Taking product of cofactor with different row
Yes, the expansion of the cofactor with a different row (or analagously, column) will always produce zero. To see why, consider the cofactor expansion along the $k$th row $$\sum_{j=1}^n a_{kj}C_{kj}.$$ Notice that each of the cofactors $C_{kj}$ has no knowledge of the the entries of the $k$th row. By definition, the cofactors of the $k$th row do not depend on the $k$th row. Therefore we can view the expansion along the entries of some other row, say row $k' \neq k$, given by $$\sum_{j=1}^n a_{k'j}C_{kj},$$ as replacing the entries of the $k$th row by those of the $k'$th row. In effect, the expansion now thinks that row $k$ and row $k'$ of the matrix are equal, and consequently evaluates to zero.