If Looks Could Kill (12 page)

When Elayne Zack agreed to call Cynthia George and have the CAPU record it, the prevailing notion was that the telephone call might allow detectives a closer look into the relationship Cynthia had with Jeff. Or, more important, what caused the split. As an added bonus, maybe Cynthia, without knowing it, would say something damaging about her husband’s potential role in Jeff’s demise. Any way they looked at it, the telephone call could help.

Ed Moriarty fixed the cassette tape into the recorder and pressed play and record, saying, in his deep baritone, “There’s about to be a phone call made from Elayne Zack to Cynthia George and this tape will contain that conversation.”

Then, pointing at the telephone, Moriarty looked at Elayne, who was standing, waiting for the signal from Moriarty to dial the numbers. Walking toward him, she said, “I think I should do it privately. I’ll be more natural.”

There was another detective standing with Moriarty. “We can leave if you want, Mrs. Zack?” he said.

It seemed like a good idea.

After a few tries, Cynthia picked up. “Cindy, it’s Elayne.”

“Hi, Elayne. Hold…hold on one second, OK?”

“Cindy, please.” Elayne was a bit impatient. She wanted a moment of Cynthia’s time. Considering the circumstances, it wasn’t all that much to ask.

“Hold on a second,
can
you?”

“Please, please talk to me, Cindy.” Elayne sounded frazzled and panicked. She assumed Cynthia was trying to blow her off.

“I don’t know what…just hold on, Elayne, OK?” Cynthia sounded as if she were thinking,
Enough already
,
lady, just wait a damn minute
.

Then a pause.

“Hello?” Cynthia said.

“Cindy, Cindy,” Elayne said fast, “what happened to Jeffrey, he was killed?”

“I know,” Cynthia said. She sounded saddened by the remark.

“Cindy, weren’t you his best friend? He
loved
you.”

“I know,” said Cynthia. But then changed the subject quickly, saying, “You know what, I didn’t know whether to call…I…you know, I tried calling once.”

“Cindy, I cannot believe you weren’t at the funeral and I can’t believe I didn’t hear from you.” Elayne was finding her comfort zone. Emotion was still raw, but she sounded sincere. “I thought he loved you so much, what happened?”

“I was afraid Bonnie would be mad at me.”

“Cindy, what happened?” Elayne asked again. “Why? What happened between you? He was so hurt by you.
What
happened?”

Cynthia was at a loss for words, or didn’t want to broach the subject of the affair. It was an odd circumstance for her to be in: the affair was common knowledge among the Zacks. Bonnie knew, Elayne was sure of it. However, no one really talked about it—the proverbial white elephant.

Finally Cynthia said, “Uh…I…” and then went silent.

“Please
tell
me, Cindy. I
have
to know.”

A mother had just buried one of her sons. She felt she deserved an explanation regarding what went wrong in the relationship, seeing that Jeff had expressed on numerous occasions to his mother the love he felt for Cynthia.

“You know what, I don’t, I don’t know. I just
don’t
know. At the end of, he was just…I don’t know if he was…I don’t know…I don’t know if he was on drugs or what.”

Elayne was taken aback by the comment.
Drugs? What a lame excuse,
she thought. Jeff Zack wasn’t into drugs. He was—many who knew him later said—against drugs. Detectives had found a small amount of marijuana in his pockets when they went through his belongings after his death. Although pot wasn’t considered the same as methamphetamine, cocaine or “hard-core” substances, it proved Jeff Zack did take illegal drugs of some sort from time to time. So Cynthia, whether Elayne knew it or not, was speaking from experience.

“Drugs!” Elayne shot back. “Jeffrey never would take a drug, you know that, Cindy. He came to Arizona, he was so calm, but he told me he was so hurt by you and he wouldn’t tell my why. What did…what happened? Please tell me.” Elayne paused. Despite the secretive nature of the telephone call, she sounded genuinely upset. She was Jeff’s mother now, not some witness trying to get Cynthia to open up. “I
have
to know.”

“I know that—”

Elayne interrupted, “Please tell me, Cindy.” Her voice was pleading.

“It’s like, I, I didn’t, I…I was so worried about Bonnie. I called there and I just, I…I…I…I…thought well, you know, maybe that you’ll call me or something.”

“I had to call you, because I know he loved you so much.”

“I know…I know—”

“You were his best friend and he was so hurt by you. I could tell when he came to visit…. He said, ‘Mother, Cindy hurt me so much, I miss her so much.’ And then he was distraught when he got back home and…Cindy, why would someone murder him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. I, he said something, I don’t know exact—”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Elayne continued to question Cynthia about the breakup, asking at one point, “Did Ed suspect something between you?”

“No. No.”

“No?”

“I mean, he just, he just wasn’t acting right. I mean, and he, I, I know he said something about having to go and get away and—”

“But he said he wasn’t ‘allowed’ to be your friend anymore.”

Cynthia continued to say, over and over, “I don’t know.” She sounded confused and bewildered. Like there were no words to describe how she felt and how her relationship with Jeff had ended. The tone of her voice would have led one to believe that Jeff’s murder was something she had never expected. Not what she wanted by any means. She was as surprised by it as everyone else.

They talked about Bonnie for a time, Cynthia explaining how she wanted to attend the funeral and call the house, but she didn’t want to impinge on Bonnie’s pain, making her grief any worse. Elayne brought up Ed again, but Cynthia ignored the mention of her wealthy husband and focused on why she didn’t attend the wake or funeral.

“He was distraught,” said Elayne, “and why someone would murder him—”

Cynthia cut in. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t…,” she said, trailing off. Then, “I mean, I, I was supposed to be in the [Mrs.] Ohio pageant and I didn’t even go. I mean…everything was ready in the program and everything, I…I…couldn’t go. I just couldn’t go. I can’t…I just can’t say that he was acting so strange lately.”

Elayne Zack was getting tired of hearing “I don’t know.” With a more stern voice, quite out of character, she asked, “I want to know
why
he wasn’t allowed to be your friend! That’s what I’m curious to know, because I know that”—she hesitated for a moment—“he used to come to Phoenix and call you like every five minutes.”

After another round of “I know…I don’t know,” Cynthia went back to saying how sorry she was for not stopping by the house or going to the wake. “I was just afraid of Bonnie, you know, what she would think….” In the same breath, however, not being able to make the Mrs. Ohio pageant that year seemed to bother Cynthia more than missing Jeff’s funeral. While talking about Jeff, she added, “I had sent all my money in and…and been through the whole thing.” It was a waste. All that time. The application and interview process. Fixing her hair. The clothes. Exercising. For what?

Nothing.

“But why didn’t you go?” Elayne asked. “Because you were upset about Jeffrey?”

“Yeah, I mean, I, I couldn’t, you know…I just…he, he…I wanted to go over there…”

“But didn’t your husband ever suspect that something was maybe going on between you? Didn’t he wonder?”

Cynthia went silent.

When Cynthia decided to speak again after a short pause, she said, “Well, he, you know, I always like, you know, a lot of time he would call, he, and just be upset about anything or whatever. It just seemed like I was the one that he always, you know…” She trailed off, apparently lost in thought.

Elayne was confused: “Who, Jeffrey or Ed?”

Cynthia didn’t answer at first. Then she digressed yet again and carried on about Jeff’s various jobs and how he had perhaps got hooked up with people on crack cocaine. It was a shock to Elayne that Cynthia would say such a thing.

Crack cocaine? Jeffrey? Come on.

Elayne countered by saying he would
never
take that type of drug. Cynthia ultimately agreed. They were going around in circles. Elayne kept dangling the Ed George carrot, but Cynthia wouldn’t take it.

After talking a bit about how members of the CAPU were at her house the previous Sunday asking questions, Cynthia sounded exhausted and even more confused, talking in brief sound bites that made little sense to Elayne, who kept pressing, asking about the relationship and what could have happened to Jeff.

At one point, Cynthia went on the offensive. “I know my husband did not hurt Jeffrey! I mean, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“No, I just, I know he didn’t, either. He wouldn’t have done it purposely himself.”

Cynthia changed the subject and asked about Ashton, saying at one point, “It’s a tragedy.”

And it was. Regardless of the type of person some thought Jeff Zack was, he had been a dedicated, loving father to his son. The boy was going to suffer the most. He would bear the brunt of the media’s coverage as the case developed. The more skeletons that came out, the more Ashton would begin to question things.

“It
is
a tragedy,” Elayne agreed. She was hurt. There was no need to pump up that emotion. What could be worse than losing a child?

Cynthia blamed the end of the relationship on extenuating circumstances, explaining that there was something else going on in Jeff’s life that weighed heavily on the two of them, which ultimately became a problem within the dynamic of the relationship. In describing that, she seemed to suggest those problems were too overbearing and the relationship wasn’t worth the trouble it was causing. What would become important to the investigation later, Cynthia made no mention of any type of sexual or physical abuse as a reason for her ending the relationship. To the contrary, she blamed the breakup on the problems it was causing for both their marriages.

Still, Cynthia was very vague, not locking herself into what, exactly, had caused the demise of the romance. Elayne wanted specifics. She was determined to find out precisely what, as she later put it, the “final straw” had been. She said she wanted to “understand” what happened so she could have some closure. It was going to help her during the grieving process. As Jeff’s mother, didn’t she deserve as much? “I’m not accusing anybody,” Elayne finally said. “I’m not implying
anything
.” She sounded strong and organized in her thoughts.

“No, no,” said Cynthia.

“I’m just curious to know why you wouldn’t see him anymore?”

It was awfully strange to Elayne that they had dated for nearly ten years and only weeks after the breakup Jeff ended up dead.

“It…it didn’t have anything to do with that,” Cynthia said.

“He never told you what it was?” asked Elayne after Cynthia went on about “something” that was bothering Jeff.

“Um…ah…”

“He probably confided in you more than anybody else.”

“The last thing I…the last thing he said [to me] was, ‘They’re investigating me at work.’”

“Cindy,” Elayne said, sounding as though she were rolling her eyes, “I saw his boss. There’s no way.”

“That’s the last thing that he told me,” Cynthia said sharply. She meant what she said.

“There’s no way.”

“I don’t know…I mean, you can ask, I don’t know. But that’s what I, that’s what he
told
me. Something about…uh…you know, Phoenix and—”

“Oh?”

“Of, if, uh, and the, um, he was just, you, you know if you, the way that he is or was…he was acting like that all the time.” According to Cynthia, when she was around Jeff during those final weeks, he, too, was calm and apologetic. Much different from the norm.

“So you told him that he couldn’t see you anymore?” Elayne wanted to pinpoint Cynthia down to some sort of concrete story.

“No, I just, I just, I said, ‘I don’t know what you’re, what’s going on or what, you know, but, you know, you know, I can’t, I can’t have, you know, it’s, it’s, you know…’”

It was getting ridiculous. Cynthia would start to say something, but then stop herself.

“No more fun,” Elayne said condescendingly.

Ignoring that, Cynthia came back with, “He said, ‘I got to get out of here. I gotta, I gotta get out of here.’”

Elayne didn’t know what to make of the statement.

“I don’t know what kind of trouble he was in,” Cynthia said.

Elayne pounded home the point that it was nearly impossible for her to believe that between all the time Cynthia and Jeff spent together that Ed George never questioned the relationship. It was inconceivable.

Cynthia agreed. What else could she say? Elayne wasn’t some deranged mother, filling her days with
The Young and the Restless,
ignorant to what was going on in the world. She was an educated, intelligent woman. Cynthia had better not underestimate her.

“It was a problem here and a problem there,” Cynthia said.

Elayne didn’t answer.

“But he, he really, he didn’t care,” added Cynthia.

They continued to talk about how distressed Jeff seemed recently. Then Cynthia dropped the Arab card, saying that she knew Jeff was doing some work for an “Arab family,” adding, “I don’t know if he owed money [to] them.”

Elayne was still puzzled by the fact that Ed George didn’t make more of a stink about the relationship, saying, “I mean, if my husband saw me on bike trips and being with another guy, he would have wondered and said something. I had to call and ask you that, and I’m not accusing anybody and I know that he had nothing to do with it, believe me, it was the guy probably Jeffrey cut off.”

Cynthia responded immediately: “Pardon me?”

“The guy that murdered Jeffrey,” Elayne said harshly, trying to shift the conversation into the reason why she agreed to make the call. “Jeffrey probably cut him off, had a fight with him, because he left here angry on Saturday morning. He probably had road rage somehow. I’m not, I know Ed had nothing to do with it. But I never could understand and I, I just need to
know
.”

“Yeah,” Cynthia said, “that, that [meaning road rage] happened a lot….”

This theory of Elayne’s seemed to calm Cynthia down. She started talking about what she was doing on the day Jeff was killed. She mentioned the wedding she and Ed had attended with the kids. Then she said the police had scared the kids by coming to the house on Sunday to ask questions.

Then the conversation went back to Bonnie. “Bonnie never gets mad at anybody,” Elayne said.

Cynthia disagreed, claiming that Bonnie had screamed at her a few times.

For the CAPU, the telephone call wasn’t going to obviously produce anything of investigatory value other than—as Ed Moriarty explained it later—proving that Cynthia and Jeff had an active extramarital affair going on for quite some time. It was significant for the reason that Cynthia herself, on tape, was admitting to it.

“Ed kind of accepted that we were friends…,” Cynthia said near the end of the conversation.

Cynthia and Jeff had told people their relationship was a platonic friendship—that Cynthia knew Jeff better than anyone and had been, as she tried telling Elayne, “consoling” Jeff on the problems he had in life.

To that, Elayne said, “I have to be honest and tell you that he did, he, he did tell someone that, ‘If something happens to me, it’s because of Ed George.’ Now, that could be Jeffrey’s drama.”

“Yeah,” Cynthia said quickly, seemingly unaffected by the comment.

“You know Jeffrey was very dramatic.”

“Right.”