
    “That’s my idea,” he exploded, and he began to yell at Randall, calling him out to the garage, where he berated him for trying to steal his ideas. In truth, no one had so much as hinted that Uncle Sam wasn’t John’s idea—and all John’s. Who would want to claim such a tired image?But John was furious. He stalked to the farthest corner of the living room and sat there in the dark.
    “He was pissed off,” the former dentist said. “He was sitting there, pouting.”
    John was growing more and more volatile, and Turi called Randall often now, begging him to come over because he was the only one she knew who could calm John down. The little house on Lost Beach Road wasn’t where Randall wanted to be, but he felt sorry for Turi, and he usually went—sometimes for meals, sometimes just to talk with John. He still held some hope for Isagenix, but John’s moods could wear anyone out.
    “I had to walk on eggshells,” Randall recalled, “and be so careful what I said because you couldn’t tell what might set him off. We had awkward, almost silent, conversations.”
    John was more on edge, and Randall was sometimes afraid to say anything at all for fear of upsetting him, so they simply sat in silence, with both Turi and Randall waiting for a cue from John before they spoke.
    Turi tried once to tell Randall about the man he believed to be her husband. “There are certain things about John…,” she began, whispering. “Things you don’t know—but I can’t tell you—”
    But Randall could sense she wanted to tell him. It never got further than that because John came back into the room and Turi stopped talking.
    There were more port wine bottles hidden around the house, as there had been around the Idaho property before the snow closed in.