03.She.Wanted.It.All.2005 (24 page)

Kristina ran crying from the room.

Later that day Celeste walked into Steve’s hospital room and massaged away his doubts. Just like so many men before him, he couldn’t extricate himself from her. Despite all he’d been through, all the reasons he had to doubt her, she reeled him back in.

S
teve wasn’t the only one asking if Celeste was be
hind the shooting. By November, rumors swirled through the city’s social and media circles. At the Austin Country Club members whispered about the bizarre love triangle, a former waitress with her multimillionaire husband and the gay woman charged with shooting him. At Tramps and Studio 29, patrons and hairdressers swapped gossip. When Celeste entered, they held back, watching her every move. She presided as always, chattering and laughing loudly. The minute she left, the salons filled with nervous nattering. But the theories were just theories until an
Austin American Statesman
reporter, Laylan Copelin, called Celeste and asked very pointed questions.

Celeste refused to comment, but days later Copelin received an anonymous letter. The writer described herself as a friend and called Celeste “one
of the most giving people in the world… she helps out everyone and treats everyone as her equal, even though she is a very wealthy woman.”
She said Celeste adored Steve and was the valiant survivor of a
horrific past that included childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence, and ovarian cancer:

“The
Beards were to leave for a month long trip to Europe the day after Steven was shot. Celeste was hoping that if Tracey did not see or talk with her for that length of time she would be able to be rid of Tracey for good. I am telling you all of this off the record…[Celeste] is tired, baffled and hurt by all of this. Making her a public humiliation serves no purpose. She trusted someone who is crazy. She feels tremendous guilt over the entire situation even though Steven has told her not to give it another thought. I know you want a story, but please do not further hurt a family that is already suffering.”

Years later that same letter would be found on Celeste’s home computer.

Despite the anonymous tribute, Copelin wrote his piece on the shooting, under the headline:
A SHOT IN THE NIGHT; WIFE’S FRIEND CHARGED IN ATTACK ON TV EXECUTIVE.

“The 20-gauge shotgun blast ripped open Steve Beard Jr.’s belly while his wife and stepdaughter slept in another wing of his house on one of the highest points in Westlake Hills. The former television executive, 74, managed to dial 911.

“One month and three surgeries after the shooting… Beard remains in intensive care and his wife, Celeste, who is 36, spends most of her days at his bedside.”

The article went on to detail Tracey’s arrest and quoted Wines as saying the women met in a psychiatric hospital and that Tracey was “infatuated” with Celeste. There’d been no signs of forced entry into the house, and many questions remained to be answered. Copelin reported that Celeste had hired a defense attorney and wasn’t cooperating with police.

That morning, Celeste’s life moved from the beauty shop
rumor mill to fodder for Austin’s morning, drive-time radio shows. Callers speculated on air about what type of relationship she’d had with Tracey and about the motives of a woman who married a man nearly old enough to be her grandfather. “Gold digger,” some callers said. “Craziest thing I’ve ever heard of,” another said.

“Sure, someone just leaves the door unlocked and the alarm off and this crazy woman just wanders in?” laughed one caller. “Give me a break.”

Furious, Celeste went on the offensive. The day after the article ran, she phoned in to the
Sam & Bob
show, a drive-time staple for commuting Austinites, voicing what she described as her frustration. “I want you to know that the newspaper made it sound like the
National Enquirer.”

“Celeste, do you have any feelings about who did this?” one DJ asked.

“That part of the story may be right,” she admitted, yet she denied a relationship with Tracey and labeled the coverage, “Sensationalism.”

Days later Rich Oppel’s phone rang at the
Statesman.
Four years earlier Oppel, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief, had bought Steve’s Terrace Mountain Drive house. Since then he’d run into him off and on at the Headliners Club, which catered to the city’s media crowd. Oppel liked Steve. He judged him a good sort, a genuinely nice guy.

After a pleasant enough hello, Celeste said she wanted to bring her attorney to talk to Oppel about the news coverage. Oppel agreed.

Celeste may have assumed the meeting would be only the three of them. Instead, when she arrived with one of Burton’s associates, they were escorted into a conference room, where Oppel waited with two of his editors and Copelin, the reporter who’d written the article. That morning, Celeste
was dressed for business in a suit and big jewelry, looking like a woman of wealth. She got right to the point, complaining that the article raised questions about her relationship with Tracey and exposed her to public scrutiny. While she may have come hoping for sympathy and a retraction, Oppel didn’t budge. Instead he shot questions at her, asking her to describe her relationship with Tracey and asking point blank, “Were you involved in the shooting?”

Celeste hesitated. Oppel thought she might answer, but the attorney interceded.

“We need to go,” he said.

When she spun on her high heels and walked to the door, the room was cool with her anger.

With the eyes of Austin on her, Celeste paced restlessly about the picnic table when she next met with Tracey at the park. The twins had noticed Tracey’s name on the caller ID on her cell phone and on the home phones, she said. They questioned how Tracey had the numbers, when they’d all been changed and were unlisted. “Buy me a cell phone,” Celeste told Tracey. “I’ll pay for it, but they won’t know. We’ll be able to talk.”

Tracey agreed. She was willing to do whatever she could to stay close to Celeste. At her psychiatrist appointments, she talked of nothing but the toll the separation took on her. Not only was she charged with a felony that carried a possible life sentence, but the woman she loved was rarely in her life. They no longer even had stolen nights together, just the brief encounters in the park where they were careful not to touch. At times Tracey felt desperate to talk to Celeste, just to hear her voice.

“It’ll be over, and then we’ll be together,” Celeste told her. “You’ll see. If that old man would just go ahead and die.”

Tracey tried not to listen to the doubt inside her, the certainty that it would never be over and that things would never be as they were.

Having Steve confined to the hospital appeared to fit Celeste’s purposes well. She flitted in and out of his room during the day, on her way to have her hair or nails done or to shop. With the go-ahead from the bank to cover household and living expenses, money was no object. The work at the house continued, with new projects starting weekly. But as the costs continued to climb, Kuperman and the bankers asked questions.

In response, Celeste wrote a letter for Steve and brought it to the hospital for him to sign. In it, Steve agreed with all her expenditures, saying that she was making the house improvements to accommodate his needs and that he had planned to purchase the three Cadillacs.
“I’m coherent and Celeste read this entire letter to me before I signed it,”
it said.
“Everything she’s doing is for my comfort and security.”
The nurse who witnessed his signature noted that Steve blinked once to acknowledge the letter before signing it. When Kuperman received it, Steve’s signature was jagged and barely resembled his old one. Kuperman went to the hospital, but Steve was so heavily medicated he was barely awake. When Kuperman returned two days later, Steve didn’t remember that he’d been there.

When she was at the hospital, Celeste catered to Steve, running to get him water, holding his hand and kissing him. “We’re going to get you home and take good care of you,” she said.

Meanwhile, with Tracey, she raved about how she couldn’t stand him and that she never wanted him to come home. In his weakened condition, she said, if he came home
it would be easy to ensure that he never fully recovered. She’d been told the importance of keeping his wound clean. “I’ll just spit on my hands and touch him. Eventually he’ll get an infection and die,” she said.

“If he dies, I’ll face a murder charge,” Tracey said, pleading. “Please, Celeste, don’t.”

“He’s not out yet. Let’s just not worry about it,” she said, flipping the subject to something else.

Although the skin grafts Coscia applied healed reluctantly, Steve’s condition slowly improved. In November he was moved from acute care into a regular room. From the window, he looked out on Austin’s sports complex, and one day Justin joked that they could slip him out of the hospital for a basketball game.

Steve laughed. “I’m on this really excellent diet,” he said. “I’m so skinny I bet I could fit through the chimney.”

Just getting back on solid food, Steve had lost nearly a third of his weight, 100 pounds. Despite the weight loss, he looked far less healthy than before, his complexion pale from the sunless hospital rooms. Justin’s heart ached for him when Steve said, “You know, I’d just like to be able to take a ride in a car.”

As he became more aware of what was going on around him, Steve tried to reclaim bits and pieces of his life. He asked for small things, like his ring and his watch. Celeste gave Jennifer her credit card and sent her to the jewelry store to replace his sapphire ring and watch. Although no one had seen the items since the night of the shooting, Celeste never reported them stolen. In Texas, a murder in conjunction with another crime, like a burglary, can bring a capital murder charge and the death penalty. “I don’t think we want to risk that,” she told Tracey.

Meanwhile, Steve’s older children worried about their father. They called Detective Wines at the Sheriff’s Department often, asking how the investigation was coming. Wines assured them that he was working the case, but in reality he was doing little. When Judge Entz flew into Austin for another visit with Steve in November, he saw the sign barring police on the door, and he was furious.

“Are you honoring that?” he demanded when he called Wines.

“Yes,” Wines said. “We are.”

“Why?” the judge asked, but Wines didn’t have an answer.

Days later Celeste called Entz, screaming, “You’re not allowed to visit Steve ever again.” He hung up. When she called back, he refused to take her calls.

Detective Wines would say later that he didn’t know why he didn’t ignore the sign and walk in. As a police officer, he had a legal right to interview the victim, whether or not his wife agreed. Was it Celeste’s money, the big house and the expensive jewelry she wore, that made him wary to cross her? Perhaps he feared her high-profile attorney, Charles Burton? Later, all he’d be able to say was that he checked on Steve’s condition and knew he was improving. “I thought I’d wait until he was out of the hospital,” he says. “Then I could interview him without worrying about his health.”

With the animosity they felt toward Celeste, Steve’s grown children had kept a distance throughout the months since the shooting, only talking to their father on the telephone, but they made plans to come to Austin in November to celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday. Becky was driving down from Dallas, and Paul and his wife Kim flying in from Virginia. As the date approached, Steven, who’d thought at first that he couldn’t make it, made plans to bring his family from Chicago.

“We wanted to throw him as much of a party as he was up to,” says Paul.

Celeste was furious. She called all three, screaming, ordering them not to come. They said they had a right to see their father. Then she demanded to know where they were staying and who they’d be seeing. “Your father’s not strong enough for you to come, and I’m too busy taking care of him to entertain you,” she told Paul. When he still insisted he was coming, she said, “Stay by the telephone. You’ll be getting a call from your father.”

A short time later Paul’s phone rang. Steve’s voice sounded tired and sad when he said, “Paul, it’s not a good time to come. Steven can’t make it anyway.”

“Yes, he’s coming, Dad. He’ll be there,” Paul said. “All of us will be there.”

Steve was silent. Then, in a voice filled with resolution, he said, “It’s not a good time. You can’t come.”

In the end Steve’s birthday was a quiet affair. In his hospital room, the girls, Justin, and Celeste gathered. Kristina smuggled in his present, a blond cocker spaniel puppy.

“What do I need another dog for?” Steve said gruffly, but minutes later the dog was licking his cheek and Steve was laughing. He named the puppy Kaci.

In December, Steve put in a call for Chuck Fuqua at the bank, asking about checks he’d expected but hadn’t seen, including health insurance reimbursements. Chuck called back and told him that they’d already been cashed, the money put into an old joint account he had with Celeste, one that had been inactive, then pulled out and transferred into her personal account.

Steve thanked Chuck and hung up.

David Kuperman brought Steve more bad news in a briefcase full of bank statements and bills, including a spread
sheet that showed Celeste’s wild spending while he’d been in the hospital. It must have been a bad day for Steve, looking at the stacks of charges Celeste had incurred. In the months since he’d been hospitalized, Celeste had spent more than $550,000, money that would have to be raised by selling stocks out of his trust.

Kuperman pointed out that many of the expenses were onetime costs, like the security system at the house and the cars. “Hopefully, they won’t be recurring,” he said. “I’ve talked with Celeste and she says the expenses will be going down.”

“This is out of line, but I can’t do anything about this now. Not while I’m in here. All I care about is getting better,” Steve said.

Yet Kuperman knew his old friend was fuming. “Do you want a divorce?” he asked.

“No,” Steve said, shaking his head. “I’ll talk to Celeste and put the brakes on.”

That day, Kuperman also brought an addendum to the trust. Davenport II was nearing completion. In a phone call, he and Steve had discussed what to do with the property and the income it would generate. As with Davenport I, it was decided that Steve’s interest in the property would go into the trust. Despite his anger, Steve signed the papers. It wasn’t what Celeste told Tracey she wanted—control of the money without interference from the bank—but it increased the monthly stipend she could expect to get if he died.