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at Nash. What he didn’t know was that there was a body in the back of the van. Nash didn’t tell him that. He shook his head. He wanted no part of this, did not want to become involved in any way. “I can’t do it,” he said. “The people who rent the lot, they come in very early in the morning, and if anybody’s parked there but them, I’ll lose my job.”
    Nash just looked at him. He did not persist. He got up, walked slowly out of the shop, and returned to the van. He headed downtown, for the Holland Tunnel in lower Manhattan, deciding that might be safer than the Lincoln Tunnel in mid-town. It was barely a half hour since the murders, and over the van’s radio came a constant stream of reports. He knew the alarm must be out, and he could not chance driving through the tunnel with Barbera’s body in the back. He would have to get rid of it before he crossed into New Jersey.
    Once in lower Manhattan, he drove around for a bit, stopping finally at a phone booth in front of a McDonald’s, directly across the street from 26 Federal Plaza, the New York home of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He called Dane again, and this time he followed an old habit of his when using a phone booth. He called the operator, gave her the number, and asked her to bill the call to his home phone in Keansburg. The New York Telephone Company made a record of the call. When he reached Dane, he said he was about to leave the city and wanted to make sure Dane would meet him as planned. Dane told him not to worry, he would be there.
    There was still the question of what to do with Barbera’s body. Driving up from Federal Plaza toward the Holland Tunnel entrance, he spotted a dim alley, Franklin Alley. He drove into it, opened the sliding side door of the van, and dumped the body well into the alley, then backed out and continued on his way, through the tunnel and out of New York.
    Dane was waiting for him at the agreed spot. Nash ordered his nephew to follow him to Newark Airport. Once there, Nash drove into the long-term parking lot. Dane followed. Nash parked the van, got into Dane’s car, and they drove out of the lot and headed for Keansburg.
    Weeks later, Richie Chartrand questioned Thomas Dane about that meeting beside the parkway and that trip to and from Newark Airport. “Did you meet your uncle that night?” Chartrand asked.
    â€œYes, I met him,” Dane said.
    â€œAnd what was the topic of conversation?”
    â€œWell, he told me that he’s not happy at home and that he’s going to leave his wife and going to go away.”
    â€œThen what did you do?”
    â€œWe went to the parking lot at the airport.”
    â€œYou did?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œYou brought Donald’s other car with you?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œHow did you get to the airport?”
    â€œWell, Donald followed me.”
    â€œWell, what did he follow you in?”
    â€œI don’t know. I never paid any attention to what he was driving.”
    â€œSo he just followed you in another vehicle?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œWhat other vehicles did he have access to?”
    â€œWell, he had a taxicab and a van.”
    â€œWell, was he driving the van?”
    â€œI don’t know. I never saw.”
    â€œWell, now you go into the airport. You go in and he goes in and you come out and he doesn’t. Did he leave the van there?”
    â€œI guess so.”
    â€œDid you drive him from the airport?”
    â€œI guess so.”
    â€œWhy do you think he left the van there?”
    â€œI don’t know.”

5
    It was after midnight when Detectives Bobby Patterson and Eddie Fisher reached quiet, tree-lined Grandview Avenue in Ridgewood, Queens, a modest, middle-class neighborhood. They stopped in front of number 613, a low, nondescript apartment house indistinguishable from those around it, lining the streets of the area. All through the evening,