After a short drive, Felber verified there was a dock positioned where the cabbie had claimed. But when it came to pointing out the house near the store where he said he saw the motorcycle, the guy had trouble recalling exactly where it was.

  As they drove around, Felber noticed the guy was “overly eager to please” him, often rambling on and on, saying how much he liked to help the police. Felber had a keen sense; he knew how to read witnesses. He had worked the streets of Akron for years, using confidential informant (CI) sources as a means to solve burglaries. When Felber first joined the APD, he was a greenhorn kid working in the private sector for a marketing firm. Marketing and journalism were his majors in college. He grew up in what he described as a “lower-middle-class” section of the city and, before hitting the streets in a blue uniform, had never even been to the hardscrabble sections of the city he later patrolled.

  In any event, it was not a good sign that this particular witness was overly enthusiastic about helping him. The guy didn’t even seem nervous, which was another indication that his information was likely overexaggerated or entirely bogus.

  Dropping him off back at the cab company, Felber said, “Listen, if you think of anything else, call me.”

  “I will. I will. Thank you, sir. Good luck to you.”

  It was worth following up. So Felber drove immediately back to the store and started asking questions. A young kid who was working that day told Felber he didn’t know of anyone in the neighborhood who owned a green-and-black Ninja motorcycle. But he did know of “one Middle Eastern man with a Caucasian wife” who lived in the area and stopped at the store once in a while.

  Cindy and Ed George?

  The owner of the store said basically the same thing, adding, “I lived next door to Jeff Zack for about three months. But I didn’t get to know Jeff too well. I wasn’t there long enough. A friend of mine did know Jeff pretty well and was also his neighbor.”

  Felber left the store, shaking his head, wondering if the case could get any more complicated. If the CAPU had uncovered in just a week’s time a dozen or more people Jeff Zack had infuriated throughout his life, how many more were out there they didn’t know about?

  The following day, Felber got in touch with a man he had arrested a year prior for stealing upward of forty thousand dollars from his then-employer, who happened to be Ed George’s brother. He asked the guy about the business of vending machines in general. There was still a lingering notion that Jeff Zack had gotten into an altercation over a long-running dispute with someone messing with his vending machines.

  The guy said the vending business was on the “up and up” these days. Fifty years ago, people in the business got their legs broken regularly, he added, for violating the mafia’s control of the industry. But it wasn’t like that anymore. “Problems today are fixed by the court system.”

  “Do you know any of the Georges?” Felber asked.

  “I don’t know much about Ed or his brother’s personal life, only what I’ve been told.”

  “From whom?”

  “This guy Red, who worked security for Ed George at the Tangier for almost twenty years.”

  “What’d you hear?”

  “He said Cindy, Ed’s wife, was involved in a number of affairs and that Ed knew about them all. Cindy runs that household. Ed is a doting father who has a very low opinion of just about everyone.”

  “Tell me about Cindy, specifically.”

  The guy seemed restless, like he was willing to talk, but unwilling to give details he had heard from someone else.

  Because he had worked at the Tangier, Felber knew Ed and Cynthia George when they were first married. Cynthia was an airline employee when she met Ed. Many saw her as a hot-looking blonde with cheerleader legs, dolled-up, shiny Charlie’s Angels hair, with the perfect mixture of eyeliner and cherry red lipstick, serving up cocktails and little finger foods, while wearing a miniskirt, inside a major airline’s Gold Club at the airport.

  Throughout the time they sat and talked inside the guy’s apartment, Felber felt the guy was “guarded,” holding things back. He seemed antsy and nervous. When Felber asked him about Ed and Cynthia’s children, he reluctantly said, “I know one of them is adopted…and one is, well…I don’t know.”

  As Felber was leaving, he couldn’t help but notice how close the guy’s apartment was to the store near Silver Lake where the cabbie had said he saw the Ninja motorcycle and heard two guys talking about whacking someone.

  Coincidence?

  33

  Whiddon and McFarland weren’t satisfied with what they heard about Seth and Carl; it was hard to scratch both men off the list. Seth was in Florida. If a break in the case, pointing detectives in another direction entirely, didn’t come soon, a detective was going to have to fly down to the Sunshine State and question Seth. But still, Ashton Zack, Jeff’s son, had mentioned Seth and Carl in his original interview with Bertina King. The boy was sure one of them had had something to do with his father’s death—as much as he was sure it was Ed George. That threat Ashton had heard Seth scream at his dad: “I’ll rip your throat out with a hot butter knife.”

  Strong words. Explosive. Violent. Intimidating.

  Although the boy would grieve for the rest of his life, and was in no way over the initial impact of losing his father, McFarland and Whiddon felt Ashton could be helpful, and decided to reinterview him.

  Regardless of the type of person Jeff Zack had become over the course of his life, most agreed he loved his child and treated him with the ultimate amount of respect, often devoting most of his free time to the boy. Jeff had been there, supporting Ashton’s endeavors, whatever they were, regardless how many mistresses he had or what he and Bonnie were going through. It didn’t make Jeff “Father of the Year,” but it said something about his devotion to his son.

  Bonnie answered the door after Whiddon and McFarland knocked. She said she knew they were coming. Someone from the CAPU had called. “Come in, please,” Bonnie said pleasantly.

  “Thanks, Bonnie,” said Whiddon. “How are things?”

  She didn’t say much about how she felt, but was eager to have the investigators talk to Ashton, who was up in his room. “Go upstairs. Talk to him privately. I don’t mind.”

  The sadness weighing on the boy was evident in the way he carried himself. His youth had been blindsided by tragedy, disrupting, perhaps, everything else that may have seemed important a few weeks ago. Still, he wanted to help catch his dad’s killer.

  “We need to go over a few things,” Whiddon said caringly.

  Ashton shrugged in agreement.

  “Tell us about Carl and Seth, Ashton.”

  “Seth is short and fat, with a raspy and distinctive voice. Carl coached my football team for two years.”

  Essentially, Ashton couldn’t offer anything new. He reiterated what he had told the CAPU the day his father was murdered, repeating that same threatening line from Seth.

  About a half hour into the conversation, Whiddon asked Ashton if there was a feeling he had about his dad’s murder.

  “I think my dad knew he was going to die.”

  Whiddon and McFarland looked at each other. Whiddon asked, “What makes you say that?”

  “After he died, I came across a box of old photos of my dad. My dad kept the box hidden. He didn’t like people going through his stuff. I found it because it was out in the open. My dad was obviously going through it himself.”

  “What type of photos?”

  “His whole life.”

  Ashton was a smart, articulate kid. Whiddon and McFarland appreciated how direct he was with his theories. Near the end of the conversation, Ashton described his dad’s trip to Arizona during the Mother’s Day holiday: “He wanted to make up with them, because he felt that something was going to happen to him.”

  34

  Motive was the number one concern on Ed Moriarty’s mind as the investigation seemed to grow colder during the early days of the second week. The CAPU had conducted upward of fifty interviews with the likes of ex-girlfriends and mistresses, former coworkers and acquaintances, relatives, siblings, Bonnie Zack, Cynthia and Ed George, Ashton and several people who had called in tips. “Motive,” Moriarty recalled. “What would cause someone to be involved in Jeff Zack’s murder? We had harassment on the table, and, well, harassment to me didn’t feel like enough to kill someone. Not in this situation.”

  A question kept popping up as Moriarty studied the case: How did the shooter know Jeff Zack was going to be at BJ’s that morning? It was possible—and the APD had a report—that the motorcyclist followed Jeff into the parking lot. But still, no one had reported a Ninja motorcycle hanging around Jeff’s neighborhood. “So we started to look into Jeff’s phone records,” Moriarty said. “And that’s when certain things fell into place.”

  Yes, Jeff Zack had spent time in Israel in the Israeli Army, that much was confirmed. Yes, Jeff was pro-Israel and had gotten into several heated arguments with Arabs who were pro-Palestine. But did any of that have an impact on who murdered him? After studying the reports and interviews, Moriarty didn’t feel Jeff’s connections to Israel had anything whatsoever to do with his demise. “It just didn’t fit. We checked it all out, but time and again came up with nothing.”

  When Moriarty found out that Jeff Zack had possibly fathered one of Cynthia’s children, well, a motive for murder seemed to fit warmly into the context of the crime. Once that suspicion grew into a need to know, Moriarty felt compelled to take it a step further, setting out to first prove the allegation. If true, and Ed George knew about it, the possibility that he had Jeff murdered to fend off embarrassment would make sense. Everything else—and there was plenty, Moriarty knew—didn’t fit together in a uniform fashion. There were other theories, sure, but there had always been one key element missing from each. Jeff fathering a child and Ed not finding out about it until just recently worked better than most.

  With a need to know the truth, Moriarty said, “I got us a subpoena for a blood draw—a buccal swab from the child’s mouth to compare for parental DNA.”

  That one simple test would answer a lot of questions. One simple scraping of flesh with a cotton swab from Ruby George’s cheek would clear the entire matter up—and either bury a finger deeper into Ed George’s chest, or begin to phase him out of the equation. Jeff Zack had lied so much—who could say the kid was his or not? Moriarty and other detectives had looked at photographs of the George family and seen the resemblance between one of the children and Jeff Zack. But a hunch certainly wasn’t evidence.

  DNA would clear it all up.

  St. Thomas Hospital is a redbrick building in downtown Akron on Main Street. Inside the hospital is the CAPU’s rape crisis intervention unit. Moriarty was able to get a court order that, by law, authorized him to have Cynthia and Ed George bring Ruby down to the hospital for a buccal swab of her right cheek.

  Cynthia and Ed were livid, of course. More Cynthia than Ed.

  Moriarty was waiting at the hospital for Ed and Cynthia to arrive with Ruby. It was going to take all of five seconds to swab the inside of the child’s cheek and release her. “Cindy George was pissed,” Moriarty said. “She did not want us to do the test.”

  Ruby was screaming as Cynthia and Ed walked into the hospital with the child. Cynthia confronted Moriarty, face-to-face, and yelled, “I cannot believe you’re making her do this.”

  “Calm down,” Moriarty said.

  “This is going to hurt you, Ruby,” Moriarty heard Cynthia say to the child, trying to put fear into her to make the test that much more difficult for the CAPU to complete. “They are going to hurt you, baby.”

  Ed George was just standing there, shaking his head. He couldn’t believe it had come down to this: Here was his daughter being brought in like a common criminal to take a DNA test. Was this actually happening?

  After a few minutes of yelling back and forth, Moriarty doing his best to calm everyone down, Ed put his daughter on his lap, while Moriarty managed to get Cynthia over to the door heading out of the room.

  The nurse got the swab kit ready. While she did that, Moriarty recalled, “I shoved Cindy out the door and closed the door behind us.”

  And that’s when Cynthia went ballistic. “You motherf- - - er,” Moriarty claimed she yelled at him. “Get out of my way. You son of a bitch. How could you do this? Get the f- - - out of my way. I want to see my daughter.”

  “Relax, Cindy,” Moriarty said. “This is going to happen whether you agree to it or not. Don’t make it tougher than it is. Ruby will be fine.”

  The child, likely confused and scared, began bawling. But it took only a few seconds to grab the oral swab of her cheek and send Ed and the child on their way.

  Moriarty sent the swab to the lab with a request to have the results back as soon as possible.

  It would take two weeks, he was told.

  35

  Detective Mike Shaeffer tracked down Rabbi Sasonkin, in whom Jeff Zack had confided over the years. At first, the rabbi was a bit apprehensive regarding talking to the police, not too thrilled about dishing on his private conversations with synagogue members. But after Shaeffer explained that the rabbi could provide potential information that could possibly help catch Jeff’s killer, he agreed.

  According to the rabbi, Jeff showed up at the synagogue in 1996 after he was arrested for “sexual harassment.” Jeff’s boss at the time had suggested he go see the rabbi. Jeff was terrified of going to jail for the charge. “I’m possibly facing some prison time,” Jeff explained to Rabbi Sasonkin during their first face-to-face encounter. “I cannot do time in jail. I’d rather commit suicide.”

  The rabbi gave Jeff the name of a high-powered local attorney. Through that relationship, Jeff was able to get probation without having to serve any jail time. The rabbi, however, believed Jeff was suicidal and encouraged him to seek shelter from his demons by attending service and talking things out privately.

  “How did Jeff get into the situation that led him to being charged?” Shaeffer wondered.

  “Jeff,” said the rabbi, “liked to talk to females.” The rabbi wouldn’t go any further than that; but was comfortable insinuating that Jeff had a hard time staying away from women and keeping his mouth shut when he was around them.

  Going to court on sexual harassment charges changed Jeff. After it was over, he connected with the synagogue and started to attend service quite regularly. He even brought Ashton to “religion school,” Rabbi Sasonkin said. “But it didn’t last long,” the rabbi added. “He started coming maybe every two weeks. Then, in the last two years, he stopped coming altogether.”

  Jeff was conflicted, the rabbi insisted. “The Jewish religion looks down on marrying non-Jews.” That was what drew Jeff away from the synagogue, in the rabbi’s opinion, more than anything else. “It is believed that your religion is passed through your mother. So in the Jewish religion, Jeff’s son was not considered Jewish, since his mother wasn’t Jewish. But he could become Jewish through conversion.”

  “Jeff ever talk about his time in the Israeli Army?” Shaeffer asked. As they spoke, the rabbi and Shaeffer walked through the synagogue. It was dark and eerie, as any empty house of worship would be under the same set of circumstances. The rabbi, though, seemed comfortable talking about Jeff after his initial uneasiness passed.

  “Jeff never talked about it,” the rabbi stated in a noticeable Yiddish accent. “But I can say that it is standard for all Israelis to go into the army for”—he held up two fingers—“two years.”

  As they sat down in a pew, Shaeffer asked, “Jeff ever mention anything about the Mossad?”

  “No, sir. We didn’t talk about his years in the army…. But I’ll say that if one is in the Mossad, one would not talk about it or tell people. If one was going around saying he or she is in the Mossad, it is likely he or she is not in the Mossad.”

  Further along, the rabbi described Jeff in the same way many others had, saying he had a “big mouth,” seemed “confrontational,” used “rough language and was very aggressive.” Jeff could be intimidating to people, especially because of his size, the rabbi insisted. “But he did have a soft side to him, which usually came out when he was in trouble. He always seemed to be on edge and never happy. He wanted more.”

  “That’s helpful, Rabbi, I appreciate it,” Shaeffer said.

  While the rabbi walked the detective out, Shaeffer asked about a possible Israeli mob connection, and if perhaps the rabbi thought it played a role in Jeff’s murder. Rabbi Sasonkin insisted there wasn’t a strong “Israeli mob” presence in the Akron-Cleveland area, and didn’t suspect Jeff was tied to the Israeli underworld in any way. “It’s hard to find someone that is shot in America for their Israeli connections. I don’t believe Jeff was shot for being Jewish or Israeli. If that was the situation, the Jewish community would have been alerted and they would have tightened up security.”

  It made perfect sense.

  “If you need help translating any information,” the rabbi said as he walked the detective to his car, “or conversations, call me and I’d be glad to help.”

  “We appreciate that, Rabbi.”

  36

  Jeff Zack’s old business acquaintance, Carl, agreed to take a polygraph on June 27. Although the test wasn’t going to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, one way or another, Carl’s involvement in Jeff’s murder, it was a starting point. The test would tell CAPU detectives how much they should trust the guy.

  “Do you know for sure who killed Jeff Zack?”

  “No.”

  “Did you kill Jeff Zack?”