She Wanted It All - Kathryn Casey [44]
“She was clearly unhappy he was there,” he says.
Throughout the three years she bought from him, Celeste spent more than $100,000 each year, for a total of nearly $400,000. She was always polite, always easygoing, never questioning prices or asking for discounts. “She was a dream customer,” he says.
Logsdon, then, found it difficult to understand why the women at Louis Shanks grated at having to deal with Celeste. While she was calm with him, with the women Celeste’s mood turned churlish with little provocation.
“Do you know who I am?” she said, irritated when things weren’t going her way.
The Bank of America teller who refused to cash Celeste’s check that summer when she went through the drive-through without identification was a woman. Celeste caused a scene, screaming, “Do you fucking know who I am?” Steve’s banker, Chuck Fuqua, was called. “She read me the riot act,” he says. All the while she was yelling he was recalling the way she’d talked about Steve at the last party. “She said he was disgusting.”
At the end of August, Brian Rahfls flew in from Dallas to discuss funding Steve’s trust. That day at the country club, Steve stopped Rahfls frequently to ask Celeste questions, making sure she understood the trust with its $7 million in cash, stocks, and bonds, explaining what her situation was should they remain married when he died. In a grand gesture, he had made Celeste the main beneficiary. If she remained his wife at his death, she wouldn’t have access to the principal but would receive all the earnings from the estate. At a twelve percent return, Rahfls estimated the trust would produce $290,000 a year.
That October, Steve and Celeste went on the radio station trip, this time to Madrid. During their stay at the palatial Ritz Hotel, Celeste grew angry. That night, she took his American Express card and left. The next morning she was gone, flying home on a first-class, one-way ticket. At breakfast Steve looked sheepish, not wanting to tell the others what had happened. Instead, he said that Celeste had something at home she had to attend to. But he told the truth to Roy Butler and Gene Bauman. “He kind of grinned, like ain’t this wild,” says Butler. “I got the feeling Steve thought he had a wild pony by the tail.”
Afterward, Butler and Bauman compared notes and figured Celeste’s impulsive departure probably cost Steve in the neighborhood of $7,000. Four days later the travelers returned to Austin. When they got off the plane, Celeste waited for Steve, waving and calling his name, as if she couldn’t wait to have him home.
That fall, Steve, Celeste, and the girls finally moved into the Toro Canyon house. Two months later they hosted an elaborate holiday open house. More than a hundred guests arrived to view the house and the treasures the Beards had amassed. Celeste had so many antique Staffordshire dogs, she couldn’t display them all, keeping many in closets. Over the living room fireplace hung a painting Celeste had commissioned for Father’s Day the previous year. It depicted Kristina, Jennifer, and Celeste in the forefront, with the koi pond fountain in the background. Buried in the fountain pedestal was a small medallion bearing Steve’s face. “Mom wanted it that way for a reason,” says Kristina. “She said it would be easy to paint over him when he died.”
The following February, 1997, a full year before she would have been entitled to the money under the prenup, Steve funded a $500,000 trust for Celeste. Perhaps he thought she’d be happier with money of her own. To counsel her on investing the sum, he brought in a specialist from Bank of America. Six months later every penny was gone. Celeste had spent it all. From that point on, his financial obligation to her in a divorce was satisfied. Even if they remained married for a decade, if they were to divorce, he owed her nothing, and she’d leave the marriage with only her half interests in