She Wanted It All - Kathryn Casey [93]
Justin looked around to be sure Celeste wasn’t listening. She was nowhere to be seen. He still worried. Celeste had a way of finding things out. But he had to say what was on his mind. “You won’t tell Celeste if I tell you, right?”
“I won’t tell Mrs. Beard,” Knight agreed.
“You need to talk to Tracey Tarlton. My guess is that she did it.”
Once Tracey’s name had been mentioned, Kristina couldn’t hold back. She’d been upset when her mother ordered her to remain silent, wanting to do all she could to find the person who’d hurt Steve. “Tracey’s in love with my mom,” she said. “And she has guns. One night, when she was threatening to kill herself, I went there and took two away and turned them in to the police.”
Sergeant Knight made notes, listening carefully. “Where do I find this woman?” he asked.
“She has a house near St. Edward’s, in south Austin,” Kristina said.
About that time, Christopher and Jennifer walked in. The news had shaken Jennifer badly. She’d been hysterical when she got off the telephone, and Amy and Christopher had to calm her. She didn’t stop crying until halfway to the hospital in the car. Now she threw her arms around her sister and the two twins cried in each other’s arms.
After hugs and tears, they all sat in the waiting room, bunched together in a circle, seated on chairs while Kristina and Justin told them the little they knew about Steve’s condition: He was critical and undergoing surgery. Wanting to make the session as relaxed as possible, Knight sat down with them. When he asked Christopher and Jen who might have shot Steve, Christopher immediately said, “You can’t tell Celeste we said this, because she’d make our lives hell, but we think it was Tracey Tarlton.”
Meanwhile, outside the hospital, Amy had stayed with Celeste, who leaned against the building smoking one of her Marlboro Light 100s. With Steve precariously close to death, Amy watched her carefully, recalling what Celeste had once told her—that when Steve died she’d act so upset, no one would suspect she never loved him.
When Amy walked inside, she found the others with Sergeant Knight.
“So who do you think might have done this?” he asked her.
Amy, who thought of Steve Beard like a grandfather, didn’t hesitate.
“Tracey Tarlton,” she said.
Knight was intrigued. All five teens agreed Tracey had a motive, but Celeste hadn’t brought up her name. What was she hiding? Before leaving to pursue the lead he’d just been handed, he gave Celeste another opportunity to help solve her husband’s shooting.
“Does anyone have any reason to be angry with your husband?” he asked again when he found her in the waiting room.
“No,” she said.
“Is there anyone who might want him out of the way because of feelings about you?”
“No.”
Within a few hours of the shooting, word was out, and friends began arriving at Brackenridge. The first were Philip Presse, the attorney, and his wife, Ana, who’d been Celeste’s matron of honor at her wedding to Steve. Celeste was crying, and Ana gave her a Xanax to help her relax. Soon, Gus and Linda Voelzel, and the Baumans and Ray McEachern, arrived.
“What happened?” Gus asked.
“Someone shot Steve,” Celeste said. They asked questions, but Celeste’s replies supplied few answers. Many of the things she said didn’t make sense. At one point she turned to Linda and insisted, “There aren’t any guns in our house.”
Why is she telling me that? Linda wondered.
“Where was Meagan?” Linda asked. “Didn’t she bark?”
“She was at the lake house with the kids,” Celeste said.
The Voelzels exchanged bewildered glances; Steve’s friends knew the old lab followed him like an obedient puppy. Then Celeste said something that left them all staring at her, searching her face for answers: Steve hadn’t put the alarm on that night.
“Steve was neurotic about that alarm, made sure it was on every night,” says McEachern. “There was no way he was the one who left it off.”
A deputy stood nearby. While Celeste talked to the others, McEachern eased over to his side. “You watch that