A Deadly Secret: The Story of Robert Durst (28 page)

—

The next afternoon she was at the People’s Bank, sitting inside a small room and frantically searching through her safe-deposit box. She was looking for the letter. It was here, in a book, tucked away in a cellophane covering. Ellen found it, pulled it out, and held it up to the window, the light illuminating the typeface. It was dated October 28, 1953, and it was addressed to a Dr. Ralph B. Jacoby of Park Avenue, New York. Ellen slowly read each line.

Dear Dr. Jacoby:

I am writing to you at the request of Mr. Seymour Durst with reference to Robert Durst. I have known Robert for the past three years. Physically the only abnormalities have been seasonal pollenoses. Robert tends to be somewhat smaller than the average child of his age, but this is not due to any endocrine disorder. Because of concern on the part of Robert’s grandfather, there was a complete checkup by Dr. Samuel Z. Levine in May 1952. Dr. Levine’s conclusions were that Robert was normal in all respects, that he had allergic rhinitis, and that most of his symptoms were on an emotional basis
.

In last April I sent Robert to Dr. William Schonfeld for assistance. Dr. Schonfeld saw Robert only twice, further sessions being impossible because of marked resistance on the part of the patient. It was Dr. Schonfeld’s opinion that Robert’s hostility toward his father and his younger brother was of such intensity that it might constitute a destructive psychodynamic force sufficient to produce a personality decomposition and possibly even schizophrenia
.

I might add that a glucose tolerance test was done with determination of the blood sugar approximately five hours after a meal. This was found to be quite normal
.

Sincerely yours
,

Alexander G. Silberstein, M.D.

Ellen read the letter over and over again, focusing on the paragraph that ended with the words “personality decomposition and possibly even schizophrenia.”

She’d read the letter before, back in 1982 and again that day more than a year ago when she and Gilberte went through her file, which she had kept in her home.

All the letter had ever meant to Ellen was that Bobby had once had some psychological problems as a child. He was only ten years old when this letter was written and the grim psychological diagnosis was delivered to the Durst family.

It was clear that the Dursts knew Bobby had psychological problems, and apparently severe problems at that. With Susan Berman and Morris Black dead, and news stories suggesting that perhaps there were still others, the letter now meant so much more.

Ellen now saw it as a clue into Bobby’s past, and to his future. Kathie had once told her that the death of Bobby’s mother caused him great anguish. Just how much no one really knew.

Ellen put the letter aside and reached back into the box, searching through the remaining documents and papers, looking for that other piece of paper that Gilberte demanded be hidden, kept out of view from the police and reporters and never revealed.

Ellen found it, in the corner of the box, and held it up to the window. She studied it, then began to cry.

It was a time line she and Gilberte had written in 1982 several weeks after Kathie’s disappearance. It was an attempt by the two women to reconstruct Kathie’s last day in South Salem and at Gilberte’s house.

Gilberte had recalled the day’s events, and Ellen, the budding attorney, wrote it down.

The time line began at noon, with a phone call to Gilberte from Kathie, who was with Bobby in South Salem for the weekend. Gilberte told Kathie to come to her house for the party. Kathie had other plans. She and Bobby had dinner reservations with Janet Finke and her boyfriend, Alan Martin. Kathie said she needed to think about Gilberte’s invitation. Gilberte reminded Kathie that she needed to get away from Bobby. They hung up, with Kathie promising to call back, which she did an hour later. Again Gilberte tried to convince her to come to her house. Kathie said she’d let her know.

At 2
P.M.
Kathie called Larry Cohen, her medical-student friend from Einstein. At 3
P.M.
she called Gilberte again, telling her she’d decided to make the forty-five-minute drive from South Salem to Newtown, Connecticut, and would probably arrive in an hour.

Kathie arrived at Gilberte’s at 4
P.M.
and stayed until 7
P.M.

Written on the side of the time line were two short sentences.

“Two grams of coke. Two bottles of wine.”

That’s how much cocaine and alcohol, Gilberte told Ellen, Kathy ingested during her three-hour stay at the party.

“Oh, Gilberte! Gilberte! Gilberte!” screamed Ellen. “How could you have done this? You lied all these years.”

Ellen remembered what Tom had said the night before, that Gilberte had been prodding Kathie to finally end it all with Bobby. Don’t just ask for a divorce, demand it. And don’t just ask for a settlement, demand it. And if he doesn’t give in, then tell him you’ll release all those documents, the bogus tax returns and stock statements. And you’ll tell about the mysterious fires, and Bobby’s embezzling from the company. Make him understand that he’ll be fired from the family business, and the Durst Organization will suffer great embarrassment. Make him understand that you finally mean business.

When Kathie left the house that night, her five-foot-five-inch body filled with enough cocaine and wine to floor an elephant, she was ready to explode at Bobby.

Only Kathie hadn’t known that her husband was a time bomb.

And she hadn’t known that she was the fuse.

And she’d had no idea that Gilberte was the match.

Ellen closed her eyes, imagining the crazed state of mind Kathie must have been in when she arrived home that night in South Salem, the cocaine and wine fueling a torrent of anger that rained on Bobby.

He didn’t plan to kill her, Ellen figured. It just happened. She didn’t just get into his face, she stomped all over it, and he struck back.

He even said so, in the newspapers in 1982. He said she came home in a foul mood, angry over their personal situation.

“Oh, Gilberte, how could you, how could you?” said Ellen, mumbling loud enough that her voice escaped the small room she was in and could be heard outside. She put her hand over her mouth but couldn’t stop talking.

“How could you let Kathie leave your house and drive home that night in that condition? You were supposed to be her friend! And how could you even think she’d leave her husband for you? And how could you hide all of this for so long? You knew what really happened that day, yet you told no one. You didn’t tell the police when Kathie disappeared and you didn’t tell them now. You manipulated everyone. How could you!”

Ellen was venting, her emotions spilling all over the bank floor. She knew Gilberte’s secrets. It finally all made sense. Gilberte had been obsessed all these years, but not because of some self-proclaimed mission to bring Bobby to justice because of a promise she made to Kathie. There had been no promise. Only guilt. The kind of guilt that consumes a person and twists their soul. Gilberte didn’t just lie to her friends, the police, and the media. She misled Kathie’s family—Kathie’s mother and brother and sisters.

All they’d ever wanted was the truth. They wanted closure. All Gilberte did through her distortions was add to their great pain and anguish.

Ellen looked to blame herself. How could she not have seen this? She’d seen these papers before, the letter and the time line. But Gilberte told her they meant nothing. Just put them away and never let anyone see them, she said.

Am I really that stupid? thought Ellen. That naive?

She’d believed Gilberte was her friend. She’d believed Gilberte was Kathie’s friend.

In the end, Ellen realized Gilberte was a friend to no one.

Ellen slowly put the papers back into the box, closed it, wiped her eyes, and opened the door.

She gave the box to the bank manager and walked out to her car. She wanted to drive straight to Hamden, to Gilberte’s home, and confront her. But when she reached the Merritt Parkway, Ellen decided to stay on Route 57 and drive home.

She wouldn’t confront Gilberte. What for? Ellen realized it wouldn’t make any difference. Gilberte would deny it, just like she denied everything else.

When Ellen arrived home she went to her bedroom, pulled the covers over her head, and cried.

It had been at least a year since Joe Becerra last spoke with Mike Struk. The two detectives, one retired, had spent a combined three and a half years investigating the Kathie Durst case.

Both men were haunted by Bobby Durst, both believed that Bobby should have been indicted and tried for the alleged murder of Kathie Durst long ago. Both were frustrated that their hard work had yet to pay off.

Becerra had Struk’s old log book, which he’d borrowed when he and Struk first spoke sixteen months earlier. Struk wanted it back, and sent word through a reporter.

Their phone conversation lasted roughly twenty minutes, Becerra telling Struk what he could about the progress of the case, the frustrations he’d encountered, and the upcoming trial of Bobby Durst in Texas.

Both men took a measure of satisfaction from the recent news about Gilberte Najamy.

Struk had remained silent and out of sight after the ABC
Vanished
program aired during the summer, denying all requests for interviews. He knew Gilberte had poisoned him; the reputation of the onetime tough detective who had his picture in the
New York Times
for solving the Murder at the Met case had been sullied by a woman with a gift for gab and an ability to manipulate people. She was a one-woman cult of personality who’d received her comeuppance, thought Struk.

But, as was his way, he didn’t waste any time, or conversation, on Gilberte. Struk wanted to know about the case, where it was going, if anywhere.

“Any clue who that guy Black was?” said Struk.

“No. It’s still a mystery,” said Becerra. “But it seems Bob Durst’s life was a mystery. Maybe their true relationship will come out in court. I don’t know. I can tell you this: I doubt that I’ll be there to see it.”

Becerra hadn’t spoken with Jeanine Pirro since January, and he didn’t expect to be sent to the trial, which was set for June. The Westchester DA was still apparently upset over the
Vanity Fair
story.

Struk joked that Becerra should expect a transfer to Buffalo in the coming weeks.

“Don’t even say that in jest,” said Becerra, who’d incurred Pirro’s wrath yet again in April when he was interviewed for a five-part series on the Durst case aired by Channel 12.

When reporter Brian Conybeare interviewed Pirro for his series, she casually asked who else he had spoken with. Conybeare mentioned Becerra’s name, and Pirro’s eyes turned red with anger. She immediately instructed one of her subordinates to call Becerra’s boss, and demanded that he discipline Becerra.

Becerra’s comments, included in the series when it was aired in April, were simple, to the point, and offered little insight into the case.

His bosses listened to Pirro but denied her request.

Becerra was watching his back. There were too many instances of Westchester County–based police officers who’d been forced to find new addresses because they crossed Jeanine Pirro.

Becerra didn’t want to become one of them.

“I’m just doing my thing,” he said. “If we get any new information, I’ll write it up and send it to her office.”

Becerra said he was hopeful that a break would come during the summer, when Gabrielle Colquitt planned a major renovation of the South Salem house.

Construction crews were going to open the walls and Becerra had been invited to come and watch; he was particularly eager to see behind the wall that held the cupboard with the dried mud on it.

“Maybe we’ll find something. It’s worth a shot,” he said.

But he realized it could be a last shot, and the only hope after that was that Bobby Durst himself would tell the world what had happened to his long-lost wife.

“We worked this case, and worked it hard, you and I. Given all of the identities Bobby was using, I’d love to see Pirro refer this to the FBI,” said Becerra. “But that won’t happen. She hates the feds for what they did to her husband.”

“So around and around we go. Nothing but a complete waste of time,” said Struk.

There was one bit of information Struk had heard and asked Becerra to confirm.

The 1982 phone records from the house in South Salem had been retrieved by the state police and revealed that Bobby made a phone call after returning from south Jersey on Tuesday, February 2, 1982.

The call was to Susan Berman.

“And she’s dead, so anything she had to offer is dead with her, which is real convenient for him,” said Struk.

Becerra could hear a tint of sarcasm in Struk’s voice. Struk’s guard was back up.

“So you think we’re done?” said Becerra.

“Remember what I asked you when you first came to my house? I said, ‘Whaddaya got?’ ”

“And I laid it out,” said Becerra.

“And you may have enough, like I thought I did twenty years ago, to bring him to trial. But this Pirro, she’s interested in other things, like being governor. And she’s not going to piss off the Dursts. They’re worth what? A billion or two? So I’m going to tell you again what I told you when we first met,” said Struk. “You have what I had, and right now that’s nothing.”

—

Inside the Galveston County prison, behind a double-paned Plexiglas window, Robert Durst was leaning forward, trying to talk into and hear from a small hole. It was early March, and he had a visitor, Sareb Kaufman, the son of the man Susan Berman had dated in the late 1980s. He’d flown in from Los Angeles to talk about Bobby’s best friend, Susan.

Sareb had considered Susan his mother, and was still grieving over her death. With Bobby locked away behind bars awaiting trial, he’d decided to pay him a visit . . . just to clear the air.

Sareb knew Susan had considered Bobby one of her closest friends and that Bobby felt likewise. Sareb had always liked Bobby, who he considered kind and sensitive. It was Bobby whom Susan had trusted more than anyone else in her life, and Sareb found the stories linking Bobby to Susan’s death disturbing.

As Sareb settled in across the window, he saw that Bobby wore a powder-blue prison outfit—pants and smock—and had grown a full head of hair. Gone was that bald, bizarre image seen on TV and in newspapers across the country when Bobby was captured in Pennsylvania.

During his five weeks in custody in Galveston, Bobby had been considered an ideal inmate. He was respectful of the guards, and spent most of his time in the prison library, preparing for his defense.

Until this day, aside from his attorneys, he’d accepted few visitors.

As Bobby and Sareb talked over the conversations coming from other parts of the room, Bobby repeated over and over that he did not, and could not, kill his oldest, dearest friend.

“How could I kill Susan, you know I could never do anything like that,” said Bobby. “How could I kill anyone?”