A Deadly Secret: The Story of Robert Durst (27 page)

When the story about Gilberte’s film deal was reported in the pages of the
New York Post
, Eleanor Schwank and Ellen Strauss had let out a cry in unison: “Gilberte, how could you?”

Like Gilberte, the two women had given countless interviews, hoping any new story would lead to some new information on the case. They had never asked for any money, or sought to profit from the loss of their friend, knowing their position would be compromised in the event that Bobby was ever indicted. They knew Gilberte had taken the lead when it came to telling the Kathie Durst story to the world, and they didn’t mind when she appeared on numerous television programs, including
The View
on ABC, in which Gilberte told her story, at length, to Barbara Walters. Gilberte was even flown out to Seattle to appear on an afternoon talk show.

Gilberte had often said things that Ellen and Eleanor privately questioned, like the often-repeated statement that she was Kathie’s best friend.

Eleanor knew that wasn’t the case. Kathie had had a wide circle of friends. But Eleanor had said nothing, not wanting to deter Gilberte from pressing ahead.

Following the revelation of the film deal, Gilberte had called both Eleanor and Ellen. She knew they’d be upset. She denied that she had signed a deal, saying she was offered the opportunity to sell her story but turned it down and never accepted any money.

“Do you think I would ever do that?” was her reply.

But soon after, confident she had soothed the ruffled feathers of her two friends, Gilberte had agreed to another television interview, this one with Brian Conybeare, a reporter for Channel 12 News in Westchester. When asked about the film deal, she had given an answer that was far more cryptic than the one she told her friends.

“Once the trial is over, you can never tell what could happen,” she said.

Gilberte had thought she managed to control any damage to her credibility, and had been confident Eleanor and Ellen would believe her story.

She thought otherwise when her criminal history was made public soon after. She shut down, refusing to take calls from reporters and didn’t answer her phone, at home or at work, from which she took a two-week leave of absence.

She spoke only to Eleanor, who was less inclined to dismiss Gilberte completely. She’d had no idea her longtime friend had been arrested six times, but Gilberte explained that she had fallen apart after Kathie died and never recovered.

Eleanor didn’t necessarily buy this explanation.

“We were all her friends, Gilberte. Her loss affected us all, but life goes on.”

“But you know how close I was to Kathie. You know what I went through,” said Gilberte.

“We were all close to Kathie,” said Eleanor. “That’s no excuse to lie to your friends.”

Gilberte said she hadn’t lied. Her past was her business, and the revelations about her criminal record were part of a conspiracy on the part of the Durst family to discredit her.

“You should have been up-front from the beginning,” said Eleanor. “Now it looks like you were hiding something. You really pissed a lot of people off, not just with that, but with that film deal.”

“They came to me,” Gilberte said. “They came to me, but I told them no.”

Others who had dealings with Gilberte, including Jim McCormack, were stunned by the news of the felony arrests.

McCormack had trusted her, even breaking his promise to Becerra to withhold important information about the investigation and sharing it with Gilberte, who promptly, and behind his back, went to the press.

Joe Becerra just shook his head when he heard the news, though one could detect a slight measure of satisfaction. He knew that Gilberte was badmouthing him, and he knew about her duplicity at the courthouse in Pennsylvania. He heard the news from a reporter who witnessed the contact between Gilberte and Pirro, and Gilberte’s subsequently loud and unabashed claims that Becerra was off the case.

If anything, Becerra knew that Gilberte had poisoned his case. Bobby Durst’s chief accuser, the last woman to see Kathie Durst alive, was a convicted felon. The investigator realized that if Bobby was ever brought to trial in New York, his attorneys would have a field day with Gilberte.

For her part, Gilberte tried to call Ellen, but Ellen wasn’t home. When Ellen saw Gilberte’s number on her caller ID later that day, she decided she wouldn’t call back. She was thoroughly disappointed in Gilberte and didn’t know what she’d say if she spoke to her.

Ellen knew Gilberte had once had legal problems, that she’d been arrested for drug possession. Gilberte’s sister, Fadwa, had even called Ellen to ask for her help. Ellen obliged, with the understanding that Gilberte would seek counseling. But Ellen was surprised and shocked to learn that Gilberte had been arrested five other times, and angered that Gilberte never told her.

Ellen thought the friends were all on a unified mission, to bring Bobby to justice. Or so she had thought. Now she began to rethink her friendship with Gilberte, reevaluating everything Gilberte had told her over the last twenty years. If she could lie about her past, Ellen figured Gilberte could lie about everything else.

—

The People’s Bank was on Post Road in Westport, Connecticut, and Ellen Strauss hurried there from her home, down Route 53, to Route 57 past the Merritt Parkway. Once she arrived, she rushed inside the bank, her fur coat flying behind her. She said a quick hello to the bank manager, then asked him to retrieve her safe-deposit box.

As she stood waiting on the bank floor, a thousand thoughts filled her head. Ellen had wanted to come here first thing in the morning, but she couldn’t cancel what turned out to be a long day in court. So she raced to the bank afterward.

Ellen had spent the last couple of days thinking about Gilberte. Prior to Kathie’s disappearance, they had met only once. Gilberte belonged to another part of Kathie’s life, to a lifestyle Ellen had no idea Kathie was involved in.

Between Ellen and Gilberte, the only mutual connection was Eleanor Schwank. After Kathie disappeared Gilberte and Ellen became closer as they tried in vain to search for their friend. They had been drawn together by tragedy, and Ellen’s emotions had sometimes wedged themselves between her and common sense. Ellen wasn’t the suspicious type, and she’d had no reason to doubt anything that Gilberte ever said to her.

Years later, when Gilberte called her to help her out of a drug arrest, Ellen thought it was a simple, onetime event. A character flaw. She was an attorney and she obliged, figuring she was helping a friend. She even put aside stories she’d heard about Gilberte’s visits to several crack houses in the Danbury area.

When Joe Becerra began investigating Kathie’s disappearance, Ellen saw it as a last great chance for justice. Like most of Kathie’s friends, including Eleanor and Kathy Traystman, Ellen offered to help in any way she could. She even set time aside to search for Susan Berman, finding her address in Los Angeles and forwarding it to Becerra.

Ellen thought all the friends were working toward one goal, to find out what had happened to their friend Kathie Durst. So it came as a great shock when she read about Gilberte’s film deal. She was confused by the story and didn’t know what to make of it.

This can’t be true, she thought.

Then came the crushing blow—Gilberte’s criminal past, all of it.

Ellen had always considered herself smart, a good judge of people. She’d believed Gilberte all these years, even Gilberte’s claim that Kathie’s loss was the reason why she fell as hard as she did. But now Ellen felt used, manipulated, deceived. She realized that Gilberte had never been straight with her. The more she thought about it, the angrier she became. She began to dissect everything Gilberte had ever told her, particularly over the last year. The more she remembered, the more she saw through Gilberte’s duplicity.

Ellen decided to reach out to a friend named Tom Egan
*
who had at one time dated one of Gilberte’s sisters. She hadn’t spoken to him in years, yet when she called him at home he was pleased to hear from her. They chatted like old chums, talking about the old days and what had become of each of them. As the conversation continued, it shifted to Bobby Durst and all that had happened over the last two years.

Tom asked Ellen what she thought of Bobby dressing as a woman and the news reports that he had used several different identities, even those of old high school classmates.

“He’s obviously had some kind of breakdown. I mean, who would act like that?” said Ellen.

Tom had a different theory. He’d never met Bobby, but he read most of the newspaper and magazine stories and concluded there was more to Bobby Durst, more than anyone could imagine.

“Serial killer?” said Ellen. “That’s pretty frightening stuff.”

“I would suggest that he’s a pretty frightening guy. At least that was what Kathie was saying at Gilberte’s party.”

“Which party?”

“The one where Kathie disappeared,” said Tom.

Ellen was floored. “You were there? Do you remember it?”

Tom had been there, a guest of Gilberte’s sister, and he said he remembered the event clearly, even now, twenty years later.

“I’ve read in the papers and seen on television how Gilberte described it as a simple, catered, low-key family affair. I can tell you, that was no family party,” said Tom.

Ellen listened intently as he described the throbbing music, the catered food, and the cocaine and booze, which was flowing.

“You have to remember, this was 1982. Cocaine was
the
drug in those days. And we had never heard of AIDS. Coke, sex, booze. It was part of the times,” said Tom.

“I know, it was just never anything I got involved in,” said Ellen. “Did you see Kathie?”

Tom remembered Kathie, his heart dropping the moment she walked in the door. She was dressed in sweats and wore little makeup. But Tom was struck hard by her natural beauty. He said she arrived late in the afternoon and headed straight for the wine, downing several large glasses in succession. She then began snorting excessive amounts of cocaine. One line, two lines, three lines. When that wasn’t enough, Gilberte would be there at her side with a coke spoon. Kathie would dip it, then bring it up to her nose.

The more Kathie drank and snorted, the more she ranted about her problems with Bobby. She was wild, talking incessantly and loudly, telling anyone who would listen about the papers she had and how Bobby was beating her. And Gilberte was no help, said Tom, standing there egging her on, telling her again and again that it was finally time to get her divorce and her settlement and leave his sorry ass once and for all.

Between the ranting and the drinking and the drugs, Tom found a chance to walk by and say hello.

“I introduced myself, and she just smiled at me, drinking away. You could tell she was in pain. All that drinking and snorting, it was to hide the pain,” said Tom.

And there was something else, he said. It had to do with Gilberte, how she had reacted when Kathie finally arrived.

“Gilberte had a look in her eye. You could tell just by the way she gazed at Kathie, how she hovered over her, how she touched her, that she had a thing for her. It was more than a thing. She was in love with Kathie. Someone actually said it at the party, that Gilberte was in love with Kathie. Jesus, if I had the chance, I would have been in love with Kathie. She was that beautiful.”

Ellen was shaken. This wasn’t what she had been told. This wasn’t what she was led to believe all these years. Gilberte had said the party was a quiet affair, that Kathie had perhaps a glass or two of wine. Cocaine? Gilberte never said anything about that. She always denied stories that Kathie was doing drugs.

As Ellen listened, it was apparent that Gilberte had hid a lot of things.

Tom said he remembered a phone call, that Kathie spoke to a man who he later learned had filed suit against Bobby. But the man told Kathie that the suit had been dropped, and she was infuriated, screaming between snorts of cocaine how she couldn’t believe how Bobby had gotten away with it.

“She was livid. Absolutely livid. And her anger was heightened by the drugs,” said Tom.

“That had to be Peter, Peter Schwartz,” said Ellen. “That’s the guy Bobby kicked in the face.”

Tom didn’t remember the name, but he did remember Gilberte telling Kathie that there was no way Bobby should be allowed to get away with this.

“Gilberte kept pushing and pushing,” said Tom.

By 7
P.M.
Gilberte didn’t have to push anymore. Kathie had had enough and called Bobby, telling him she was coming home. It was time to settle this.

“She was going to go home and confront him. She was telling everyone that he was hitting her, but the way she was talking, she didn’t seem to be concerned. And neither was Gilberte.”

After Kathie said her good-byes to everyone, Gilberte walked her outside.

“I don’t know what they said, but I’ve heard Gilberte tell that story, about Kathie warning her that Bobby might do something,” said Tom.

“Gilberte’s told that story a thousand times, how they were outside and Kathie told her if anything happened to her, it was Bobby,” said Ellen, who was near tears. “Now I don’t believe it happened that way.”

“I never did,” said Tom. “And I never understood how Gilberte let Kathie drive home that night in her condition. And that’s not all highway. There were some dark mountain roads to go over on a rainy, snowy night. Gilberte must have thought that Kathie was serious, that she was going to finally end it with Bobby, and didn’t want to stop her. She was in love with her.”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” said Ellen, her voice filled with a sadness that reached deep inside her soul.

“No one ever asked me,” said Tom.

The two old friends promised to stay in touch, and maybe even go out for dinner sometime. After hanging up the phone, Ellen wiped her eyes and blew her nose. She was numb. This was not what she had expected to hear when she called Tom. She needed a drink, and was walking over to her bar when she was jolted by a thought.

“Oh, my God!” she said.