Mrs. Weslock's Manhunt - Lesley Weslock - Interview

Talk, Nov, 2001 by John Bloom

Edward Weslock is a millionaire deadbeat husband. Lesley Weslock is his relentless wife. They once had everything: sprawling homes, fancy neighbors, and boundless social aspirations. But one day Edward, the president of Church's shoes, disappeared without a trace, wiping out the couple's bank accounts. Lesley didn't get mad. She simply found herself a $10-an-hour job and embarked on a five-year global mission to find him.

ON A BRILLIANT SUN-WASHED morning LesleyWeslock stops on one of the cliff-hugging streets of Monaco and gazes, for the first time, at the hideout where her husband concealed himself for five years.

I study her face for some sign of emotion--regret, maybe, or elation, or an ironic smile--but all I see is the intense mental calculation of a woman on a mission.

"I only see one entrance," she says, already planning the reconnaissance.

Today Lesley has chosen an "inoffensive international tourist" wardrobe so as not to call attention to herself She could be French, American, German, English, a summer visitor, a businesswoman, a widow out for a stroll. She's matronly but stylish in black and white checked pants, black cotton blouse, black and white scarf, gold hoop earrings, and-- her signature for the day--black and white bowling shoes.

"Can you believe these are fashionable?" she says. "Fortunately they're also comfortable."

We stand a steep half block away, looking up at her target. The Roc Fleuri apartment building--identified hundreds of times in her bulging files--has acquired for her a sort of mythical status in the years since millionaire Edward Weslock, head of American operations for Church's English Shoes, walked out of their apartment at 800 Fifth Avenue on a Friday morning in April 1995 and never came back. For a while he disappeared entirely, vanishing into a netherworld of offshore bank accounts, Swiss attorneys, secret call-forwarding services, and mail drops. ("Let's face it," says a former NewYork City cop, "we can't even get these countries to extradite murderers. If you tell them you want a guy who skipped out on his divorce case, they laugh at you.")

But Edward Weslock is not up against mere cops. Lesley hasn't always known his exact whereabouts, but she has tracked him obsessively uncovering his patterns: Toronto, London, Zurich, Vail, Venice, always moving, sometimes with a woman, always one step ahead of Lesley. And now, in Monaco, she has arrived at his former base of operations: this lustrous beige apartment building with roses spilling off terraces that face the Mediterranean. Striped awnings, wrought iron fixtures, and rooftop palms bespeak elegance, ease, wealth. Mounted along the second-floor balconies are tiny video cameras recording the movements of every person who ventures onto a cul-de-sac containing only two buildings: the Roc Fleuri and a Belle Epoque mansion housing the French consulate.

This is where her husband of 35 years was living while she was being evicted from their Fifth Avenue apartment in New York City. This is where he was when she was down to $240 in her bank account and was trudging through the snows of Central Park to save on bus fare so she could get to her job as a cashier at an Upper West Side bakery. This is where he was when her phone was cut off, her health insurance canceled, her credit cards revoked.

I'm watching her study the building.

"Look at that underground garage," she says, her eyes fixed on the automatic door-opener as a sleek silver baby Jag emerges. "See how long the door stays open? I can get into that garage."

All business. All concentration. LesleyWeslock doesn't have an ounce of self-pity or an iota of regret. If the contrast between her life and his ever occurs to her, she doesn't mention it. She's no longer interested in Edward Weslock's life. What she wants now is his money.

She is here because, in preparation for her upcoming divorce trial, she needs to determine exactly how much money he has squirreled away. Edward, by some estimates, is worth $6.6 million. Under NewYork divorce procedures, customarily she would get about half. She has been waiting for this for years, ever since Edward was a no-show at their original divorce hearing and dodged a civil arrest warrant for failing to make support payments. Edward also has a female friend somewhere in Monaco, and Lesley is sure she can "turn" her, CIA-style.

Ultimately she decides that a dash into the garage is too risky the video surveillance too tight.

"When I'm working a garage," she says, "I always carry an earring. If the security guard shows up, I tell him I had a fight with my boyfriend the night before and lost an earring. I say 'It looks like this one,' and show him the one in my hand, and I ask him to help me look for it. That gives me time to check license plates."

LesleyWeslock is, by this point, a self-taught sleuth of such finesse that she has gotten help, gratis, from a big-time Manhattan divorce attorney from a top private investigator, and from a computer tracking expert. She has that effect on people. They like her. They volunteer. She comes across as affably bold, a little brassy, the kind of gal who hangs out in sports bars but also has a standing appointment at the day spa.