03.She.Wanted.It.All.2005 (28 page)

“I want an apology,” she demanded, pulling out the knife. “And I want it now.”

Kristina again struggled with her mother, but couldn’t wrestle the knife away.

“I want an apology!” Celeste shouted even louder.

By then Jennifer had arrived, after seeing Celeste’s and Kristina’s cars in the parking lot. She grabbed Celeste’s arm and tried to wrench the knife from her. They struggled and Celeste pulled away. In the confusion, the knife grazed Kristina’s knee, cutting her, and plunged into Celeste’s forearm once and her left thigh twice.

By the time police arrived, Kim had fled, and no one pressed charges. Donna wrapped Celeste’s leg and arm in bandages, and they left for North Austin Medical Center. Celeste looked up at Justin as he helped her into the car. “Did you see how frightened they were of me?” she asked with excitement.

At the hospital Celeste said, “This was an accident. I wasn’t trying to kill myself.”

The doctor sutured her leg wounds and dressed the cut in her arm. The six-inch knife blade had come close to a large artery in her inner thigh, so he ordered that she be kept overnight for observation.

The next morning, Celeste was released, and that afternoon she and Donna dressed and primped to go out. When Donna was ready, she searched the house for Celeste and found her in what had been Steve’s office. “Oh, I shouldn’t have called you,” Celeste said, hanging up the phone as Donna walked into the room. Donna assumed Celeste had been talking to Tracey when she said, “It hasn’t been taken care of.”

“Modesto needs more money,” Donna said. “Another thousand.”

Celeste didn’t argue. She picked up the telephone and called Kristina. “I need you to get some cash for me,” she said. When Kristina and Justin showed up with the money and handed it to Celeste, she gave it to Donna. They both watched, eyes wide, wondering what was happening.

Bruce saw it as well. He’d been suspicious of Donna’s relationship with Celeste, assuming that Donna had an angle.
The following afternoon he locked himself and Celeste in the master bedroom and called out to Donna, demanding she leave. “Celeste and I are getting married,” he said “We don’t want you here.”

“I need my things,” Donna replied. “Then I’ll be gone.”

He opened the door, and Donna ran inside and jumped on the bed. Celeste laughed when she crossed her arms and refused to move. When Justin overheard what was going on, he convinced Bruce to talk to him in the hallway and minutes later Bruce was gone.

“I told him to leave,” Justin said. “He won’t be back.”

That night, when they were partying at a club, Celeste said to Donna, “I hope no one ever says it’s him or you again, because you’re my best friend.”

Donna smiled, but she had no doubts about why Celeste wanted her as a friend: Celeste thought she could get rid of Tracey.

At the Toro Canyon house the days fell into a pattern. The cleaning lady circulated in and out, and the dry cleaner picked up the laundry, all of it, including the sheets and Celeste’s panties and bras. Most days, Celeste and Donna slept until three in the afternoon, then rose and dressed to go out for the night. Celeste always had a man around. The night after Bruce departed, she met Joey Fina, a tall, dark Italian with a melodic accent. He told her he’d solve all of her problems by taking her to Italy, where they’d live on a hillside vineyard. At the same time, she dated Cole Johnson, a good-looking, sandy-haired construction worker who tended bar at the 311 Club. Ironically, Johnson had the same name as Celeste’s older brother. Soft-spoken and polite, he was an old friend of Donna’s. On his nights off, the three of them bar-hopped together.

Celeste’s erratic behavior hadn’t gone unnoticed. Charles Burton cautioned Kristina to rein in her mother, lest there be
talk about the young widow who wasn’t grieving. And not long after the Studio 29 incident, Petra Mueller, the owner, filed a lawsuit, charging that Celeste had destroyed her business by frightening away her clientele. Livid, Celeste told Donna she was going to hire someone to hack into the salon computer and delete all the customer files. For weeks after she learned of the suit, Celeste made a game of avoiding the process server who sat outside the gates on Toro Canyon. Evenings, Donna drove and Celeste ducked down in the backseat as they pulled out of the driveway. A block away, she sat up and laughed. Finally, Charles Burton called Donna, asking her to convince Celeste to take the papers. To get her to agree, Donna turned it into a game.

“She’ll be home in an hour,” she told the process server. “Come then.”

When he arrived, Celeste waited on the patio. Despite temperatures in the seventies, she wore a full-length mink with a matching hat and sunglasses. Covered in diamonds, she had on Chanel shoes and held a bag with diamond clasps. She had a martini in one hand and a see-through plastic bag filled with prescription drugs at her side. As the man stared at her, Celeste popped pills, then washed them down with a swig of vodka.

The man laughed, but Celeste never broke a smile.

When he tore the papers apart to give her the receipt, a staple fell to the floor.

“You can’t leave that. Somebody else will die around here,” Donna deadpanned. “Get on your knees and find it.”

With that, the man dropped onto all fours, searching around the patio, chuckling.

With his client acting so oddly, that spring Charles Burton told Kristina he wanted her to have power of attorney over her mother’s affairs. He said he worried about Celeste’s behavior,
throwing away money and frequenting bars. It bred suspicion. Burton said he wanted Celeste back at Timberlawn. Perhaps he thought she belonged there. Or maybe it was as Donna and Kristina later maintained, that he said the police wouldn’t be able to arrest Celeste for Steve’s murder while she was hospitalized.

There was also the matter of the girls’ statements to the District Attorney’s Office. Mange wanted to talk to them, but every time it came up, Celeste became hysterical. Once, she had an anxiety attack on the steps to Burton’s office, and an ambulance had to be called. “He told us once Celeste was in the hospital we could talk to the D.A.,” Kristina said. “I was scared, but I wanted to help them.”

In truth, Burton didn’t need to be so concerned, since the investigation had stalled. Wines’s admission to Mange that he hadn’t interviewed Steve had caused a rift between the men. The detective thought about the case often but felt cut out of the investigation. Mange, on the other hand, couldn’t build a case on beauty shop gossip; he needed solid evidence, which he didn’t have. The prosecutor had no doubt Celeste was involved, but unless Tracey talked, he feared Celeste would go unpunished. The only way he had a case against her was to cut a deal with Tracey, and Tracey wasn’t interested. Loyal, she rebuffed every suggestion her attorney made that she work with the D.A.’s Office to get a lesser sentence. Even if it meant life in prison, Tracey was determined to protect Celeste.

Still, the investigation haunted Celeste. Donna thought her guilt ate at her. She rarely talked bad about Steve. Instead she portrayed him as her fallen hero, her one true love. And she mused often about what the police might be doing. One day, she complained that Burton refused to get her a copy of the police report, which was available to the public. “Call that detective and get the case number. I’ll get it for you,” Donna offered.

Celeste dialed Wines’s phone number, and when she asked, he quickly read it off.

“It must be right on his desk,” she said to Donna after she hung up.

“I think that cop’s mad at you,” Donna said. “He’s not going to let this drop.”

Celeste frowned.

Donna was fascinated watching Celeste. Like a chameleon, she acted one way with some people and like a different person around others. With Anita and her friends from the lake—Dawn, Marilou, and Dana—Celeste played the vulnerable widow, grieving for her husband. “With me, she was the promiscuous drunk,” says Donna. “Every night in the bars, and nothing she wouldn’t do.”

Always, she asked when Modesto would murder Tracey. “Maybe tomorrow,” Donna said. Or, “Later today.” Celeste called Tracey often, which Tracey interpreted as Celeste missing her. But when Celeste hung up, she frowned because Modesto hadn’t done the job yet. When she asked why, Donna made up excuses. Modesto was busy, had another job first, or planned to wait a few more days. Celeste took it well, never pushing.

If Celeste knew how to handle men, Donna knew how to handle Celeste; Donna led her on, and Celeste refused her nothing. When Donna mentioned liking something, Celeste gave it to her. One day it was a diamond cocktail ring, another, a jeweled pendant of the Dallas skyline. “She wanted Tracey dead so bad, I could have asked for her car and she would have signed over the registration,” says Donna.

Out every night and sleeping much of the day, Donna performed a job that evolved into shuffling Celeste to therapy sessions, brushing her hair, arranging for hairdressers and manicurists to come to the house, and running her errands. She never had time to do paperwork and pay bills.
Soon the unopened mail piled up until it mounded over a corner of Steve’s desk. “You could hire my mom to do it,” Donna suggested.

The following day Donna’s mother, Frances Tate, came to the Toro Canyon house and spent the day sorting bills. There were credit card statements with hundreds of thousands of dollars waiting to be paid. After two hours of organizing, Celeste handed her a check for $800 for her services.

More and more, Kristina and Justin took over the work of running the house, so much so that Celeste made up lists for them, telling them what needed to be done, everything from buying new garbage cans to typing her letters. Celeste even sent Justin a thank-you card:
“You’ve been really wonderful with everything you do for us … I couldn’t have survived the last two months without you.”

On the porch one afternoon, Celeste and Justin sat in rocking chairs looking out at the bluebonnets. As usual, she was on the telephone, this time with her psychiatrist, Michele Hauser. For weeks she’d told the doctor that she felt guilty over Steve’s murder. “If I hadn’t brought Tracey into our lives, he’d still be alive,” she said.

Justin listened as Celeste told Hauser she couldn’t sleep, blaming it on depression. When she hung up, she laughed. “Well, I told the partial truth,” she said. “I’m not sleeping, but it’s because I’m having so much fun at the bars.”

Busy with Donna, Celeste rarely saw Tracey. “Celeste. Call me—important,” Tracey wrote on a sheet of paper, faxing it from an Office Depot in late February. Later she wouldn’t remember what had been so urgent. “I think I was worried about her,” says Tracey. “When we talked on the telephone, she sounded like she was unraveling.”

Days later Celeste called Tracey in the middle of the night. “I’m out on Toro Canyon. Come get me.”

When Tracey got there, she found Celeste walking on the
road. Tracey opened the door for her and they drove through the quiet neighborhood while Celeste talked. On the side of the road, Celeste cried over what the police might do. Tracey, the one already facing a life sentence, comforted her. “By then, I wasn’t in love with her,” Tracey said. “But I loved her.”

And still, every day, Celeste asked Donna if that would be the day Modesto would fulfill the contract and kill Tracey.

In early March, Donna told Celeste, “Modesto needs $2,500 to finish the contract. He has expenses.”

Again, Celeste told Kristina to go to the bank.

“Why?” Kristina asked.

“Because I said so,” she answered.

When Kristina returned, she found Celeste and Donna in the master bathroom. She handed Celeste the $2,500 in an envelope and watched as her mother gave it to Donna.

“What’s going on?” Kristina asked. “What’s between you and Donna?”

“Never mind,” Celeste said. “It’s none of your business. And I don’t want you asking Donna any questions. Stay away from her.”

With the hit imminent, or so she believed, Celeste had an idea. She and Donna left the next day for New Orleans. It was Mardi Gras. What better place to set up an alibi than with thousands of people to testify she wasn’t even in Austin?

That week, Anita had plans to help Celeste write thank-you notes for the flowers and remembrances that had poured in for Steve’s funeral. Instead her fax churned out a letter from Celeste:
“I’m just too distraught. I can’t handle Steve’s death. I feel like I want to kill myself and be with him. I’m going back to Timberlawn.”

Days later Anita mentioned it to Christopher, who worked part-time in her office. “I’m worried about Celeste,” she said. “She’s really taking Steve’s death hard.”

“She’s partying in New Orleans,” he said. “I think she’s fine.”

Meanwhile, Celeste and Donna jumped from hotel to hotel in New Orleans, and what was to have been a three-day trip turned into ten. During the day they shopped, buying wild costumes and long, shiny metallic green, purple, and silver wigs. At night they walked Bourbon Street in leopard leotards, their hair concealed beneath the wigs. In platform shoes, they towered over the other revelers, attracting attention. One night they dressed like members of the rock group KISS, their faces painted white with black stripes. Nearly every night, Celeste slept with a different man. On the street during the parades, she tore open her blouse, flashing her breasts for the bright plastic beads thrown off the floats. A few nights, Celeste’s current boyfriend, Cole Johnson, flew in. When he left, she partied again, picking up a new guy in the bars or on the streets. While Celeste brought her latest man upstairs, Donna slept in the lobby.

When Celeste once again urged Donna to find out when the hit would take place, Donna pretended to call Modesto; no one answered. “Maybe he’s taking care of it right now,” she’d say.

With that, Celeste called Tracey. When she answered, Celeste hung up.

Finally, on the tenth day after they’d arrived, Donna said, “I need a phone card to call Modesto. We don’t want it traced.” They walked over to an Eckerd and Celeste bought one. While Celeste waited, Donna dialed her mother’s house on a pay phone. Donna’s teenage son answered, and they talked for half an hour or so while Celeste waited.