A Halloween Disappearance
Chapter 2: The Escape—A Plan Comes Together
Newark Penn Station was a massive jumble of corridors, gates, and hallways, not to mention doorways leading to various exits. I decided to look for something to eat at that early hour, but there wasn’t much open. I finally found a small grill tucked away in a dead-end corridor and ordered a toasted cheese-and-egg sandwich along with a cranberry juice cocktail. The best part was that they accepted cash so early in the morning, which meant I didn’t have to worry about leaving a credit card trail.
I took my sandwich and juice back to the waiting area, sat down, and began eating. As I ate, I kept my head on a swivel, watching my surroundings.
I glanced at my Timex watch. It would be roughly three hours before my train to Norfolk, Virginia, arrived. Until then, I could either sit on one of the old wooden benches or explore the station. Homeless people drifted through the station while police officers made regular foot patrols.
Down the hall from where I sat, someone had apparently taken fentanyl. The effects were easy to recognize, as people under the influence of the drug often assume a slumped-over posture, bent at the waist. It was sad to watch, but the person probably wouldn’t pose a threat to anyone for the next couple of hours.
I decided to stay where I was until my train arrived. Safer that way. As I sat there, I began to grin at the thought of Maris and Bill trying to explain to a fourth-generation Irish cop where they had been during my disappearance—and why it hadn’t been Bill, dressed as Michael Myers, who had dumped a body over the rail along the Harborwalk and into the river.
I had to be careful. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself. Still, I couldn’t help laughing until my eyes watered. That would be one video I wouldn’t want to miss.
I had to fight to keep myself under control. I didn’t want to have to explain to a Newark Transit cop why I found it funny that someone I knew was being interrogated by a Boston police detective. Soon, employees began arriving for work, and rush-hour passengers began scrambling to get to their platforms on time. It was organized chaos.
Dressed in jeans, a red hoodie, and a now-plain green ball cap, I could blend in with the other people waiting. I had ditched the Boston Red Sox cap earlier. There was no sense in wearing one in Yankees territory. That would have attracted attention even on a normal day.
At five a.m., Penn Station came alive as shop owners opened their kiosks and booths. Over the din came announcements about which trains would be leaving from which platforms.
I decided it would be best to head toward the platform where my train would be departing. I could stand for an hour if need be. There was no need, though, as benches were available where I could sit while waiting for my train.
The train I would be taking departed at six a.m. and arrived in Norfolk at two p.m. That would be a long time to go without food, and I wasn’t sure how much food cost on the train, let alone whether they accepted cash. I decided to buy some snacks and prepackaged food at one of the shops in the station. I could pack everything in my bag and eat it later on the train, saving myself a few bucks.
That wasn’t saying much, though, considering the outrageous prices at the station shops.
I returned to the platform and found a spot on a bench away from the others. There was no need to get cornered by a nosy grandmother and be pumped for information about myself. This was New Jersey, after all—a close cousin of New York, infamous for its busybodies.
The train had pulled in early, and we were allowed to board. I was lucky; I didn’t have to share my row of seats with anyone. I spread out and tucked my ticket into my shirt pocket beneath my hoodie. There was no way anyone could get to it without waking me.
At six a.m., the train slowly pulled out of Newark Penn Station. The conductor made his way through the car, checking tickets and seat assignments. Once my ticket had been verified, I leaned my seat back and promptly fell asleep, dreaming of Maris and Bill being subjected to the rubber-hose treatment to extract a confession.
I’m embarrassed to say that I sleep like the dead and didn’t wake up until the train stopped at a major station in Philadelphia to let passengers on and off. I had been asleep for only an hour, but it had been a restful one.
The stop in Philadelphia had been a long one. The crew changed, and the train was serviced. About twenty minutes later, we were moving south again. Several more stops followed, including Baltimore and several smaller towns between Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
The train pulled into Washington Union Station at 1:20 p.m. After a thirty-minute layover, I transferred to a chartered bus bound for Norfolk, Virginia. Once I reached Norfolk, Phase One would be complete, and Phase Two would begin.
Growing up outside Chicago, I was fortunate to learn to sail on Lake Michigan. Friends of a friend owned a 22-foot sailboat, and whenever they needed someone to crew for them, I was available. I continued pursuing my interest in sailing while attending MIT. Almost every weekend, when the weather was good, I could be found aboard a rented sailboat, making the rounds of Boston Harbor. I even took Maris sailing occasionally. I don’t think she enjoyed it as much as I did; she merely tolerated it.
When I had free time while flying or staying in a hotel, I would study the atlas for exciting places to visit and plot the routes I would take to get there. It was the affair between Maris and Bill that prompted me to consider disappearing more seriously, and a sailboat became part of my plans.
I scoured the internet, researching sailboat brokerages, the boats they had for sale, their prices, and where they were berthed. Whenever I had to fly to Florida and spend the weekend there, I would rent a car and scout out boats for sale in Miami, the Florida Keys, and along the Gulf Coast. After inspecting several boats, I had a better idea of what I wanted in a sailboat. Once I had narrowed down my choices, I focused on how I would pay for the boat and my sailing adventures.
It was a silly novel I had picked up at an airport to read on the plane and during my weekend at the hotel. It was there that the seed was planted for an idea about how I would pay for the sailboat and my planned trips. In a later chapter, the same novel gave me the idea of how I could hide money from Maris and build my own little nest egg.
To test my theory, I ran it by one of Bill’s associates. According to him, it was legal and wouldn’t raise any red flags that might prompt the IRS to audit me. It was comforting to know that my little scheme would work. With compound interest and some creative accounting on my part, I could be sitting on a rather large fortune in a relatively short time.
Phase Two began over a year later. During my travels for the company, I began searching for the perfect state in which to establish the LLC. Surprisingly, Texas proved to be the ideal choice. Those oilmen know how to move large sums of money around and keep them hidden from the Yankee tax man.
I found an oil company attorney who was willing to make everything disappear like a Las Vegas magic act, all for a percentage of the principal. We agreed on the terms, and I soon had an LLC registered in Texas, managed and held in the Cayman Islands. The people handling the arrangement weren’t greedy, and I was able to negotiate a fee I could live with in exchange for their taking care of all the dirty work. I even got a no-limit credit card out of the deal.
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