19

Donald Nash knew he had to run. His only hope was in flight. And he was not sanguine about that. He called Oestericher’s private unlisted number. He told Oestericher he was convinced that he was going to get caught. But if Margolies would agree to hire and pay for a lawyer for him and see that his family was taken care of, he would never say a word about who had hired him. Further, he said, he wanted the balance of the $8,000 due him for the murder of Barbera, and he thought he deserved an additional payment for the terrible thing he had to do when those three CBS people walked in on him when he was putting Barbera into the van.

Oestericher listened, said he would contact Margolies and then get back to Nash. He called Margolies, told him what Nash wanted. Margolies said, not a penny more for Barbera. She deserved to be dead because she was not trustworthy and she had proved to be an enemy of his. But, yes, Nash did deserve something extra because of that unexpected snag that had put him in such extreme danger. If Nash were caught and agreed never to talk about the reasons why he had done these dastardly deeds, then Margolies would take care of him: He would find him a lawyer and pay the bill; he would provide for his family; he would pay the balance owed on Barbera; and he would ante up an additional $5,000 for the CBS murders.

Oestericher passed the word on to Nash. Nash accepted the terms. Oestericher reported to Margolies and said the money would have to be paid immediately. Margolies agreed. It was not hard for him to gather that much cash, in $100 bills. He and Madeleine Margolies counted it to make sure it was all there. Then they packaged it. The neatly wrapped bundle was turned over to one of their sons, who bore it to a Federal Express office. When it was ready, Nash sent a messenger to Federal Express to retrieve it and deliver it to him in Keansburg. (Some weeks later, a very worried Madeleine Margolies paid a call on Henry Oestericher. Can the FBI get fingerprints off money? she asked. Why? Oestericher countered. Because, she explained, she had helped count and package the money that had been sent to Nash, and if they could get her fingerprints, she was in a great deal of trouble. Oestericher considered that and then said he did not think bills retained fingerprints.)

Now Nash began to prepare for his flight. He and his nephew Thomas Dane went out shopping. They went to an auto supply store near home, bought black auto paint and a number of sporting decals. It was on to Newark Airport from there. Nash retrieved the silver van. But on his way out, he decided to play a little game and so gain additional protection. Instead of handing in the parking ticket as he departed, he tucked it up under the sun visor on the windshield, told the attendant he had misplaced it, had a little argument about how much he owed and the time he had entered (he claimed it had been early the day before, which, if believed, would have put the van in the parking lot before the murders on the pier), finally settled up for what the attendant demanded, and said he was going to file a claim for the lost ticket and the charges. Then, followed by Dane, he drove back to Keansburg. Over the next several hours, inside his garage, they spray-painted the van black and affixed the decals of eagles, bear, and fish around the sides. When the paint was dry, Nash drove back to Newark Airport, parked the now-black van in the long-term lot, and then returned to Keansburg in Dane’s car.

He would have liked to have begun his trip immediately. He could not. The money from Margolies had not yet arrived and he had to wait for it, wait for the word that it was at Federal Express, send his messenger, and know that he really possessed it. That took a few days. By Friday, April 16, the money had been collected. The first thing Nash did was use some of it, some of the $5,000 for the CBS disaster and the balance from the Barbera-Chin contract, to pay off a second mortgage on his home. The rest, something over $2,500 in $100 bills, he kept, stuffing them into his wallet, to see him through the hard days to come.

On Saturday, April 17, he was ready to move. At about midmorning, Dane arrived and picked him up. They went on another shopping excursion, this time to a string of sporting-goods stores between Keansburg and Newark. He spread some of his new money around, buying sleeping bags, fishing poles, a portable stove, a portable lantern, blankets, a portable AMFM cassette recorder-radio, a small portable television set, hunting clothes, boxes of food that would not spoil, and a lot more. It was as though he were planning to establish himself as huntsman of the year.

By late in the afternoon, he had bought all he thought he would need for a long stay in the woods, or at least on the road. Dane drove him back to Newark Airport and let him out at the entrance to the long-term parking lot. A few minutes later, the black van, Nash driving, emerged from the lot. He had changed license plates once more; this time the van bore New Jersey plates.

A few miles from the airport, Nash pulled to the side of the road. Dane’s car, which had been following, pulled up behind. For the next fifteen or twenty minutes, the two men moved all the camping and hunting equipment, all the newly purchased supplies and more, including the .22-caliber rifle Nash had purchased earlier in Rockland County, from Dane’s car to the van. When they were done, Dane returned to his car and drove off. Nash got into the van, turned it onto the New Jersey Turnpike, and headed south.

What he did not know was that ever since he and Dane had left his home in Keansburg, they had been followed by FBI agents. Less than fifteen minutes before that morning departure, the FBI had arrived outside the house to begin surveillance, had hardly placed themselves before Nash was on the way out. Had they arrived fifteen minutes later, he would have been gone and, in all likelihood, might never have been found.