Last Dance, Last Chance

together became his mantra to her.
     
    Once Anthony had no choice but to accept Debbie’s diagnosis as arsenic poisoning, he insisted on getting tests done on himself. He reported back to Debbie that he, too, had arsenic in his system. It wasn’t true. He had no more poison in him than the average person. But it fit with Anthony’s theory. He hinted that someone was trying to wreak revenge on him, and that would mean his family was a target, too.
    Debbie was far more worried about her children than she was about Anthony. If someone had poisoned her, they might also try to hurt Ralph and Lauren. On August 12, as sick as she was, she insisted on having a nurse hold the phone for her so she could call their pediatrician and ask that they be tested to be sure they didn’t have arsenic in their systems, too.
    Debbie was not allowed to eat anything that wasn’t prepared in the hospital. But Anthony brought her Snickers bars when he visited. They were still factory-wrapped, and she had no concern about eating them. But then, she had no concern about Anthony. Despite her family’s and friends’ worries that he had something to do with her poisoning, she never let such a thought approach her conscious mind. That would be too horrible even to contemplate.
    She didn’t tell anyone about the candy bars, however.

17
    A s the chelation therapy began to drain the arsenic from her system, Debbie’s doctors started her on very gradual rehabilitation. By the time she left the ICU on August 27, the numbness in her arms and legs had become excruciating pain—a positive sign that her nerves weren’t dead but represented an ordeal she would live through. “I couldn’t stand up on my own or even with the help of three nurses.”
    Her physical therapists and doctors doubted that Debbie would walk again, so they concentrated on trying to bring back her arms and hands so that she might be able to feed herself, talk on the phone, and perhaps hold a pen again.
    Debbie was gaining mobility by tiny increments when she suddenly had great trouble breathing and experienced pains in her chest. She was quickly transferred to the cardiac care unit. Tests showed that she had a small “whoosh” of blood into the pericardium, the tough, fibrous sac that surrounds the heart. Fortunately, it did no permanent damage.
    Debbie longed to be home with her children, with her husband. Oddly, she asked no questions about the details of what had happened to her or why or even who was responsible. She was strangely passive and accepting of her condition.
    In reality, she was fighting very hard not to ask herself any questions at all. She didn’t dare focus on the huge, lurking possibility in her subconscious.
    If Debbie was avoiding the obvious, D.A. Frank Sedita and his investigators Chuck Craven and Pat Finnerty were focusing intently on it, turning their suspicions like a many-sided puzzle and examining it, along with the forensic techniques they might use to prove what they suspected.
    Less than three weeks after her massive dose of arsenic, Sedita, Craven, and Finnerty were all convinced they had found enough motives to convince a jury that Debbie Pignataro’s husband had meant to kill her. But they were still a long way from arresting Anthony.
    Not the least of their problems was the attitude of the victim. With Debbie Pignataro’s complete denial that Anthony could have hurt her, they were at an impasse. At the moment, there was no chance she would testify against him. There was every chance that she, the loyal wife, would stick by him, just as she had in his previous court appearances. The three men knew they wouldn’t be able to make a dent in Debbie’s firewall of denial.
    “We need Sharon,” Craven said.
    The other two men nodded their heads. If Debbie Pignataro was going to trust anyone from the District Attorney’s Office, it would be Sharon Simon, their victim/ witness advocate. Sharon had a fine, kind touch with people in crisis and too much empathy for her own good.
    On August 26, Pat Finnerty and Chuck Craven visited Debbie in the hospital. They wanted two things: permission to search her home in West Seneca, and a lock of her hair. She gave them her O.K. to search, and she allowed them to snip hair from several spots on her head. She didn’t ask why they wanted it. The dark brown hair would be sent to the National Medical Services Laboratory in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, for hair segmentation analysis.
    Debbie knew that