At the same time, union-organizing activity was in the air at Ho’s newspapers, exacerbating his worries and problems. His employees were requesting, then demanding, all sorts of outrageous benefit plans, including coverage for dental care, membership in health clubs and spas, and—to Ho, the most outrageous demand of all—coverage of psychiatrists’ fees. Ho had responded by announcing that he would fire all his employees and, if need be, shut down his entire operations, rather than accede to such demands.
And so, in light of all these pressures, it was perhaps not surprising that Ho Rothman’s response to Skipper Purdy’s demand was swift and brutal.
The small room, just to the left of “Rothmere” ’s entrance hall—up a short flight of marble steps, past where the Augustus Saint-Gaudens bronze Daphne used to stand—was called the Gun Room. This was where Ho Rothman kept his collection of small firearms. He had started the collection in the early 1920s.
His first purchase had been a German carbine with a double wheel-lock, a handsome specimen, from circa 1585, and over the years the collection grew. It included a rare Indian matchlock from the fifteenth century; an early eighteenth-century musketoon that had belonged to one of Washington’s officers in the Revolution; a breech-loader reputed to have belonged to Henry VIII, who was known to have owned at least three; an early Garand .30-caliber semiautomatic that was used to defend the Alamo; many vintage single-shot rifles by such English and American makers as Sharpe, Ballard, Remington, Winchester, Savage, and Colt; plus examples that showed the evolution of small arms—from antique Spanish hand-cannons through matchlock, snaphance, flintlock, percussion, and breech-loader automatic pistols.
The guns were kept in mint, working condition, though they were never loaded. At Aunt Lily’s insistence, all the guns in the Gun Room were kept in locked glass cases where they could be displayed but not touched, and only Ho Rothman was supposed to know where the key was hidden. With two young boys growing up in the house, Lily Rothman was terrified that one of her sons might even touch the guns, much less play with them. But was it ever possible to hide anything from a pair of active, preteenage boys? Herbert and Arthur found the key’s hiding place soon enough and, whenever they could, they would steal into the Gun Room, unlock the gun cases, and play the usual games, ambushing each other behind chairs and sofas and tables. (“Bang, bang! You’re dead!” “Am not! You missed me!”) Aunt Lily would have been horrified if she had known about this.
By the 1950s, Ho Rothman’s gun collection had become quite valuable. An insurance appraiser had placed the collection’s worth at $900,000. When the entire collection went under the hammer at Sotheby’s in 1975, it brought $1,750,000 from a West German dealer.
That afternoon, the threesome moved from “Rothmere” ’s library to the Gun Room, where it was decided that one of the small breech-loading pistols would be easiest for a woman to handle.
That night, Alex Rothman wrote the letter, on pale blue “Rothmere” letterhead, that would be mailed to the Manhattan post office box. In her distinctive, sharply pointed longhand, she wrote: To think that I ever believed in you … that I ever believed I loved you.…
In the Newspaper Room of the New York Public Library, Joel Rothman carried the spool of microfilm to an idle machine, and threaded the film on its appropriate sprockets and spindles. He adjusted the focus, and then fast-forwarded the film, and the events of the year 1973, as reported by the New York Times, flickered by on the viewer in front of him. When he got to September, he slowed the reel, and when he got to the date of October 14, he stopped the machine altogether, and began turning the machine with its handcrank. On page B17, he found it.
STEVEN J. ROTHMAN, 29;
PUBLISHING HEIR
A SUICIDE
TARRYTOWN, N.Y. OCT. 13. Steven Joseph Rothman, 29, an heir to the Rothman Publishing fortune, was found by his wife today, hanged in the boathouse of “Rothmere,” the Rothman family estate in this affluent Westchester suburb. Mr. Rothman had apparently secured a noose to an overhead rafter of the boat dock, and then, standing in a canoe, had kicked the canoe out from under him. The canoe was found floating in the water a few yards away. A suicide note, addressed to his wife, directed her to the scene. The contents of the note were not revealed, but Mr. Rothman was said to be despondent over the downturn in revenues at Mode, the fashion magazine, of which he was editor-in-chief. Mode is one of many publications controlled by the Rothman family publishing group.
Mr. Rothman was born in New York City February 3, 1944. An honors student at Princeton, he joined Mode shortly after his graduation in 1965. In a bizarre coincidence, Mr. Rothman’s death is the second to have occurred in “Rothmere” ’s boathouse within the last month. On September 20, Mr. Rothman’s wife, the former Alexandra Lane, was attacked by an assailant in the boathouse while reading manuscripts for her husband’s magazine. After a violent struggle, Mrs. Rothman, who was not seriously injured, was able to shoot and kill her assailant, who demanded jewels and cash. The assailant was later identified as a 39-year-old ex-convict and drifter, wanted for parole violation in Kansas.
And in another bizarre touch to today’s death, Mr. Rothman, when found, was wearing women’s clothing. A spokesman close to the Rothman family and company, who spoke only on the condition that he not be identified, explained the odd circumstances thusly: “Steven Rothman hated editing Mode. He had no interest in women’s fashions, and hated the idea of working for a fashion magazine. But his father and grandfather insisted that he ‘get his feet wet’ and prove himself with one of the smaller magazines, such as Mode, before he could be promoted to a publication more suited to his disposition and liking. Dressing in women’s clothes before taking his own life was Steven’s final act of defiance to his father and grandfather. It was his way of telling them what he thought of how they had mismanaged his career. It was also an example of his black sense of humor. Steven was a wonderful man, and his loss is a great tragedy to all of us who knew and loved him.”
In addition to his widow, Mr. Rothman is survived by a son, Joel Steven Rothman, age 16 months; his parents, Mr. and Mrs. Herbert J. Rothman; and his grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. H. O. Rothman, all of Tarrytown. There will be no funeral. A memorial service will be scheduled later this month.
Joel read the story through once more. Then he jumped to his feet, dashed to the men’s room, and threw up in the toilet.
When he returned to the machine, his reel of film was still in it and, even though he had heard the story before, he turned the tape backward to September twenty-first. There he found it on page one.
EDITOR’S WIFE
SLAYS INTRUDER
TARRYTOWN, N.Y. SEPT. 20. Mrs. Steven Rothman, wife of the editor-in-chief of Mode, shot and killed an intruder and would-be assailant at the Rothman family’s suburban estate today. The shooting, which occurred at approximately 3:20 P.M. (EDT) today, followed an attempt by the shooting victim to at first rob and then sexually assault the young Mrs. Rothman.
The victim’s face was completely blown away by a series of six gunshots, but he was later identified, through fingerprints, as Nils Johanssen, 39, an ex-convict and drifter, who had somehow managed to penetrate the normally heavily secured grounds of “Rothmere,” the Rothman country residence. Police speculated that the burglar had first tried to enter the main house on the estate. Finding that locked and impenetrable, he made his way to the estate’s boathouse, on the edge of the Hudson River, which was not locked, where he encountered Mrs. Rothman, 29, who was alone reading manuscripts for her husband’s fashion magazine. Though the boathouse is rarely used by the family, Mrs. Rothman told police, “I often go there to read and be away from ringing phones.”
“It was the maids’ day off,” Mrs. Rothman told police. “I was reading in the Deck Room of the boathouse. Suddenly this strange man appeared. He had a carving knife in one hand. He demanded cash and jewels. I told him I had no cash whatsoever, and the only jewelry I had was what I was wearing—a triple strand of pearls
and my wedding ring. I offered him these. This made him very angry, and he said he was going to rape me. I ran to a table, and was able to get my hands on one of Ho Rothman’s pistols. The man brandished the knife at me. I pulled the trigger.”
H. O. “Ho” Rothman is Mrs. Rothman’s husband’s grandfather, president and chief executive officer of Rothman Communications, Inc., the publishing and broadcasting conglomerate which publishes Mode. The senior Mr. Rothman has a well-known collection of small firearms.
The carving knife was found near the victim’s body, and was identified as having come from the kitchen of the Rothman boathouse, through which the intruder apparently gained entry.
Mrs. Rothman could not be reached for comment today, and was described by a family spokesman as “in a state of near-shock, and under sedation.” …
There were only one or two faintly suspicious notes in the Times report.
Police officers, who gathered in the blood-spattered Deck Room—a large glassed-in room overlooking the river—of the Rothman boathouse, had come in response to an anonymous telephone call, presumably from someone within the Rothman organization. Police questioned why Mrs. Rothman did not immediately call the police following the shooting. Instead, she apparently telephoned Mr. H. O. Rothman at his Manhattan office, and had a 20-minute telephone conversation with him before police were notified. “I was hysterical,” she replied. “Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I didn’t know what to do. I don’t even remember what I did.”
Police also questioned why Mrs. Rothman had found it necessary to empty all six chambers of the automatic weapon in order to ward off her assailant, when one shot would have sufficed to at least temporarily disarm him. “I was hysterical,” she repeated. “I was terrified. I fired one shot, then another. I don’t really remember how many shots I fired.”
Another unanswered question is how Mrs. Rothman’s assailant who, the Times learned, was also wanted for parole violation in the state of Kansas, planned to make his getaway, if burglary of the otherwise unoccupied Rothman estate was his intent. Johanssen apparently got off a northbound train, the 1:59 out of Grand Central, at the Tarrytown station, and took a taxi to the Rothman estate. Tarrytown taxi driver Carlos Flores recalls picking up a man of Johanssen’s description at the station platform, and driving him to the entrance gates of “Rothmere,” and dropping him there. “It seems a funny way to plan a big heist,” said Tarrytown Police Chief Maurice Litwin, “to come in a taxi, and then walk away, in broad daylight, with the loot. It’s a 3½-mile walk back from the Rothman place to the station.” A Rothman family spokesman, however, suggested that Johanssen may have had an accomplice waiting in a car outside the boathouse who, when the burglary plans went awry, drove away from the scene in haste.
This further suggested that, though no other persons were supposed to be on the premises at the time, other than Mrs. Rothman, the presumed accomplice may have been an “insider.” This would explain how Johanssen passed so easily through “Rothmere” ’s normally heavily guarded gates. Chief Litwin announced that the 27 members of “Rothmere” ’s household and gardening staff would be questioned.
Joel turned off the machine, and the viewing screen went blank. He had never thought of it before, but it did seem strange that two men should have died in the boathouse within a month of each other. Could there possibly have been a connection? But what connection could there possibly have been? Then he thought: Where was I? My mother was supposed to have been all alone at “Rothmere” at the time. But I was only fifteen months old. So where was I?
The Rothman newspapers reported the event in even more lurid detail. They spoke of “the tiny, fragile, defenseless Alexandra Rothman, a new mother of an infant son,” and of her “burly, hulking 6’3” sex-crazed assailant,” who was “a hardened criminal with a long record of heinous offenses ranging from forgery to manslaughter, attempted rape, criminal trespass, burglary, petty larceny, and grand theft,” who had “slipped through the holes of the American justice system,” and who had come at Alexandra Rothman “wielding a nine-inch lethal blade with lust burning in his tiny, red-rimmed, piglike eyes, and a snarl on his moistened lips, intent on rape, robbery, and possibly even murder and mutilation.” Alexandra Rothman, the Rothman newspapers claimed, had “with her quick thinking and doughty courage slain the monster who threatened to defile her innocence and sweet young motherhood,” and had “performed an act of heroism hardly surpassed in history since Joan of Arc went off to fight for Christ” in ridding the world “of an unredeemable, unrepentant piece of human scum.”
Alex Rothman, of course, remembered that afternoon quite differently.
“So you decided to betray me, after all,” she said to him.
“I look at it in a different way,” he said. “I figure you betrayed me—marrying another man without telling him you were already married to me. You really hurt me, Alex. Now you’re going to have to pay me for that hurt. Where’s the check?”
“Sit down, Skipper. Let’s talk a minute.”
“I think I’d rather stay standing up,” he said.
“All right. But listen to me, Skipper. You meant a lot to me once. In some ways, you still mean a lot to me. You were an important part of my life, and in some ways you still are, and probably always will be. One doesn’t easily forget the sort of thing we had between us. I never really wanted to hurt you, and I don’t want to hurt you now. And I’m sorry you’re in some sort of trouble, and I’d really like to help you out.”
“It’s my kid, isn’t it?”
“I don’t want to talk about that. I’m saying that I want to help you out of—whatever trouble it is you’re in. But—a million dollars. I simply don’t have access to funds like that. Being married to a rich man doesn’t make me a rich woman. But what I’ve done—”
“You said a million bucks! You said it in your letter. You said ‘all your demands will be met.’ I got it in writing, Alex!”
“I just can’t,” she said. “I just can’t get hold of that much. But what I did do was this. I went to a pawn shop. I pawned a rather nice triple strand of pearls with a diamond and sapphire clasp, that Steven gave me. I was able to get fifty thousand dollars for that, and I’d like to give that to you now, with the understanding that it’s all I’ll ever be able to give you, and with your promise that you’ll never come back to ask me for anything more. I have the check right here—a certified check, as you asked for, payable to cash.” She opened her purse, and withdrew the folded check. “Please take this, Skipper, and try to understand that this is the best I can do. Because I really did love you once.”
He glared at the check. “You’re double-crossing me, Alex. I’m going to your husband and tell him that the kid is mine!”
“Please, Skipper—”
He stepped toward her. “And I’m going to show him our marriage certificate. And I’m going to—”
That was when she reached in her purse and took out the pistol Ho had given her, and pointed it at him. “Very well,” she said. “Then get out of here, Skipper. Get out of here right now. Get out of here, and don’t come back—ever. Walk to that door right now, and don’t ever come back. If you don’t, I’ll—”
With that, he struck her with a sharp karate chop across the side of her head and, with his toe, caught her simultaneously behind the knees, and she crashed to the hardwood floor, landing on her back, while the pistol flew out of her hand and slithered across the polished floor.
He stood above her with the heel of his Gucci loafer pressed hard against her throat. “Bitch!” he said. “Give me the money, or I’ll break your fucking neck.”
The sound of an express train rumbled by, and the foundations of the boathouse trembled. That was when the shooting started.
37
“Herbert Rothman received service yesterday morning in his office at ten fifteen,” Henry Coker was saying as he riffled through the papers in his briefcase on his lap. “And so now we are officially in litigation.
Our lawsuit is a two-pronged affair. We are suing for breach of contract, which is fairly simple and cut-and-dried. We are also demanding to see a copy of the trust instrument—the so-called Steven trust—that is mentioned in your late husband’s will, and we are asking for a full and complete documentation of the contents of that trust. Of course, if the trust never existed, or if, over the years, it has been subsumed by, or otherwise disappeared within, the company’s rather unusual and idiosyncratic—to say the least—method of keeping its books, then there will be very little we can do. But on the matter of breach of contract, there’s no question in my mind but that we have him cold.”
“He said something to me about a loyalty clause,” she said.
“Yes, there is indeed a loyalty clause in your contract,” he said. “But as far as I can see, he can’t prove that you’ve done anything disloyal to the company. You haven’t sold any company secrets, or anything like that, for God’s sake. Your conversations with McCulloch were perfectly open-ended. He made you an offer, which you considered, and then declined. Talking with Rodney McCulloch about a job offer doesn’t constitute disloyalty to the company. Every successful person receives new job offers all the time. On the other hand, if you were secretly plotting with Rodney McCulloch to take over Rothman Publications, that would constitute disloyalty. But that was not the case.”
She smiled. “Of course that’s what Rodney would like to do,” she said. “He’d like to destroy Herb Rothman.”
“So,” Henry Coker said, “would a lot of other people. But in the meantime, with a breach of contract claim, I think we’ve got Herb Rothman by the balls, if you’ll pardon the expression. Of course now we have to wait and see what kind of response we get from the people at Waxman, Holloway, but I don’t see how they could possibly recommend that he fight this. He hasn’t got a legal leg to stand on, to begin with. For another thing, if he decides to go to the mat with this, it’s going to cost him a lot of money. He’s already got a billion-dollar lawsuit on his hands from the IRS, and I don’t think anybody in his right mind would recommend that he take on another case that he’s bound to lose. At the very worst, he could offer to buy out the balance of your contract—which would also cost him a lot of money.”
The Rothman Scandal Page 55