Last Dance, Last Chance

sniff at Lena’s failings as a cook—something Caroline excelled at. “Lena was a terrific grandmother,” Caroline said. “Before the poisoning, she was on Debbie’s side. But she couldn’t cook. The kids always came home to eat because Lena only cooked things like hot dogs and macaroni and cheese. Dr. Ralph used to cook, and he was good. He would cook veal cutlets. They were his speciality.”
    Ralph and Lauren loved their grandmother Lena. But now she was out of their lives, too. Apparently, she had dropped them for her own reasons. She was standing by Anthony. Her maternal support was fiercely protective of him, and that was odd because no one had even accused Anthony out loud. There was no reason at this point for her to make any decision about whose side she was on. Anthony and Debbie saw each other every day, and Debbie had yet to say an accusatory word about him.
    “I don’t know what Anthony told her about me,” Debbie said later. “It must have been something terrible for her to just walk out of my life like that. And for her to drop her grandchildren that she had always adored—that was hard to take.”

20
    I f Anthony thought the Erie County District Attorney’s office had forgotten about him, he was mistaken. Arsenic poisoning is an unusual crime, and the investigators needed direct physical evidence and even more circumstantial evidence to be sure that they had a case so defense-attorney–proof that nothing or no one could disassemble it. Frank Sedita knew where Anthony was, and he was still on probation, so he couldn’t leave the area without being arrested. They monitored his movements, although he didn’t know it, and they kept building their case.
    One remarkable piece of good luck came into Sedita’s office on August 30: a possible witness who, if he was telling the truth, would be worth pure gold. However, he was a jailhouse witness, and such people have been known to snitch and even make up stories to work out a plea bargain. Snitches are not preferred witnesses for either the prosecution or the defense, but Frank Sedita was willing to listen to what he had to say.
    The man, Arnie Letovich, had contacted Captain Florian Jablonski and Detective Edward Tyszka of the West Seneca Police Department when he read about the poisoning of Debbie Pignataro in the Sunday Buffalo News. While most readers of the Buffalo News were shocked by the story, Letovich said it hadn’t been very surprising to him. He knew Tony Pignataro, and now he wanted to talk about him.
    At 2 P.M. that Monday afternoon, Frank Sedita, Chuck Craven, and Pat Finnerty, along with the two West Seneca officers, met with Letovich. Arnie Letovich was in custody, but only for two pending misdemeanors involving drugs. He wasn’t looking at any hard time, and he might very well have the charges against him dismissed. He didn’t have any particular reason to talk to the D.A.’s men except for his conscience.
    Letovich was in his mid-forties, but he looked a little older. He seemed anxious to talk about Tony Pignataro, although Sedita informed him that no deals would be made in exchange for information. All Sedita could promise Arnie Letovich was that he would be given immunity for the information actually conveyed in this interview.
    Letovich nodded that he understood. He began by explaining that he and Tony had been housed together in the Erie County Correctional Facility from some time in August 1998 until October of that year. One of the corrections officers had asked Letovich to keep an eye on Pignataro, because as a totally green prisoner he was in danger of being abused by other convicts.
    Letovich said that while Tony was in jail, he had used both alcohol and heroin. That wasn’t any shock to the D.A.’s men; there were always avenues for convicts to smuggle in both drugs and booze. Some with a bent toward chemistry even made their own alcoholic drink inside. Called Pruno, it was a noxious concoction of whatever could be gleaned from the kitchen: potato peelings or fruit or vegetables that were allowed to ferment. It tasted vile, but for serious drinkers, it was better than nothing.
    As far as the investigators knew, Pignataro was a long-time drinker, and probably a user of prescription drugs, which he had been in a position to obtain quite easily, but they had never heard that he was a heroin addict. According to Letovich, that was a new habit Tony had picked up during his few months of incarceration.
    Letovich