She Wanted It All - Kathryn Casey [129]
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,