03.She.Wanted.It.All.2005 (29 page)

“When are you coming home?” he asked.

“Soon,” she said, feeling guilty about being gone so long.

“We have to leave now,” she told Celeste when she hung up. “Modesto has pulled out. I have a new guy who says he’ll do it, but he wants more money.”

“I need the car loaded in five minutes,” Celeste barked at the bellman. “I’ve got an emergency at home.”

This time, Donna called her fictional assassin Sam. “Sam’s going to do it, but we need to get the cash to him,” she said. Celeste pulled $500 out of the ATM. So far she’d paid Donna $5,500, without any results.

Back in Austin, Donna told Celeste she had to meet Sam at the Waterloo Brewery, a restaurant brew house. Once there, the two of them waited for a man who didn’t exist. When Cole showed up, he knew nothing about why they’d come. While Celeste had been watching Donna carefully, he distracted her, kissing her and nuzzling her neck. Donna got up and left for the bathroom.

“Did you see him yet?” she whispered to Donna when she returned.

“Yeah,” she said. “He’s come and gone.”

“Damn, I missed him,” she said.

“You have to be patient. He’s going to Mexico to take care of business. He’ll do it when he gets back.”

Celeste nodded.

Two days later Celeste had a limo take her to Donna’s mother’s house to pick her up for a night of clubbing. That night, they argued. Cole had a friend with him, and Celeste pushed Donna to sleep with him. When Donna threatened to leave, Celeste told her that if she did, she’d report her for driving while intoxicated.

As usual, Donna slept in Kristina’s room alone.

Still angry, early the next morning Donna packed her things. After she threw her bags in the car, she popped her
head into the master bedroom. “I’m going now,” she said. “You two need to lock up the house. I’ve got my stuff. I’m not coming back.”

Outside, Donna pulled away in her Buick, and in her rearview mirror saw Celeste in her robe running toward the Cadillac. On the highway, Celeste chased Donna, blowing her horn and pulling in front of her and slamming down the brakes. Donna pulled onto the left shoulder and stopped. She walked back and found Celeste crying in her car.

“Don’t leave,” Celeste said. “Please come back.”

“No, this is over,” Donna said. “I’m leaving.”

With the car keys, Celeste stabbed at her wrist. “I’m going to kill myself if you leave!” she screamed.

“Here,” Donna said, pulling Celeste’s diamond ring off her finger and tossing it at her. “Take this and leave me alone.”

“I don’t care about the ring. I want you to come back,” she said.

Donna got in her Buick and left. Again Celeste followed, pulling beside her and trying to veer her off the road. At the next exit, Donna pulled off the highway and into a Container Store parking lot. A man walked by. “Call the police!” Donna shouted.

By then Celeste had screeched into the lot and pulled up directly behind her, preventing her from leaving. “Please come back to the house. I need you.”

“No, I’m not having anything to do with you,” Donna shouted. “Leave me be.”

They were still arguing when police arrived. One officer pulled Donna off to the side. “I used to work for this woman, and I’m quitting,” she said. “She doesn’t want me to go.”

In the end, the officers ordered Celeste to move her car. Then they called Kristina and asked her to pick up her mother.

“Please come back,” Jennifer told Donna on the phone the next day. “My mom won’t hurt you.”

Later, Donna and Celeste talked. When they hung up, Donna agreed to one more night together, to see if things would be different.

The limo arrived at Donna’s house about seven to drive them to the Dog and Duck, an Austin pub, for St. Patty’s day. Celeste had on a long, shiny green wig, and she’d brought another for Donna.

At the house, before they left, Donna handed Celeste an envelope in front of Cole and her mother, Frances. “That’s the money I owe you, the twenty-five hundred,” she said. “Count it. It’s all there.”

Frowning, Celeste took the envelope and threw it in her purse. Perhaps she decided money alone wouldn’t compensate Donna, that she wanted something else. Later, at the bar, the room swirled and Donna thought people were staring at her. Celeste leaned over and kissed her on the lips; Donna didn’t kiss her back. A short time later, Cole and Celeste left, leaving the limo behind. Donna had the driver take her home, and she woke up the next morning certain Celeste had slipped something into her drink.

That day, Donna left a message on Celeste’s answering machine. “I know what you did, and it wasn’t cool,” she said. “If I don’t hear from you in the next fifteen minutes, I’m taking the photos of you from New Orleans and selling them to the newspaper.”

Minutes later the phone rang. Celeste acted as if nothing had happened. “I’m out with Jennifer,” she said. “What do you need?”

“We have some unfinished business,” Donna told her. “Meet me at Baby Acapulco tomorrow.”

Celeste agreed.

The colorful Mexican restaurant off I-35 was busy the following
day when Donna waited for Celeste. As soon as she arrived and sat down, Donna told her, “If you really want this done, I need the twenty-five hundred back.”

Celeste pulled the envelope from her purse and gave it to her. “I’m going back to Timberlawn on the twenty-first. My lawyer thinks I should,” she said. “Do it while I’m there.”

On March 21, Donna drove out to the Toro Canyon house and helped Celeste pack for Timberlawn. When they finished, Celeste handed Donna a check for $2,400 to keep her on her payroll for an additional six weeks. She also gave her a Texaco gas card, “So you can drive to Dallas to visit me.” Finally, she handed her a cell phone. “Remember, I want it done while I’m gone. Use this to call me.”

The code for the voice mail, she told Donna, was 10-02, the day Steve was shot. “That was the day he really died for me,” she said with a smirk.

Later, Tracey would say Celeste called her daily from the hospital. “I’m just feeling really guilty about Steve,” she told her. But perhaps, as she had from New Orleans, Celeste was calling to see if Sam had killed her yet.

With everything going on around her, not knowing when the District Attorney’s Office would change the charge to murder or when she’d be arrested, Tracey still didn’t blame Celeste. “I could have said no when she asked me to do it,” she says. “I didn’t.”

A week later Donna drove to Timberlawn with Joey Fina, who wanted to see Celeste. While she was there, Donna decided to line her pockets further.

“I want to get out of here,” Celeste told Donna. “Is it done?”

“No. If you want it done, that’s what it will take,” she said, handing her a scrap of paper on which she’d written $10,000. Celeste looked up at her, searching her face. Then
she pulled out her checkbook and wrote a check for $7,650 to add to the $2,500 she’d already given her.

“It’ll be done when you get home,” Donna said, tucking it away.

When Joey asked what the check was for, Donna dismissed it by saying she was spending money for Celeste when she returned to Austin. Days later, Donna cashed the two checks, pocketing the $2,400 for her payroll check in cash and asking for a cashier’s check for the hit money. She then left for Lake Charles to meet a girlfriend and gamble.

On April 1, Kristina took the day off from Concordia College where she and Jen took classes and drove to Timberlawn for a joint session with Celeste and her therapist. Much of the talk was about money. Where in the past Steve had attempted to restrain Celeste, with him dead that job fell to Kristina. She had Celeste’s power of attorney, paid her bills, and saw the money flowing out faster than it came in. Much of it went to Donna Goodson.

First Dr. Gotway met with Celeste alone. Throughout the session, Celeste raged, calling Kristina disloyal. Gotway tried to calm her, to tell her Kristina was trying to protect her from her own destructive spending. When Kristina joined them, Celeste cursed at her and called her names, threatening to disinherit her.
“There has been a role reversal,”
Gotway noted in Celeste’s chart. “The
daughter … finds herself in a difficult situation.”

“You hate me!” Celeste screamed at Kristina.

“That’s not it,” Kristina pleaded. “I’m just trying to take care of you.”

Three days later, back in Austin, Kristina called Donna Goodson. “Why’s my mom paying you all this money?” she asked.

For weeks, Kristina had been wondering about Donna, trying to figure out what part she played in her mother’s life.
They partied together, but it seemed more than that. Celeste had told her not to ask Donna questions, to stay away from her. But when Kristina saw the $7,650 check on the bank statement, she couldn’t keep quiet any longer.

While Celeste had been occupied with Donna, Kristina had also started to consider the way her mother treated
her,
acting like she was an employee or a servant, someone to be ordered about. From Timberlawn, Celeste had continued calling and ordering her to do things, yelling and screaming. Both the girls considered the family sessions they had with Dr. Gotway a joke since Celeste coached them on what to say and what not to say. They weren’t allowed to mention Donna, for instance, or the parade of men coming and going from Celeste’s bedroom.

Not only had the time and distance allowed Kristina to take a good look at her life with her mother, but Justin pushed her to consider it as well. “She shouldn’t treat you like that,” he said. “She has no right.”

For the first time, Kristina began to believe that he was right. She deserved more.

“I don’t work for your mother anymore,” Donna told Kristina that evening on the telephone. “If you have any questions, you need to talk to her.”

Then Donna thought about Celeste and what she was capable of. “Listen,” she said to the teenager. “You and Jennifer do whatever you need to do to stay safe.”

After she hung up, Donna called Celeste. She’d been looking for a way to get out of the mess she was in with her, and this appeared to be the answer.

“We need to call this off,” she said. “Kristina is asking too many questions. She wants to know what’s happening with the money. Sam got nervous and took off with your money. We both got played.”

“God damn it!” Celeste screamed. “I’m getting out of here now!”

“You’re a liar,” the nurses heard Celeste blare at Kristina over the telephone. “You fucking little bitch, I told you not to talk to Donna. Now, come get me. I’m checking out of this hellhole tonight.”

Kristina was silent.

“Kristina, you and Justin drive up here to get me now. I told you I’m getting out.”

“No,” Kristina said.

“No? I told you to come get me now!” she screamed. “I want you and Justin to drive up here tonight and get me. I’m coming home.”

“No,” Kristina said again. “I won’t.”

“If you don’t pick me up, you’ll regret it,” Celeste threatened.

“I won’t,” Kristina said.

When she hung up the telephone, Kristina was both frightened and exhilarated. It was the first time she’d flatly refused to do as her mother ordered; it felt at the same time liberating and terrifying.

Minutes later Jennifer’s cell phone rang while she and Christopher were eating dinner in a restaurant. “Jennifer, I don’t know what’s wrong with your sister,” Celeste told her. “I need you to come up here right away and get me. I’m checking out.”

“We were just—”

“I don’t care!” Celeste screamed. “Get in your car and come get me!”

When Christopher and Jennifer arrived at Timberlawn three hours later, Celeste had her suitcases packed and was ready to go. “Take these,” she ordered Christopher, thrusting
them into his hands. Then she ran for the elevator, not even bothering to sign herself out. In the car, Christopher drove with Celeste in the seat beside him. In the backseat, Jennifer stared at the back of her mother’s head, panic eating away inside her. She’d feared an event like this for weeks. Too much hung over all of them. Bill Mange, the prosecutor, had contacted Christopher and had a meeting scheduled with him later that same week. Jen knew her boyfriend wouldn’t lie for Celeste. He’d tell Mange everything. She wanted to talk to the prosecutor, too, but she was frightened. Every time the police came up, Celeste shrieked at her, “You don’t talk to them, ever.”

Like Christopher, Jennifer knew she wouldn’t lie for her mother. She had to tell the truth. When that happened, she knew Celeste would take revenge. But now the situation had become even more complicated; Celeste was furious at Kristina, and when her mother got this angry, bad things happened.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into Kristina. That little bitch,” Celeste stormed, dialing the telephone.

“Yes,” Kristina said when she answered.

“I want you home when I get there, young lady.”

“You shouldn’t treat me like this,” Kristina said. “You shouldn’t talk to me like this.”

“When I get there, I expect you to be home.”

The shouting escalated, Jennifer and Christopher jarred by the hard edge to Celeste’s voice. Finally, Kristina hung up.

Celeste seethed. “I am so angry I could physically kill Kristina,” she said.

In the backseat, Jennifer’s chest tightened. To her, Celeste’s words weren’t an idle threat. She believed her mother had manipulated Tracey into killing Steve. She’d spent her life watching her hurt and take advantage of people. She’d
grown up fearing her, and believed that Celeste was capable of murdering both her and Kristina.

Christopher looked in the rearview mirror and his eyes met Jennifer’s. Without speaking a word, they both knew Celeste had crossed a line that night, and that the situation had just become even more terrifying.

The hours in the car on the way back to Austin were agony. Jennifer knew she could never go home again. It was simply too dangerous. And if she left, she had to find a way to hide, for Celeste never let go of anyone without a battle, and for her daughters she would mount an all-out war.

When they pulled into Austin, Christopher came to the rescue. “Celeste, drop us at my apartment, so we can get my car,” he said. “We’ll meet you at the house.”