She Wanted It All - Kathryn Casey [98]
13
“If you’d been in the bedroom with Steve, Tracey could have killed you,” Kristina told her mother. Ever since the shooting, she’d worried about what might have happened that night. To Kristina, Celeste was her responsibility. She’d spent her young life caring for her mother, watching over her, everything from waking her in the morning to making sure she took her medicine. Now her mother could be in danger, and she wanted to protect her. “Promise me you won’t talk to Tracey. Promise me that you’ll be careful.”
Celeste agreed.
All of the teenagers were panicked. They didn’t know if or when Tracey would be back. They just knew that she’d shot Steve and that she might come back for Celeste, maybe even for them. They were too afraid to return to Toro Canyon. The house still had yellow crime scene tape strung across the front and fingerprint dust on the walls. Worried about their safety, Christopher went to a Marriott just blocks from the hospital and booked rooms. “Nobody is going to scare me out of my house,” Celeste said.
The twins couldn’t understand her reaction. They were terrified, but Celeste didn’t seem afraid. Finally, she agreed to stay at the hotel, but only because they insisted.
At the hospital the following day, Sunday, Steve remained critical. A pulmonologist attempted to wean him off the ventilator. After twenty minutes of unassisted breathing, his oxygen levels dropped and the ventilator was reinstalled. As the doctors saw it, nothing about Steve’s recovery would be easy. He was overweight, had an enlarged heart, compromised lungs, and a wound that was dangerous even for a healthy person.
In the waiting room, Celeste, the twins, and their boyfriends held a vigil, waiting for the ten minutes each hour they were allowed to see him. Steve’s friends circulated in and out of the waiting room. To each, Celeste told the story, saying she’d awakened to find the police at the door. And to each she pledged her love for Steve, saying, “I just want him to come home, so we can take care of him.”
No one really knew what Steve was thinking, not until early on Monday morning when a nurse called Brackenridge’s social worker, Barbara Jefferson. When Jefferson responded, the nurse relayed a message. “Mr. Beard is afraid someone in his family might be involved in the shooting,” she said. “He doesn’t want them in his room, and he wants the police sent in as soon as possible to talk to him.”
Jefferson went to Steve’s room in the ICU, where the nurse waited.
“Do you want me to go through the names of your family members?” the nurse asked. “You can tell me who you don’t want to see.”
Steve, weak and pale, said nothing.
“Are you saying you don’t want to see any of them?” she said.
Steve nodded yes.
With that, Jefferson left to contact the hospital’s trauma social worker, while the nurse put in a call for Sergeant Knight at the Sheriff’s Department.
When Knight arrived, he asked Steve, “Mr. Beard, I’m told you don’t want your family in your room, your wife and daughters, is that true?”
Steve blinked once for yes.
Knight turned to the social worker. “That’s it, then,” he said. “Do as he says.”
An order went out; the medical personnel and deputies standing guard were instructed not to admit anyone to his room, including his family.
Celeste arrived minutes later, with Kristina and Jennifer in tow.
“Mr. Beard doesn’t want to see anyone,” the nurse told her.
“I’m his wife,” she said, indignant.
“He said no one, ma’am,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“They can’t do this,” Celeste fumed. “He’s my husband.”
Furious, Celeste went back to the hotel. When she talked to Tracey that day, she was frantic. “They’re trying to make Steve suspicious,” she said. “And I can’t talk to him.”
“What are you going to do?” Tracey asked.
“I can handle Steve,” Celeste said. “I just need some time to play the devoted wife.”
Her defense attorney, Charles Burton, was due at the hotel later that afternoon to take statements. Before he arrived, Celeste sat the girls down. “She told us what she wanted us to say, that she and Steve were a loving