Last Dance, Last Chance

said frankly that he had used heroin in the past and still did. He made no attempt to paint himself as any saintlier than he was. He had gotten along all right with Tony in jail, and Tony had told him he wanted to continue their friendship outside the walls. Tony had given Arnie his pager number.
    Chuck Craven knew Pignataro’s pager number: 555-3599. He asked Letovich what it was, and the convict gave it back to Craven instantly: “555-3599.”
    Letovich said he had been released from jail first, and he thought that Tony had been released on about December 2. He called Letovich soon after, and came over to his house, using the address he’d saved.
    Tony Pignataro had had a woman with him. Her name was Tami, and Letovich said she was a rather attractive woman in her forties, with a very good figure. She looked as if she worked out a lot at a gym.
    Tony’s reason for visiting Letovich so soon after his release was immediately obvious. He wanted Letovich to “cop” some heroin for him, and Letovich had agreed to do that.
    Craven nodded. He knew from his days in narcotics that there was a whole different language out there on the street. If he didn’t know the right phrases, no “narc” could ever hope to fool the dealers, and might wind up a dead man. Craven had come close himself back in Arizona.
    On Tony’s first visit to Arnie’s home, Letovich’s girlfriend had been present. According to the witness, he, Tony, and both women had injected heroin in his house.
    From the details he told Sedita and the D.A.’s investigators, it was clear that Letovich did know Tony Pignataro, and quite well. He knew that Tony had gone to medical school in Puerto Rico, that he was fluent in Spanish, and that he drove a black Cadillac Catera. Letovich said that Tony’s father was a surgeon who had died.
    From their initial meeting to inject heroin, Letovich said he had copped heroin for Tony over the next several months. Tony told him that he kept an apartment but that he had to move back in with his wife to make a good impression on Judge Tills so his probation rules would be modified. He wanted to leave New York State. His plans were to move to Florida and then eventually to Puerto Rico or the Caribbean, where he could start a medical practice.
    What seemed to be eating at Arnie Letovich were two discussions he had had with Tony Pignataro beginning in May 1999. First, Tony confided in him that some guy was interested in Tami but was “screwing her legally.” Tony apparently intended to get back at the man, but Letovich couldn’t remember the other man’s name. He thought Tony had mentioned that the guy had some connection with the D.A.’s office or law enforcement.
    Letovich wasn’t sure what Tami’s other boyfriend’s job was. But Tony wanted to get rid of someone. He was asking where he could get some poison. The only poisons Letovich had ever heard of were cyanide and arsenic, and he had no idea where to find something like that.
    In June, Letovich said, Tony brought up the subject of poison again, but this time it was in a conversation about Debbie Pignataro. Tony complained about his wife. Evidently, she was always checking on him, and he told Letovich that it was driving him crazy because she paged him constantly.
    Letovich looked down at his hands and sighed. He said he couldn’t believe that Tony would actually harm his own wife. But he was insisting that she had to go. He planned to give her a “little bit” at a time, and Letovich assumed that he meant a little bit of poison.
    Everyone in the room knew what the phrase “She has got to go” meant. Tony’s statements about getting rid of his wife coincided with the time that Debbie Pignataro had first become ill. They knew now that in June, Debbie was suffering from chronic arsenic poisoning. That fit with Tony’s statement about giving it to her a little bit at a time.
    It looked as though Anthony had become impatient two months later and given Debbie a massive dose of poisoning.
    Arnie Letovich had made some bad decisions in his life, and he was an admitted heroin addict. He was not, however, a killer. Now, he promised to do anything he could to stop Tony Pignataro from ever hurting anyone again. After that first meeting, he visited the District Attorney’s office at least once a week.
    Letovich said that when he was on the street, he and Tony had usually connected through Tony’s pager. When Chuck Craven got a copy of phone records that listed