A Deadly Secret: The Story of Robert Durst (15 page)

Janet and Kathie had even gone together to a party at the Playboy Mansion in California. When they returned, they said little about their trip, but their smiles spoke volumes.

Janet saw the best and worst of Kathie and Bobby. She remembered clearly that Bobby was sensitive and generous, a quiet man who, despite rumors of his cheapness, always paid the bill at restaurants. On occasion he’d even crack a joke. He was as easygoing as they came and exhibited very little ego for a man of his wealth and means. Women loved him. Not sexually, but emotionally. They felt his sensitivity and wanted to mother him.

Kathie was far more pleasant, and exuded a brilliant warmth that drew people close to her.

Best of all, she could talk for hours, and the two women would do just that, talk and talk and talk.

While Kathie was in medical school she talked about working with children, perhaps as a pediatrician, and even mentioned that she still hoped to be a mother one day.

They’d talk about Janet’s boyfriend, Kim, an unassuming man who worked as a landscaper. They had gone out for five years, breaking up shortly before Kathie disappeared.

Becerra told Janet that he had begun the investigation two months earlier after speaking to her former brother-in-law, Timmy Martin. Janet was irate to learn that Martin was not in jail and wanted to know who let that “fucking wacko” back on the streets.

“I can’t believe he’s out on probation,” Janet said. “Not only does he burglarize homes and participate in nearly every crime imaginable, but he’s also masturbating in front of women—in public! Right now I’d worry less about Bob Durst and more about Tim Martin. He should have been locked up years ago.”

Becerra said nothing else about Martin, moving the conversation along to the Dursts. As Janet told her stories of the good times with Bobby Durst, there were incidents she couldn’t explain, and behavior she could only question.

She remembered clearly that Bobby would disappear, sometimes for days at a time, without so much as saying good-bye. Upon his return he’d never say where he’d been, offering instead weak excuses that he was scouting a potential out-of-town real estate purchase.

And Janet remembered when Kathie told her about the Polaroids she found in the drawer, the ones Bobby had taken of the apartment, including the closets and bathrooms. The explanation, said Janet, was that Bobby was having an affair. But Janet never bought into that.

“That had nothing to do with another woman,” said Janet.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” said Becerra.

“Just that, it had nothing to do with another woman. Do you have any idea how weird he could be? Think about it. Changing the inside of a closet and medicine cabinet? That’s got nothing to do with a woman.”

“What do you think it’s about?”

“You don’t want to know what I’m thinking,” said Janet. “Look, I haven’t heard from Bob in years. I have a new husband, children, and a new life. I don’t think I can give you much.”

But Janet did have a suggestion—that Becerra should have a conversation with Liz Jones. Liz had taken Janet’s place and had been cleaning the Dursts’ South Salem home when Kathie disappeared.

“Talk to Liz,” said Janet. “She’ll tell you about the blood.”

—

Liz Jones still lived in South Salem. Like Janet Finke, the police had never interviewed her in 1982, a fact that Becerra found odd.

Liz had been cleaning the Durst home for about a year, given the job by Janet. She was in the house that Tuesday, February 2, two days after Kathie disappeared, and told Becerra that Bobby was gone that day. She didn’t recall seeing anything unusual in the house after arriving at 8
A.M.
It wasn’t until the following Tuesday, February 9, the day the Kathie story broke in all the newspapers, that she noticed something odd. It was a dried bloodstain on the front panel of the dishwasher in the kitchen. She didn’t know what to make of it. As she stared at the blood, someone knocked on the front door. It was the police. Two detectives, in suits. She said she couldn’t remember if they were NYPD or with the New York State Police. They said they had seen the newspaper stories that day and asked Liz if she’d seen anything unusual in the house. She invited them in and took them to the kitchen, pointing to the blood on the dishwasher.

“They ignored it. They said they didn’t think it was anything,” said Liz.

“They said that?” said Becerra.

“Yeah. They weren’t interested.”

Becerra followed Liz’s story, writing furiously in his pad. This was something new and unexpected.

“What else?” he said.

“There were the fingerprints.”

Liz said she took the two detectives to a closet in the dining room. Above the closet was a removable panel, and Liz said she showed the detectives fingerprints that were visible on the edges. One of the detectives took a chair, climbed up, and pushed the panel in, looking inside. He didn’t see anything.

“That was it. They left and I never saw the police again. They didn’t seem interested in talking to me or checking out the fingerprints or the blood,” said Liz.

“If they did, what would you have told them?” said Becerra.

“That Bobby was weird, really weird. A couple of months after Kathie disappeared I found pictures and letters in the garbage. About a dozen of them. All these women, giving Bobby their bust size and telling him in writing what they’d do to him if he ever called. Real kinky stuff. He put an ad in the paper. A personal ad. Maybe the
Village Voice
, I don’t know, but that’s what they were responding to. He always scared me. When he placed a singles ad in the paper only weeks after Kathie disappeared, seeing that scared me even more.”

—

The entrance to the Garden State Parkway began at the northern edge of New Jersey at the New York border, and Joe Becerra came off the Tappan Zee Bridge thankful he now had to drive only a few miles over the New Jersey state line to the Paramus exit, then follow the written directions to Mike Struk’s house.

Struk was perhaps the most surprised of all when he received a call a week earlier from Becerra, who introduced himself, complimented Struk on his thorough investigation, and asked for a sit-down. Struk was clearly amazed, and pleased, that the case still had life, that someone would actually pick it up some eighteen years later. Then he remembered his conversation years earlier with Roger Hayes, and his prediction that one day someone would step forward. What Struk hadn’t figured on was that the guy stepping forward would be another cop. Still, Struk was hesitant to meet with Becerra. Like the McCormack family, he carried old wounds.

He retired from the NYPD in 1985, leaving the job he once loved on the first second of the first minute of the first day of his twentieth year—just enough to earn his pension.

He had remarried and was now father to two more children. At fifty-five, he was still thin, though the pencil mustache was gone. He had a head full of short, gray hair. He thought he was a little old to be starting over again, kids and all. But he enjoyed his life with his new family in New Jersey, playing house dad, working as a private investigator, and serving as a technical consultant for the television show
Law & Order
.

His old friend David Black, who’d authored Struk’s book on the Met Murder, was one of the original screenwriters for the show and had brought Struk in as a consultant. The work was good and kept Struk busy, though there were days his mind would wander back to Manhattan, the Two-0, and the Durst case. He’d never show it, of course. He was still a tough guy. But the wounds were deep, still fresh as the day that Bobby Durst walked into his squad room. Resolving the case would certainly have meant a promotion, and maybe even prolonged his career with the NYPD. But like the Met Murder case, there had been no promotion, and Struk couldn’t wait to file his retirement papers.

He now lived on a quiet, dead-end suburban street in a small, bi-level house surrounded by much larger, two-story center-hall Colonials, chauffeuring his two young children to their basketball and baseball games. He led Becerra downstairs to a family room. The two men sat on matching black leather sofas while Struk’s two white Lhasa apsos jumped onto Becerra’s lap.

“C’mon, get outta here,” said Struk, waving his hand at the dogs.

Becerra, the dog lover, held them on his thighs, and petted them behind their ears, the smooth strokes quieting the dogs.

“So,” said Struk, getting right to the point. “Whaddaya got?”

Becerra told him that he’d read the file, several times, and was developing a theory, a premise based on the possibility that Kathie Durst had never made it into Manhattan.

“So you’re buying into what the friends were saying, especially that one nut, what was her name? Gilberte. You’re thinking that maybe they were right?”

“I’m thinking that Bobby Durst lied about the whole thing, that he ran into New York to report her missing to keep your investigation there. I’m thinking he’s an extremely shrewd guy who thought this out and didn’t want any attention placed on the house in South Salem.”

“You read the file,” said Struk. “You know our witnesses said they saw her in Manhattan before she vanished.”

“Mike,” said Becerra, leaning forward, the dogs still on his lap. “I found Eddie Lopez.”

Struk thought for a second before it came to him. “Lopez? The elevator guy?”

“Yeah. He says now he doesn’t remember if he really saw Kathie Durst that night or that other guy who came later. The mystery man. He said he could have been mistaken.”

Struk fell back into his sofa.

“He said that? Fucking guy. We even put him through hypnosis. I sat there for that whole bullshit session. I even told my lou it was garbage. But the brass wanted it. He repeated everything he told me the first time I interviewed him.”

Struk clasped his hands together and rested his palms on his head, elbows out.

“What about the other employees?” he said.

Becerra said they were reinterviewed, and all said that Lopez had a drinking problem.

“They said it was normal for him to disappear for a few hours. They figure he was off drinking Scotch somewhere and lied about taking Kathie to her apartment to keep his job.”

“Why didn’t they tell me that before?”

“They were scared. I’m told this was a big deal back then, in all the papers. No one wanted to talk. And no one wanted to lose their job.”

“Damn,” said Struk. “I got to tell you, Joe, do you know how hard we humped that case? We focused everything on the city based on what Lopez told us and the other witnesses. Did you talk to them, too?”

Becerra took his hands off the dogs, reached for his notebook inside his jacket, and flipped several pages.

“The dean at the school, Cooperman, he said he was never sure if the woman who called in sick that day was really Kathie Durst. And the other doorman, the guy who thought he saw her get into a cab, he’s now saying he doesn’t remember ever seeing Kathie Durst that morning.”

“So we were chasing our fucking tails,” said Struk, shaking his head. “So what are you going to do next?”

Becerra told Struk of his plan to search the South Salem home, the property around it, and the lake.

“I’ll bring in forensics. Hopefully we’ll come up with something,” said Becerra. “I spoke with one of the Dursts’ old cleaning ladies, a Liz Jones. She told me a story about some blood in the kitchen, on a dishwasher, a week after Kathie disappeared.”

“I don’t remember that,” said Struk.

“She said two detectives knocked on the door and she let them in. They took a look around. She claims she showed them the blood, but they ignored it. It was the day the story broke in the papers.”

Struk paused as if in deep thought. “I was up there that day, talking to the neighbors. There were four of us, me and a partner and two investigators with the state police. We walked around the outside of the Durst house, saw the broken window on the door from Gilberte. But we never went in. Do you think four seasoned detectives would walk into a house like that without a warrant?”

“I’m just telling you what she told me,” said Becerra.

“If that’s true, then why didn’t she come forward back then?”

“Like I said, I’m just telling her story. Maybe she has an ax to grind. I don’t know. She wasn’t particularly friendly with Bobby Durst. She also said she showed the two detectives fingerprints on a panel above a closet. They looked inside, but didn’t find anything.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about. Never heard that before,” said Struk.

Becerra could see that Struk was clearly shaken with some of the new details in the case, especially the information about Eddie Lopez. He’d hung his entire investigation on Lopez’s sighting of Kathie Durst. And Becerra didn’t know what to make of Struk’s denial about the blood in the house. He was right, thought Becerra, experienced detectives wouldn’t have gone into the home. But Jones was believable.

Struk quickly regrouped, and rattled off some names, like Jim McCormack and Gilberte Najamy, asking Becerra if he’d spoken with them or anyone else.

“All of them,” said Becerra, “including Najamy. She didn’t think too highly of you.”

“She was a pain in the ass,” said Struk, who clearly remembered Gilberte, the novice detective who broke into the South Salem home and picked through Bobby’s garbage. The woman with a hundred theories.

“I didn’t know what her problem was back then, but there was more to her than I cared to find out. She was totally out of control. I think she was a caterer or something.”

“She’s working as a counselor at a women’s shelter and living with her girlfriend in Connecticut.”

“Girlfriend? She’s a dyke?” said Struk.

“Looks that way.”

“Now that I remember, someone said she may have been into women. I never figured out why someone as pretty as Kathie Durst would hang out with a Gilberte Najamy,” said Struk.

“You don’t think she and Gilberte . . . ?” said Becerra.

“No. Kathie was into men. That prick of a husband she had ignored her, so she took up with a bunch of different guys. Never in a million years would she hook up with someone like Gilberte, even if she were gay.”