She Wanted It All - Kathryn Casey [171]
“It would fuel a hope Tracey had,” Frazier said. “It doesn’t sound like such a distortion in that context to think this person cares.”
“Could there then have been a delusional hope that with Steve out of the way she’d have what she wanted?”
“It certainly could,” Frazier said.
Clearly, in the sixth week of the trial the defense attorney had backed off his declaration that the affair had all been a figment of Tracey’s mind. With so much evidence against him, perhaps he’d simply decided it was time to move on.
From that point on, the defense witnesses taking the stand fell into groups: the lawyers, from Charles Burton to Philip Presse, whom Celeste had hired after the shooting; and the friends, from Ana Presse and Dawn Madigan to Terry Meyer, her manicurist. As Mange had planned if he’d taken Tracey Tarlton to trial, DeGuerin used Meyer to introduce Tracey’s words at Tramps: “If that old man hurts Celeste, I’ll kill him.” One of Celeste’s hairdresser friends, Denise, never made it from the hallway to the witness stand. Although she was prepared to testify, she’d later say the defense decided not to call her. She suspected it was because of what she might say that would bolster the prosecution, including that Celeste had told called Steve names and told her about putting the sleeping pills in his food.
On the stand, Celeste’s friend from the lake, Marilou Gibbs, a heavyset woman with a thick helmet of gray hair, at first charmed the courtroom. She laughed about Celeste and Steve, describing them as very much in love. Rather than add Everclear to his vodka, Gibbs said Celeste watered it down, to keep him sober. It was true that Celeste argued with him, “even flipping him the bird,” she said, but she did it to his face, and Steve loved her more for it. Rather than Celeste and Steve arguing, Gibbs suggested it was Kristina who clashed with her adoptive father. “She called him names behind his back,” Gibbs said. “She complained about having to sit down to dinner with him.”
The jurors warmed to Gibbs, laughing along with her. Perhaps they thought that if Celeste had such a good friend, she couldn’t be all bad. But during her second day on the stand, the mood in the courtroom turned dark when Gibbs insisted that Steve was the one who convinced Celeste to go to relationship counseling with Tracey. The picture before the courtroom of the old-fashioned businessman contrasted sharply with the new-age notion of a husband sending his wife to relationship counseling with her gay lover. Gibbs even maintained that she’d found a bottle of sleeping pills at the lake house when she cleaned it up, and had taken the time to count them. None were missing. DeGuerin suggested this implied the teens were lying and that Celeste hadn’t put any in Steve’s food.
On the stand, Gibbs systematically addressed nearly every issue in the trial. Yes, she said, Tracey “bird-dogged” Celeste at the graduation party, stalking her, obsessed with her, giving her long, glaring looks when she talked to or danced with others. Celeste, on the other hand, was merely friendly. Before long the jury, which had been sitting up and smiling at the old woman, sat back in their chairs, frowning.
Listening to Gibbs, it seemed that she’d been friends to all in the family, especially Steve, who she said confided in her about personal matters, including his concerns about Tracey. Then DeGuerin used Gibbs to introduce Defendant’s Exhibit 15: the “Hey Dyke” letter, which read: “No one believes anything you tell them. You are never going to ever have another friend ever again. No one will ever like you again. You need to prove to everyone that you really do love Steve and join him. It is the only way that anyone will like you. I promise.”
Unsigned, Celeste maintained she’d received it in the mail after Kristina and Jennifer went into hiding. Gibbs said she’d been the one to notice an indentation of a signature in the note. “It was Kristina’s,” she said. “I advised Celeste to take