“It’s okay,” Allen said, driving off. “It’s time we got out of Lancaster.”

They drove around Ohio for six days, job hunting and then pulling off the road into the woods to sleep at night. Ragen insisted on keeping a gun under the seat and another in the glove compartment for protection.

On night, Arthur suggested that Allen try to find a job as a maintenance man. It was the kind of work Tommy could handle easily: repairing electrical appliances, mechanical equipment, heating units and plumbing. As Arthur understood it, a rent-free apartment and free utilities came with the job. He suggested Allen get in touch with a former inmate whom he’d once helped in Lebanon and who now was a maintenance man in a suburb of Columbus called Little Turtle.

“Perhaps he knows of an opening,” Arthur said. “Call him. Tell him you’re in town and would like to drop by.”

Allen grumbled about it but followed Arthurs instructions.

Ned Berger was glad to hear from him and invited him over. They weren’t hiring at Little Turtle, he said, but Billy Milligan was welcome to spend a couple of nights at his place. Allen dropped by, and they partied and swapped stories about prison life.

On the morning of the third day, Berger came back to the apartment with the news that Channingway Apartments was about to advertise for outdoor maintenance help. “Call ’em,” Berger said, “but don’t say how you found out they were hiring.”

John Wymer, the youthful personnel manager of Kelly and Lemmon Management Company, was impressed with Billy Milligan. Of all the men who answered his help-wanted ad, he found Milligan the most qualified and personable. During the first interview, on August 15, 1977, Milligan assured him he could do grounds-keeping, carpentry, electrical maintenance and plumbing. “If it works electronically or by combustion, I can fix it,” he told Wymer. “And if I don’t know how, I can figure it out.”

Wymer said he would get in touch with him after he interviewed the other applicants for the job.

Checking Milligan’s references later that day, Wymer called the most recent employer listed on Milligan’s application, Del Moore. Moore gave him a glowing report—a fine worker and a dependable young man. He had left the job because meat-cutting wasn’t really in Bill Milligans line. He would, Del Moore assured Wymer, make an excellent maintenance man.

Unable to check the two personal references—Dr. Steinberg and Mr. Reinert—because Milligan had neglected to give their addresses, Wymer let it go. Since the job was limited to outdoor work, he had enough to go on with the excellent reference from his last employer. But he did instruct his secretary to run the standard police check made on all new employees.

When Milligan came in for a second interview, Wymer’s first impressions were confirmed. He hired him for outdoor maintenance at the Williamsburg Square Apartments, adjacent to the Channingway Apartments, both of which were managed by Kelly and Lemmon. He could begin right away.