The Susan Berman investigation is stymied. During the past month, the detectives have interviewed more friends of Berman’s and several friends of Nyle’s, examined prowler reports in her neighborhood, and attempted to track down Robert Durst. The friends have provided little new information, the prowler reports were a bust, and when Durst finally returns Stephens’s call, he says he did not attend the memorial service because reporters now continually pester him. His wife’s case has officially been reopened and his attorneys have advised him not to talk to detectives. “This will be our last conversation,” he says and then hangs up.
The detectives recently obtained a search warrant for Nyle’s phone records. Berman was killed late Friday night, after eleven P.M., the detectives know, because that was the last time a friend spoke with her. Nyle’s phone records reveal that his last phone call on Friday was at 10:29 P.M. His next call was at 8:57 A.M. Saturday and he made no other calls that day. Nyle, however, had told the detectives that he spent the day in his home office, calling many people.
While the detectives found little in their search of Nyle’s house, they were able to obtain about a dozen samples of his handwriting. These, they hoped, would prove that Nyle wrote the letter alerting the Beverly Hills police to the corpse. An LAPD handwriting analyst compared the new samples with the letter and concluded that a match was “highly probable.” But a “highly probable” rating is not a definitive “identification.” The detectives still do not have enough evidence to arrest Nyle.
Stephens walks across the aisle to where Knolls and McCartin pore over the Lourdes Unson murder book, points to them, and says, “These guys keep getting more and more evidence in all their cases, but I can’t get a break.” Stephens knows that in the murder of Luda Petushenko, the killer’s girlfriend provided Knolls and McCartin with an eyewitness account. And DNA tests recently identified a speck of the victim’s blood on a pair of the killer’s shoes.
“Some detectives have all the luck,” Stephens says.
McCartin grins and says, “Maybe it’s not luck.”
The four detectives ride down the elevator and walk across the parking lot together. Knolls and McCartin head back to Unson’s apartment, while Coulter and Stephens drive to the Beverly Hills police station for yet another interview with one of Berman’s friends, who lives nearby. The station occupies the top floor of a sand-colored civic center encircled by palm trees. An enlarged, autographed picture from the 1930s, of Edward G. Robinson with the Beverly Hills police chief and two other officers, hangs on the lobby wall behind the desk officer. Inside the squad room, a detective displays above his desk a signed photograph of Clint Eastwood.
Berman’s friend, who is a producer, looks fresh off Rodeo Drive. His long hair is swept straight back and he is stylishly dressed in Italian sandals, tan slacks, and a bright green linen shirt. After answering some preliminary questions about his friendship with Berman, the man launches into an impassioned monologue.
“I was shocked when I heard she was murdered, but it makes sense to me.” He stares off into the distance and repeats softly, as if talking to himself, “Yeah, it makes sense to me. I think Bobby Durst did it. She told me years ago that Bobby Durst killed his wife. Either he told her or she found out by investigative work. I can’t remember. But I think she told me he admitted it. She’s a journalist. She knew how to get information out of people.”
He tells the detectives that before Berman introduced him to Durst, she said, “‘Let me tell you about Bobby Durst.’ Then she told me what happened. She said Durst and his wife went to the country. They had an argument. She was going to leave him. He flipped out. He didn’t mean to do it. It was a cover-up.”
Berman and Durst, the friend says, were extremely close, but “on another level she had him by the short hairs.”
Stephens asks, “Could you sense that?”
“That wasn’t on the surface at the time. I’m projecting years later. He makes more sense than anyone else. I’m sure some would say, ‘She was such a noble soul. I have no idea how anything like this could happen to her.’ I’m not saying that.… There was plenty of good with her. She was a beautiful person in many ways. But she’s someone who’d find out anything. She was bold beyond anything you can imagine. She’s capable of extortion. That’s not beneath her. She was getting older and running out of money. She wanted a payday. That’s my opinion. I think he finished it. I may be wrong. Maybe I’ve watched too many movies.”
“I have to tell you, I’ll have to share this with the New York police,” Stephens says. Although he has not been in close contact with New York authorities, Stephens has called them a few times to provide information about Durst.
The friend expresses concern because Durst is such a wealthy and powerful man. He and Berman once spent an afternoon with Durst in Manhattan, he recalls. Durst frequently pointed out buildings and boasted that his family owned them. The friend extends both arms and says, “The Dursts are as big as the Trumps in New York.”
As the detectives drive back downtown, Stephens tells Coulter, “Durst might have killed his wife, but that doesn’t help us solve our case.”
“This guy thinks Durst killed Berman, too,” Coulter says. “I wish he could give us more than his opinion.”
Coulter and Stephens are faced with the tricky problem of how to compel Durst to cooperate with them. Unless they can obtain evidence linking him to Berman’s murder, they are hamstrung.
Still, the detectives agree that Nyle is a viable suspect. “After the latest handwriting test, I gotta look at him,” Stephens says. “But absent anything else, there’s not much we can do. All we’ve got is a circumstantial case.”
They are still waiting for the hairs and fibers collected from Berman’s body to be analyzed. When Coulter recently called a Scientific Investigation Division technician, she listed the unit’s priorities for homicide investigations: cases with court dates; cases in which a suspect is in custody; and, finally, unsolved cases. In other words, the Berman case is a low priority homicide. Because of a number of recent promotions, there is only one technician in the trace-evidence unit. As a result, the technician told Coulter, there was currently a four-month wait for results.
The detectives are accustomed to the LAPD’s chronic understaffing and inefficiency. When Coulter worked at the Wilshire Division, he found a blanket speckled with blood at a homicide scene. He sent the blanket to SID and requested that the serology unit analyze the blood. He didn’t hear back from a technician until four years after the killer had been convicted.
“I don’t think SID’s improved any since O.J.,” Stephens gripes.
“I think they’re better,” Coulter says. “They have hired more people and raised their standards. But a wait this long is BS.” He tightly grips the steering wheel, looking glum.
“Don’t worry, Roy,” Stephens says, reassuringly. “Something will turn up.”
On a breezy spring evening, Knolls and McCartin return to the apartment building where Unson was killed. The complex is a mini melting pot: the residents are Jamaican, Lithuanian, Brazilian, Armenian, Mexican, Puerto Rican, African American, and Japanese. They are unified now by a common emotion—fear. So officers at the local police division have arranged a community meeting tonight to reassure them.
The tenants gather on lawn chairs and benches in the grassy courtyard and listen carefully as two patrol officers discuss safety tips and hand out crime prevention pamphlets. Knolls then provides a brief outline of the murder investigation. McCartin, off to the side, tells an officer that he does not like addressing groups. “Chuck is into this shit. He’s going to be a patrol sergeant one of these days. He likes taking charge. That’s why we bump heads sometimes. I’ll be a homicide dick until the day I retire.”
A man shyly approaches McCartin and says he wants to talk to him privately, away from the other residents. McCartin follows him to the parking lot.
“There’s a black guy, a big dude, who lived here with this woman for a while,” he says. “He was here Saturday, the day before Easter. I saw him smoking in the patio. He’s strange. A very different kind of guy. Anyway, I thought you should know this.”
When he mentions the man’s apartment number, excitement flashes in McCartin’s eyes: the man lived in the same unit as the woman who claimed she was raped and then recanted when officers hauled her and the suspect to the police station.
When Knolls finishes answering residents’ questions, he and McCartin head for the stairs to the woman’s apartment. The detectives are relieved when she answers the door. They introduce themselves to the woman, who is in her mid-forties, and follow her through the living room, which is lined with African masks, and into the kitchen.
After some casual chat about Unson—the woman occasionally ran into her in the laundry room—McCartin asks, “Wasn’t there an incident involving a man who lived here?”
“No … not really,” she says, pursing her lips and shaking her head. “He’s a friend.”
During the Luda Petushenko investigation the detectives often interrupted each other and shattered the flow of interviews. Now, however, they question witnesses seamlessly. Knolls senses that McCartin has established a rapport with the woman, so he leans back in his chair and observes.
“How big is this guy?” McCartin asks.
“About six-two, two-twenty.”
“How’d you meet?”
“I used to be involved in the film industry,” she says, grabbing a spoon off the table and tapping it on a palm. “I did some extra work. I met him two and a half years ago. He was an extra, too.”
“Did he live here?”
“No. He moved to Seattle, but moved back and stayed here just for a few days last year. And he stayed with me again this month in early April … for about seven days.”
McCartin asks if he visited her during the Easter weekend.
“Yes, but he left on Saturday at four P.M. I dropped him off at the bus station. He was going to New York.”
“Is he your boyfriend?” McCartin asks.
“We were on the outs.”
“What happened when the police came?”
“He was very possessive. I wanted him out,” says the woman. “I had to go to school”—she attends community college—“and take care of business.” She raises a hand and flutters her fingers. “But all he wanted to do was talk, talk, talk.”
“Were you scared of him?”
“Not really. I wanted him out of my space.”
“The patrol officer says he forced himself on you.”
She shakes her head. “It wasn’t really a rape. Sometimes a woman doesn’t feel like it.”
“Was it against your will?”
“Yes and no,” she says, shrugging.
“When did the police come?”
“A few weeks ago. What used to really bug me was I’d want to go to the lab at school and he wanted to make love. This was cutting into my time. I resented it.” She bites her lip, and stares at her shoes. “During one of his visits I called the police.”
McCartin senses she is trying to protect her former boyfriend. “When my wife doesn’t want to have sex, she doesn’t call the police.”
“That’s your wife,” the woman says sharply.
McCartin does not want to alienate the woman so he drops the subject. He asks her a few questions that will help him track down the man, locate his criminal record, and confirm that he actually boarded the bus on Saturday:
“Where’s he from?”
“Chicago.”
“Has he ever been arrested?”
“Yes, when he was nineteen. He said he was doing salesman work and saw an open door.…”
“Has he been back here since Easter?”
“No. I don’t want someone in my space that much.”
“Did he have money for the bus, or did you pay?”
“He had money.”
“How much did the ticket cost?”
“I think $147.”
McCartin studies her for a moment and asks, “You think he’s involved in this incident?”
“No,” she says angrily. “What kind of creature would do this?” The man called her recently, she says, and “I even jokingly asked, ‘Did you do it?’ These days you don’t know. He monopolized my time, but he’s not vicious. He’s not a coldblooded person.”
“Did he know her?”
“No.”
“You ever see anyone who doesn’t belong here?”
“Just the guy who found her. He kept shouting, ‘¡Es muerte! ¡Es muerte!’ I said, ‘¿Quien?’ He said, ‘El doctor.’”
McCartin asks her where her friend stays in Los Angeles when not with her.
“In a hotel near downtown in a transient area.” He recently left New York, she tells McCartin, and may return to Los Angeles next week.
McCartin hands the woman his business card and tells her to contact him when she talks to the man again.
The detectives linger in the courtyard after the interview. McCartin says, “I get the feeling that woman’s not telling us the whole truth. I didn’t like the way she backed off on the rape.”
“We’ve got to make sure he really did leave on a bus on Saturday,” Knolls adds.
“We’ve got to talk to Greyhound and check their records,” McCartin agrees, nodding.
“Hell, she says he lived in a hotel near Skid Row,” Knolls says. “That’s pretty strange right there.”
They walk around the building to the jazz club parking lot where the bloodhound picked up the suspect’s trail. The dog’s handler suspected that the killer fled to the back of the apartment building, climbed the fence to the parking lot, and then hopped over another fence to the sidewalk. The detectives have stopped by the jazz club several times, but never spotted the attendant. Tonight he is working. They ask him if he has ever seen anyone acting suspiciously in the parking lot.
“I saw one thing that was very strange,” he says. “There’s this big guy who looks like he just got out of prison. He’s four times the size of me. I’ve talked to him a few times. He’s an Armenian. I know his mother and sister live in the building.” He points to the cyclone fence bordering the apartment building. “One night he jumped over that fence and ran across this lot. I asked him what was going on. He said it was a shortcut.”
McCartin asks softly, attempting to conceal his excitement, “When was this?”
The attendant runs his fingers through his hair and clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Let me see. Must have been about four months ago. And I haven’t seen him since.”
Discouraged the detectives question the man for a few more minutes and discover that the club closed early on Easter Sunday, so no attendant was on duty at the time of the murder. But as they walk to their car they realize that the attendant’s story was helpful.
“This means that at least he’s familiar with that route,” McCartin says. “If he’s taken the route once, he could take it again.”
“And then there were two.”
“I agree,” McCartin says. “It’s either the Armenian or this lady’s boyfriend.”
Knolls opens the car door. “I’ll be curious to see if he ever got on that bus.”