A Deadly Secret: The Story of Robert Durst (19 page)

Jim McCormack, his family, and a few friends surrounded the television in his Sparta, New Jersey, home, preparing to watch an hour-long
ABC News
special on the disappearance of his sister Kathie Durst.

It was late July and the refrigerator was full of beer and soda, and there were plenty of chips and pretzels to complement the cold drinks. It was almost a festive occasion, this being the first network special devoted solely to the story of Kathie Durst.

The special was called
Vanished
, ABC having taken a particular interest in the case following the death of Susan Berman. The interviews had been conducted in the spring, with Jim, Gilberte Najamy, Kathy Traystman, and even Mike Struk sitting down for lengthy interviews at ABC’s studios in New York.

As the hour progressed, the point of view of the program was obvious: Bobby Durst had killed his wife, and the NYPD had blown the investigation in 1982.

Jim had high hopes that the program would not only shed new light on the case of his missing sister but produce new witnesses as well. Someone, he figured, would have to see it and come forward. He knew that having a whole hour on network television devoted to one subject—the disappearance of Kathie Durst—was an incredible opportunity.

Jim was pleased with his performance, the protective big brother who now served as the family spokesman.

One hundred miles away in Hamden, Connecticut, Gilberte Najamy was more than pleased with how she came across. She was tickled pink. She felt, with all certainty, that by the end of the program, she had emerged as the single most important source in the story.

On camera she denied rumors that Kathie had a drug problem or was in danger of flunking medical school, and recounted the last, sad details about that Sunday afternoon at her house, just as she had told it for the last nineteen years: that she had been hosting a quiet family get-together when Kathie called from South Salem, Kathie’s arrival, and her subsequent departure.

And there was Gilberte’s last dramatic, emotional moment with Kathie on the front porch, and Kathie’s last, fateful words.

Gilberte had choked up when she retold the story.

“She said, ‘Gilberte, promise me if something happens to me, you’ll check it out. I’m afraid of what Bobby might do.’ ”

The tears welled once again.

“I made a promise to Kathie, and I’m going to keep my promise,” said Gilberte. It made for great television, as did Gilberte’s comments later in the program, when she described how she had allowed herself to be photographed by
People
magazine and insinuated that she was the reason why Bobby had apparently gone off the deep end, making an obvious allusion to Susan Berman’s murder.

“I wanted Mr. Durst to open up the magazine and know that Gilberte had come back, and then I wanted him to look at me and say, ‘Oh, my God, she’s talking.’ ”

Gilberte wasn’t the only one talking that night.

It was Kathy Traystman who said, on national television, that she believed Bobby had murdered Kathie.

But in Gilberte’s mind, no one else mattered. She was the key. She believed herself to be the person who had nurtured the investigation along, pushed it to the point where Bobby was now acting irrationally. Joe Becerra? He was just a lapdog who followed orders. Without me, figured Gilberte, he’d have nothing.

Along with promoting her efforts to a nationwide audience, behind the scenes Gilberte used the generous time with ABC’s producers to hang Mike Struk and the NYPD, comparing them to the Keystone Kops, and worse.

Like the rest of the media, ABC was infatuated with Gilberte. She was articulate, forceful, and direct. Everything that came from her mouth appeared to be truthful and accurate. She was, in essence, golden.

So when Gilberte told ABC’s producers during her marathon interview session that Mike Struk was incompetent and that he probably got his job as a technical consultant to
Law & Order
because he cut a deal with the Dursts, they listened intently.

“He had to get something from the Dursts. We told him to search the home in South Salem, but he ignored us,” she said.

And Gilberte had other theories. She accused Kathie’s sister Mary Hughes of coming to some kind of arrangement with the Dursts that allowed Mary to rent an apartment in the very building that Kathie had lived in on East Eighty-sixth Street.

It was Mary, after all, said Gilberte, whom Bobby accused of trying to blackmail him for $100,000 after Kathie disappeared.

“How could you move into the same building where your sister once lived, and the very building owned by the family that killed your sister?” said Gilberte.

And Gilberte also claimed that the McCormack family was contemplating filing a wrongful-death suit against Bobby, though in reality, filing a lawsuit was the furthest thing from their minds.

“How can they do that without me? I should be part of that suit,” said Gilberte.

When reminded that she wasn’t a family member, Gilberte scoffed.

“But I was Kathie’s best friend,” she said. “Of course I would be involved in any suit. How could I not be?”

Her favorite targets, though, had been Mike Struk and the NYPD, and her tirades were venomous.

“He was incompetent, completely incompetent. I’m telling you the Dursts got to him and the entire New York City Police Department,” said Gilberte. “They should have searched the South Salem home. We told them to search the South Salem home. It was Seymour. He had the money and the power to make this go away!”

Gilberte’s ramblings about Struk struck a chord with ABC. Struk had broken his long silence and agreed to cooperate, sitting down for a three-hour interview. He calmly explained everything about his investigation in 1982, at least all he could explain without jeopardizing Joe Becerra’s investigation.

Yet Struk, whose appearance on the program was lengthy, came across as confused on the screen. He faced delicate questions about perceived incompetence from reporter Cynthia McFadden, who seemed incredulous that neither Struk nor anyone else would have thought to search the South Salem home.

Struk tried his best to explain his actions, but he did look incompetent that night, like a rookie working his first shift, not the experienced detective he had once been.

And while the questions came from McFadden, Struk knew they originated with Gilberte. They had to.

“Kathie’s friends say they repeatedly told Detective Struk what Kathie had said about Bob’s violent behavior. But, they say, Detective Struk did not seem to take them seriously,” said McFadden, as the program moved along.

Struk replied that things were becoming redundant, that the friends weren’t offering anything useful, and there were no fact witnesses.

The more Struk talked, the sillier he looked, each answer to each pointed question dragging him deeper and deeper into the abyss.

By the end of the program, Struk, who watched from his New Jersey home, was cursing himself for having agreed to the interview.

And he cursed Gilberte Najamy as well.

The little old man with the fishing hat and Bermuda shorts was leaning against a wall in downtown Galveston, Texas, his hands clutching his chest. He looked like he was having a heart attack when Ted Hanley spotted him as he was driving along Market Street, a stretch of road separated by old cotton mills, factories, and empty lots.

“Morris? Morris? Are you okay? Can I help you?” said Hanley, who left his car and walked over to the man, who was waving his hand to go away.

“No, no, go away. Nobody can help me. You have no idea the kind of problems that I have in my life. Nobody would understand. I can never talk about it with anybody.”

It was the middle of August and the humidity covered Galveston like a heating pad. Morris was drenched in perspiration, but Hanley knew his ailment wasn’t physical.

Hanley had seen Morris Black like this before, back in the spring, standing against the side of a building just a few minutes after handing out eyeglasses to the poor and needy.

Hanley was the director of the Jesse Tree, a way station for the disenfranchised, homeless, and other lost souls who always managed to find their way to Galveston with the other flotsam of humankind. Galveston had a history of being a last refuge of sorts, a stinking-hot, blue-collar, shot-and-a-beer town, some forty miles of island bordered by the Gulf of Mexico, Galveston Bay, and Purgatory. It was a place to disappear.

Hanley had known plenty of people who wanted to vanish, but he had never met anyone like Morris Black, a seventy-one-year-old drifter with a Boston accent who walked around town with a noticeable limp and was best known by the volunteers at the Jesse Tree as that crazy old man with the fishing hat.

Morris first came to Hanley’s attention in January 2001, when he showed up at the Jesse Tree unannounced, determined to convince Hanley that he should buy reading glasses off the Internet and give them to the poor.

They were cheap, said Morris, and the poor could use them.

Hanley explained that he didn’t have the money to buy the glasses, no matter what the price, and said he wasn’t interested. In reality, he thought it was a great idea.

Morris wouldn’t take no for an answer, so he ordered the glasses himself and decided to give them away every Saturday morning in downtown Galveston, where the Jesse Tree served free breakfast and offered free medical services.

Each week Morris would arrive, a shopping bag in each hand filled with dozens of pairs of glasses he had bought in bulk. Morris figured it cost him forty-six cents a pair, a bargain. They were made in China and had Walgreens stamped on them.

“You see, Ted,” Morris would say. “If you bought these at a store it would have cost you twelve dollars.”

Morris would walk up to the people waiting on line, ask each person a few questions, and give away his glasses. He was all business and took his endeavor with great seriousness.

There were times, though, when he felt someone was taking advantage of his generosity. He would then take the glasses back, often in a loud and embarrassing fashion.

One poor fellow had the misfortune of carrying a pack of cigarettes in his shirt pocket. Morris saw the cigarettes after giving the fellow a pair of glasses, reached over, and angrily took the glasses out of his hand.

“If you can afford to buy cigarettes then you can afford to buy these glasses!” Morris screamed.

On another occasion Morris thought someone had stolen a pair of glasses from one of his bags and he began to yell and berate those standing on line, his arms flailing.

Then a child walked up to Morris, the lost glasses in hand, asking Morris if he dropped them in the parking lot, where they were found. Morris said nothing as he snatched the glasses from the boy and stomped away.

As the weeks went by, Morris decided to change the eligibility requirements for his free glasses. Instead of being just poor or homeless, you now couldn’t be a poor, homeless smoker. Or if he thought you were lazy, you were denied.

“Lazy people don’t deserve glasses,” Morris told Hanley.

“But how do you know if they’re lazy?”

“I can tell. Believe me, I know these people. I can tell.”

During the week, Morris would often walk over to the Jesse Tree unannounced and tell Hanley about new listings on the Internet and opportunities to get even cheaper glasses.

On one such day Hanley wasn’t interested. He was also busy, and told Morris if he had any further questions he should e-mail him. Hanley knew Morris was computer literate, since he was seen often at the Galveston library working at a computer terminal.

Morris said no, if he had something for Hanley he’d tell him in person.

The following week Hanley saw Morris leaning against the building. Usually quick moving and talking fast, Morris was somewhat lethargic as he gave away his glasses. When he was finished, he slowly walked away, then crouched over as if to vomit.

“Morris, do you need a doctor?” said Hanley.

“No, no. You can’t help me. Do you understand? You can’t help me. You would never be able to understand the problems I have,” said Morris.

Hanley, a Christian in name and practice, put his hand on Morris’s shoulder.

“Morris, you know I work with people every day who have all kinds of problems. Very serious problems. There’s always somebody who can help you.”

Morris remained hunched over, his head shaking back and forth.

“No! No! No!”

It suddenly occurred to Hanley that Morris’s problems weren’t physical, but mental. Terrible thoughts that totally overwhelmed him. Whatever it was, Hanley determined, it was consuming the man.

“Morris, if you don’t want me to help you, then I will pray that you will believe there is somebody there for you to talk to.”

Morris said nothing.

Ted offered to give him a ride home and got his car. He helped Morris into the front seat and the two men drove to 2213 Avenue K, where Morris rented an apartment in the front of a two-story home.

Hanley offered to take Morris’s bags into the house, but Morris, who remained lethargic during the five-minute ride, exploded.

“No! No! You can’t come into my home. You can never come inside. Do you understand?”

Hanley was startled, but didn’t reply. Morris bolted from the car and quickly walked up the stairs to his front porch. He turned around, looking out toward Hanley, and waited for him to drive down the block before entering the house.

Hanley saw Morris again the following Monday. He had come into the Jesse Tree enraged over another issue concerning his glasses. Hanley had had about enough and ordered two of his employees to show Morris the door.

Morris returned on Friday. “I’m sorry about the other day,” he said.

Hanley let it go. Before leaving, Morris brought up another subject.

“I hear you’re looking to buy another piece of property for the Jesse Tree. Would you be interested in a low-interest loan? I know somebody who has a lot of money and could make a low-interest loan available.”

Hanley was somewhat surprised by the offer. The Jesse Tree was indeed looking to buy a property nearby. The price tag was $50,000. Hanley had no idea how Morris had learned this, but he would never get involved in any kind of financial dealings with someone like Morris Black.

“Morris, if somebody wants to do something for the Jesse Tree, they just need to talk to me.”

Morris nodded and limped out the door.

Hanley was in his office the following Monday when the receptionist walked in to tell him he had a visitor. A strange man, he was told, who appeared to be a deaf-mute and very agitated.

Hanley ran into all sorts of people as the director of the Jesse Tree, but it wasn’t often he’d run into an agitated mute.

He walked into the front lobby area and saw, standing there, a short man wearing a gray T-shirt and black-rimmed eyeglasses, the same kind of glasses Morris was giving away. Only the lenses were taped, the right eye completely covered, the left eye covered except for a small area in the middle.

“Are you deaf?” said Hanley.

The man shook his head up and down.

“Do you sign?”

The man shook his head left to right, then nodded toward a room next door, which was used for computer work.

The two men walked into the room, and Hanley closed the door.

The man turned around. “I don’t speak to women. I hate them,” he said.

“Okay,” said Hanley, now knowing that his visitor wasn’t deaf or mute. “What can I do for you?”

“I need fifty dollars, in cash.”

“Sir,” said Hanley. “This is the Jesse Tree, not the Money Tree. I can’t spit out cash. What do you need it for?”

“I don’t like this place. I want to go to Beaumont. I have to stay in my car and I need money for gas.”

Hanley told the man that he could give him a blanket, food, and a gas voucher, but he couldn’t give him fifty dollars.

The man exploded.

“So this is like every other goddamn place that gives you the runaround!” he yelled, talking with his hand on his forehead, partially covering his face. Hanley, at first, didn’t think much of him, probably just another poor soul with a few marbles floating around somewhere in his head. His short hair was scraggly. He appeared to be in his mid-fifties.

But as his visitor continued to talk, Hanley sensed something about him, and the conversation. He realized the man didn’t need fifty dollars. Instead, Hanley felt as if he was being tested, that the visitor was trying to push his buttons, get him riled and excited. For what reason, Hanley didn’t have a clue.

The man huffed out of the Jesse Tree without his fifty dollars or any vouchers, and without giving his name.

It was two months later when Hanley spotted Morris slumped against the wall, the same way as last spring, and again asked if he could help.

“No! No! Nobody can help me. I can never talk about it,” said Morris. “Just leave me alone.”

Hanley told Morris again that he would pray for him, went back to his car, and drove away.

He would never see Morris Black again.