“What settlement?”
“Her divorce settlement. She hired an attorney and was planning to file for divorce.”
“You’re telling me that your sister was filing for a divorce?”
“Yeah, she gave me a folder and told me to send it with Purolator Courier. It went to her first lawyer, but nothing came of it. Kathie said the lawyer was bought off by Bobby, so she hired another attorney.”
“Who was the first attorney?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Who was the second attorney?”
“Her name is Dale Ragus.”
“When did your sister serve Bobby with papers?”
“She didn’t,” said Jim. “She was planning to, but never did. She should have. That guy has some problems.”
“What kind of problems?”
“Aside from the violence? He’s loaded, right? Has more money than God, yet he has this thing for shoplifting. He just takes stuff. Remember that last transit strike? Kathie told me Bobby would go down to the lobby of their building and take the tenants’ bicycles. He’d just take them downtown to work and leave them there. I think it’s all that pot he smokes.”
“How much?”
“At least several joints a day. He’s addicted to the stuff.”
—
That same morning, some thirty miles to the northeast of Manhattan in Fairfield County, Connecticut, Eleanor Schwank was desperately trying to get her two children through breakfast and off to school when she received a call from Gilberte Najamy, who was beside herself.
“Did you see the paper? Did you see the paper?” screamed Gilberte.
“No,” said Eleanor.
“Go get the Daily News! She’s on the front page! Bobby is offering a one-hundred-thousand-dollar reward!”
“What? Who’s in the paper?”
“It’s Kathie, it’s Kathie!”
Eleanor asked Gilberte to read her the story.
“It says that Bobby went to the police on Friday and that she was last seen in Manhattan on Monday, February first. An elevator guy saw her after she called in sick to her school.”
“Where, what elevator guy saw her?”
“Riverside Drive, the penthouse. He took her up.”
“And Bobby went to the police? Where?”
“The Twentieth Precinct, Detective Michael Struk is investigating. They’re saying it’s a missing-persons case. It says Bobby’s offering a one-hundred-thousand-dollar reward to find her!”
“No, no, no!” said Eleanor, who then hung up the phone, ran out of her house with her two children, dropped them off at school, then stopped by a grocery store for copies of the News and Post. She raced home and called Gilberte.
Eleanor, like Gilberte, had met Kathie Durst while studying nursing at Western Connecticut State College in Danbury. Eleanor was ten years older than her friends and married, with two small children. Over the past week Eleanor, Gilberte, and two other friends, Kathy Traystman and Ellen Strauss, had spoken every day on the phone, hoping for some news of Kathie.
Now Eleanor held the papers out in front of her.
“How did they get these photos of Kathie?”
“I got them,” said Gilberte, who told Eleanor she had traveled into Manhattan on Monday with pictures of Kathie and visited the News and the Post, hoping they might publish her photograph somewhere in the paper.
Gilberte said she had no idea Kathie’s smiling face would be on page one.
Eleanor was equally surprised, not that the photos were on page one but that Gilberte had gone into New York the day before without telling her.
Gilberte had other secrets about her friend Kathie Durst; some she knew she could never reveal to Eleanor, others she was ready to disclose.
“Eleanor, I went to the house.”
“What house?”
“South Salem. I broke in Sunday night. I threw a rock through the side door, broke the window, and let myself in.”
“No, you didn’t do that. Please don’t tell me you did that.”
Gilberte described, in detail, how she had gone to the stone cottage with her sister, Fadwa, arriving around 7 P.M. She rang the bell, but no one answered. She returned to the car and sat there for forty-five minutes. She wanted to get into the house, and told her sister she was going to break in. Fadwa tried to talk Gilberte out of it, but Gilberte was like a woman possessed. She got out of the car and walked through the snow and around to the side door. It was dark, the only faint light coming from several homes on the other side of Lake Truesdale.
Gilberte pushed away some snow from the ground and picked up a rock. She looked around, then flung the rock through the door window. She reached in and turned the lock, opened the door, and let herself in.
“Are you crazy?” said Eleanor.
“Eleanor, you have to hear this,” said Gilberte, who continued her story. She had been inside the house many times before and knew the layout well. It was small, to some people claustrophobically so, maybe 1,200 square feet in total. The kitchen, dining room, living room, and bedroom on the main floor, another bedroom and mudroom downstairs, which offered access to the backyard and pier.
While Gilberte was in the mudroom she looked inside the washing machine and dryer. They were empty. She checked the hamper, hoping to find Kathie’s sweatpants and sweatshirt, the clothes she’d worn to her party on Sunday.
The clothes weren’t there.
Gilberte then walked upstairs and through the bedroom, living room, and kitchen. Everything seemed to be in order. Najamy was looking for something, any sign of a struggle, maybe even blood. But the house was crisp and clean. As Gilberte tiptoed around the kitchen, she noticed there was mail inside a plastic garbage can next to the sink. She reached over and picked it up. Her eyes opened wide. It was Kathie’s mail. And it was unopened.
“Why would Bobby throw out her mail?”
“I don’t know. But I found something, a small sheet of paper. It was an itinerary of some kind, in Bobby’s scribbled handwriting. It listed days and times, from Monday to Wednesday. And I found a receipt for boots Bobby bought on February third.”
“Why would he write up an itinerary?” said Eleanor.
Gilberte didn’t have any answers. More important to her was the condition of the house.
“Eleanor, I think there’s something very wrong. The house was clean. Too clean, pristine. It looked like someone even scrubbed the floors.”
Kathie wasn’t much of a housekeeper, that much was certain, often leaving clothes lying around or dishes in the sink.
“What about the housekeeper? What’s her name? Janet. Janet Finke.”
“I don’t know. But I’ve never seen the house like this,” said Gilberte. “There’s more, Eleanor. I spoke with Bobby this morning. He said the reward was really ten thousand dollars. Somehow the papers screwed it up. He also said he was devastated.”
“Cheap bastard. That’s all she’s worth to him?” said Eleanor. “And he’s not the least bit ‘devastated.’ I don’t believe it.”
“He thinks she had some kind of breakdown.”
“No, Gilberte. He killed her. I know he did.”
—
Michael Burns sat inside the small, mirrored room, tapping his forefinger on the thick wooden table under the watchful eye of Mike Struk.
Burns had been summoned to the Twentieth Precinct by Struk, who called Burns at his Mount Vernon home the day before. Burns knew the request to talk about Kathie Durst was more like a command, so he obliged.
Before the meeting Struk had run a background check that showed Burns had no criminal record. As he sat there tapping his finger on the table, Burns looked around the room while Struk pretended to be reading through a file. He wanted Burns to be nervous. The first few questions were perfunctory, such as age and occupation. Bur
ns said he was thirty-two years old and unemployed.
“So, tell me how you met Mrs. Durst.”
“At a party, at the Dursts’ penthouse, last summer.”
“Who invited you to the party?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You became friendly with Mrs. Durst?”
“Yeah. She seemed lonely. We went out for dinner a couple of times.”
“Did you ever spend the night with her?”
“You mean did I fuck her? No. I spent a couple of nights there, but that was because I was too drunk to go home. We were just friends.”
“Did you ever supply Mrs. Durst with cocaine?”
Burns crunched his lips together, turned his head, and rolled his eyes.
“Detective, don’t waste my time. You called me down here, so just ask me your questions. Did we ever have sex? No. Do I deal drugs? No. Did Kathie do drugs? Yes. She used a lot of cocaine, maybe two, three grams a week. Where she got it, I don’t know. Did she have a fucked-up marriage? Yes. Bobby Durst is an asshole. He was beating the shit out of her. She kept talking about leaving him, but she never did. She had the other apartment on Eighty-sixth Street. She’d use that sometimes. But she stayed with him, even after she found out about his affair.”
“And what affair was that?” said Struk.
“Prudence Farrow. She’s the sister of that actress, Mia Farrow. You know, the Beatles song ‘Dear Prudence’? Bobby was plugging her.”
“Mrs. Durst told you that?”
“Yeah, she said Prudence would call her at home demanding that she let Bobby go. It fucked her up.”
“Is this recent?”
“Maybe a few months ago. I think Bobby was pretty hot and heavy with Farrow. At least that’s what Kathie said. She had enough. She wanted out. But she wanted some money out of it and Bobby said no. She had nothing, not even a dime. She wanted a settlement, but he wouldn’t even give her money to live on. She’s married to a millionaire and begging her friends for a few bucks. It was pathetic.”
“I understand you told one of Mrs. Durst’s friends to just leave her alone, that—what were your words?—that ‘she’s had enough.’ ”
“I told that to Gilberte Najamy. She kept pushing Kathie to get a divorce. She was a wreck. She thought Bobby would kill her. I wish I knew where Kathie was right now. I’d tell her to stay there.”
Struk nodded, closed his file, and thanked Burns for coming in. Burns left the precinct with the understanding that he might be called again for more questioning.
Upstairs, in the squad room, Gibbons was ending his phone conversation with attorney Dale Ragus. Struk had called her earlier in the day at her office, wanting to talk about the documents Jim McCormack had sent her.
Gibbons handled the interview with Ragus himself, one of the many reasons he was so well liked by his men. Interviews and other legwork were usually left to the rank and file. But Gibbons was different. He didn’t mind getting his hands dirty. Instead of telling Ragus to call back later, he grabbed a notebook and pencil and began asking questions.
Ragus said she was with the firm of Milbank, Tweed, Hadley and McCloy, a major New York law firm, and had been Kathie’s attorney since June 1981. Kathie was in the midst of a protracted negotiation on a divorce settlement, a negotiation that was heavily one-sided.
“She wanted what she thought to be a reasonable settlement given they were married for eight years,” said Ragus.
“How much?”
“Around four hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
That was a drop in the bucket for a guy like Bobby Durst, thought Gibbons. Why would he hold out?
Ragus couldn’t answer that question. She said that in recent months Kathie had feared for her life, and relayed to Ragus harrowing stories of beatings and mental abuse.
“She thought he would kill her,” said Ragus.
“Can you tell me about the documents her brother sent you?”
“Lieutenant, I wish I could, but that’s attorney/client privilege. I can tell you this, Lieutenant. Kathie was scared. She was very scared of her husband. And for good reason. Do you know about the dogs?”
“What dogs?”
“Kathie said her husband has a dog, Igor. It’s a husky, or something like that. Igor is the fifth or sixth dog he’s had. The others died. Kathie said they all died from mysterious deaths. One choked, another accidentally drowned, and so on.”
“Did she say he killed them?”
“She didn’t know. But the way she told the story, if I was a dog, I wouldn’t want Bobby Durst as my master.”
8
Of the approximately two hundred assistant district attorneys working in the office of Robert Morganthau, the district attorney for New York County, Mike Struk trusted but one, Roger Hayes.
An affable fellow, Hayes had developed a sterling reputation as an effective prosecutor, having joined the DA’s office in 1971, three years after graduating from the New York University School of Law.
At thirty-eight, Hayes had already served as the chief of the frauds bureau and chief of legal systems analysis. He was now chief of the trial division. When Struk called him several days earlier, the first words out of Hayes’s mouth were, “I see you’re up to your ears in that Durst shit.”
Struk laughed, then asked Hayes for a meeting.
“This is about Durst?” said Hayes.
“Yes, but we’ll talk about it in your office,” said Struk.
Struk’s call to Hayes followed a disturbing visit from Gilberte Najamy, whom Struk immediately determined to be one of the least attractive women he’d ever met.
Gilberte was thin, with long, dark, stringy hair, wore black combat boots, and had a very direct, confrontational manner. Struk took her for an adult version of a tomboy.
Gilberte had called earlier, saying she had some important information but could only deliver it in person. When she arrived at the Twentieth Precinct later that morning, she sat down next to Struk’s desk and handed him two pieces of paper.
“Where did you get these?”
“On Sunday. I broke into the house.”
“You did what?” said Struk, sitting back in his chair. He remembered the front-page story the day before in the New York Post about a break-in at the Durst’s South Salem house, the paper surmising it had something to do with Kathie’s disappearance. Bobby wouldn’t talk to the Post, but the paper reported that his younger brother Doug subsequently changed the locks on the house.
“What possessed you to pull a stunt like that?”
“Something’s wrong,” said Gilberte. “Bobby’s been hitting Kathie and threatening her. I really feel something happened, and we just can’t sit by. We have to do something.”
“We’re not sitting by. This is an active investigation, and you’re not a police officer, so I would suggest that you stay on the sidelines and let us do our work. I don’t think it’s helpful if you’re breaking into people’s homes. That sounds pretty extreme.”
Gilberte wasn’t listening to Struk’s lecture. He wasn’t telling her what she wanted to hear. She thought there would, at the least, be a congratulatory comment like “good job.” But Struk was stern in his warning to stay away from the South Salem home.
“What else have you done that I should know about?”
“Well, I took the same train Kathie took that Sunday night. The nine-seventeen out of Katonah. I boarded it after I broke into the house. There were only two cars and I had pictures of Kathie. But no one recognized her, not the conductor or anyone else on that train. And most of the people who take that train are regular commuters,” said Gilberte.
Struk looked at the two papers. One was a receipt from a shoe store. Bobby had used his credit card to buy a pair of $300 boots on Wednesday, February 3.
The other paper had “itinerary” writ
ten on the top.
The handwriting was scribbled, but Struk could make out each word.
Mon
10 a.m. Ridgefield coffee
2 Marshall Bradde
4–apt get hat
5–office
7–film or whatever
Tues
2 am S Salem
—7 am leave house
—drive
8–garage
8–apt-Oscar mail
9—sleep
Wed
10 am bought boots
11 am kennel
12 am home
2 pm lunch
4 PO box
“Both pieces of paper were in the garbage,” said Gilberte.
“Throwing out her mail?” said Struk.
“Yeah, some bills and junk stuff. They were never opened. And the house, it was really clean. I’d never seen it so clean,” said Gilberte.
“What’s that tell you?”
“I don’t know. But something isn’t right here. That itinerary. That’s Bobby’s handwriting. Why would he write down where he was all week?”
“That’s a good question. But a question for me to find answers to.”
Before leaving, Gilberte asked Struk if he heard the Peter Schwartz story.
A Deadly Secret: The Story of Robert Durst Page 7
