If Looks Could Kill, page 23
Interesting development. Here was evidence that John Zaffino and Cynthia George knew each other.
From the office, Felber drove out to the address to see if any of Zaffino’s neighbors remembered him. The apartment was quite nice. It looked like a condo from the outside and the landscaping on the property had been kept up: pricey shrubs, delicate golf course–like grass, a gorgeous common pool area, new asphalt driveway. Tidy and moneyed. Looking at the place, knowing a bit about Zaffino’s background, Felber found it hard to place him there. His reputation didn’t fit with the style and resident list—a bar-brawling truck driver, he seemed out of his element.
One neighbor had trouble recalling Zaffino, but after some time to reflect, remembered him having “two motorcycles” and hanging out with a “female who drove a dark pickup.” The daughter of another neighbor remembered Zaffino as a “well-built guy who owned a motorcycle…had a blond female visitor who had long hair, but then cut it short….” A woman down a few units remembered Zaffino well. “He owned a motorcycle,” she said. “He spent a lot of time with a female friend who spent a lot of time talking on a cell phone. She was sickly thin, blond, close to [fifty] years old but looked a lot younger. She drove a dark gray Suburban with a bike rack.”
“How can you be sure it was a Suburban?” Felber asked. The woman seemed so certain about the vehicle. Felber knew the Georges owned the same type of vehicle.
“I’m familiar with those types of SUVs,” she said. “The blond woman never stayed overnight. She would show up and then they would leave together.”
“She ever have kids with her?”
“No, I never saw any—and I never said hi or anything like that.”
The neighbor had been friendly with Zaffino; she said she believed he worked at an electroplating company. “I remember when he moved out. I spoke to him. He said he was moving in with the blonde…a house with a lot of land.”
“You think you’d recognize the woman and the Suburban from a photo?”
“Certainly.”
When Felber returned to the CAPU, that same neighbor called him. She had spoken to another neighbor she knew fairly well and they had come up with a description of the motorcycle they believed Zaffino drove. “Light green and dark purple or black.”
“Thanks,” Felber said. “If you recall anything else, call me back.”
Felber gave the information to Captain Beth Daugherty. “That’s good,” she said. Bertina King was standing in Daugherty’s office with Felber. Looking up at them from her desk, Daugherty said, “You and Bertina get over there as soon as you can and reinterview that neighbor. Get her on tape.”
Felber and King drove back out to the woman’s apartment. They had six photographs, one of which was Cynthia George. Felber brought a new digital recorder with him, but had trouble getting it to work. Regardless, it didn’t change what the woman had to say, at least according to Felber’s report and a second recording he made with the woman a few days later.
When Felber asked her to describe Zaffino, she said, “He wore a motorcycle helmet which was full-faced and had a very dark face shield. I remember this because he used to wave to me while pulling in on his bike…and I didn’t realize it was him until [after he took it off].”
After going through the photograph lineup, the woman eliminated five of the photos rather quickly, stopping at Cynthia’s, saying, “This could be her. I’m not positive, you know, because this woman has a ponytail and I never saw that woman he was with, with a ponytail. This woman in the photograph here looks heavier, too. But I think it’s her.”
She recalled the woman with Zaffino as being so skinny that she could have “worn kids clothes…maybe eighty pounds, she weighed.” But a detail that couldn’t be overlooked was that Zaffino’s blond girlfriend, the neighbor remembered, had a Starbucks coffee mug in a holder in her Suburban.
How could she recall such an odd detail?
She used to park next to the SUV and, while walking by, had seen it.
“I saw John kiss her on the mouth once, a good-bye kiss or something.”
“Tell me about Zaffino,” Bertina King asked.
“He was egotistical and conceited, annoying. He wouldn’t shut up. He told me this story once about accidentally sucking his pet bird up into a shop vac.”
“You have any idea where he went?”
“Him and his son packed everything up one day into his pickup truck and just left. Haven’t seen him since.”
Detective John Bell located the address of forty-year-old Frank Roppolo, Christine Todaro’s ex-boyfriend. The CAPU had heard Roppolo was connected to Christine and wanted to talk to him. Some within the unit felt Christine was a tricky character. There was a feeling maybe she had information she still wasn’t sharing. If so, how well could she be trusted? Detective Mike Shaeffer had his misgivings about Christine from the get-go. “I never trust a snitch,” he said later. “Essentially, whether it helped us or not, she was snitching on someone.”
Early on, the question of whether Christine was involved in hiding evidence and obstructing justice was still on the table. She hadn’t proven herself yet. All she did was tell her side of the story.
Regardless, a circumstantial—if not rough—connection to Jeff Zack was being made: John Zaffino was looking more and more like the link between Ed George and Jeff Zack. Still, how did it all fit together? Had Cynthia broken it off with Jeff Zack to go out with John Zaffino? Apparently, from the evidence thus far, Cynthia was dating Zack and Zaffino at the same time, a fact that would be confirmed in court later. Had Zaffino and Cynthia actually been lovers? It was the only part of the puzzle that didn’t quite make sense. Whereas Jeff Zack was a ladies’ man—a good-looking, well-kempt man—John Zaffino, when investigators took a hard look at him, seemed like an unlikely candidate for Cynthia George’s affection. Zaffino was a “thug,” several detectives later said. A short, chubby, gangster wannabe. He wasn’t the type of guy you’d expect to see on the arm of the adorable, lovely Cynthia George, wife of a very wealthy man, who had lived a life of distinction. It was no secret Cynthia liked her men rough around the edges, but John Zaffino?
“The question for us became,” a detective working the case later remarked, “how did Cynthia George end up with John Zaffino? He wasn’t her type by any means.”
The CAPU, if it wanted to build a case against John Zaffino, was going to have to make that connection.
“Keep looking,” Dave Whiddon told his unit. “The answers are out there somewhere.”
On the one hand, the case seemed to be opening up. Christine Todaro was aboard. She was planning on recording Zaffino. On the other, it was almost as if the CAPU was back to square one again, chasing something that was probably never going to materialize into an arrest.
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Detective John Bell and a colleague arrived at Frank Roppolo’s house in downtown Akron one afternoon during the second week of June. Roppolo, a cabdriver, wasn’t home, but his mother invited Bell and his partner into the house. Mrs. Roppolo said she was concerned for her son. Was he in trouble? Under arrest?
“No, ma’am,” said Bell, “we’re looking to talk to him about a police report he had filed [sometime ago]. How can we reach him?”
Roppolo had filed a report about Zaffino. It was during a period when Zaffino believed Roppolo and Christine were seeing each other (which they weren’t). Even though Christine pleaded with Zaffino to believe her, Zaffino couldn’t let it go. Roppolo had a truck parked in Christine’s yard. Zaffino trashed it one afternoon, bashing the vehicle with rocks in an act of rage—trying to warn Roppolo to stay away from Christine. In the end, Roppolo had to total the vehicle with his insurance company. He was livid at Zaffino—but also quite unnerved by the entire episode, scared of what Zaffino was obviously capable of doing. “It got to the point,” Roppolo told me later, “where I [was scared Zaffino would] kill me and my son….”
Based on the police report Roppolo filed, Bell and his partner were elected by Captain Daugherty to find out exactly what happened, and also find out if Roppolo had heard from Zaffino lately. Was there still any animosity between them?
“Is this about the shooting?” Roppolo’s mother asked.
Both detectives looked at each other. “Which shooting?” They hadn’t mentioned anything about a shooting.
“The one at BJ’s?” Mrs. Roppolo offered, according to Bell’s report of the interview.
“Yes, we’re interested in that incident, too.”
The woman moved slowly. She was obviously in some pain and told the detectives that she had recently suffered a stroke. It was one of the reasons why she had a “tough time” remembering things, but she promised to do the best she could.
“That’s OK, ma’am, take your time.”
“I do remember the shooting at BJ’s.”
Bell asked if she knew Christine Todaro. “Sure. But she’s bad news.”
“How can we find Frank?” Bell asked.
“He’ll be home around four-thirty,” she said. “He’s working. I’ll call him.”
While Mrs. Roppolo was dialing her son’s cell phone number, the detectives heard a car pull up outside. It was Frank. Both detectives walked outside to greet him as he got out of his taxicab.
In the report Roppolo had filed with the police, he stated that he believed Zaffino and Christine Todaro were suspects in the murder of Jeff Zack.
They stood in the parking lot talking. Roppolo said, “He [Zaffino] threatens to beat me up all the time. He’s even threatened to kill me. I’m afraid of him. He said he’d come after me with a gun.”
The detectives wanted to know how well Roppolo knew Christine. Why was Zaffino so interested in making his and Christine’s lives so miserable? Had they all been friends at one time and hung out together? What was it that sparked the hatred Zaffino had for Roppolo?
Roppolo said he was Christine’s boyfriend at one time, for many years before she met Zaffino; and after they broke up, they remained good friends. Once she met Zaffino, however, things changed.
“Tell us about Christine,” Bell said.
“I’ll tell you that she told me once John Zaffino admitted to her that he was the one who killed Jeff Zack. I told her I didn’t want to know anything about it. I know the type of person John is. Christine and I are in danger if we talk about it.” It was surely the reason why Christine, when the CAPU approached her, hadn’t mentioned anything about Zaffino killing Jeff Zack, but then decided to go to the APD and tell them her entire story. “I believe her…simply because she’s so deathly afraid of John.”
Roppolo made a point to explain that if Christine had come forward and said anything, knowing that she would eventually have to talk to the cops, thereby putting her life at even more risk than it already was, it spoke of her integrity. Beyond revenge, what motive was there for Christine to lie about such a thing and then, when the cops finally asked her about it, not mention anything significant? If she wanted to sell out Zaffino, she had every opportunity to do so. That alone, at least in Roppolo’s view, meant she was being truthful.
Roppolo went on to say Christine acted strange whenever he brought up the subject with her, like she didn’t want it mentioned anymore. Adding, “John thinks he’s above the law, as if the world revolves around him.”
It wasn’t smart standing there in the driveway talking. Someone in the neighborhood might see them and put two and two together. Heck, if Zaffino was after Roppolo, he might even drive by the house himself. The last thing Roppolo wanted was word to get back to Zaffino that he had spoken to the cops.
So they walked inside.
Standing, Roppolo continued to speak. “Christine told me that the shooting was a hit, a murder for hire. Zaffino, she said, has been doing ‘things’ for the Georges…. This is why she is so scared—from not only John, but the people that hired him.”
By Roppolo’s estimate, Zaffino was someone people on the street feared; a point man, a strong arm for more powerful players. “If you beat John up, he will keep coming after you…. He’s definitely the type to just walk right up to somebody and shoot them. Listen, I don’t want to get involved in this.”
Bell looked at his partner. They were thinking the same thing. It was too damn late for that now.
“I’m still good friends with Christine,” Roppolo continued, “and I’ll protect her to the end. But I will say this—she’s not telling you guys everything she knows. I’ll try calling her later and get some more info for you. If I get anything, I’ll call.”
Roppolo tried calling Christine that night, but couldn’t get hold of her. So he swung by her apartment. Her car was in the driveway. Once inside, Roppolo learned that Christine hadn’t been answering her telephone because she was frightened it might be Zaffino and she didn’t want to face him. She had a feeling he knew she had spoken to the police. Roppolo noticed she was pacing the room, fidgeting with things, chain-smoking cigarettes. He’d never seen her so nervous. Zaffino had gotten into her head. Under her skin. Changed her entire demeanor. The master intimidator. In many ways, Zaffino was still controlling her.
“It’s OK,” Roppolo promised. “It’ll be all right.” Even though they hadn’t dated in some time, Roppolo still cared deeply for Christine.
“It’s not all right,” Christine raged. Just then, the telephone rang. “Shhh,” she said, as if the person calling could hear them talking, “that’s John. I know it is.”
“You don’t know that.”
Christine was anxious, Roppolo later told police. She was mumbling. The telephone rang three different times while he was there. She believed it was Zaffino each time. (It wasn’t, though. Detectives later told Roppolo they had been trying to contact her for another interview.)
As the telephone rang, Christine told Roppolo to be quiet. Then, “John cannot know you are here.”
When Christine heard from Roppolo that detectives been over at his house to speak with him, she was furious. How dare they put me in danger like that. If Zaffino ever found out that cops were over there talking to Roppolo, he’d put it all together. She couldn’t believe that after she had gone into the APD and told them all she knew, and agreed to wear a wire, that they would still send detectives over to Roppolo’s house to talk to him. “They didn’t know then if Frank and John were friends or not,” Christine said later. “They could have been sending a message to John that I was talking to them.”
Scared, Frank Roppolo left Christine’s apartment and drove straight to the APD.
60
Christine Todaro knew Frank Roppolo was on his way down to the APD to speak with detectives. He had told her where he was going (and why) before he left her apartment. Ever since that night when the CAPU and the FBI had shown up at her house, Christine had been waiting for the ball to drop and Zaffino to show up unannounced in some sort of frenzied, angry rant, accusing her of turning on him. When she proved to Zaffino that the cops had been at her house by giving him their business cards, it only further heightened Zaffino’s escalating anxieties that the cops were onto him. He started calling Christine more than he had in the past, asking if they had been back, and urging her to “tell them to f- - - off.” This became one of Zaffino’s trademark comments to Christine. “Don’t tell them anything. They have nothing on me,” he’d repeat.
Christine would kindly oblige her ex-husband by saying, “Of course.” But as the vise tightened, Christine felt Zaffino was going to find out sooner or later what she was doing. And when he did, that was it. She’d have to go into exile, move away, running from the guy like she had so many other times in her life.
After Roppolo left her house, Christine was more scared than she had ever been, not to mention “pissed off that the cops had spoken to Frank,” and, in her opinion, put her life in more danger. She decided to go down to the CAPU and give detectives a good old-fashioned reaming for showing up at Roppolo’s house, knowing full well that the visit might alert Zaffino to what was going on.
Before leaving, Christine called Vince Felber and told him she was on her way. “I need to talk to all of you right now,” she raged.
Coming out of the sixth-floor elevator inside the APD, Christine was on the prowl for the first detective she would run into. Once they realized she was there, Whiddon, Felber and Daugherty, along with several other detectives working the case, shuffled her into a conference room adjacent to the reception area. Frank Roppolo was in another part of the office already speaking with detectives.
“You might as well put a gun to my head and pull the trigger right now,” Christine screamed. “What if, by chance, Frank and John were friends…you didn’t know that when you sent those detectives over there to talk to him. You didn’t know that he wouldn’t go running to John to tell him what I was doing.”
“Calm down,” Whiddon said. “Relax, would you.”
“Christine…,” Felber tried to say.
Roppolo had been at the CAPU for about an hour. He said later that from the room he was in down the hall, he could hear Christine screaming. He also said detectives were trying to play good cop/bad cop with him. “They were trying to say, ‘You’re involved and we know it. Tell us what you know.’ But I didn’t really know much of anything.”
“Relax?” Christine said sneeringly. “What the f- - - is that…relax. How am I supposed to relax? If John finds out, I’m done. He’ll kill me. Don’t you get it?”
Things were getting too close for comfort. Christine had known, basically, for nearly a year that Zaffino was involved with Zack’s murder; yet she had not come forward because she believed her life—and that of her son and father—was in danger. She was convinced Zaffino thought she was covering for him, even working on his side to make sure police didn’t find out what she knew. She had to make him believe this because she feared him so much. On top of that, she had agreed to help the CAPU by wearing a wire and initiating contact with Zaffino. But if they were going pull these types of Key-stone Cop maneuvers and jeopardize her safety, she was finished. “I won’t help you. Arrest me. I don’t care.”
