Steve wasn’t the only one asking if Celeste was behind 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.
“Steve changed the will,” Celeste crowed when she met with Tracey. “It’s all mine.”
She arrived at the park that day in an expensive suit and sat smoking on the picnic table, looking out at the creek and the sun filtering through the bare tree limbs. Ahead of her waited all the wealth she’d dreamed of. All that stood in her way was Steve. That she didn’t understand the trust, and that the changes hadn’t given her access to his wealth, eluded her. As Celeste explained it to Tracey, the addendum meant she was the sole beneficiary to the estate and all of Steve’s millions.
“Steve’s such a sweetheart. I can’t stand to watch him in so much pain,” she said.
Celeste’s words stung Tracey. “I thought you hated him,” she said. “I thought you couldn’t stand to have him touch you. Now, because he changed his will, he’s a great guy.”
“I just hate to see him in so much pain,” she said.
It would turn out that her change of heart was short-lived. Early the following week, Celeste showed up at the park in her old humor, complaining bitterly about her husband. “I wish he’d just die,” she said, “just fucking die and leave me the hell alone.”
That winter, Celeste seemed intent on purging the house and her two storage areas of old papers and documents. Perhaps she worried about the secrets they held. Yet, she wasn’t interested in doing the work herself. She had her little “niglets” for that.
“Just get rid of everything,” she said. “I want it all gone.”
They did as they were told, but they did something she hadn’t counted on; they looked through what they were throwing out. As they pawed through boxes of papers, Jennifer and Christopher discovered four cards from Tracey to Celeste, and the three journals Celeste had kept at Timberlawn. In the cards, Tracey yearned for Celeste, talking about her beautiful body and how she wanted to run her hands over it. Black and white composition books, the journals were filled with page after page of Celeste’s writing, notes from classes and accusatory letters to her mother and father, assignments from the psychiatrists at St. David’s and Timberlawn. Also, scattered throughout, were notes from Tracey.
“Look at that,” Jennifer said, pointing to one note after another.
“You have a lot of anger that you are not in touch with … TRY.
“I told Dr. Miller that I have no sexual interest in you, so I lied, but you should too … We need to go outpatient… QUICK.
“Celeste I believe you, Tracey.”
From the beginning, the first night of the shooting, Jennifer and Christopher had both believed Celeste was involved. Now they held in their hands writings that tied her romantically to Tracey. They didn’t know what to do, but sensed they could one day be important. That afternoon, Christopher slipped the journals and cards under his car seat and carted them off to his apartment for safe keeping.
“Should we tell Kristina?” he asked.
Jen shook her head no. Anything Celeste asked, Kristina would do. Jennifer believed Celeste was more than capable of murder, that she’d already tried to murder Steve. What stopped Celeste from coming after them? “If we tell her, it could put all of us in danger.”
Justin and Kristina made a similar discovery in the attic and out in the garage storage area, where Celeste put them to work. They found the family planner from the house, Celeste’s secret calendar, and photos of Tracey and Celeste together at St. David’s, with Tracey’s arm draped over Celeste’s shoulders.
“What do you think these mean?” Justin asked.
“It means Tracey was telling the truth. That they were lovers,” Kristina answered.
“Nothing more?”
Kristina believed in Celeste so much, she’d protected her for so long, she just couldn’t let herself think any more than that Tracey loved Celeste and had shot Steve out of jealousy. So she didn’t answer. As he’d done with his own suspicions since the night of the shooting, Justin tucked the calendars and the photos away where he would be prepared to share them with Kristina if and when she was finally ready.
The holidays approached, and Kristina thought little of it when Celeste gave her a credit card and asked her to pick up an order she’d placed at a James Avery jewelry store. One of the items, she said, was a ring that she was buying for Jim Madigan to give his wife Dawn. At the store, amid the display cases of gold and silver, Kristina walked around, choosing gifts for friends and writing the item numbers on a slip of white paper. She jotted down the number of the ring and went to look at it. When she found it, it was the Simplicity Wedding Band, a simple gold and silver ring, identical to one Christopher had given Jennifer in October for their one year anniversary.
Dawn has a wedding ring, Kristina thought. Why would Jim give her that?
By December 7, Steve had had seven operations in two months, from the original surgery, through installing and removing the tracheotomy and laying in the skin grafts. His wounds slowly healed, until seventy percent were covered by new skin. With so much progress, Dr. Coscia discharged him to HealthSouth, a rehab facility next door to Brackenridge. Its proximity gave the doctor the opportunity to look in on Steve and monitor his recovery.
That month, Dr. Coscia rarely saw Celeste when he visited Steve’s room. Celeste hated to go, complaining it interrupted her day. Perhaps Steve complained, again pushing her to tell him what she wanted, to be with him or to be apart. Days before Christmas, they battled in his room, Celeste screaming and shouting, taking a key and pressing it against her skin, threatening to cut her wrists.
That night at home, she screamed at Kristina. Grabbing a framed photo, she threw it against the wall, and pulled out a shard of glass. “You know what your father looked like when he blew his brains out,” she taunted, pressing the glass against her wrist. “His face, his whole head, was gone. I read the autopsy. His whole face was nothing but a big hole.”
“Stop it,” Kristina shouted, crying.
“What do you care? You’re Kristina Beard now,” Celeste screamed sarcastically.
Shaking, Kristina ran outside and dialed 911 on her cell phone. She watched her mother through the window as Celeste paced manically through the house. Within minutes two deputies arrived to handcuff Celeste and transport her to St. David’s. All the way to the car, Celeste cursed at Kristina and called her names. That night, at Justin’s parents’ house, Steve called Kristina on her cell phone.
“Don’t listen to what your mother says when she’s like this. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She’s sick,” he said. “She doesn’t mean those things.”
The following morning Celeste’s therapist, Dr. Hauser, signed her release papers. When Celeste saw Kristina at home, she acted like nothing had happened.
In the park, days after Christmas, Celeste handed Tracey a small box wrapped in silky white paper with a silver James Avery gift tag. Tracey opened it, and inside was the Simplicity Wedding Band that Celeste had asked Kristina to pick up, gold with silver edges.
“This ring means that I love you and that we’re supposed to be together,” Celeste told her, slipping it on her finger. “Remember, you belong to me.”
For once, Tracey didn’t worry who might see, and they kissed openly in the park. Afterward, Celeste glanced about nervously. “Do you think anyone saw us?” she asked.
Hurt that at such a time she’d be worried, Tracey said, “I don’t think so.”
“That Justin is such a snake. I wouldn’t put it past him to be following me,” she said. “I don’t know what he knows about all this, but he knows something.”
The check Jimmy Martinez expected from Bank of America for the security work he’d done at the house arrived just after the first of the year. Instead of being for the amount of the invoice, $8,000, it was made out for $74,499.38. Jimmy called Celeste and said there’d been a mistake. She had a simple solution. “Sign the check over to me and I’ll give you one to replace it,” she said.
Jimmy did, and Celeste wrote him a check for his work plus a $1,000 tip.
Another check came in that month. Stacy Sadler, the travel agent, received the refund on the trip to Europe. Looking at it in her hand, Stacy thought about Steve and all the rumors that Celeste was involved in the shooting. She decided she couldn’t just hand the money over to her. It didn’t seem right. So she walked a few doors down from the travel agency to the PakMail store where she knew Steve had a personal mailbox. She handed the envelope to the owner and asked, “Would you put this in Mr. Beard’s box for me?”
“Sure,” he said, looking at the envelope. “It’s all taken care of.”
She didn’t know that Celeste had Steve’s key. Just after the first of the year, on January 11, Celeste deposited that $50,124 check, along with the $74,499.38 check made out to Jimmy, into her bank account.
At HealthSouth the social workers discussed Steve’s discharge needs. His skin grafts were healing slowly and needed special care, to be kept clean and checked for infection. His ileostomy needed to be changed daily. The risk of infection was high, and in his weakened state, any infection could prove fatal. “You really need to hire a nursing service,” they told Celeste. “You’re not equipped to handle this type of care.”
Celeste, who didn’t even like to brush her own hair, refused. “I want to do this myself,” she told them.
Justin brought brochures on home nursing services, but she wouldn’t read them.
“No,” she said. “I want to take care of Steve myself.”
At the park, Tracey begged her not to do anything to hurt him, fearing his death would raise the stakes and the charge against her to murder.
“It’ll be easy,” Celeste said. “I just won’t wash my hands.”
The morning of January 18, Celeste called Donna Goodson, the receptionist at Studio 29. A statuesque redhead with a wild side to match Celeste’s, Donna had listened in for months to her diatribes against Steve as she dished with Joseph, her stylist. “I can’t believe he didn’t die,” Donna heard Celeste say one day. Others at the salon talked well of Steve, but listening to Celeste, Donna thought he sounded like the vilest of men.
This day, Celeste called with a request: “Steve will be getting out this afternoon. I want to bring him in for a haircut, pedicure, and manicure.”
“Sure, I’ll juggle things and make room,” Donna said. When she worked things out, it required Celeste giving up her nail appointment and rescheduling it for two days later. Celeste sounded miffed, but she agreed.
That afternoon, Celeste signed Steve out of HealthSouth and, with the physical therapist, helped him from his wheelchair into her Cadillac. At Davenport Village, Justin and Christopher helped him back into his wheelchair. Moments later, although she’d pledged to be his nurse, Celeste left. Instead, Kristina and the two boys pushed Steve around the shopping center. It was the first time he’d seen the completed Davenport II, and he grinned proudly at the sprawling two-story shopping center.
“Look at that,” he said. “Look what I built.”
He stopped in at PakMail and said hello to the owner. Then they made their way to Studio 29 for his haircut. At the salon, every task proved painful for Steve. Getting in and out of the stylist’s chair, bending his head back for a shampoo, even putting his feet on a stool for the pedicure, brought pain. The stylist hurried him through, and Kristina and the boys helped Steve into her car. For the first time in nearly four months he drove into the long, tree-shaded driveway at Toro Canyon. He was home. But he couldn’t get inside.
The carpenter had been there for months working on projects for Celeste, including new bookshelves, but she hadn’t gotten around to ramps for the stairs until the day Steve came home. When he arrived, the ramps weren’t done.
Justin and Christopher couldn’t wheel him into the front of the house with the three flights of stairs, so they rolled him around to the back. There, too, there were stairs without ramps. Finally Justin, Christopher, and the carpenter all hoisted him up to the landing and wheeled him into the living room. Inside the house, the railings had been installed, but again they encountered an obstacle, this time the stairs to the master bedroom wing. Steve stood up and, with Justin helping, tried to walk up the stairs. His abdomen covered with scar tissue, with each step he grimaced in pain.
It took half an hour from the time he pulled into the driveway until Justin wheeled Steve into the master bedroom, and he and Christopher helped him into the four-poster bed. The last time he’d laid there was the night he was shot, but that didn’t appear to dull the excitement for Steve. He looked elated to be home.
Kristina kissed him good-bye, and she and Justin ran off to a photography class. Soon, Christopher left. By then Jennifer had arrived from work, and she climbed on the bed beside him. With Meagan on the floor at his feet and his new puppy, Kaci, on the bed between them, they watched 20/20 and talked. Steve looked exhausted but happy. When he fell asleep, Jennifer put on his oxygen machine, covered him with a blanket, kissed him on the forehead, and tiptoed off to bed.
Celeste still hadn’t come home.
“I can’t keep my nail appointment. Steve’s dying,” Celeste told Donna Goodson at Studio 29 on the phone the next morning. “I don’t want him to die in the house, so I’m taking him back to the hospital.”
“Don’t worry,” Donna said, amazed that she’d bothered to call with Steve so ill.
That morning Celeste had taken Steve to HealthSouth for a physical therapy session. She complained the entire time, saying they’d discharged him too soon.
“I don’t want to come back here,” Steve told her. “I want to stay at home.”
“He can’t even go to the bathroom. It took two of us to help him last night.”
“I did things here,” he said. “I did things in rehab. I can do it.”
Ignoring what Steve wanted, Celeste called Dr. Coscia. “I want him readmitted,” she said. “He’s complaining of chest pains and he’s not talking right. He’s confused.”
At Brackenridge Hospital just after 8:00 A.M., the physician on duty examined Steve, who complained of chest pains. Noting no indication of a heart problem, he examined a rash on Steve’s groin. Diagnosing it as a yeast infection, he saw no reason to admit him. Hospitals can be dangerous places, with infection a high possibility. Steve, he said, would be better off at home. But when Dr. Coscia examined Steve, he overruled him.
“Let’s keep him here a couple of days,” he ordered. “See if we can treat the rash.”
When she heard Steve was back in the hospital, Jennifer called Kristina on her cell phone to tell her what had happened.
“Did he look sick?” Kris asked.
“No,” Jen said.
“That’s so mean. She just doesn’t want him home.”
When Celeste called Tracey to tell her that Steve was back in the hospital, Tracey at first didn’t believe her. “Why?” she said.
“He’s really sick,” she said. “I think he has some kind of infection.”
“That HealthSouth is a disgusting pigpen,” Celeste complained to the case worker at Brackenridge. “He had a rash, and they didn’t do anything about it. They told me to put vinegar on it. He never should have been released. They said he could take care of himself, but he can’t. They sent him home too soon.”
Checked into another room, his fourth at the hospital, Steve was treated for the rash with antifungal creams and showers. He seemed well, ate, and talked to the twins. “I’m fine,” he said. “I’ll be home again in a couple of days.”
That afternoon, Steve looked so good that another debate ensued between Coscia and a physician who saw no reason he should be in the hospital. A social worker was called in to explain to Celeste that with no clear reason why he should be there, Medicare might refuse to pay the bill.
“I don’t care,” she said. “We have money. We’ll pay.”
The following day, Steve fared well. His rash had improved and the doctors argued again about whether he needed to be hospitalized. The twins and their boyfriends stayed with Steve as Celeste came and went, saying she had errands to run. While disappointed at being back in the hospital, he was in a good mood, watching television and joking.
“This is just a setback,” he told a friend who called. “I’m fine. I’ll be out in no time.”
The first real indication that more troubled Steve than he knew was the next day, when a cardiologist ran an EKG and did an ultrasound of Steve’s heart. “I don’t believe this is ischemic chest pain”—coming from any problem with the heart—the doctor wrote on his chart. “I am concerned about infection given his warm, tender lower region.”
Later that day blood work noted an elevated white blood cell count, another sign something was brewing.
In pain, Steve was given Vicodin, but his temperature had crept up overnight, another possible sign of infection. At just after three that afternoon it reached 102.5 degrees. More blood work was drawn, and this time it came back positive for infection.
Worried, Kristina called Dr. Handley, Steve’s physician, and told him that he was back in the hospital.
“Lots of people get infections in hospitals. If they caught it early, he’ll be all right,” he said. “Try not to worry.”
Meanwhile, Celeste seemed more preoccupied with her nail appointment. “I can’t make it today. I think Steve’s gonna die,” she said to Donna when she called. “Just don’t make an appointment for me.”
“Celeste, forget about the salon,” she replied. “Take care of yourself and Steve.”
“Okay,” Celeste said, and hung up.
By eight-thirty that evening drugs had brought Steve’s temperature back down to 100.2 and he was resting comfortably. Yet he slept little that night, with nurses waking him every hour to take his temperature. By three-thirty the next morning, his temperature was up again, this time to 102.3. And something else was wrong; his pulse had climbed to 120 beats per minute. He was delirious, talking but making little sense.
“You owe me money,” he told Kristina, who held his hand. “Twenty dollars.”
“Okay, I’ll pay you later,” she said, humoring him.
Soon after, Celeste’s mind, too, had turned to the issue of money.
Just after nine that morning she called Chuck Fuqua at home. “Steve’s really sick, and I need to get on his bank account,” she said.
“I can’t do that,” Chuck said. “Not without a new signature card.”
“What if Steve signs a signature card?” she asked. “He wants me on there so I can take care of the bills.”
Remembering all the times she’d forged Steve’s name, Fuqua said, “If we can independently verify that it’s his signature, yes, we can do it.”
When he hung up the phone he thought, Well, she found some way to finish him off.
At 11:30 A.M., Steve’s blood pressure dropped to 80 over 60. He wheezed and tossed uncomfortably in bed. He was disoriented, his breathing was shallow, and his heart raced at 140 beats per minute.
“You need to come home,” Justin said when he called Jennifer in Houston, where she was with Christopher attending his great aunt’s funeral. “Steve’s taken a turn for the worse.”
She and Christopher left the funeral and immediately drove west to Austin.
While his doctors treated Steve, Celeste fumed about HealthSouth, blaming the infection on poor care she said he’d received there. She even called the social worker at the facility. “There may be a lawsuit if he dies,” she threatened.
As bad as Steve looked, and as concerned as the doctors appeared, Kristina didn’t believe he would die. She kept remembering what Dr. Handley had said and about how many times Steve had been sick before and recovered. She’d already lost one father, and she couldn’t grasp the possibility that she could lose another.
“Hello, Elise,” Kristina heard Steve whisper. It gave her the chills. He’s just confused, she thought.
Dr. Coscia wasn’t at the hospital that day. With Steve in increasing respiratory distress, the doctor on duty ordered an infectious disease consult. The infectious disease doctor feared Steve suffered from septic shock, a rampaging and often fatal infection. “We’re going to move your husband to the ICU,” a nurse told Celeste at one-forty that afternoon. “Why don’t you all go get some lunch and then go there to see him?”
After a night at his bedside, they were tired, and Kristina, Justin, and Celeste did as the nurse suggested. They drove to a nearby restaurant called the Brick Oven. In the car, Celeste called someone she told them was Dawn and talked to her throughout lunch. Later, Tracey would say that she was on the telephone with Celeste, her own pulse racing when she realized that if Steve died, she could soon be charged with murder.
Meanwhile at the hospital, at 2:31 that afternoon, a nurse and an aide wheeled Steve into the ICU on a gurney. By then his heart fluttered at a dangerous 162 beats per minute, his breathing was shallow, and his oxygen levels were low.
Four minutes later his pulse dropped to 60. And moments afterward his exhausted heart simply stopped.
In the minutes that followed, the ICU staff converged on Steve’s bed. They intubated him, putting a tube down into his throat and pumping oxygen into his lungs. They gave him shots of epinephrine to stimulate his heart, then gave him CPR and jolted him with paddles to electrify his heart to beat.
It didn’t work.
At 3:15 P.M., Steven Beard Jr. was officially declared dead.
The cause noted on his chart: septic shock, overwhelming infection.
“Are you the Beard family?” a nurse asked when they returned to the hospital.
“Yes,” Celeste said.
She pulled them to the side, into a private room. “I’m sorry, we did all we could,” she said. “But we couldn’t save him.”
Celeste let out a shriek that echoed off the walls and down the hospital corridors. Inconsolable, she screamed and cried until a doctor ordered her taken to an empty room and given Haldol to calm her. In the darkness, they laid her on a gurney.
“Steve’s dead,” Justin said when he called Jennifer on her cell phone. He caught her and Christopher rushing back from Houston. At that point Jennifer cried and Christopher pulled over to comfort her. They no longer had a reason to hurry.
With Steve’s body being escorted to the medical examiner’s wagon to be taken for autopsy, Celeste called Donna at Studio 29, a woman she barely knew.
“Steve’s dead. He’s dead,” she shouted.
“Celeste, calm down,” Donna said. “You’re going to be all right.”
“No, he’s dead, Donna. He’s really dead.”
When she hung up, Donna told the others who worked at the salon. Many had known Steve and liked him. Except from Celeste, Donna had never heard a bad word about him.
“God, he gave her everything,” Petra Mueller, the owner, said.
Celeste left the hospital that afternoon and drove home in Steve’s Cadillac with the twins and their boyfriends. As they got out of the car, she went inside. Justin opened the center console to retrieve a parking ticket they’d gotten at the hospital. Inside, he discovered something odd, an unfamiliar cell phone. As much time as he’d spent with Kristina and Celeste, he thought he knew all their phones. This was one he’d never seen.
“What’s that?” Christopher asked as he walked over beside him.
“Have you ever seen this cell phone before?” Justin said.
Christopher took it from him and held it. He flipped the buttons and pulled up the opening screen with the phone number. “No,” he said. He then flipped through the numbers recently dialed. Tracey’s home and cell phones popped up.
Justin and Christopher looked at each other with a sinking feeling.
“She’s still talking to Tracey,” Justin said. Christopher nodded. He was thinking about all the times Celeste just disappeared. Usually, she told everyone where she was going, but since the shooting, she’d left the house or the hospital and was gone for hours, never mentioning where she’d been when she returned.
Just then Celeste ran from the house toward the car. They stepped to the side, Justin holding the cell phone behind him.
“I’m missing something,” she said, throwing open the car door and searching. She opened the center console, then the glove compartment, then checked under the seats. While she was distracted, Justin dropped the cell phone and kicked it under the car.
Celeste jerked up and stood inches from him, pulling her body straight. Staring Justin in the eye, she held out her hand. “You have it. Give it to me.”
“What?” Justin said.
“You have it. I want it now,” she insisted as she frisked him down, like a cop searching a suspect. Seeing what was happening through the window, Kristina and Jennifer ran outside.
“What’s wrong?” Kristina asked.
Celeste didn’t answer, but again searched the car. Finding nothing, she ran inside.
“This is what she wanted,” Justin said, bending down to retrieve the telephone. He handed it to Kristina.
Kristina grabbed the phone and looked at it. She, too, had never seen it before. But instead of investigating any further, she walked inside and gave it to her mother. “Is this what you wanted?” she said.
Celeste snatched it and disappeared into the guest bedroom, locking the door. Then Kristina heard her talking to someone on the telephone.
Later that night Celeste asked Kristina if she’d heard Steve’s dying wish.
“No, what was it?”
“Steve said he forgave the person who shot him, and he didn’t want to pursue the case. He didn’t want any of us to have to go through the pain of a trial,” she said. “He wouldn’t want any of you to cooperate with the police.”
Sad and confused, Kristina said nothing.