Minus the child, it sounded an awful lot like the story Christine Todaro had been telling. Now the CAPU believed John Zaffino terrorized females. That much was clear from what two independent sources were saying.

  McFarland wanted to know if Bonadio had ever met Zaffino’s new girlfriend, “the blonde.” Bonadio said she had. Then she said she knew “Cindy” was “married…. And I think her husband is ill, or he’s an older gentleman and…whether it’s her husband’s money or the money that they, you know, made together, per se, in a business.”

  “Does she buy [John] things?”

  Bonadio answered immediately: “Yes.”

  “Like what?”

  “She—he actually told me that she bought him the bike.” (Nancy Bonadio would later testify to this statement in court. Additionally, the CAPU recorded these interviews with Bonadio and Forrest.)

  “Which bike?”

  “This bike.”

  McFarland wanted to know how Bonadio knew.

  “I was very upset when he told me that he had a bike,” she explained, “because I wasn’t getting child support. So I said, ‘Well, how the heck can you afford a bike if you can’t afford to pay me any child support?’ And he said, ‘Cindy bought it for me.’ He’s been out of work sporadically for the past couple of years and I know that she has given him—he tells me that she’s given him money.”

  Not only did Bonadio say that Cynthia purchased the motorcycle for Zaffino, but that she had probably put him up in the well-heeled apartment he had lived in.

  Further along into the conversation, McFarland brought up an important point, asking, “Now, when he up and gave you the bike and told you it was for [back child] support, how did you react? Was this out of character for John?”

  “I kinda didn’t give him a choice. He wanted to get rid of the bike.”

  “What was that? He wanted to get rid of the bike?”

  “He told me that he had to get rid of the bike and he couldn’t take it back to Ohio, and I said, ‘Well, you know what then, I’ll just keep the money.’ I told him you need to get rid of the bike and I need my back child support, so let’s just do a fair trade.”

  McFarland and Shaeffer interviewed Bonadio and Forrest for almost two hours, getting everything they could. McFarland had a way with talking to people, making them feel comfortable. Bonadio was crying during portions of her interview, thinking that she and her fiancé were in legal trouble for taking a bike that was, in her words, “used to hurt someone.”

  “We’re not going to do that to a person who has helped us,” McFarland promised. He was building a rapport with Bonadio and she began to trust him. “We view our relationship right here as being nothing but complete cooperation and help, OK?”

  Shaeffer chimed in, adding, “The…the only way you could be, where you had done something wrong, is if he (Zaffino) would have said, ‘Hey, I robbed a bank and I used this bike.’ OK. Then you know a crime happened.”

  “When we part today,” McFarland added, “we want to part in peace and confidence that you did the right thing. Please don’t turn anything inward and fault yourself. You have made no mistakes. Nancy, please believe me on this. You have done nothing wrong.”

  “All right.”

  As Bonadio and Forrest were about to leave the PSP barracks, Bonadio mentioned how afraid she was that Zaffino would find out she gave the motorcycle to the police. She feared what he’d do once he realized it was gone and the police now had it.

  “My son—” she started to say through tears.

  McFarland promised they would protect the boy at all costs. Bonadio wasn’t too worried Zaffino would hurt the child, but felt he might take off with him and run if he found out what was going on.

  “We’ll do what we can,” Shaeffer added. “It’s important that you keep us informed as to what is going on at all times.”

  Bonadio promised she would.

  66

  When John Zaffino heard his former wife Christine Todaro say, “…that guy you took out,” he became defiant and angry. As Christine later described it, he “blew a gasket. That’s when you could really see his true personality—when you pissed him off. His true self would emerge.”

  In a way, Christine felt she was betraying her ex-husband—that sneaking around, and working, essentially, for the CAPU as a CI was a form of deception on her part. Between June 14 and June 21, Christine recorded five telephone calls with Zaffino. “I felt bad, because there was the potential that John could go to jail forever. But, at the same time, I felt worse for Jeff Zack and his family. I loved John when I married him. I never expected my life to end up the way it did with him.”

  During those early weeks leading up to the first recorded conversations, Christine felt “psychotic,” she remembered. “It was weird.” The past year had consumed her, physically and mentally. She had lost at least twenty-five pounds: a frail, anxiety-ridden caricature of herself. She had trouble keeping a job because she couldn’t focus on what she was doing and rarely got a full night’s sleep.

  “Chris,” Zaffino said after she mentioned the newspaper article and “that guy you took out”—getting louder with each word—“how dare you say that.”

  “Well, there’s…there’s cards on my door from the cops.”

  “Chris—”

  “John,” she said jarringly, right back.

  “Were you—”

  “Well, what am I supposed to say to Tony?”

  “What’s the card say?”

  “They’re…they’re business cards.”

  “Well, what was in—what’d the paper say?”

  “There was a story in there about him,” Christine said, and then explained the story.

  “OK, well?”

  “What am I supposed to tell Tony? They keep showing up here.”

  “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t talk on the phone about stuff, please. OK?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Cause, you know…you know they listen.”

  For Dave Whiddon, as he listened to the telephone call later on that day, Zaffino’s reaction was significant. “It was John’s reaction when Christine said ‘that guy you took out.’ John didn’t laugh it off and say, ‘I didn’t do anything.’ He told her not to talk about it over the phone.” Why wouldn’t he say, “You’re crazy. I didn’t kill anyone”?

  Zaffino continued advising Christine not to talk over the telephone about anything having to do with the murder of Jeff Zack. He was adamant. Concerned. Worried that she was saying too much. As they spoke, he became more annoyed with each response Christine offered. At one point, Zaffino said, “Listen to me. When you start panicking, then you start saying stuff that you don’t even know what you’re saying and get it all screwed up. But see, the thing you got to remember is, they only want to talk to me, that’s what they told you, right?”

  “Right,” Christine said, rolling her eyes.

  “So what’s, what’s the big deal? They only want to talk to me and they don’t know where I’m at and they think they do.”

  “Well, why don’t you go talk to them then? If you’re not worried about it. You know, so they’ll get off me.”

  “They’ll get off you. They’ll get off ya. I know they will, and even if they don’t, all you gotta do is say, ‘Hey, f- - - you. Get the f- - - outta here’.”

  “I’m not gonna say that.”

  “That’s all you gotta say. Why not?”

  “Because.”

  “Why not? You would say it to somebody else.”

  Christine laughed. She couldn’t escape her own personality. Zaffino knew her well. Christine was never one to take any back talk from anybody—especially cops.

  “What kind of message did you leave me?” Zaffino asked. “Real descriptive, or what?”

  “No.”

  Zaffino went on to tell Christine to calm down. “And tell Tony to do the same. Nothing is gonna happen.” He wanted the second set of business cards left on her door by the CAPU and promised he would stop by her apartment in a few hours to pick them up.

  Instead, Christine decided to meet Zaffino in the parking lot of a strip mall in Fairlawn, just east of Akron, a few miles from the Tangier. When she hung up, Christine was frazzled. So she called Vince Felber. “He wants me to meet him, I’m scared.”

  “Relax,” Felber told her. “Let me get back to you after I get some things together.”

  The CAPU took Zaffino seriously. Christine couldn’t say enough about how dangerous a face-to-face meeting with Zaffino was now. So Whiddon got every available detective he could find, along with members of the SWAT team, and set up surveillance at the strip mall, where they were scheduled to meet. They decided Christine would meet them first at another location, where they would hide a listening device on the floor of her car. With any luck, this would be the first and last time she would have to lie to Zaffino and try to entice him into admitting his role in Jeff Zack’s murder.

  “Never, under any circumstances, get into his vehicle,” Felber warned Christine as her car was fitted with the device.

  “OK.”

  A while later, Zaffino pulled up to Christine as she sat in the mall parking lot. Then he got into her car and immediately went into a rant. She could tell he was screaming mad by the look on his face. “What the f- - - do you think you’re doing? Don’t ever say that on the phone again. Are you f- - - - - - crazy? You’re going to send me to jail.”

  “Calm down, John.”

  “I didn’t do anything. They really can’t do anything to me. But still, don’t ever say anything like that ever again on the phone. I mean it.”

  “What do you want me to do, John?”

  “What if they’re recording our conversations, for crissakes. Are you f- - - - - - crazy?”

  What have I gotten myself into? Christine thought. Oh, my God.

  Nothing of substance came out of the first meeting; however, the conversation proved to detectives—and Christine, for that matter—that Zaffino was now more paranoid than he had perhaps ever been. The fact that Christine was mentioning him in reference to Zack’s murder only heightened his fear that she was beginning to protect herself. In fact, Zaffino was so concerned the cops were listening to his cell phone calls that he used two cell phones, Christine explained: one to roll his calls over to the other, thinking that forwarding his calls to the second number would block the CAPU’s recording and tracing abilities. Christine laughed to herself at the prospect. She had worked in telecommunications for the better part of her adult life and knew it didn’t matter. “It showed me, really,” she said later, “how stupid he actually was.”

  “I’ll be in touch,” Zaffino said as he got out of her car. “Remember what the f- - - I said.”

  “Bye, John.”

  67

  After Russ McFarland and Mike Shaeffer finished interviewing Nancy Bonadio and Russell Forrest, McFarland grabbed the cell phone from his waist, snapped it open and dialed his boss, Dave Whiddon. McFarland had some great news to share. They had all been waiting for this for quite some time. Shaeffer and McFarland had seemingly cracked the case, not only locating the bike, but what Bonadio and Forrest had to say regarding how Zaffino had dropped it off was significant.

  Dave Whiddon wasn’t at the office. He was with his wife and son at a Little League game. Whiddon was a dedicated cop, but family, some of his colleagues suggested later, came first. It was one of the reasons why he had taken the lieutenant’s job in the first place; he could delegate the work instead of going out there and doing it himself. It would keep him closer to home and, as much as he could bear it, off the street.

  Near 6:30, or perhaps it was closer to 6:45 P.M., he couldn’t remember exactly what time, Dave Whiddon was standing in the third base coach’s box out on the field in the middle of a game, cheering on his son’s Little League team—when his cell phone rang. Although Whiddon is not one of those fathers who argues with the umpires and lets the game get the best of him, he does, he said, “get pretty intense when [he’s] coaching.” So the call, although expected, startled him.

  At the time, the game had taken the case temporarily off Whiddon’s mind. He knew McFarland was going to call; he just didn’t know when. Standing, coaching third base, with his back to the bench of his son’s team, Whiddon could almost feel the parents sitting in the gallery just beyond the dugout breathing down his back. So when his cell phone rang, the entire bench and bleachers of parents could hear it. It was right in the middle of an inning; there were two kids on base.

  Looking back toward his wife, shrugging, Whiddon picked up the phone.

  McFarland was barely able to contain his excitement. “Lieutenant, we got the bike. The Pennsylvania State Troopers were wonderful,” he said.

  “Great, Russ. That’s great.” Whiddon punched the air.

  One of his players was up at bat.

  Pitch.

  Hit.

  The ball went into the outfield.

  Whiddon, trying to watch the game and talk to McFarland, kept his eye on the ball.

  “Hold on,” McFarland said over Whiddon’s excitement, “I’ve got even better news.” McFarland could tell there was a commotion going on in the background.

  “What is it?” Whiddon had zoned out of the game and lost track of what was happening on the field.

  “Me and Mike interviewed Nancy Bonadio and Russell Forrest. Zaffino brought the bike over to Pennsylvania in the middle of the night…. [He put] duct tape over the paint to cover the colors.” Whiddon was stunned. The play in the field was still going on. He didn’t know it, but the parents and players in back of him were staring at him. “They gave us their word,” McFarland added, “that they would not say anything to Zaffino.”

  As McFarland continued talking, one of Whiddon’s base runners had made it past second base and was heading toward third—coming right at Whiddon, and looking for direction. Still on the phone talking to McFarland, Whiddon waved the kid home. “Go, run…run.”

  “What?” McFarland asked. He thought Whiddon was talking to him.

  “Nothing.”

  Later, Whiddon said, “Needless to say, I was overjoyed, so much so that I was now screaming very loudly into the phone. I was very relieved that we finally had a great stroke of luck in this case and everything turned out better than I could have imagined.”

  When the conversation was over, Whiddon turned around to see all of the parents and kids on the bench staring directly at him. He didn’t realize how loud he had been talking and how much the excitement of the moment had inspired him. Whiddon’s wife knew he was expecting to hear from McFarland, and she was now focused on him—half embarrassed, half thrilled that the case, obviously, was moving in the right direction.

  Whiddon was overjoyed. After the inning, he called Captain Daugherty and told her the good news. After all, it was Daugherty who broke the motorcycle lead to begin with. “That’s great, Dave,” she said. “That’s wonderful.”

  68

  The interviews of Nancy Bonadio and Russell Forrest that Russ McFarland and Mike Shaeffer recorded cleared up some loose ends in the case, as much as they interjected several new questions into the mix. The CAPU had always wondered how and where the motorcycle had fit into the murder of Jeff Zack. Now they felt they knew. According to Bonadio, it was back on June 17, 2001, the day after Zack’s murder, when she first heard about the bike. Bonadio was generally in bed by nine o’clock on most nights, and considered any telephone call to her house after that hour “late.” While she was nestling herself in bed next to her fiancé, the telephone startled her at about 10:00 P.M., she said. Her heart pounded. Any call at that hour generally meant bad news. “Hello?” she said, groggy, worried.

  “It’s John.”

  He sounded “very upset,” Bonadio told McFarland. She could hear it in his voice.

  Bonadio hesitated briefly. Great, it’s John. The guy was a damn nuisance. She couldn’t get rid of him. “What do you want? It’s late. What’s the matter?”

  “I know. I know. I gotta get rid of this bike. I’m going to get into trouble with it someday.”

  “A bike?”

  “I need to get rid of it. I want to trade it for a vehicle Russell has on the lot.”

  “Why do you need to get rid of a bike, John?”

  Zaffino sounded hurried. Frantic. Even manic. “I was chased by the cops…a few times for speeding. I need to get rid of it or I’ll lose my CDL license, or worse, kill myself.” Zaffino claimed he had never ridden a high-performance motorcycle with such road supremacy, Bonadio explained. It wasn’t what he was used to. She had no idea why he bought the bike to begin with if it wasn’t what he was used to or wanted.

  “OK,” Bonadio said, “sure, you can bring the bike to me. I don’t know if Russ will work with you on it, but we can ask him. We can talk to Russ and see what he thinks.”

  Bonadio assumed that the conversation would end there. Her ex-husband had gotten what he wanted. Maybe he could cut a deal with Forrest and dump the bike. But then, “I’m coming tonight,” Zaffino said.

  This startled Bonadio. Why now? Why the urgency?

  “Maybe two in the morning or something,” Zaffino said next. “I want to leave when no one is out on the road.”

  On Monday morning, June 18, 2001, two days after Jeff Zack’s murder, John Zaffino called his ex-wife again. They had spoken during the morning on Sunday as Zaffino traveled into Pennsylvania. But later that morning, he called to say he was at a local Super 8 Motel, right up the road from Russell Forrest’s used-car lot. He wanted to stop by with the bike as soon as possible and get rid of it.

  Bonadio said she was too busy.

  The next day, Tuesday, Zaffino called back. It was 7:00 A.M. “What time can I come out? I need directions.” Zaffino hadn’t been to Bonadio and Forrest’s house before. Whenever they exchanged their child, they met halfway between Ohio and Pennsylvania. He wanted to drop the bike off at her house, not the used-car lot.

  At about 10:00 A.M., Zaffino showed up with the bike. Bonadio later described the bike as being “gray with green neon striping on it…a high-performance motorcycle.” But when Zaffino first arrived, she couldn’t see any green on the bike. “John had covered the green stripes up with gray duct tape.”