If Looks Could Kill (18 page)

Near the end of July, several CAPU detectives set out to canvass the Temple Trail neighborhood, where Jeff, Bonnie and Ashton lived. Ed Moriarty and Lieutenant Dave Whiddon had their suspicions about Ed George, and were still following the baby Zack lead. But they insisted on digging deeper. Don’t ever stop, they maintained. After all, no shooter had been found, nor had the CAPU connected a Ninja motorcycle to Ed George or anyone else. In fact, that motorcycle was still out there. It was going be a major part of any prosecutorial case later on—it needed to be found. Maybe looking in the garages of Jeff Zack’s neighbors might turn up something.

The most interesting story detectives found while canvassing the neighborhood turned out to be about the victim himself. Felber spoke to a former neighbor of Jeff Zack’s, a rather good-looking thirty-six-year-old woman who had lived in the neighborhood for quite a while. She liked to sunbathe poolside, in the privacy of her backyard. On occasion, Jeff would wander across the street and stare at her. Several times, he had even walked into her yard to “make comments,” she said. The woman’s husband, fed up with Jeff’s behavior, waited one afternoon and confronted him. When that didn’t work, the husband squirted Jeff in the face with a hose. When that did little to stop him, the guy grabbed Jeff by the shirt and scuffled with him.

Finally the husband called a neighborhood meeting about Jeff. He had gotten hold of several police reports about Jeff’s felonious behavior and distributed copies to everyone. One guy later said that his daughter used to babysit for the Zacks—that is, until Jeff greeted the girl one day at the door in a towel.

“I didn’t know Jeff Zack’s son or wife,” the woman told Felber. “But I did hear her yell occasionally. One time, I recall hearing her scream, ‘I’m not going to let you hurt me anymore.’ But I never saw any physical abuse.”

Several neighbors had interesting stories to add to Jeff’s diminishing character profile, but the CAPU felt no one in the neighborhood would have gone so far as to murder Jeff Zack.

The following day, another neighbor confirmed what the CAPU had heard from someone else: Jeff Zack had stopped at a yard sale on the Saturday morning of his murder before heading straight to BJ’s. On top of that, another neighbor complained of Jeff walking into her yard during the summer months to gawk at her while she sunbathed. Her husband had also squirted Jeff with a hose.

On the last day of July, Detective Felber telephoned Tangier banquet manager
Barbara Smith,
who had been a loyal Ed George employee for sixteen years. The forty-one-year-old was a hard worker, often spending ten to twelve hours per shift at the restaurant. Barbara knew Jeff Zack, she said, but only because she saw him regularly at the restaurant. They would say hello to each other on occasion, but that was the extent of the relationship. Still, she knew Jeff’s voice because he had called the bar and restaurant so many times throughout the years. He’d never asked for Ed, she said; it was always Cynthia. And if Cynthia wasn’t there, he’d make a point to say he’d call her on her cell phone. Cynthia had spent a considerable amount of time at the restaurant, Barbara added, making no secret of her leadership role in remodeling the place, but that ended abruptly about a month before Jeff’s murder. Water-cooler talk was that Cynthia had spent too much of Ed’s money and was told to stay out.

The affair between Jeff and Cynthia, Barbara claimed, was no secret around the restaurant. It wasn’t openly discussed, but “everyone knew about it.” Barbara also had a story about Aaron Brown, relaying to Felber that Brown had been seen around the restaurant talking to Ed since Jeff’s murder. However, she believed his visit was more for sales than anything else. At one time, Brown was being groomed to be Ed’s replacement after his retirement, until he was fired one day when Ed brought in another protégé. This riled Brown, who felt torn over it.

Other than tying up a few loose ends, Barbara offered few new details. There was a time when Cynthia, she said, used to drop the kids off at the restaurant and take off for the day, leaving them with Ed. But that changed over the past few months.

Felber wondered why.

“They hired nannies.”

Barbara gave Felber the names of two women specifically.

There was one more thing, she added, before Felber thanked her and cut her loose.

“I know that Ed changed the family’s phone number a few months ago, I just don’t know why.”

Many people changed their telephone number. What was so important about Ed doing it?

Barbara felt it was odd because Ed hadn’t told anyone at the restaurant. Shouldn’t Ed’s employees have the telephone number?

Lieutenant Dave Whiddon was sitting at his desk on August 15, around 2:30
P.M
., when Bonnie’s father, Bob Boucher, called. The man was frantic and out of breath. He seemed overly excited about something pertinent to the investigation into his son-in-law’s murder.

“What is it?” Whiddon asked.

“I got a call from an old friend who gave me some information about who is responsible for Jeff’s murder. It confirmed my suspicions.”

Whiddon went through his mental Rolodex:
Suspicions?
There were several people from Jeff’s side of the family who had theories. Carl and Seth were still suspects. Ed George was on the top of the family’s list.

Whiddon told Mr. Boucher to slow down and relax. Take his time.

“I need to see a detective
right
now,” the senior Boucher insisted. “I do
not
want to discuss this over the telephone.”

Whiddon checked his watch. “I can meet you at about four-thirty.”

“Hurry.”

Walking into Mr. Boucher’s apartment at 4:20
P.M
., Whiddon asked the seventy-year-old about the telephone call. What was so darn important that he couldn’t talk about it over the telephone? “Sit down,” Mr. Boucher said.

They sat in the living room.

“I have a good friend who used to date Bonnie,” the senior Boucher began. “He called me. He said he was talking to a woman…. She said she knew Jeff.” As Bonnie’s father spoke, Whiddon considered how unpredictable third-party information was—this woman had spoken to Bob Boucher’s friend, who then relayed the information to Mr. Boucher. It had to be taken with complete skepticism, yet it could possibly lead to something important.

Listen to it. Check it out. Move on
.

Whiddon was an experienced investigator, however; he knew one conversation could lead to another, and perhaps Mr. Boucher, without realizing it, had credible information to share.

The woman had a close friend who worked at the Tangier. That friend, Whiddon learned, had supposedly overheard a conversation between Ed George and someone else. Apparently, Ed had mentioned learning of the affair between Cynthia and Jeff and vowed to “take care of it.”

Groundbreaking, no. Informative, maybe. Since he had Mr. Boucher’s attention, Whiddon asked him what else he could share about the affair. Had he himself known about it, too?

“For the past five or six years,” Boucher admitted. “It wasn’t hard to figure out. Whenever Cindy called Jeff at home, he would stop whatever he was doing and jump up to the phone. Jeff and Cindy went bike riding together.”

More of the same. The CAPU had indisputable proof that Jeff Zack and Cynthia George were an item. Hell, they had DNA evidence that Jeff had fathered one of Cynthia’s children. But what else was there? None of it pointed to murder.

Bonnie knew about the relationship, too, her father explained. But she wanted to work on the marriage and had put up with the affair because, being divorced once already, she wanted to provide a stable environment for Ashton. “I had contacted a police officer friend in Arizona when Bonnie first met Jeff,” Mr. Boucher told Whiddon. “He told me, after checking Jeff out, to tell Bonnie to ‘pass this one up.’ But Bonnie wouldn’t listen.”

Perhaps without realizing it, Mr. Boucher was setting in place a motive for his daughter to kill her husband by providing Whiddon with a reason. During their conversation, Whiddon asked Bonnie’s dad if he had ever spoken to Bonnie about Jeff’s relationship with Cynthia. To that, Mr. Boucher said, “Bonnie told me once that one time when she and Jeff were arguing about the affair, Jeff screamed at her, ‘You know Cindy’s youngest daughter is mine.’ But after the argument ended, Jeff told her he was only kidding.”

Jeff’s father-in-law placed Cynthia at Jeff’s house on several occasions, which was something the CAPU hadn’t heard. Then he gave Whiddon a breakdown of the George family businesses, adding that they were “connected” and could easily “get things done.”

“Jeff would not give Cindy up,” Mr. Boucher said, “even when Ed found out about the relationship.” Then, “It’s odd to me that after Jeff’s death, Bonnie received over forty sympathy cards, but none were from the Georges and they never called.”

To say the least, Whiddon left the elder Boucher’s home confused. He didn’t know what to think of the new information.

Ed Moriarty and Dave Whiddon felt they needed to clarify several pieces of information with Bonnie Zack. By August 21, enough time had elapsed where they could sit down with Bonnie and hash it all out. Although they considered Bonnie a suspect, they weren’t too sold on the idea that she was behind her husband’s murder. Bonnie Zack had been the “other woman” for ten years. She knew darn well her husband had fathered his mistress’s child—she didn’t need a DNA test to prove it. Still, could she have managed to finance and stage what was a perfect murder plot?

Moriarty and Whiddon didn’t think so, but they had to consider the possibility. Moriarty had built a comfortable rapport with Bonnie over the course of the summer. He believed she was at ease with him asking tough questions. So he began the latest interview by asking Bonnie if she knew what people Jeff was involved with during some of the “troubles” with law enforcement he’d had back in Arizona. Could she give them any names?

Bonnie mentioned a man’s name. Then, “Jeff told me that [this guy] and his girlfriend ran [a prostitution] operation. All Jeff did was drive them around. He claimed he got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

During the conversation, Bonnie would stop and think about her answers, then continue. “Well,” she said at one point, talking about the Arizona case, “I think Jeff went to the police when he knew there was going to be trouble.” She paused, shaking her head. “I’m not sure if Jeff was telling me the truth, or just what I wanted to hear.”

For the next half hour, they discussed the prospect that Jeff’s death could have been the result of any number of the problems Jeff had gotten himself into with the brokerage company in San Diego that he had worked for, or a credit card company that he had tried to start in 1999. Cynthia had even worked for Jeff, Bonnie said, in the office of the credit card company, but the business never took off. Bonnie said a few disgruntled clients had called the house from time to time, but none of the calls were threatening in nature. Jeff had burned some people.

The reason Jeff and Bonnie had moved to Ohio, Bonnie explained, was because her mother had gotten sick. When they first arrived in town, Bonnie said, they rented a house. Jeff was able to find a “good job.” Bonnie thought “everything was fine.” They were beginning their lives together, but Jeff always wanted more. “He complained a lot and was having a hard time adjusting.” San Diego and Akron were two different worlds then. Jeff lived for the fast lane, on the edge. Ohio was boring to him. That was why, when he and Bonnie started hanging out at the Tangier, Jeff felt like he was back in his element.

When Jeff and Cynthia met, Ed and Cynthia were in the process of building the enormous mansion they had lived in ever since. While the house was being constructed, Bonnie and Jeff had gone out there on several occasions, checking the progress. By then, Jeff and Cynthia had become “friends.” Each time Jeff brought Bonnie out to the mansion, she said, Cynthia was there. She never thought anything of it then. But, of course, now it made sense. “She was, like, the contractor…,” Bonnie said. It seemed like building the house was Cynthia’s full-time job.

Many times, however, Jeff took off to the house by himself to “help Cindy” with various jobs. “When the Georges’ house was completed,” Bonnie added, “Jeff moved them in.”

Moriarty brought up Ed and Cynthia’s children. Bonnie admitted Jeff had said angrily one day that Ruby was his, but pulled back from it afterward, adding, “I just wanted to see what your reaction would be.”

“You ever confront Cindy,” Moriarty asked, “about she and Jeff?” It was a fair question. Had Bonnie simply placated them, acted naïve about the relationship and played the happy wife role, as if nothing were going on? Or had she just accepted the strange fact that she had to share her husband with another woman if she wanted to keep him?

“Yes, once.”

“When was that?”

“It was after I found a pair of her panties hidden in Jeff’s dresser. Cindy was in Florida,” Bonnie said, obviously distressed over having to recall the memory, “and she called Jeff. I had Jeff’s cell phone with me and answered the call.” Realizing who it was, Bonnie said, “I found something.”

Cynthia answered, “Huh?”

Bonnie didn’t tell her what she found.

“Bonnie,” Cynthia said, “you don’t know how much I am helping Jeffrey.”

Moriarty wanted to know if Cynthia had said anything else during that confrontation over the telephone. This was pivotal. What Cynthia said could explain a lot.

Bonnie didn’t answer. She shook her head, as if to suggest no.

Jeff had gone to Bonnie one day in 1998 and asked her if she wanted to have lunch with him and Cynthia so they could “work this out.” Bonnie was offended, as any wife might be, and flat-out refused. What was there to work out?

A month before Jeff’s murder, Bonnie said, he told her the relationship with Cynthia was over—but she had been under the impression that Jeff had ended it two years before. As she began going back, remembering that conversation, Moriarty noticed that Bonnie “started to digress, almost talking to herself about why Jeff told her it was over.” It was strange, Moriarty said later. “She acted odd, but I knew her well enough by then to know that it was just in her nature to act this way when talking about Jeff.”

As Bonnie drifted away in thought, Whiddon and Moriarty realized it was time to conclude the interview. “Thanks for everything, Bonnie,” Moriarty said. “We appreciate all the help you’ve been. If we have anything else, we’ll be in touch, OK?”

Bonnie nodded and saw the two investigators out the door.

As Moriarty and Whiddon drove back to the station house, Moriarty looked at his understudy and said, “It’s time.”

“I know,” Whiddon agreed. “We’ll get on it right away.”