She Wanted It All - Kathryn Casey [107]
“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,