It was a precedent-setting case, considering that Bierenbaum was convicted solely on circumstantial evidence. Judging by the evidence he had, Becerra thought the Durst case was a slam dunk. He knew he had far more compelling evidence against Durst than prosecutors in Manhattan had had against Bierenbaum.
But repeated attempts to nudge Pirro to move forward were greeted coolly. Pirro made it clear she wasn’t about to take on a celebrity trial and all the trimmings that would go with it during an election year.
While the public had no idea who Bobby Durst was, and the press had forgotten the story of his missing wife aeons ago, the Durst Organization—the family business—was now worth more than $2 billion, and Pirro knew prosecuting Bobby would turn into a circus.
She also had other, more serious and pressing problems to deal with. Her husband, Al, was convicted on June 22 of tax fraud and was now residing in a minimum-security prison in Florida, having received a twenty-nine-month sentence. Al’s conviction was a bitter and embarrassing mark on the DA’s reputation and a career breaker. Pirro’s designs for higher office were derailed, and she now faced a tough reelection campaign in 2001. Pirro had signed several of the fraudulent joint tax returns her husband was found guilty of submitting to the IRS, and the questions from her critics were simple: How could a woman, as bright and tough as Pirro, not know what was going on in her own home?
Pirro declined to answer any questions about her husband following the verdict. She knew the issue would be a main topic of discussion during the upcoming campaign.
The meeting concerning the Kathie Durst investigation lasted about ninety minutes. Becerra directed the conversation, going around the table, listening to everyone from Ellen to Kathy to Jim to Gilberte.
Gilberte did most of the talking, relaying again the story about Kathie’s last day at her house along with a bizarre story about her encounter with a man named John Vigiani and his plan to kidnap Bobby Durst.
Kathy Traystman rolled her eyes as soon as Gilberte began to tell that story, knowing Gilberte’s propensity to embellish, but she was utterly astonished when Jim McCormack rose from his chair to say he, too, had met the mysterious Vigiani. He shared his story about the meeting in the diner with his sister Mary.
“You see, you thought I was crazy,” said Gilberte, pointing a finger at Kathy. “Vigiani was real. I told you he was real. You should have believed me. It was Dale Ragus, Kathie’s attorney. She brought me up to her office and left me in a room with that guy. He scared the hell out of me.”
Gilberte remembered that Ragus had said there was someone she, Gilberte, should meet, only she admitted that Ragus would deny ever making the introduction and deny knowing Vigiani.
“She just left the room, closed the doors, then in walked Vigiani,” said Gilberte. “When he told me what he wanted to do, I was shaking. I just ran out of there.”
As she continued her story, Jim nodded again and again, verifying everything Gilberte said about Vigiani, the little man with the sharp business suit and noticeable limp. Only Jim was unaware that it had been Dale Ragus, Kathie’s attorney, who was behind the meeting.
“Vigiani told us about the dogs and the drugs and the ten thousand dollars,” said Jim. “The police didn’t seem to be doing anything at the time, so at first I didn’t think it was such a crazy idea. But then I realized this was nuts, and we said no.”
Gilberte felt vindicated. She told several stories during the meeting, each one raising eyebrows throughout the room. She said Kathie had given a folder containing damaging information on the Durst family to a New York senator, but the senator passed the folder along to Seymour Durst. Her implication was that Kathie’s disappearance could be a conspiracy involving the Durst Organization.
There were two senators at the time, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jacob Javits, but Gilberte wasn’t sure which one Kathie had approached.
Few in the room believed that story, so Gilberte moved on to tell about a burglary at her home a year after Kathie disappeared; the only items taken were papers and documents given to Gilberte by Kathie.
“They were the tax returns and stock documents she said Bobby forged,” said Gilberte.
Kathy Traystman confirmed this story, saying her apartment had also been burglarized, around the same time as Gilberte’s, and similar papers kept in a clothes drawer and given to her by Kathie had been stolen.
Neither Gilberte nor Kathy reported the burglaries to police, claiming they were spooked by the whole ordeal.
“It could have been a conspiracy,” said Gilberte. “Kathie was threatening to expose Bobby, and I believe the information was embarrassing, and threatening, to Seymour Durst.”
Becerra and the other law enforcement officials at the table said nothing, writing notes on their pads. They were listening, but weren’t necessarily believing any of this.
But Gilberte continued on, telling everyone how the loss of her friend had ruined her life.
“I lost my business and my money. I should never have let Kathie leave my house that night. You don’t know how guilty I feel over that. She told me if something happened to her, it was Bobby.”
“She said that to all of us,” said Kathy Traystman. “We told her to leave him. What else could we have done?”
Struk, for his part, remained quiet, but was redeveloping a strong dislike for Gilberte. She was running off at the mouth again, acting like she had in 1982, as if she were the detective and she knew the answers. Gilberte had gone overboard in 1982, breaking into the South Salem home and sneaking off with Bobby Durst’s garbage. And her stories today were just as wild and out of control as the ones she’d told in 1982.
Struk didn’t believe any of the conspiracy talk. He knew Gilberte was obsessed back then. And she seemed obsessed now. Perhaps it was guilt, he thought. But guilt over what? Letting Kathie leave her house that night? Here she was, years later, rambling on like she did back then, talking in a direct and accusatory manner, spitting out preposterous theories, and pointing an accusing finger at the NYPD, which amounted to pointing the finger at Struk.
For a moment the ex–NYPD detective wished Gilberte was a man, so they could go outside and settle this once and for all.
Becerra decided he’d heard enough from Gilberte and turned toward Jim McCormack, who had little to add other than questioning the role of the Durst family. It was apparent that the police weren’t buying Gilberte’s conspiracy theory, but Jim didn’t rule it out completely. Aside from that one meeting with Seymour Durst, the McCormacks had never heard from him or the Durst family again. The McCormacks were forgotten, discarded. Kathie had been a Durst for nine years, but was no more important to them than some house cat. She was disposable.
“I never understood that,” said Jim. “How callously and coldly they reacted to Kathie’s disappearance. I always believed they knew something. Or they were protecting Bobby. Take your pick.”
—
The meeting ended around 3:30 P.M. with a reminder to everyone not to contact or speak to the press. Becerra had managed to keep his investigation under wraps for nearly a year, and he wanted to keep it that way. There would be one last search of the South Salem home next week, and then he said he would finally call Robert Durst, who had no idea a new investigation had begun.
But Becerra had another problem. No one knew where Bobby was.
Bobby had gone back to work in 1983 but left the Durst Organization in a huff ten years later after Seymour selected Bobby’s younger brother Douglas to take over the business. Seymour, who was then in his eighties, had drawn a clear line of succession, and Bobby had been passed over. When he was informed of the news, Bobby stormed out of the Durst offices, cutting all ties with his family and close friends.
He wouldn’t see his father again until two years later, in 1995. Seymour was on his deathbed, and Bobby visited him after assurances that no other family members would be pr
esent. He said his good-byes there, alone with his father, later skipping the funeral.
For the past five years Bobby had remained virtually out of sight, listing addresses in New York, Connecticut, California, and Texas. Just what he was doing, nobody seemed to know. There were rumors that he was involved in several real estate transactions, but it appeared that he had just dropped off the face of the earth, contacting no one. Not even his closest friends, like Doug Oliver, heard from him.
Bobby maintained a New York phone number, but the only way to reach him was to leave a message and hope he’d return the call.
Becerra figured he’d eventually track him down and even surprise him, hoping to sit him down and lock him into another story. He even spent the summer preparing the questions. Let him explain his way out of buying the shoes, or making the phone calls from Ship Bottom, or the itinerary he drew up, or the Burberry raincoat, or the records from Jacobi Hospital, or, of course, the handprints on the cupboard and blood on the dishwasher. And what about the rental car, the Rent-A-Wreck he drove some 450 miles to God knows where a month after Kathie disappeared. What was that about?
All Becerra wanted was ten minutes alone with Bobby Durst, and then he figured he’d have his man.
—
On a Saturday morning, three days after the meeting in Pirro’s office, Becerra had run his usual four miles, fed his dogs, and had just sat down in his living room when his phone rang.
It was Henry Luttman, his newspaper-reading colleague at the Somers barracks, and he asked Becerra if he’d seen the morning papers yet.
“No, I’m getting dressed. What’s up?” he said.
“The Durst investigation, it’s in the papers. Everything. And even worse, they talked to Durst himself.”
“Jesus,” said Becerra. “What did he say?”
“He said he didn’t know anything, and he wouldn’t have any comment.”
Becerra had had an idea something was wrong when he received a call the day before from Barbara Ross, a reporter at the New York Daily News, who asked about the investigation. Becerra said, “What investigation?”
Ross pressed Becerra, who said that the Durst probe was still a missing-persons case and hung up.
But someone had talked, someone at that meeting on Wednesday had leaked word about the investigation. And not only to the Daily News. The New York Times ran a lengthy story the same day, including a Durst family statement: “Robert Durst continues to maintain his innocence.”
And there was even more bad news. Both papers credited Becerra, not Pirro, with reopening the case, which was true, but here in Westchester County, that’s not how things were done. In Westchester County, this was Pirro’s investigation; Becerra just happened to be along for the ride.
Becerra cursed his bad luck, and he cursed the media. He knew Bobby wasn’t going to talk, not now, not after the world knew that police had searched the house in South Salem. Bobby would lawyer up again and say nothing.
As he sat there on his couch, Becerra rolled his head back and closed his eyes, trying to figure out who was the one who had leaked the story to the press.
15
On November 15, 2000, four days after the revelations about the renewed investigation into the disappearance of Kathie Durst were reported in the New York papers, Klaus Rene Dillman of Galveston, Texas, received a phone call from a man with a pleasant voice who said he was an assistant to a deaf-mute named Dorothy Ciner.
Dillman had placed an advertisement in the local newspaper for an apartment he had available in a home he owned at 2213 Avenue K in Galveston. There were four apartments in the home, including the two in the front of the house, that had been available. Dillman had just rented one of them to an elderly man named Morris Black.
The assistant, who did not give his name, said Ms. Ciner was in her fifties and was interested in renting the two-room apartment.
The caller agreed to the $300 monthly rent and said Ms. Ciner would pay three months in advance upon her arrival, which would be in several days.
The assistant said Ms. Ciner traveled often, and would have someone come by from time to time to maintain the apartment during her absence.
The assistant spoke smoothly and assuredly, had a slow drawl, and paused before each sentence.
Dillman agreed, and the apartment was rented.
—
Ellen Strauss was sifting through two large folders, both several inches thick, as a curious Gilberte Najamy anxiously looked on.
Ellen, the meticulously organized attorney, had always kept fastidious notes, some going back as far as 1978. She’d write daily accounts of meetings and conversations with friends as well as the time of day they occurred. The notes were maintained in books stamped with each year.
The women were in Ellen’s home going through the thick folders, hoping to find some information on Susan Berman.
As Ellen scrolled her finger down each page of each book, she’d stop at any mention of a phone conversation with Kathie Durst, even the late-night calls that had come in long after Ellen had fallen asleep, when Kathie wanted to talk about her never-ending problems with Bobby.
Some of Ellen’s friends considered her obsessive-compulsive, but it was just part of her nature. Along with the phone logs, there were notes and assorted documents, numerous news reports, and pieces of scrap paper, all contained in two manila folders that Ellen had kept over the years, hiding them in various parts of her home—under her bed, in a closet.
Just in case, she figured.
After hearing Gilberte and Kathy Traystman relay their stories about the burglaries in their homes, Ellen had decided to put her folders in a safe-deposit box.
During the meeting at Jeanine Pirro’s office two weeks earlier, Ellen had whispered to Gilberte that she had plenty of old documents and newspaper clippings, and Gilberte wanted to see them, saying there could be something that might help the investigation along, the intensity of which had grown immeasurably now that the press had the story.
Ellen’s papers and notes were now spread out on an antique wooden table. It was only 10 A.M. on a dreary Saturday, and it was wet outside. As they worked through the folders, a steady rain pelted against the windows. Ellen, as usual, looked like a million bucks. Her hair, makeup, and clothes were all in order, as if it were 10 P.M. and she was dressed for a late dinner.
Gilberte arrived wearing a wrinkled gray sport coat and sweater.
As she sat at the table, Gilberte raced through each document, ignoring the little scraps with random notes like “gay massage parlor” and “Mike Burns.”
“Is any of this making sense?” said Ellen. “And who was Mike Burns?”
“Oh, nobody. Just some guy who hung around with Kathie,” said Gilberte, who quickly dismissed the question and continued to shuffle through the papers, stopping dead in her tracks when she pulled out the doctor’s letter.
“Oh, my,” said Gilberte, hastily reading every line. “How did you get this?”
“I don’t remember,” said Ellen, looking over the table at the document. “I’m not sure if Kathie gave it to me or not.”
Gilberte held the letter up, moving it over the table so Ellen could see. “You know, if this ever gets out he’ll plead insanity when he’s finally arrested. They’ll put him in a nice, safe mental institution, not a jail cell where he belongs. We can’t have that. Do you understand?”
Gilberte wasn’t just pleading; she was issuing an order.
Ellen hemmed and hawed. She remembered the letter, but hadn’t read it in years.
“I know what you’re saying, Gilberte, but I think we should forward a copy to Joe Becerra. I think he should be aware of this.”
Gilberte was adamant.
“No, Ellen, no. Let’s hang on to this for a while, keep it here. I don’t want anyone to know about this, at least not now. Okay? At least not no
w.”
As she made her forceful plea, she grabbed Ellen’s arm. Ellen decided there wasn’t any rush to bring the letter to Becerra’s attention, so she acquiesced, taking it from Gilberte’s hand and placing it back into her folder.
Gilberte looked down at the table, at some of the other papers lying before her. She studied each of them closely, making sure nothing escaped her eyes. The letter had been a shock. What else did Ellen have? she wondered. It didn’t take Gilberte long to find another piece of paper. Her eyes opened wide for a split second when she recognized it, a time line, written down by Gilberte and Ellen several weeks after Kathie disappeared. It traced Kathie’s movements that last Sunday when she had visited Gilberte’s house.
Ellen was trying to slip the doctor’s letter into a clear, plastic covering when Gilberte held up the small piece of paper.
“And you can put this away, too,” she said, holding it up high. “You can’t show it to anyone, not the police, reporters, or anyone, okay?”
Gilberte wasn’t as dogmatic in her tone as she was with the letter. She spoke softly and directly.
Ellen leaned over and took a quick look at the paper.
“Is this significant?”
“No, but let’s just put it away. No one needs to see this,” said Gilberte, now leaning over the table and looking directly into Ellen’s eyes. “This is about putting Bobby in jail, not tainting Kathie’s memory. Promise me that no one will ever see this.”
Ellen shrugged her shoulders and agreed, placing the paper back in the file.
The two women searched through what was left on the table, Gilberte paying careful attention to every little scrap. She was unnerved by what she found so far. She didn’t want anything else to escape her attention.
The two women were also hoping to find something, anything, that would be useful in their search for Susan Berman.
Because Susan had been considered Bobby’s best friend, Gilberte, Ellen, and Kathy Traystman had made it clear at the meeting that they thought she should be interviewed. Susan loved Bobby. He was her “brother,” and if he were in a bind, she’d be there to help him. That was the nature of their relationship.
A Deadly Secret: The Story of Robert Durst Page 16
