Mortal Danger (4 page)

She didn’t realize how dangerous her combination of emotions could be.

Kate had to admit—if only to herself—that she had fallen in love with John, all unaware.

Right after John’s declaration of love, Kate flew an all-nighter to Boston and back. As passengers slept, she had a lot of time to think. She’d always trusted her own extra
sensory perception, and, for over a month, she had felt strongly that she finally was about to meet her soul mate. Was it John?
No, he’s married. But he’s unhappy. No, he has a wife. But she doesn’t complement, fulfill, or complete him.

But I, of course, could,
she told herself.

Every woman in love with a married man believes that her relationship is “special,” that no one else feels as she does, and that her being with him isn’t really illicit because the two of them are in love and there are extenuating circumstances. And, with rare exceptions, they all get hurt when they learn that their romance isn’t special at all. There is a predictable progression, but it doesn’t seem predictable to someone caught up in it. Kate had seen it happen to fellow stewardesses and other friends, and she was cautious. An affair with a married man wasn’t something she had ever planned to have. But she was on a slippery slope.

When she left his office that day in December, she didn’t know what to expect. Maybe she would never see him again, and probably that would be best. Her mind was reeling with all the reasons
not
to get involved, while her heart sang with joy that this wonderful man loved her.

It was inevitable that John
would
call Kate, and that she would agree to see him. She found him more sincere than any other man she had ever known, and soon it didn’t matter that he wasn’t her type—because he had become her type, or perhaps her type had become John Branden. They talked for hours when they could find time to be together, and John could almost read her mind. They were that close.

They planned their first date for Christmas Eve after
noon at a health-food restaurant. He seemed shy, and they were both nervous. He told her he had never done this before but he was serious about her and would tell his wife about his feelings after the holidays. He had already told his older daughter, Tamara.

They never went into the restaurant; instead, they spent their time talking in the car. They went to Kate’s condo in Solana Beach but drank only cranberry juice.

They did not make love.

They walked on the beach, and John drove Kate back to her car by 5:00 p.m. “I literally floated over to my friends’ house to spend Christmas Eve,” she wrote in her journal.

Kate continued to fly for American Airlines, usually working as the flight attendant who served as the purser, in charge of the other attendants. She had enough seniority that she could bid on—and get—optimal flights, and she flew San Diego to New York City with twenty-four-hour layovers.

John kept his practice. Their lives, in the beginning at least, were not inextricably entwined. It was a delicate balance, but Kate thought she could keep her equilibrium.

But one day John confided once more that his marriage was virtually over and that he planned to get a divorce. He assured Kate that he’d never been with any woman except his wife and herself, that his feelings for her were an entirely new experience for him. He could not bear to go on in a loveless marriage—not when he felt the way he did about Kate.

When Kate asked him why he’d never strayed before,
since he and Sue seemed so unhappy together, he explained that he needed complete loyalty and commitment from the woman in his life. He had had that with Sue—at first—and he would, of course, need it from Kate. He was a one-woman man, faithful as long as that woman was completely devoted to him. That seemed endearing to her, and Kate promised him she could give him that. It seemed little enough to ask. He assured her that he had remained loyal to his wife for two decades. Now, their goals had diverged, and they had grown irretrievably in different directions.

Sue Branden had treated Kate like any other patient, barely acknowledging her presence when she’d occasionally come to the office for follow-up appointments. Beyond her briefly confiding that she’d wanted to be a stewardess, too, Sue was an unknown quantity to Kate. If she suspected that there was anything between her about-to-be-ex-husband and Kate, she didn’t betray her feelings. Kate had the feeling she didn’t care what he did.

Tamara and Heather obviously only wanted their father to be happy. His daughters clearly adored him—especially Tamara, who was planning to follow in his footsteps. Tamara actually seemed pleased that her father was happy.

John kept his word. Unlike many married men, he really did intend to get a divorce, and he obtained a legal separation in 1990. His divorce became final two years later. He felt he was being generous with Sue by offering her $50,000. But before their divorce was legal, she asked for their town house, their new car, and generous alimony, and he agreed. Kate didn’t begrudge her any of that; Sue had been with him for twenty years, and she’d given him two daughters. It seemed that Sue was almost relieved to have a divorce; she
and John clearly hadn’t been happy when Kate first met them, and now Sue could have a life of her own.

John still had his practice, and he was full of inspirations about improving it, adding another clinic, branching out to other enterprises, and making even more money than he currently did. Kate didn’t care that much about being wealthy, but she supported him completely in his dreams of glory that lay ahead for them. She was anxious to keep her promise to John, and she gave him loyalty and dedication. “He was the brains, and I was the workhorse,” she recalled. “I wrote and typed up all of his grand plans, but I was all right with that.”

There were occasional bumps in the road, sides of John that Kate hadn’t known about before, but she realized that people always reveal new aspects of their personalities as familiarity and trust take over.

In December 1989—even as John was confessing that he loved Kate—he was being sued by a woman who lived in the condominium complex next door to the Brandens in La Mesa, California. She asked for an injunction prohibiting him from “peeping” at her. John never mentioned it to Kate, explaining later that it was merely an annoyance, and not worth worrying her about.

“Early in November 1989,” his female neighbor’s complaint read, “I was forced to call the police regarding my neighbor, John Branden, and report him as a Peeping Tom. He was watching me over the fence through my windows. This was not the first time he has been caught doing this. Early in the summer of 1989, John Branden was also caught watching over my fence. When confronted, he just runs off. I am afraid he may do me some harm.”

John was forty-four, and the neighbor was fifty-seven, but she was an attractive woman. He responded to a temporary restraining order granted to her in an affidavit. He explained that he was “a doctor with my own medical group,” and he scoffed at his neighbor’s claims against him, characterizing her as “emotionally unbalanced” and angry at him for reporting her to the condominium association for having too many cats. Subsequently, seven of her eight cats had been removed. He stated it was “ludicrous” to think he would watch her covertly. He had no interest in her. His daughter Tamara backed up John’s testimony, explaining that the woman seemed to be disturbed and angry—to the point of sweeping dirt at them when she and her dad were washing their car, all the while muttering obscenities.

Tamara would always validate anything her father did. He was heroic in her eyes.

A superior court judge ordered both parties to stay away from each other for a period of not less than three years.

He never told Kate about this problem with his neighbor.

More distressing was a suit brought against John, his silent partner (a naturopathic doctor), his daughter Tamara, his estranged wife, Sue, and the Bayview Clinic practice in 1992. Although John downplayed the charges against him—to the point that Kate wasn’t aware of any of the details—she saw that he was very worried about this lawsuit.

A former woman patient and her husband were suing John for medical malpractice, sexual battery, failure to obtain informed consent, assault and battery, fraud, and misrepresentation.

John didn’t tell Kate what the charges were, and he
waved off her worries, saying the woman was lying. He explained that Mary Ann Lakhvir
*
was married to a wealthy man from a Middle Eastern culture who didn’t understand that in America women could be alone with their doctors without being shamed or ostracized. John said her husband misunderstood the close ties he formed with his patients and was so jealous that the poor woman was forced to tell lies about John to her husband.

The Lakhvirs alleged in their affidavits that they’d sought treatment for serious systemic infections but Dr. Branden hadn’t known how to treat them, leading them to endure great physical and emotional pain and suffering when he’d administered mostly ineffective massage treatments and vitamins at the Bayview Medical Group in 1990. They asserted that John Branden was not a medical doctor and was not licensed to draw blood from them or give Mary Ann Lakhvir a pelvic examination.

(The suit was the first step in ending the silent partnership John had with the naturopath, and he later brought in an osteopathic physician to sign insurance claims.) Kate believed that John did have a phlebotomy license and that it was legal for him to draw blood. He’d been very skilled as he’d deftly and almost painlessly slipped a needle into her arm.

But even more troubling were the Lakhvirs’ sexual accusations: They maintained that John Branden had made sexual contact with Mary Ann when he’d given her a full-body massage while she was disrobed, and that he’d kissed
her while she’d been naked. They asserted that he had then removed his clothes so she could “practice massage” on his nude body and become skilled enough to give her husband home massage treatments.

Sexual battery,
as defined in California statutes, means that a person must intentionally cause harmful or offensive contact with an intimate part of another person. Those parts were listed as “…sexual organ, anus, groin, or buttocks of any person, or the breast of a female.”

The Lakhvirs stated that Tamara Branden was at fault, too, as she knew—or should have known—that her father was not licensed to massage, draw blood, perform vaginal exams, or prescribe medicine.

He had also given them nutritional counseling—which he
was
adequately trained to do.

The case dragged on until 1993, but Kate knew none of the specifics. She felt sorry for John, because even though he tried to reassure her, she knew he was worried—perhaps even frightened. He went to great lengths to avoid being served papers on the lawsuit. He seemed to be extremely concerned over the suit, which, as he explained to Kate, was over things too minor to even consider. In the end, he gave up his practice, turning it over to his daughter Tamara for a few cents on the dollar. He no longer went into his office at all.

“He changed his appearance,” Kate recalled. “He grew a beard, and he let his hair grow so long that he was able to wear it in a ponytail.”

Although he didn’t live in Florida, John asked Kate’s sister and brother-in-law in Sarasota, Florida, to resend all the mail he sent to them, so that it appeared that he was a
Florida resident. With that ruse and his disguise, he felt safe. John was gleeful when people who knew him well walked right by him without recognizing him. He looked nothing like the clean-shaven, well-coiffed doctor he had been.

Of course eventually he had to face up to the accusations of an enraged husband who thought he’d been cuckolded. The case ended in April 1993, almost two years after the Lakhvirs’ complaint was filed. It was dismissed with prejudice, meaning that it could not be refiled in the future.

It never was.

“John told me that he made that all go away by spending twenty-five thousand dollars,” Kate said. “I’m still not sure whether he paid that to lawyers or to the woman—but we never heard any more about it. He said it was all a misunderstanding anyway, and I believed him.”

John was ultimately believable, especially to a woman who loved him and trusted his vows to help people—his vows that both of them would help a lot of people. And the very idea that he might force himself on another woman in any sexual way was unthinkable to her. Not John. He was an honorable and concerned doctor, and simply wasn’t like that.

Shortly after they began their relationship, at John’s suggestion, Kate invited his best friend—Dr. Stanley Szabo,* a doctor of dental surgery who was also an expert in nutrition—to rent the empty room and bath in her condominium. He was going through a difficult divorce, and it seemed an ideal answer for all three of them. It helped pay her rent until John was able to move in with her and share
expenses, and it helped John’s good friend, who was working for John at the time.

Kate had never before detected a whisper of jealousy in John, but she caught her first glimpse of his capacity for rage because of this living situation—or, more accurately, as an adjunct to it.

John and Kate had a date one night, and when he walked in the door, he was very angry. He was furious that his best friend, now living in the condo, had parked in the driveway in John’s usual spot. John couldn’t understand Kate’s thoughtlessness in allowing that to happen. How could she expect him to park on the street?

Kate was dumbfounded that such a trivial thing would set him off. John called off their evening and drove away, still angry. But Kate made sure he had his parking space after that, and she put his reaction that night in the back of her mind. John apologized, explaining that his blood sugar had been low and that had made him lose his temper. They resumed their relationship the next day and never spoke of his “parking tantrum” again. It was only an aberration.

She knew John was a perfectionist, even about things that shouldn’t matter that much. Kate learned that he dressed so well because he had a personal shopper who bought all his clothes for him. It was one of the more benign things she hadn’t known about him.