A Deadly Secret: The Story of Robert Durst (8 page)

It was postmarked February 10, 1982. The letter was vague, demanded an unspecified amount of cash, and instructed Bobby to stay by his phone for further instructions. Struk didn’t think much of the letter, which seemed to be a prank.

Bobby watched as the CSU team visited each room. He was his usual aloof, quiet self. If he was distraught, as Struk had read in the papers, he was doing a lousy job maintaining that appearance.

“I read you hired a private eye. Any luck?” said Struk, trying to engage Bobby in casual conversation.

“No. I’m sure if he comes across any information he’ll pass it along to you,” said Bobby.

As the CSU team searched through the bedroom, Struk excused himself and walked back into the living room. He looked over toward the closet by the door, but the coat was gone.

It was the weirdest thing. A Burberry raincoat, something he’d noticed earlier in the week when he entered the penthouse with Mary Hughes, Kathie’s sister, and Mary’s friend Geraldine McInerney. Mary had a key to the penthouse and was desperate to look inside after learning that Bobby tried to sublet the East Eighty-sixth Street apartment on February 4, the day before he reported Kathie missing. Mary also discovered, from one of the building maintenance men, that Bobby had tossed Kathie’s belongings from that apartment down the building trash chute. He threw so much stuff down there, a building employee had to remind him the trash disposal was for garbage only. Mary then called Struk, who agreed to accompany the women to the penthouse.

Mary knew the doorman, who told her that Bobby had left for work that morning. She told him she was taking her sister’s jewelry. The doorman recognized Struk and let them pass through.

Mary, Geraldine, and Struk walked through each room, and the only odd thing they noticed was the coat that hung on the closet door. Geraldine said it was an expensive coat, and it looked like it had been placed in a washing machine, which didn’t make sense.

“You don’t wash a coat like that,” said Geraldine, who estimated it to be worth around $600.

But now the coat was gone. Struk walked over to the closet and opened the door. It wasn’t there either.

The CSU team finished up its search of the apartment, which was clean, though Struk had known the outcome in advance. He thanked Bobby for his continued cooperation during this very difficult time and said he’d be in touch.

When he returned to his office there were more than two dozen messages waiting for him. Some were from people he knew, others were people calling with information on the Durst case. The Durst calls had come in at a steady clip since the stories in the
Daily News
and
Post
. People were reporting “Kathie sightings” all over town. Two detectives were sent to a coffee shop on Thirty-ninth Street, where a waitress claimed Kathie had had breakfast after she supposedly disappeared. Even the Secret Service called, saying some of its operatives had found a disoriented woman at the World Trade Center who fit the description of Kathie Durst. Struk also heard from several psychics, one of whom said she “saw” three men drop garbage bags into the East River. Kathie Durst’s body was in those bags, the psychic claimed.

The sightings were quickly discounted. The investigation pressed ahead, though little new information was coming forward. To make matters worse, by the middle of March, Bobby Durst stopped returning Struk’s calls.

The tears rolled down Mike Struk’s cheeks, rushing to his jaw and falling from his chin.

He was sitting in the bathroom, the door closed, crying quietly. He could hear the police scanner in the background, the voices interrupted by loud squawks and beeps.

His thoughts were with his children, who were up in Middletown with their mother. He missed them terribly, and there were plenty of days when he’d tell someone he was going to the can when in fact he’d sit on the bowl, close the door, and cry his eyes out.

One particularly long sobbing session ended with Struk waiting several minutes for his eyes to clear before leaving the bathroom.

Gibbons, like the rest of the squad, knew about Struk’s divorce, but never pried. Convinced that Struk had made it out of the bathroom in one emotional piece, the lieutenant handed him an envelope.

It was the medical records Roger Hayes had subpoenaed from Jacobi Hospital.

Struk’s longing for his kids was quickly replaced by his longing for the information that was in the file, which he consumed.

It was the first bit of new information to come along in several weeks. The investigation had all but stalled, even after Struk and a host of other detectives from the Twentieth Precinct and the Manhattan Task Force had tracked down every lead, followed up on every phone call, and even spoke with soothsayers and psychics. Struk studied the records, which stated that Kathie had checked into Jacobi Hospital during the early afternoon of January 2, 1982. She told the doctors she had been beaten by her husband. An examination determined she had a history of blunt trauma to the left side of the face.

When the doctors pressed her for information, Kathie admitted that she wasn’t just slapped, but punched, and several times. She was bruised, but the outward markings were faint. She had pressure and tightness over her left cheek and eye. The doctors gave her Tylenol and advice to find a new husband.

The records confirmed what everyone was saying, that Bobby was beating his wife. And not just slapping her, but using her as a punching bag.

A real scumbag, thought Struk, who felt the strong urge to go down to Bobby’s Sixth Avenue office in the middle of the afternoon, police lights flashing, the press surrounding the front entrance, and march Bobby out in handcuffs. But Gibbons called him into his office.

Struk was told to set up a meeting downtown at police headquarters.

—

“What’s your name?”

“Eddie Lopez.”

“What’s your occupation?”

“I work as a building employee at Thirty-seven Riverside Drive.”

“Were you working the evening of Sunday, January thirty-first?”

“Yes.”

Lopez sat in a darkened room at One Police Plaza, answering questions from Millie Markman, the NYPD’s hypnotist.

Mike Struk sat off to the side, in the darkness and out of view, his head resting on one hand, his eyes closed.

He had driven Lopez downtown at the request of Gibbons, whose superiors had suggested hypnosis. The New York media continued to cover the Kathie Durst story, running pieces every week, theorizing that Kathie met foul play at the hands of a mystery man who entered her apartment that Sunday night, the last day of January. Was he a friend, a lover, or perhaps a drug dealer?

The brass were still paying attention, and “suggested” hypnosis.

Struk thought it was a colossal waste of time.

“You fucking kidding me?” he said when Gibbons told him to set up the appointment with Markman.

Struk hated the idea, but realized he had no choice, so he agreed to draw up the questions. They were all standard. Did you ever see the man before? Can you describe him? What did Kathie say when she opened the door? Did she look drunk or sick?

He wanted to add a few other questions. Are you really hypnotized? Do you know who killed JFK?

As Lopez was “put under,” Struk sat there, unimpressed, privately wondering if Markman could hypnotize a banana.

Lopez’s story, supposedly under hypnosis, was the same as it had been before: he took Kathie up to her apartment around 11
P.M.
and soon after a white male, about thirty-five, clean-cut with a good build and short black hair and a neat black mustache, paid her a visit.

Struk thanked Markman for her wasted efforts, drove Lopez to Riverside Drive, then returned to the Twentieth Precinct.

“How did it go?” said Gibbons.

Struk was flippant. “We solved the case,” he said, walking straight to his desk.

Gibbons said nothing, wondering only what Struk would do next.

—

Mary Hughes’s East Side apartment was filled with family and a few close friends. The mood was somber, conversation reduced to a whisper. Mary’s husband, Tom, a New York City fireman, handed Jim McCormack a beer while Ann McCormack sat on the end of a sofa, paying little attention to the discussion that centered on her son-in-law.

Ann was lost in thought. Kathie was her youngest daughter, her baby, the teenage runway model who left her Long Island home when she was nineteen to begin a new life in Manhattan working as a dental assistant.

Kathie had always been spunky, and prone to rash behavior, especially after her father died in 1966 when she was just fourteen. So it wasn’t surprising to Ann when Kathie announced not only that she had found an apartment, but that she had a boyfriend, an older man. Ann didn’t know what to make of Bobby Durst. He seemed nice enough. He was quiet, reserved, though he never showered Kathie with affection. He was also Jewish, which didn’t quite endear him to Ann’s heart. She was Irish-Catholic and believed in family and the Church, and not necessarily in that order.

So when Ann finally asked Kathie what it was she saw in her new boyfriend, Kathie smiled and talked about how sweet and kind and sensitive Bobby was.

“And Mom,” said Kathie. “He’s rich.”

When Kathie announced in January 1972 that she was moving with Bobby to Vermont after only two dates, Ann was less than thrilled. Catholics don’t live together, she said; they get married. But Kathie moved anyway, and for the next year she helped Bobby run his health-food store in Rutland, which he named All Good Things.

Bobby liked the rural setting, away from the city and his father’s hand. Kathie enjoyed managing the store. During their free time they would go for long walks in the woods, and long drives through the back roads of Maine and New Hampshire.

When Bobby decided to sell the store in December, they returned to New York and moved into a home in Westchester County that Bobby’s father, Seymour, owned. They didn’t stay there long, deciding to pick up and drive south in Bobby’s Volkswagen bus, traveling through South Carolina and Florida. The young couple would spend their nights at low-budget motels or camping spots, making love in a sleeping bag.

Sometimes Bobby would go out on his own, leaving Kathie alone for hours. She’d ask him where he’d been, but he was usually evasive, saying he just needed some quiet time to himself.

In 1973, after returning to New York, the couple decided to marry, though Ann remembered the “popping of the question” was more like a “let’s try this out.”

The only real commitment Bobby made, aside from saying “I do” was “If it doesn’t work out in three years, we’ll get a divorce.”

Kathie didn’t mind the arrangement. And she didn’t even mind the small, low-key wedding ceremony in Bedford, New York, on April 12, which was Bobby’s birthday. Only Seymour and Ann were present when the couple exchanged their vows before a justice of the peace, the foursome then celebrating at a restaurant in Greenwich, Connecticut.

Kathie didn’t complain when her mother paid for her own meal.

The honeymoon was another motor tour, this time a six-month journey cross-country. Bobby wrote off part of the trip as a business expense, saying he stopped off to examine Durst properties, though the Dursts didn’t own any properties in Middle America. He also confided to Kathie during one of their long daily drives that he didn’t have a Ph.D. in economics from UCLA, as he had claimed. He asked Kathie not to tell anyone, including his family. It would be their secret.

The McCormacks were happy for Kathie. She was young, and she was now wealthy. Her new husband went to work for his father while Kathie attended nursing school in Connecticut. They ate out three, four times a week, usually at fine restaurants, and they traveled often, to the Caribbean, Europe, South America, and Asia.

Despite Kathie’s good fortune and new life, there would be problems in her new marriage, and they centered around her unpredictable, erratic husband.

While Ann McCormack knew her daughter was not happy in her marriage, sister Mary was privy to the deepest, darkest secrets. And now Mary was sitting there, across from her mother, immersed in her own thoughts.

Mary knew things could have been different. That Kathie, like the Irish girl that she was, wanted to have children. But Bobby had made it clear that this wasn’t an option. He didn’t want to be a father, even though for some reason he gave in to Kathie’s desire to investigate the possibility of adoption. It was a whim, he thought, something she’d get out of her system, and he didn’t object when she made an appointment for an interview.

But making the appointment was one thing. Talking during the interview was another, and while driving home after the interview Bobby suggested that Kathie should follow his lead at future meetings. He didn’t like the tone of the conversation and didn’t want to make any kind of commitment. When Kathie disagreed with his suggestion, he poured a water bottle over her head as he was driving.

Kathie said nothing that night, and remained quiet two years later when, in 1976, she learned she was pregnant, telling only her sister Mary.

“Congratulations,” said Mary when informed she’d be an aunt. She gave Kathie a hug and a kiss, but saw that Kathie wasn’t enjoying the moment.

Kathie was dour. Bobby had insisted she have an abortion. He had no idea how Kathie, who used a diaphragm, could have become pregnant. He was angry.

“He said he did not want to be a father and if I have the baby he’ll divorce me,” said Kathie.

There was but one decision, and in March, Kathie sadly terminated her pregnancy. She fell into a deep depression, crying all hours of the day and night.

Mary tried to raise her spirits, but Kathie fell into a deeper funk in May when she learned that her husband of three years was having an affair.

The news came to Kathie in an unusual way. Bobby had announced that he changed their home phone number and the key to the mailbox, claiming he was being threatened at work and was doing this as a precaution. Two days later Kathie happened to pull a book from their bookshelf and some Polaroid pictures fell out. They were photos of their medicine cabinet and bedroom closet. Kathie was puzzled. Why would Bobby take pictures of a closet and cabinet?

Kathie confronted Bobby, who admitted to having an affair. Kathie sat stunned as Bobby explained that he changed the apartment around to give the impression that he was single. When the woman left, he used the photos to place everything back in their normal spaces.

Kathie asked who the woman was, but Bobby would only say she didn’t know her.

Kathie was devastated, and repulsed. Her husband, the man she loved, was using their home for his extramarital dalliances.

Mary didn’t know what to say when Kathie told her the news, crying on her shoulder that spring afternoon. Mary had already developed an opinion of Bobby Durst, and it was less than flattering. He was arrogant and cold and displayed a deep and obvious disdain for Kathie’s relatives, ignoring them at family functions or, if he was in a good mood, barely acknowledging their existence.

Mary told Kathie that perhaps she’d be better off without Bobby, but Kathie didn’t want to hear it.

She was married to a Durst, and it was going to stay that way, even when Kathie claimed to have learned that Bobby was embezzling from his father’s company, as she told Mary during a late night phone call. Kathie’s brother-in-law Douglas told her that Bobby was taking rent checks and depositing them into his own account. Bobby denied this at first, but she later claimed that he admitted to taking some checks on occasion.

“I don’t know what he’s doing,” Kathie said to her sister. “Sometimes I just don’t understand him.”

Mary said nothing. She knew her sister wouldn’t listen to reason. Besides, she was coming out of her funk. And she and Bobby agreed to buy a pretty little stone cottage on Lake Truesdale, in South Salem. It was a bargain, said Kathie. Only $86,500. It would serve as their summer and weekend retreat and Kathie could stay there when attending nursing classes at WCSC in Danbury. Kathie even held out the hope that this would add a new dimension to their relationship. Weekends away, together. It would be like Vermont. They could go for walks, and talk, and take long drives upstate or into Connecticut.

Mary remembered that it seemed to work for a while. A couple of years at least. But after Kathie entered medical school, Bobby became more abusive, first raising his hands, pretending he would swing at Kathie, and then finally, in 1979, smacking her to the ground during a vicious argument.

Kathie tolerated the abuse. She was now a student at the Albert Einstein Medical School, a beneficiary of the Durst Organization’s largesse, and she still very much enjoyed the life Bobby’s money and family made possible. Along with the travel to exotic locations, there were the fabulous parties and formal affairs. At one event, a fund-raiser for New York mayor Ed Koch, Kathie was the queen of the ball, the center of attention, a true trophy wife. She was smart and witty and could carry an intelligent conversation. Even Seymour looked on approvingly as Kathie, who was to be the first Durst doctor, made her way through the room, smiling and completely engaging.

Her own family was proud of her, never quite imagining that the baby of the family would one day bear the title M.D.

But behind the glitter and glamour and privilege, Kathie’s life was failing. In 1980 she began taking tranquilizers, prescribed by her doctor, to help deal with the stress of living with Bobby, who was now questioning her every purchase and refusing simple requests like spending $200 to fix the air-conditioning on their Volkswagen bug, which Kathie drove to school. And despite the rigorous schedule and pressures of her studies, he even demanded she fulfill her “wife duties,” or chores, on her days off.