A Deadly Secret: The Story of Robert Durst Read online

  Now the dogs were thirsty, and Becerra obliged, filling up a five-gallon pail with a garden hose, which had running water only because the last few days had been warmer than usual.

  He left the two dogs outside and walked into the cottage. It was quaint—a living room, bedroom, bathroom, and small eat-in kitchen. The furniture was gifts from friends and family. A sofa from a brother, a small kitchen table from an old schoolmate. Becerra had found his new home six months earlier after living like a nomad, some nights out of his car.

  Becerra liked living on this farm, even though the foul smell of manure often drifted over from the distant barns that housed the horses. It was quiet and private, which was fine for Becerra and his two dogs. He was a single guy now, and the solitude was welcome.

  Becerra left his wet, dirty sneakers by the front door and walked into the kitchen, pulling off his blue New York State Police sweatshirt and grabbing a towel from a closet.

  He threw the sweatshirt into a corner by the bathroom, rubbed his head and face with the towel, and walked over to the kitchen sink, turning on the faucet and filling a glass with cold water, which he finished off with one gulp, placing the glass down on the counter next to several unopened envelopes.

  It was yesterday’s mail, which Becerra didn’t have time to look at, having arrived home after midnight thanks to a mound of paperwork following a late-night arrest. By the time he’d gotten home, he could barely get his clothes off before collapsing into a deep sleep.

  As he looked at the letters, he noticed one was from a law firm and shook his head. It was from the attorney representing his estranged wife.

  He was in the midst of a divorce, five years of marriage ended with some harsh words. He got the two dogs. She got the raised ranch. Luckily, they didn’t have any children, though Becerra thought he got the wrong end of the deal, except for the dogs, which he’d had now for eight years, even before he met his soon to be ex-wife.

  Becerra put the envelope down and headed for the shower. He’d read it later.

  After washing up and feeding his dogs, and with the clock nearing 8 A.M. Becerra pulled his green 1994 BMW 540 out of the driveway for the ten-minute drive to the Somers barracks, where he worked as an investigator with Troop K of the New York State Police.

  Becerra was one of the few troopers who loved his job. He’d earned the unwanted nickname of “Hollywood” for his good looks and sharp clothes. And it didn’t help that Becerra always seemed to find his way into the local newspapers or the Channel 12 cable-TV news. He wasn’t a media hound, though he probably didn’t mind the attention. The name stuck because Becerra looked like he’d jumped out of the pages of GQ. His suits were neatly pressed and his jet-black hair was always perfectly coiffed and slicked back. He’d inherited his ruggedly handsome, dark features, including his dark brown eyes, from his Spanish mother and his Spanish-Italian father. He smiled easily, his teeth pearly white. Of medium height, he stood straight, with his shoulders back, giving the appearance of a taller person. While some troopers resented his smooth appearance, he was, on the whole, well liked. He was the kind of guy who was still friendly with high school classmates from Archbishop Stepinac, even after twenty years.

  As he drove into the parking lot in front of the barracks, his thoughts drifted to the envelope he’d left behind at home. He should have opened it, he thought. Now he’d have to go through the whole day wondering what was inside. Another demand? He’d already lost their four-bedroom home. And it couldn’t be more money.

  Damn, he was thirty-five years old, making $65,000 a year, which doesn’t go far in Westchester County, living in an $800-a-month cottage. Money? He didn’t have any money, but his wife knew that, which was one of the reasons why things had ended like they did. Money and a career chasing bad guys, which hadn’t been part of Becerra’s original plan.

  He was majoring in education at the State University of New York at Cortland with designs on becoming a teacher when a Beta Phi Epsilon frat brother, a six-foot seven-inch behemoth named Big Al, dared him to take the state police exam.

  Big Al talked about nothing else but being a state trooper. It was his life’s dream.

  “Shut the fuck up,” was all Becerra would say to him. Being a cop was the furthest thing from his mind.

  But when it was announced in early 1984 that the state trooper test was scheduled to be given at the Syracuse War Memorial Coliseum, Big Al knew he was going to take it, and he was going to convince his friend Becerra to come along.

  “Cop? Are you kidding?” he asked Big Al, who in turn suggested that Becerra was either too dumb or too stupid to pass the test.

  Big Al’s taunts didn’t bother Becerra, at first. But he just wouldn’t stop talking about it. So to shut up his friend, hopefully forever, Becerra decided to take the test, and passed with flying colors.

  Six months later Becerra was admitted to the state trooper academy and graduated in 1985. His youthful looks soon earned him an undercover assignment posing as a student at a high school in a suburb north of New York City.

  For four months, he attended class and gathered information on drug dealing at the school, where the kids were mostly white and from wealthy families.

  The experience helped Becerra develop a taste for investigative work, and after seven years in uniform, mostly handing out speeding tickets on the New York State Thruway, he was promoted to investigator with the Bureau of Criminal Investigations in 1992.

  He enjoyed working as an investigator. Actually he loved it. He could wear a suit and tie and was working everything from burglaries to homicide investigations.

  One piece of information led to another piece, and another, until finally, there was a suspect and an arrest. It was like putting together a puzzle.

  The biggest puzzle of his career to date had been his work as an investigator working with the multiagency team that probed the explosion and crash of TWA Flight 800 off the coast of Long Island in July 1996.

  Becerra was one of hundreds of police officers from throughout the New York area called in to help interview witnesses and collect thousands of the 747 airplane parts that had settled on the bottom of the ocean. Becerra spent three months on the case, processing and tagging evidence. Though he had only four years of experience as a detective, he never really bought into the final explanation that the plane just exploded in midair. There were too many witnesses who saw a light streaking up to the sky moments before the plane crashed into the sea. Planes just don’t “blow up” in midair, reasoned Becerra. And the FBI guys, always so tight-lipped, like they had rocks jammed up their asses, even with other investigative teams. What was up with that? he’d thought. The official explanation—a fuel-tank explosion—never made any sense to him.

  But he was always the good soldier, a guy who followed the instructions of his superiors, and kept his opinions to himself. After three months on Long Island working Flight 800, Becerra returned to Westchester County.

  And here he was, three years later, in the midst of a divorce, only six years from retirement, if he chose, though Becerra had grown to love the job so much, he thought he’d stay there forever.

  Becerra walked into the barracks, where the uniformed troopers occupied the left side of the single-floor brick building, while the Bureau of Criminal Investigations occupied the right side. The investigators shared a large, square office, each with his own desk. Becerra sat in the front of the office, with a window view of the entrance and parking lot.

  He offered a “good morning” to Henry Luttman, a thirty-five-year veteran who was engrossed in his newspaper and replied with only a nod as Becerra walked to his desk.

  “Henry, I didn’t get out of here until midnight.”

  Luttman nodded again, sipping his morning coffee.

  Becerra wasn’t going to get anywhere with his superior, at least not until he finished off the sports section. He took off his jacket, a dar
k blue tweed, and settled into his chair, turning on his computer terminal.

  He was reaching over to check his voice mail for messages when his phone rang.

  “BCI, Becerra,” he answered.

  “Hello, is this Joe?”

  “Yes, it is. Who is this?”

  “Um, Joe. It’s Tim Martin.”

  Jesus, Becerra thought to himself.

  Tim Martin was a lowlife he’d arrested for indecent exposure, ending a two-year investigation in which Martin, as it turned out, had been exposing himself to women of all ages in towns surrounding his home in Ridgefield, Connecticut. This guy was so screwed up, he even masturbated in front of a group of elderly women after crossing into New York.

  Connecticut police finally picked Martin up on a warrant for failing to appear at a hearing in Westport after he was arrested there for flashing several high school girls.

  Becerra got his hands on him, and after his arrest Martin had pleaded guilty and was sentenced to probation.

  “What’s the matter, Timmy? You in trouble again?”

  “No, I’m not in trouble. Actually I’m calling because I respect the fact that you chased after me for two years, and I want to give you something.”

  “And what’s that?” said Becerra, holding the phone between his left shoulder and ear and organizing several files on his desk.

  “I have some information on an old case, something that might interest you.”

  “Go ahead, Tim, I’m listening.”

  “Have you ever heard of Kathie Durst?”

  The name didn’t register with Becerra.

  “No,” said Becerra. “Who is she?”

  “She was married to Bobby Durst, a rich guy whose family is worth millions. They had a home in South Salem. He killed her in 1982. Only he was never arrested.”

  “You know this guy killed his wife?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How do you know?”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone.

  “Tim? How do you know?”

  “I can’t tell you over the phone.”

  In his fourteen years on the job Becerra had never heard of a Kathie Durst. He didn’t trust Martin, a guy he thought should have been dropped in a jail cell and forgotten. On the other hand, Becerra knew from experience that tips often came from the scuzziest of characters. Maybe he could call Martin’s legal-aid attorney in White Plains and set up a meeting.

  “I’ll tell you what. I’ll call John Ryan, we’ll get together at his office, and you can tell me the story in person. That sound okay?”

  “That’s fine with me,” said Martin. “I respect you, Joe.”

  “Yeah, right,” said Becerra. “Are you back out on the street? You’re not—”

  “No, I’m staying out of trouble,” said Martin, cutting him off.

  Not likely, thought Becerra as he hung up the phone. Martin had spent most of his adult life being chased by the police, having been busted for a variety of burglaries and other petty crimes over the years before graduating to exposing himself.

  Becerra thought for a moment, then looked over to Luttman, who was still reading his paper.

  Becerra liked Luttman, an easygoing veteran who had been with the state police since the 1960s. Luttman was a relic, and he was approachable. If Becerra ever had a question about a case, Luttman had no problem trying to answer it. He wasn’t a hard-ass like so many of his superiors had been.

  Becerra walked over to Luttman’s desk.

  “Henry, did you ever hear of a woman named Kathie Durst?”

  Luttman quickly took his eyes off the paper.

  “Kathie Durst? Yeah. That’s an old one. Early 1980s. Maybe 1982. Married to a rich guy and disappeared. Probably dead. Why are you asking?”

  “I just got a call from someone who said he had information, that she was killed by her husband.”

  “Who’s the source?”

  “Timmy Martin.”

  “Timmy Martin?” said Luttman, letting out a laugh. “Didn’t you put him away?”

  “He got probation.”

  Luttman folded his newspaper, took a last sip of coffee, and stood up.

  “Give me a couple of minutes,” he said, walking away.

  Becerra went back to his desk, called John Ryan, told him about the conversation with Tim Martin, and scheduled a meeting with Martin at Ryan’s White Plains office.

  Five minutes later Luttman returned with a folder in his hand.

  “Here you go, the Durst file,” he said, dropping the file on Becerra’s desk. “Have a party.”

  The file was thin and the first report was dated February 5, 1982. Two troopers had been sent to the Durst home on Hoyt Street in South Salem, which was about three miles from Route 35, a busy thoroughfare.

  The troopers were called to the house after receiving a missing-persons report the night before from a woman named Gilberte Najamy. She claimed her friend Kathie Durst hadn’t been seen since January 31. Becerra noted that Kathie was spelled with an ie instead of a y. Her full name was Kathleen, and she had been twenty-nine years old at the time of her disappearance. Her husband was Robert Durst, thirty-eight, who worked for the Durst Organization, a firm with vast real estate holdings in Manhattan.

  There were several interviews in the file, nothing revealing, mainly accusations from Gilberte Najamy that there were problems with the Durst marriage.

  Becerra looked over to Luttman, who was back at his desk.

  “Is this it, Henry?” said Becerra, holding the file up in the air.

  “Yeah, that’s all we have. Call down to New York. It was their case. They did the bulk of the work, if I recall correctly.”

  New York’s case? Becerra looked at the file again. The interviews said she had left her home in South Salem and was last spotted in Manhattan.

  Becerra picked up the phone, called down to NYPD headquarters at One Police Plaza in Manhattan, and asked if they could fish out whatever files the NYPD had on the Kathie Durst case.

  He was told that since the file was seventeen years old, it was in the archives and would take a few days to retrieve.

  After Becerra hung up the phone, Luttman walked over and sat on the edge of his desk.

  “Whaddaya got?”

  “I don’t know,” said Becerra, scribbling with his pen on a piece of paper. “But I think I want to find out.”

  2

  Timmy Martin sat in a small waiting area in John Ryan’s legal-aid office in White Plains, his deep blue eyes staring down at his feet. Martin wasn’t much to look at: his thinness was the kind you suspected by sight was the result of an enduring drug habit. Of medium height, he had cracks and crevices around his eyes that made him look much older than he was. His cheeks were drawn in toward his mouth, his brown hair pointed in different directions, and a pale complexion gave him a sickly appearance.

  It was early December, a week after Martin first called Becerra, who was still waiting for the NYPD file on Kathie Durst. The information in the state police file was intriguing, but didn’t reveal much. The two troopers who had visited the house back in 1982 saw Mr. Durst, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The interviews with some of Kathie Durst’s friends and neighbors, if taken at face value, revealed a woman who seemed to be having some difficulties in life, particularly with her marriage. She was scared of her husband, but Becerra couldn’t find anything definitive in the file that screamed out that she was murdered or that her husband had anything to do with her disappearance. Maybe she didn’t disappear. Perhaps she just decided to jettison one life and pick up another somewhere else.

  Seventeen years was a long time, and no one but Martin had even mentioned this case. But Becerra was the curious type, and he wanted to hear what Martin had to say.

  Ryan, an easygoing fellow with a middle-age
d lawyer’s physique—round in the middle and in the face—explained that Martin was out on probation, but wanted the time cut down from six months to one.

  Becerra wasn’t buying it, knowing that probation was the only thing keeping Martin from opening his pants in public again. Another bust, and Becerra knew that Martin would do some jail time.

  “See what he has to say and we’ll talk some more,” said Ryan.

  Becerra agreed, and Martin was led into the office. He shook Ryan’s hand first, then looked toward Becerra, who was standing with arms folded across his chest.

  “Hello, Joe,” said Martin, sheepishly looking at the floor.

  “How ya doing, Timmy? Staying out of trouble, I hope.”

  Martin nodded, but didn’t reply. Ryan told him to sit down. Becerra remained standing.

  “So, Timmy, what do you have for me?”

  Martin tried to make eye contact with Becerra, but he just couldn’t lift his gaze off the floor.

  “Well, like I told you on the phone, I know who killed Kathie Durst,” he said.

  “Keep talking. You got me here, so I’m listening,” said Becerra.

  Martin told Becerra that his older brother, Alan, had once been married to a woman named Janet Finke, who owned a maid service. One of her clients was the Dursts. Finke regularly cleaned their cottage in South Salem.

  Tim Martin explained that after Kathie Durst disappeared in January 1982, talk centered on her husband, Bobby.

  “Janet told us that Bob killed her and buried her,” said Martin.

  Becerra listened, but didn’t believe what he was hearing.

  “Why would he kill his wife?”

  “Because he was nuts. Janet used to say he had a really bad temper. She also said his wife was threatening him. Janet used to talk to Bobby. I think he liked her. She was very pretty. Janet hung around with Kathie, too, said Kathie was going to be a doctor but she was failing school. She was doing too much blow and was hanging out with a lesbian who kept trying to get her to divorce her husband.”