PART THREE

  73

  On July 14, 2002, Christine Todaro decided to tighten the noose around John Zaffino’s neck with the hope of stirring a reaction. Her days of undercover work and sleuthing for the CAPU needed to end. It was excruciatingly nerve-racking, not to mention dangerous. Thus far, all those telephone calls and meetings between her and Zaffino hadn’t yielded what the CAPU could classify as a smoking-gun admission. Zaffino had been smart in one way, not giving Christine too much in the form of relative information regarding Jeff Zack’s murder and his possible connection to it.

  “Hey,” Christine said when Zaffino picked up his telephone that night, “you really actually may be a suspect, you know that?” During their few previous conversations, they had talked about how much of a suspect the CAPU considered Zaffino. He would ask Christine what they had spoken to her about and, through her answer, try to gauge where the CAPU’s focus was heading.

  “How the f--- could I even be a suspect?” Zaffino said in a fit of aggression. “They just threaten.”

  “Yeah, well…gotta check it out, I guess. There’s a lot of ins and outs—”

  “Like what?”

  “What you gave me.”

  “Do what?” Zaffino misunderstood her.

  “Something that you gave me.”

  “What’d I give you?”

  “You gave me those [bullets].”

  “No,” Zaffino yelled. He was screaming mad that Christine had mentioned such a thing over the telephone.

  “I mean, I don’t know what for.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s, uh, why would you even talk like that, talk about stuff like that.” He started mumbling under his breath. Huffing and puffing. Why would you talk about guns over the telephone?

  “Because I want to make sure I don’t go to jail for any reason.”

  “Well…”

  “You have to tell me everything.”

  “Well…,” Zaffino said. Christine could almost hear him laughing.

  “Cause if I go there, then I don’t look like an idiot. That’s going to make me look bad in front of them, you know?” She was trying to convince him to give her something to feed to the CAPU. If he did that, they might get off her back.

  “Well, who knows that other than you?” Zaffino asked.

  “Nobody,” Christine responded.

  “All right, then.”

  Christine started talking about Cynthia, referring to her as “that chick.” How much did she know? Was Zaffino being careful?

  “No, no, no,” he said smartly. “You know me better than that. That s- - -’s pissing me off.” Zaffino then broke into a tirade about the CAPU recording all of his telephone calls. He said he knew they were. And it didn’t matter what she told them in person, because now she was spouting off at the mouth over the telephone and perhaps giving them all they needed. He told Christine she needed to stop. “I told you they listen. They’re recording all my conversations right now.”

  “You know that for a fact?” Christine asked. “He [Chris’s attorney] said he doubted that very much. They don’t even have that kind of technology over there.”

  “He said that?” Zaffino seemed to calm down. It gave him a sense comfort to hear that Christine’s lawyer had disagreed.

  “Yeah, he deals with them all the time.”

  “He said they wouldn’t be listening to my calls?” He paused, then added, “Well, before you dig yourself a hole you can’t get out of, I would assume that they can.”

  They decided to meet the following day. “But remember,” Zaffino warned, “you don’t talk to anybody…not even the pope.” He managed to sneak out a quick laugh. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

  The following morning, Christine called Zaffino and, being guided by Whiddon and Felber, tried the angry ex-wife approach, to see if she could get a rise out of him. “Hey, it’s me.”

  “What?”

  “I talked to my attorney. Now I know that you have been f- - - - - - lying to me for a long-ass time.”

  There was a pause. Christine sounded angry.

  “What are you talking about?” Zaffino wondered.

  “Oh, how ’bout Cindy George?”

  “What about her?”

  “That you and her f- - - - - - ass were dating and I asked you about that specifically and you denied it.”

  “Why would you say that?” he fumed.

  “Because I asked you that when it started.”

  “No, why would your attorney say that?”

  Christine realized she had better think of something fast. She didn’t expect such a comment. “Because they’re…they’re checking things out. They know that you lived on [his former address]. They know that you, that she’s been over there and she knows and they know a lot more than that too, which I’ll get into later on today. But that’s one thing that I wanted to say to you over the phone. That’s f- - -ed up and—”

  Zaffino cut her off. “Shut up…”

  “And let me tell you something else while I’m talking to you and you’re going to listen to me.” Christine knew how to turn the tables. “That chick has f- - -ed around on him (Ed George) for years…”

  “You gonna come meet me?”

  “…and years and years and—”

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Yeah, I heard you.”

  “Uh, meet me over where we meet up at—”

  “What time?”

  “Now.” Zaffino was livid. Christine could feel his negative, furious energy channeling through the telephone. But after he calmed down a bit, Christine explained that she had just gotten out of the shower and it would take her some time to get ready and drive to Fairlawn.

  “An hour?” Zaffino wondered. He wanted a time. He was upset that it was going to take so long.

  “Yes,” she said. “I’m pissed at you for that. I don’t appreciate it. That’s f- - -ed up and I’m telling you right now that she’s a whore and I hope you didn’t waste your whole life on that bitch, OK?”

  It was the perfect statement. Get Zaffino to feel like he was taking the fall for someone else. Still, covering himself, he said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Cause I don’t, if you believe everything you hear, then you’re f- - -ed up.”

  They both started yelling back and forth. Christine, to her credit, held tough. She said she didn’t appreciate being lied to. They had built their relationship since the cops started coming around on trust and she was put off that Zaffino had broken that agreement in some way. But it was all, of course, nonsense—a well-scripted, intelligent argument on Christine’s part.

  “Well,” continued Christine, “I don’t appreciate being lied to.”

  “Well, you can’t believe what you hear, I don’t want—”

  “I do believe that…. Why else would she be at your house?”

  “Well, who said that, first of all?”

  “Huh?”

  “Who in the hell said that?”

  “I don’t know. There were people talking over there where you used to live. They know what you used to drive. They know everything about you, John…. That pisses me off. I sure hope it was worth it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Christine needed some time before they met, she said.

  “Hurry up,” Zaffino urged.

  A while later, Christine called him back to let him know she was on her way, further playing up her role, saying, “I’m so pissed at you. You have no idea how pissed off I am.”

  “You have no idea how pissed off I am at you.”

  “I don’t care how pissed you are at me. I really don’t care at this moment. I’m leaving here in fifteen minutes.”

  “OK.”

  74

  In some respects, John Zaffino was a smart criminal. During a meeting on July 14 with Christine Todaro, Zaffino kept fairly quiet about his role—if any—in the death of Jeff Zack. While sitting next to Christine in her car, Zaffino screamed at her for ten minutes, hooting and hollering about why he was right and why she was wrong regarding the argument they’d had about Cynthia George on the telephone earlier that day. When he was finished with his earsplitting diatribe, Zaffino told Christine to call him the following day. “OK,” she said. Jesus. What an animal.

  The next morning, they spoke and agreed to meet at the same strip mall in Fairlawn, which had become, by now, a place they could refer to over the telephone without naming it. This satisfied Zaffino. He liked the idea. But what he didn’t know was that before Christine met him on any occasion, she would first meet Whiddon, Felber and other members of the CAPU at a housing development a few miles away from the mall to get set up with a wire. The equipment the CAPU had was outdated and shopworn, several detectives later told me. It wasn’t the best recording gear an undercover officer or informant would hope to have at his or her disposal. On this day, Whiddon strapped a fake pager to Christine’s side and sent her on her way. Felber reminded her, “Whatever you do, don’t get in his vehicle.”

  About five minutes later, Christine was sitting inside her car calling Zaffino. When she arrived at the mall parking lot, she didn’t see Zaffino’s black Ford Explorer. “Where are you?” she asked when he answered his cell phone. “I don’t see you.”

  Zaffino was just pulling in. He was likely parked across the street in the Wal-Mart parking lot, scoping Christine out as she arrived. “I’m here,” he said.

  “Oh, all right,” she said, turning, looking toward the entrance, watching Zaffino pull in, “there you are.”

  Zaffino pulled up next to Christine, took a hard look around the parking lot—Whiddon, Felber and the rest of the CAPU surveillance team were in unmarked vans scattered throughout the parking lot and across the street.

  Christine sat in her car, expecting her ex-husband to jump out of his vehicle and sit down next to her in her car.

  But not today.

  “Get in,” Zaffino said from the driver’s side window of his truck.

  “What?” Christine yelled back.

  They had always met inside Christine’s car. She had never gotten into Zaffino’s vehicle. It was way too dangerous. Inside her own vehicle, Christine had a slight advantage. At least that’s how she felt: in control. With Zaffino at the wheel, she believed she had no chance. On this day, something was up, she could sense it.

  “Get in my truck,” Zaffino said again.

  Son of a gun, he knows something, Christine told herself.

  Looking around the lot, Christine realized that if she didn’t get into his truck, he would think something was going on. She couldn’t chance it. All the work she’d put into helping the CAPU—in a way, it all came down to this one decision.

  So she opened the door to Zaffino’s truck and sat down. Christine was dressed rather provocatively, according to Dave Whiddon, and seemed to do that, he suggested, for Zaffino’s sake, knowing it was what Zaffino would have expected. The listening device—the pager—the CAPU had given her was attached to her waist. Inside the pager was a small microphone. As Christine sat down, Zaffino started the conversation: “I found out today.”

  “So why’d you lie?”

  “I didn’t…. My lawyer said that before they got to you or one of your friends—” but Christine wouldn’t let him finish.

  “No way. None of my friends know anything, John. That’s f- - -ing bull- - - -. You lied to me about that s - - -.” Christine was still using the Cynthia George ruse as her core argument, knowing it would keep Zaffino focused on the one thing she could defend.

  Zaffino looked around the inside of the vehicle. “They’re saying all kinds of s- - -,” he screamed.

  “Well, they said she’s been to your house.”

  “You’re the one that lied…,” Zaffino said, losing his train of thought for a moment. Then, “In the snake’s belly in the ground.”

  Christine ignored the comment, saying, “Tell the truth.”

  “What?”

  “Before I get f- - -ing ticked off.”

  “I never had anything to do with her.”

  “Why was she at your house?”

  “She was never at my house.” Zaffino was getting louder, more animated.

  “Why would they say her name? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Why would they say everything they’ve said?”

  “Why would they say her name, John?” Christine was getting heated herself. She knew she was pushing the conversation in a direction she shouldn’t, but with the questions Zaffino was asking, she had to keep him focused on Cynthia George.

  “I have no idea.”

  “You’re lying to me. You always said I was the liar. You’re the liar.”

  Zaffino started to say something. “The only thing I know about that, uh, anything is—”

  But again, Christine wouldn’t allow him to finish. “That’s why you told me to stay out of the Tangier.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Don’t lie to me.”

  “We’re not married.”

  “We were married.”

  “Not then.”

  Christine continued to call Zaffino a liar, keeping the focus of the conversation on Cynthia. She could tell Zaffino was feeding into it. In this manner, she had control over the situation, which was what she had always tried to maintain whenever they got together.

  “You better not have screwed up your life for that thing. I’m telling you that right now.”

  “I have done nothing to screw up my life.” He pounded on the steering wheel. “You’re the only one I see digging my grave here.”

  Christine talked about Cynthia’s vehicle being spotted at the apartment complex. Zaffino said it was a lie. Then he said he might have worked on Cynthia’s vehicle once—that was maybe why the cops and neighbors thought he was seeing her, because he had done some work for the George family.

  Then, “Where’s the money?” Christine asked. She wanted five hundred dollars from Zaffino to pay off several of her mounting bills. It was the least he could do.

  Zaffino didn’t answer. He began to look around his vehicle, searching for something. She sensed he was on edge, ready to snap. He had a look about him. Something was on his mind.

  Zaffino said he had to use the restroom. Looking toward McDonald’s, two blocks away, he started to drive. “I’m goin’ to McDonald’s.”

  “You need to quit lying, John,” Christine said as he exited the mall parking lot, drove a block south, but missed the turn into McDonald’s.

  After turning around and pulling into McDonald’s, Zaffino reached into the backseat and pulled out a small black box with an LCD display on its front face. It had a small antenna on the top of it.

  “What’s that?” Christine asked. She was alarmed. He was up to something.

  Zaffino shut off the truck. Christine could see the van Whiddon and Felber were in pull into the parking lot of McDonald’s. She felt a mild sense of comfort with that, but still knew Zaffino had something on his mind.

  “It’s an RF [bug] detector,” Zaffino finally said. He smiled, looking at it. Holding it.

  “What’s an RF detector?” Christine asked.

  “This,” Zaffino said piercingly, pointing to the LCD light display, holding the detector in his hand, “is what’s going to tell me if you’re wearing a wire or not.”

  Christine froze. Holy s- - - -.

  75

  If John Zaffino managed to turn on the radio frequency (RF) detector, Christine Todaro was in big trouble. “He would have snapped my neck right there in that truck,” she told me later. “For a moment, I didn’t know what to do.”

  In the scope of the situation, what could she do?

  But in a split-second decision, Christine grabbed the RF detector out of Zaffino’s hand as he flipped the on switch and the bars of the LCD screen began to go from right to left (red to green). The unit was on and beginning to figure out that Christine was wearing some sort of listening device—the reason why Zaffino had brought the unit to begin with.

  As the LCD lights started to hit the color green, Christine managed to shut it off and throw it into the backseat of the truck—all in one swift, smart motion, while screaming at the top of her lungs, “You bastard.”

  “Quit it now,” Zaffino said as Christine tossed it, “you’ll wear my battery down.”

  “Remember what I told you. I’m the only one you can trust.”

  Listening to what was going on, from inside a van nearby Zaffino’s truck, Felber and Whiddon looked at each other.

  Zaffino motioned toward the back of his truck, then addressed Christine. He was stunned. All he had to do was reach into the backseat and grab the unit, turn it on and confirm what he obviously knew.

  But he didn’t. Instead, Zaffino said, “If that’s what you have to do to make you feel lucky. Make you feel like you’re not talking to the cops.”

  Christine said later she believed Zaffino realized at that moment that she was wired. That’s why he brought the unit to begin with—to prove what he already knew. “In some strange way,” she recalled, “I think he wanted to get caught.”

  “I’m not talking to anybody,” Christine said immediately, not breaking character. “But I’m going to protect myself, too.”

  “Well, that’s like a catch-22, then,” Zaffino murmured.

  “No, it’s not…that means I’m going to talk to my lawyer and see what I can get in trouble for and what I can’t.”

  “Well, you don’t know anything.”

  Zaffino asked Christine if she was going into McDonald’s with him. She said no. When he came back, Christine asked him why he shaved off his mustache. Zaffino was a goatee guy, rarely without one. It was odd for him to shave his face clean.

  But then, the conversation shifted back to the cops knowing that Cynthia was at his onetime residence. Zaffino talked about how the cops work—how they like to trick people into believing what they wanted. Christine questioned him on that theory.