If Looks Could Kill (25 page)

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.”

Whiddon tried comforting her. Finally, after allowing Christine to voice her concerns, she agreed to continue with the plan.

“What else could I do at that point?” she told me later. “They left me with
very
few options.”

Early in the morning on June 16, Captain Beth Daugherty called Bertina King. Daugherty was at home. She had an idea. “Check with the LEADS operator to see what kind of vehicles John Zaffino had registered in his name—specifically,
motorcycles
.”

No one had thought of it. If Zaffino had purchased a bike to use for the murder, there was going to be a record of it. Maybe they’d get lucky and come up with a match. Moreover, was John Zaffino that stupid to have registered a motorcycle similar to the one used in the murder, in his own name—if, in fact, he had bought a motorcycle for the sole purpose of killing Jeff Zack?

Some believed he was.

Daugherty arrived at work by about noon. She immediately got together with Vince Felber and Bertina King and went through the printout King had in her hand. There it was: a 1995 motorcycle registered to Zaffino, which was previously registered to Midwest Motors on Massillon Road in Uniontown, Ohio.

Things seemed to be coming together.

Daugherty called Midwest. She got hold of the manager, Chris Hause, and explained that she was conducting an investigation and needed information about a motorcycle Midwest had sold in the neighborhood of a year or more ago.

After Hause looked up the paperwork, he said, “Kristine Petaya was the salesperson.”

“Can you fax me a copy of the sales receipt?”

“Sure.”

Daugherty had a look at the receipt and called Hause back. “Can you describe the particular model of motorcycle Mr. Zaffino purchased?”

“That’s a Ninja-style bike…black, with a green or yellow stripe. It’s a CBR 1000.”

Bull’s-eye.

When Daugherty spoke to the actual salesperson who had sold Zaffino the bike, she said she remembered he was “pushy” and “appeared to be in a hurry. I felt as though he was in such a hurry that he had to have the bike on
that
day.”

The receipt indicated the bike was sold on May 23, 2001, about 3½ weeks before Jeff Zack was murdered.

“Was he with anyone when he bought the bike?” Daugherty asked.

“A female. She was thin and white.”

Daugherty made an appointment with the salesclerk to meet at her apartment later that night. She wanted to ask her a few more questions about the bike. As soon as they hung up, Daugherty swiveled around in her desk chair and logged on to the Internet. Then, using a common search engine, she typed in
1995 Honda CBR 1000
. She wanted to see if there was a bike for sale anywhere on the Internet. It was worth a shot, she believed. If Zaffino had sold the bike or given it away, that person or dealer could have put it up for sale on the Internet. The eBay craze had created a digital flea market–like stir on the Internet. Even though it left a cyber paper trail, if someone wanted to get rid of evidence, eBay provided a meeting place to dump a bike and hope the buyer was from out of state, or maybe even another country.

Daugherty found several models, but all were manufactured during different years.

Before leaving the office, Daugherty grabbed two photos, one of Christine Todaro and another of Cynthia George, then headed over to Petaya’s apartment. It was around seven o’clock.

After asking several questions related to the sale of the bike, she showed the woman both photos, saying, “Recognize either of these women as having been with Zaffino on the day he bought that bike?”

Petaya shook her head. “No, sorry. But you may want to talk to Ken Colpo, our finance manager. I bet he’d remember the sale.” Zaffino had paid cash for the bike. It was odd someone would lay out $5,200 and change
in cash
for a motorcycle.

Odd, sure, but not a crime.

Zaffino, Petaya mentioned next, had been into the store a few times in relation to the sale.

“Thanks. I was wondering,” Daugherty asked, “would you have any brochures or catalogues with photos of the bike that I could have?”

“You can find the bike on the Internet,” Petaya said.

Daugherty wanted to chuckle, albeit respectfully. She had already covered that angle. “I checked it out,” she said. “I found nothing.”

“Do you have a moment to wait while I go upstairs and do a quick Internet search?”

“Of course.”

What Daugherty would soon learn was that when searching the Internet for information or a specific item, the most important factor of the search is
where
you look for the information. It can make all the difference.

Petaya’s computer was in her bedroom on the second floor. “Come with me,” she said to Daugherty.

They went upstairs. Within a few minutes, Petaya logged on to a specialty motorcycle trader site that Daugherty later described as being “similar to eBay, only that it was dedicated to [the sale of] motorcycles.”

It was something Daugherty hadn’t done.

As Daugherty stood in back of Petaya, the glare of the computer screen strobing in their faces like a flickering jack-o’-lantern, Petaya typed the make and model of Zaffino’s bike into the site’s search engine.

And there it was. Only one bike listed under that make and model. From the photo, Petaya was sure it was the same type of bike—maybe even the specific bike Zaffino had purchased.

She printed out the page.

When Daugherty got it into her hands, she realized that the bike had been put up for sale by a used-car lot in Pennsylvania.
Zaffino has an ex-wife in Pennsylvania…?
she thought, standing there and reading the printout. But she couldn’t think of the city just then.

“Can I use your computer?” Daugherty asked.

Petaya got up from her chair. “Sure,” she said with a curious stare. She could tell Daugherty, in deep thought, was onto something.

Indeed, Daugherty logged onto MapQuest and typed in the name of the city Zaffino was from and found it to be within seventeen miles of Pittsburgh and about seventy miles outside Youngstown, Ohio. “I felt this was very close (in terms of mileage, distance) to where I knew Zaffino had ties,” Daugherty later wrote in her report. “The bike on the Web site was the exact model and coloring of the one Zaffino had purchased.”

The CAPU now had an enormous advantage on Zaffino; the circumstantial evidence pointing toward him was beyond reproach. At the least, he would have some explaining to do, even if he wasn’t involved.

Daugherty and Petaya went back downstairs into the kitchen.

“Can you call the number listed on the Web site?” Daugherty asked. Together, they decided it would be best if Petaya depicted herself as a salesperson who had an interested buyer for the bike advertised on the site. Daugherty knew she couldn’t pull off the call herself. She hardly knew anything about motorcycles. The seller might get nervous. And what if the seller was connected to Zaffino? Maybe he had taken the bike to cover up the crime for his friend? Without even trying, Daugherty could destroy a potential piece of evidence just by tipping the guy off that she was interested in the bike. On the other hand, the call was worth the risk: it would tell Daugherty rather quickly if there was anything to get excited about. For all she knew, the bike could have been sold weeks ago. Maybe the Internet ad was old.

Petaya dialed the number and spoke with a man by the name of Russell Forrest. He owned the used-car lot where the bike was being sold. “I got the bike from my fiancée’s ex-husband as payment for back child support,” Forrest said. He seemed willing to freely give out information. It was a good sign, Daugherty thought.

“Do you still have it?” Petaya asked.

“Yeah. It’s in excellent condition.”

“Have there been any repairs made to the bike?”

“We replaced one of the tires.”

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Forrest. Let me get back to you if my buyer is still interested.”

After she finished the conversation with Forrest, Petaya told Daugherty the bike she sold to John Zaffino had a tire replaced prior to the final sale. This was important. The CAPU had taken a rubber sample at the scene of the Zack murder. Now, there was no way they could match up the rubber samples. But at the same time, why was the tire replaced? The tire replacement alone could mean something.

Daugherty left Petaya’s apartment around 8:00
P.M
., letting her know she was going to call her the following morning. Once she got home, Daugherty called Vince Felber, who confirmed the name of the city where Zaffino’s first ex-wife lived. It was a match. The ex-wife’s name, he said, was Nancy Bonadio. Through an FBI office in Cleveland, Daugherty was then able to connect the VIN from the sale of the bike to Zaffino and crisscross it with Forrest Motors, which was owned and operated by Russell Forrest, the man Petaya had spoken to on the telephone—who just happened to be engaged to Bonadio, Zaffino’s ex-wife.

It was obvious to Daugherty that she had made the connection between Zaffino and the bike. It all fit. So she called her boss, Paul Callahan, and explained what was going on.

In a sense, Daugherty had broken a major part of the case. She had found the bike. After some heated discussion over what to do next, it was decided the CAPU was going to send two detectives to Pennsylvania as soon as possible. Daugherty called the Pennsylvania State Police (PSP) and discussed the prospect of sending detectives to Pennsylvania to interview Russell Forrest and Nancy Bonadio. During the course of the trip, the CAPU would, with any luck, get their hands on Zaffino’s motorcycle.

“Please don’t interview, drive by or in any way have contact with Nancy or Russell until we can devise our strategy for picking up the bike, OK?” Daugherty said to the trooper.

“Sure. No problem.”

Later that afternoon, Daugherty met with Petaya again, and got her hands on the original file connected to the sale of the bike. “I recall a few of the details of the sale,” Petaya offered, after going through the file. “John Zaffino had been to the store on at least two occasions referencing the same motorcycle. The first time he came to the store he gave me his name as ‘John Smith.’”

Petaya, of course, laughed at the name and knew it was fake.

During the time Zaffino had owned the bike, he had hardly put any miles on it. When it was sold, Petaya explained, the bike’s odometer read 10,120 miles. The mileage on the bike for sale at Forrest Motors was listed as eleven thousand. Furthermore, there had been a customer promotion going on when Zaffino bought the bike. Whenever they sold a bike, the salesperson photographed the buyer standing next to his or her new purchase. They had a wall of photographs with smiling customers and their new bikes. But after a search, no one could locate a photograph of Zaffino and his purchase. Either he refused to be photographed, a salesperson said, or someone had taken the photo down. There were empty spots on the wall where it appeared photographs had been taken down.

And so it appeared as if the CAPU was finally going to get its hands on the motorcycle that had eluded the detectives for a little over a year. With that motorcycle and Christine Todaro’s work with Zaffino getting ready to begin, it certainly seemed like they were narrowing their focus. An arrest, detectives were confident, was coming.